//------------------------------// // Perpetual Check // Story: Check in One // by JinxTJL //------------------------------// The blissful silence of the crystal caverns at solemn rest met its abrupt end as the echoing scrape of heavy wood dragging along the scuffed floor echoed across the walls, drawing the inaudible murmurs from its depths to a whimpering close. Again, did the silence descend in its wake—a heavy, oppressive silence. It was somehow deafening in its contradictory way; in the sheer and total absence of sound, any noise at all naturally seemed ear-piercing. A fallacy compounded in a terrifying instant as the displaced portal once again creaked shut with a jarring bang. Within the room beyond the door, suffused in the faint glow that emanated from an impossible place somewhere beneath the sheets of glass, a short column of pure, impossibly carved crystal jutted from the cave's center, half as tall as the room itself. An ancient wooden table sat a short distance aside it, upon which rested a myriad of gleaming instruments that each sparkled in the dim light of the reflective room. Somewhere within the faint reflections, a sickly red hue gleamed. The table and its occupants were not alone in the room; against the pillar in the center sat the hunched from of a ragged, pinkish unicorn. Her short coat was unwashed and grimy, and her head hung low against her upright chest from her odd sitting position with her back pressed to the crystal. Though many of her features remained hidden in the shadow of her stoop, her coarse, sticky mane matted to either side of her limp head obviously revealed the proudly displayed dull metal ring clamped to the low base of her horn. Though its surface was matte, the red gem set into its socket easily caught the dim light in its every facet. With her resting head and her haunches laid knees-up before her on the floor, her only indication of life was the absolute subtlest sound of whispered, labored breathing, though even that was impossibly faint. It did not fall on deaf ears, though neither was it reciprocated. Although her crimson eyes kept wide and glowing in the near darkness of the room, the smiling pegasus filly standing in front of the closed door had yet to make even the quietest noise in the presence of the unicorn. Not in coming in, nor as she very intensely stared at the creature in front of her did she utter a sound. Her chest did not rise or fall. Her heart did not beat. Completely silent. It was as though a ghost had slipped in. Perhaps the door had opened and shut on its own. If nopony had stepped in, and nopony else had been in the room before, then how could anypony but the unicorn be there? Yet there she was. As though she'd been there all along. Unmoving. Silent. Watching. ---------- Four days earlier. ---------- The filly was cautious; in everything she did, the filly remained completely and utterly alert. In the short time after the mare had drained her mug to its bottom, the filly remained all smiles and sunshine, continuing to talk back and forth in the most amicable way with the mare about this and that and everything in between. What she'd done with her friends lately. What she wanted to do later. How she'd acted. How she'd learned. Until the mare began to yawn. That itself wasn't the oddest occurrence for the often-drowsy mare, yet, as the same sentence produced a yawn at its beginning and its end, the filly smiled all the wider. She made no comment on the gesture's possible rudeness, even brushing right past it when the mare mouthily excused herself. Nor did she raise concern as the mare began to lean more deeply into her cheek, brushing her empty mug away in a half-blind stupor while her eyes fluttered dangerously closer to a close. With every word, and as every word itself grew less and less articulate, the mare seemed to flirt ever nearer to the edge of unconsciousness. The chat slowed to a crawl. The filly kept smiling. A smile that lasted until the very moment that the mare trailed off on a thought about harsh honesty, and her forehead ever so gently swayed to rest upon her desk. A few seconds passed in silence, and then, the filly no longer had to smile. In a cautious, continuous motion, she leaned forward to place her mug on the edge of the desk and stood from the couch. Creeping forward on silent hooves, the filly calmly stepped towards the room's only window, brushing its curtain very gently aside as she levered the closed pane open as much as she felt she had to. Her intent gaze fell back to her untouched mug as she turned to retrieve it, and with little ceremony, she turned back and tossed its contents through the open window into the bushes below. She moved with precise efficiency, setting the empty mug back down, shutting the window, closing the drapes, and turning to her saddlebag in short order. She upturned the bag without a thought, shaking its contents messily out onto the couch for inspection. A metal ring adorned with a red stone. Rope. A long, red ribbon. A black cloth. A spool of thread and a needle. The filly turned to the sleeping mare hunched over her desk with her tools in hoof, simply staring for a moment. Her face an impassive, unflinching frown. ---------- Underneath the school. ---------- The room had barely begun to enjoy its return to silence before it was once more shattered—a cruel, thoughtless death that begat as the filly's smile cracked, and from that horrid crack in her very flesh rose the dread sound of a murmuring hum. A hum that began to stretch, and warp, and lighten until it came to a head and broke apart into a lilting, pealing giggle. It was a bashfully quiet laugh, yet as the whimsical noise began to trickle out and rebound against the reflective room's cramped walls, the mare its center slightly tensed. A flinch. Like clockwork. The filly pushed away from the door and began to merrily skip into the room. An even tempo of two off-beat clops apiece, while all the way along, the merry noise of her giggle only grew louder. As she drew closer, the mare laying on the floor gradually tensed into herself, curling as far as she was able for as little as she could. Closer the filly came, and worse did the mare shake. Then the filly passed her on one side. The pegasus' path through the room was arrested by a sudden detour, gleefully skipping past and around the mare's side, carving a tight circle around the pillar in seeming foalish irreverence. All the way, her giggle remained constant, spreading the sound like birdseed throughout the chamber that all too eagerly welcomed their multiplying echoes. It seemed to come from every angle. It was like the filly's laugh propagated from the walls themselves; from their cracks, their reflections, and their depths, a chorus of mocking snickers let loose in a gaggle from their single source. While the filly kept her eyes low, carefully tracing the unbroken shadow of tied rope around the column's back. The filly was all smiles when she drew up to the mare's front again, and gradually, the incessant cacophony began to cease. Its circuitous ringing crawled to a choking death over a few, unbearable seconds, and as the room once again grew silent and safe from the perturbing echoes, the mare's form seemed to gently slump. All throughout, the filly only watched. Still smiling, her chest still fluttering, her sparkling crimson eyes peered down at the hunched form of the mare bound by rope to the pillar, beginning once again to eke out whispered whimpers of pain as the light caught on the many points of messy, sticky red covering her coat. The same shade that covered the floor under the mare. An especially dark puddle blinding the crystal's reflections that seemed heaviest around the mare's resting hindlegs. Her smile grew wider. And Cozy Glow spoke. "Thanks for seeing me today, Miss Starlight! I think I've been doing better lately!" It was really too bad that Starlight didn't react to her tease anymore. The first two times she'd done it, parroting out that sickeningly familiar line had made the mare start jerking and thrashing against her binds like some kind of wild animal! The sheer, stupid pointlessness of her desperation had made Cozy howl with laughter, and, of course, that'd just made the mare struggle more! Cozy's smile dipped down at its end. Now, though... Starlight didn't give her any kind of greeting. The mare on the floor, splayed hindlegs tied together in much the same way her torso was to the thick pillar of crystal, remained as quiet as death itself. Oh, but of course she wasn't dead, no matter how much she wanted to be. She was still breathing, and the little red gem on the grey ring securely slipped onto her horn was glowing and sparking away. Even then, with how hopeless it must have seemed, Starlight was still trying to cast a spell. Hoping in vain that something would give way and she'd be miraculously freed from this awful, waking nightmare. She'd run along to find her friends, and they'd have the cruel, maniacal foal carted off and thrown into jail. Just as she deserved. Cozy's smile slipped into a frown. Her lip began to twitch. Her expression began to darken. Writhing heat painfully pounding in a steady drum against her ribs; a mute fury rising in her throat and welling behind her stinging eyes; a torrid wave of anger tugging at the ends of her frown and making jagged, empty shapes with her mouth, flashing her teeth as sharp, pointed fangs. Rage. Staring down at the prone mare with delusions of rescue, Cozy smiled, though it was a different kind of smile. Her eye trailed down to the mare's hindlegs just before her, tied together at their pasterns by four tight loops of rope resting just low enough to show the puffy, purple bruise that ran up the side of the mare's thigh. Faintly, beneath the red-smeared swelling, something within the flesh pressed out. Raising her gaze back to the mare's hung head, Cozy's smile grew wider. As the glint of wrath in her eye grew hotter. The foal stepped forward, brushing up to the mare and murmuring out an insincere coo through pursed lips while she kept one hoof in the air. "Aw, I'm sorry Counselor, I didn't know I was interrupting your naptime! I've got something real important to talk to you about, though, so..." If the mare realized what was happening in advance, she didn't show it. Maybe it would've helped her to brace. "Wakey..." Cozy's hoof shot down, slamming into the bruised section of Starlight's leg with a wet crunch. "...wakey!" Starlight's head flew up in a blink, banging against the back of the pillar as Cozy stepped away with a tinkling giggle, the mare's instinctive scream coming out as a desperately muffled murmur. Her lips jerked desperately against their confines in the mock effort of a wail, but the even row of little black thread x's looped through her top lip to the bottom kept her jaw securely shut. Cozy only laughed. On and on, as the mare's cheeks began to wet, Cozy only laughed. ---------- Four days earlier. ---------- The mare was thrashing, beating her tied hindlegs against the floor as she thrust her chest up, then back, then up again. Her wide, purple eyes darted in every direction for a miraculous escape route somewhere in the darkened, crystal room as she furiously mouthed something through her recently stitched lips, still welling with little drops of blood. Smearing it all over her chin, the messy mare. A voice sounded behind her, cloying with sickly sweet syrup. "Gosh, Miss Starlight, you're not being very considerate!" The mare jerked her eyes around, pulling at her binds for a moment before she went entirely stiff as a scratchy black cloth folded over her eyes. Pressure pulled at the back of her head as something tied together, and she let out a muted shout as she tried again to pull off from the rope tied around her waist. With the world darkened to her, all she heard was Cozy's cheery voice as she moved away, to the left. Taunting. "What's wrong? Are you scared? Well, don't worry, Counselor, I think I've got something to help you calm down!" Wood slid against wood, and Starlight's ears pressed to her head in fear. How little it helped as the bat came down on her leg. The hollow thud may have been inaudible, but Starlight's lips nearly tore from their new binds as her entire body tensed into itself, then jerked to its limit. The scream would've been deafening if her mouth had been free. After a while, though, she grew quieter, as Cozy had known she would. Muffled little whimpers. Silent tears of pain. The bat came down again and again on her leg. Until something went snap. And Cozy laughed. ---------- Underneath the school. ---------- Cozy kept a hoof-length away, watching with a madly twitching grin as the mare heaved breaths, trying in vain to curl her leg, spouting a new stream of runny red, closer to her. All she was really doing was smearing more blood all over the already stained floor, though, not to mention the pain of bashing her head on the pillar. Oh, well! A for effort! Cozy sidled back to Starlight's trembling side with a casual hum, leaving a newly sticky horseshoe mark on the deeply stained floor as the mare's struggles waned, and the filly cheerily raised her voice into her pressed-back ear. "Well, golly! Good morning, Counselor! I'm glad I caught you at a good time!" Starlight's head, still rocking gently back and forth, lolled to one side, blindly staring rudely away from where Cozy was speaking to her. The filly tutted in response, blowing out a huff and puffing her cheeks as she leaned back. "Hey, that's no way to greet somepony!" Her mock anger drained away as her smile returned, letting her voice grow sly as she raised a hoof to grasp the mare's ear and force it up. "What would Headmare Twilight say if she could see you now, huh, Counselor?" Cozy let the violated ear go, allowing Starlight, still struggling for breath beneath her stitched-together mouth, to loll her head forward, otherwise showing no indication that she'd heard Cozy at all. For a moment... that irked the filly. But then, Starlight might've been in too much pain to nod. That thought mollified the dark impulse that pressed on the back of her throat to grasp her ear again and bash her head into the pillar. A little. Instead, Cozy let her infectious, angry energy to bleed out through a charming giggle, turning and skipping away from the captive mare and towards the table at the side of the room. "I guess you've got more important things to worry about, huh?" Her chatter slowed as she drew up to the table, staring down at the shining tools upon it with glee for a moment before she whirled around, eyes sparkling. "Hey, you know the Headmare asked me about you, today!" Starlight's head jerked up, and though her blindfold was already darkened in little, dark circles by welling tears, it almost seemed as though a few extra rolled out from beneath the cloth. Her chest heaved with labored breath once more—deeper this time. There was the reaction she wanted. The pure, primal feeling of satisfaction that bloomed in Cozy's heart as Starlight so carelessly dangled from her strings manifested as a piercing shriek of laughter that the foal had to lean back into the table to weather. The cavern quickly deafened with the sound before she covered her mouth with a hoof and shook her head, quieting after a moment as the high-pitched sound trailed to a pleased murmur. Wiping a bad-natured tear away from the corner of her eye, Cozy stood and rolled out her shoulders, beginning to speak in a smooth purr from the pleasure of the physical feeling. "She called me into her office all doom and gloom because I was the last pony on your meeting list the day you disappeared." She swerved her eyes in a languid roll as she let let out a groan, rearing and pulling herself back to sit on the table's edge. "She thought that just because I was the last pony to see you alive, that I might've had something to do with it!" She shook her head with a snort, kicking her hooves back and forth as she glared at her captive, letting the furious memory of the encounter tinge her voice with resentment. "Ugh, it really makes me mad." That annoying, know-it-all alicorn who had dared to accuse her with no proof. Nothing but a feeling, and for that, she had yelled at Cozy. She'd looked at her like she was some kind of criminal. She would regret what she'd said. Her jaw clenched on its own, hard enough that a tiny flake of a tooth chipped under the pressure. The slight edge of pain helped the foal to ease off as she tongued the bit of bone, glancing down to the table's face beside her with a simmering grimace. Her eye caught on a particular tool with a black handle, and with the reminder of the activity to come, a familiarly anticipatory smile began to slowly slip over her dimpled cheeks. "Well... I suppose it counts for something that she was right, anyway. It'd be pretty mean not to give her some credit!" The filly giggled and pushed herself off the table, dragging with her the tool that she had set herself on for the day. She approached the bound and beaten mare with a skip in her step, stopping just short of her with a wide, sparkling grin. "You know," she ventured with a sly tone, peering down at the thoroughly down unicorn as she set her implement to the ground. "I could've erased my name from your book. I knew it was on there." Slowly, painfully, Starlight's head tilted up, eventually coming to rest her blind gaze a bit to the right of Cozy. Her face may have been covered, and her will may have been beaten, but there still gleamed a small hint of that sleepy, sarcastic mare who had once been a hero in the tense line of her clenched jaw. A jaw soon covered by two pale-furred hooves that gently crept forward to not-so-gently grasp the mare's face. Standing on her hindlegs, Cozy forced her captive to look directly into her eyes as her face split in a toothless smile, and she whispered to her. Slowly, clearly, and sweetly. "But I didn't. Because I don't have anything at all to hide." ---------- Four days earlier. ---------- It only took two or three minutes to tie the counselor up, to bind her hooves and tie her legs. The filly was good like that. She'd always had talent with rope, and the extra lessons on knot-tying from the Honesty teacher certainly hadn't hurt. Nopony but the mare with her hooves tied behind her back, of course. Her cart was waiting just outside the door, and the burlap sack full of trash bags she'd 'accidentally' forgotten in the adjacent supply closet was ready and waiting for her. It wasn't that hard to position the mare so she didn't make a bulge. With everything the filly had offered to do around the school, it made sense she'd be taking the trash out. Out the door and down the halls, into the library and beneath the school. She'd take care of the trash cluttering up her path. With the perfectly cramped sack secretly containing an entire unconscious mare settled in the small wooden cart, the filly took a moment to look back into the empty room. Immaculate. No signs of a struggle. But still a few things off. She trotted back in, crimson eyes carefully darting at every point of minutia. Too many oddities. There were a lot of smart ponies at the school, and they'd all have their eyes scrutinizing every inch of the room in the coming days. She took the two mugs and threw them in with the mare. The bags of cocoa mix and marshmallows, too, nor did she forget the spoons. She carefully wiped the desk clean of any spilled drops, and threw the rag into the bag as well. She poured the rest of the pitcher into the plant pot in the room's corner. She rearranged the mare's desk, though she did not clean it. She shuffled through the drawers to find... there it was. The mare's itinerary. The filly pulled it out and flipped to the last page, which read, in its entirety, the grand total of one name. Hers, in full, incriminating glory. The filly leaned down to tear it out, but before she'd grasped its corner in her teeth, she stopped. Their meetings were on a schedule. She'd never missed one. She flipped the notebook closed, dropped it back into the drawer, and closed it. She took a last glance around the myriad objects of interest before she turned and left, closing the door behind her, leaving the room empty and alone. Silent and dark. As she towed the unconscious counselor away. ---------- Underneath the school. ---------- Cozy held Starlight's face up for another moment, taking her time to let her tone sink in. Letting the situation sink in. Letting the mare tense her lips, and make her horn ring glow, and cry behind her blindfold. As the slick trails of smudged tears rolled to bead off her chin, it was clear that she may have understood. Nopony knew where she was, and nopony was coming to rescue her. There was no reason to suspect Cozy. Like a little firefly squished underhoof, the faint light sparking from Starlight's horn ring sputtered and died as her shoulders gradually slumped. Her head went slack in her hooves. And Cozy smiled. The filly let the mare's head drop from her hooves, falling limply against her chest as the abused unicorn continued to shiver. In the meantime, Cozy turned with a snickering giggle and stooped to retrieve the utensil she'd left on the floor. She passed it from her mouth to her hoof, and as she turned, her wings unfolded to take her into the air. The subtle sound of a displaced air made its home in the chamber as the filly leaned through the air to loop her hoof around Starlight's neck, pressing their cheeks together as she began to chatter. "Golly, you don't have to look so sad, Counselor!" The filly paused to take a deep breath, relishing in the saline smell of tears, before she let out a faint sigh of satisfaction and leaned away. "I know things look pretty bad, but if you just tell me what I want to know, I'll set you free!" Hovering in the air before the nonreactive mare, Cozy hugged the sharp, metal tool to her chest with a delighted hum. "Professor Fluttershy always says that Kindness leads to more Kindness, after all!" Cozy set her eyes on Starlight, smiling brightly in anticipation of a response. The mare only shuddered, slowly bending her head away as the soft sound of a sigh whistled through her stitched mouth. The filly's occupied hoof dropped, letting the tool hang limply in the air. While her frown began to quirk up into a sneer. She was disrespecting her. She didn't fear her. If she was afraid, then she would buckle, and bend, and break. Why didn't she? What else did Cozy have to do? Her gleaming crimson gaze fell down to the mare's body, searching out one injury after another. Her bruised chest. ---------- Three days earlier. ---------- The mare's head shook furiously, working her sewn jaw as much as she could through the intense resentment written on her face. Whatever curse she must have been trying to mouth died in her throat with a muffled choke as a pale-furred hindleg shot out to impact the dead center of her chest. Cozy titled her head back towards the mare behind her, failing to hide the shining smile she wore. "Come on, Counselor Starlight, it's not all that hard! I just want to know this one little thing, and then you can see your friends again!" The filly's sparkling tone fell on deaf ears, as after a moment of muffled sputtering, the hunched mare soundly shook her head 'no' once more. Cozy's smile died, and she turned back around. "Golly, I guess your friends just don't mean that much to you," she ground out through a tightly grit grimace. After a moment, she raised her leg and kicked out as hard as she could. The dull thud that rang in her ears only made the feeling of spurned rage in her chest worse, so she kicked out again. And again. And again. One kick after the other, the mare only grunted in agony, and the foal only grew angrier. She pushed her weight fully onto her front half and bucked both hooves back out with a furious scream. A piercing screech of unstable rage that tore her voice, and that rang across the walls in endless, mocking echoes long after it had gone silent. Completely deafening the mare's own muffled shriek as something in her chest audibly cracked. ---------- Underneath the school. ---------- The bruises were still shining bright red, though one in particular had began to color an ugly purple. Cozy could only wonder how much it must have hurt just to breathe. She still remembered her own experience, vaguely. At least Starlight had the luxury of laying around. Next, the foal's eye fell to the mare's left leg. The bruise there was beginning to blacken where it wasn't a puffy purple, though it was hard to see much from where a deep indentation in the smushed flesh was welling with a spring of fresh, glistening blood. Her gaze drifted to the mare's other leg, where a bright red ribbon had been tied just above the rope around her pastern. Over top of the ribbon were thick loops of yet more black thread, tied tightly enough that the mare's flesh was crinkling under the ribbon, and her hoof below it had long since grown limp and blue. Except for her frog. Her frog was barely even visible through the thick layers of coagulated blood that covered it. Even then, days after the wounds had been inflicted, the surface of the grainy, caked-on film still broke with a fresh spurt of runny red every few seconds. Welling and dripping. ---------- Two days earlier. ---------- The mare seemed extra tired today, but that didn't stop the filly from chattering on as she delicately tied a ribbon over the mare's cannon. "I know you must be awful lonely down here all by yourself, Counselor Starlight." Cozy looked up from her work as she pulled the ribbon through its last loop, smiling widely at the blindfolded mare. "So if you tell me what I want to know, I'll let you leave, and you can go home! I bet you must miss it a whole bunch!" The mare had grown noticeably disheveled since yesterday, and her chest was starting to show a number of angry, red bruises. Though her mane was limp and her head couldn't keep up, she still managed a jerky little shake. Cozy frowned, turning to grab the spool of thread and a needle beside her as she tightened the sleeve she wore over her pastern. She worked the thread into the needle's head with some frustration, slid the needle into the sleeve with its head up, and lifted the mare's tied hooves with her free limb. It was difficult to work the needle into and out of the crevice between the mare's hooves over and over, but the work seemed to pass in a flash. By the time she was done, the thread had been looped over the ribbon so tightly that the mare's hoof was already starting to hue with blocked-up red. Perfect! The filly smiled as she slid the sleeve off, placing it to the side and staring up as she searched out her next implement. "This is your last chance to talk before I do something really mean, Starlight. What do you think? Are you gonna make me be mean?" The mare's head swiveled slowly away at the filly's cheerful tone, and the filly's grip tightened around the gleaming knife she held. Her mouth worked for a few moments between a twitching sneer and a seething grimace before, like a wave of acid washing over, a skeletal grin rose onto her face. "Aw, I guess you must just like the pain, huh, Counselor?" Her quiet tone rose into a jaded giggle as she bent forward, bringing the knife up and running it alongside the mare's leg so she could feel the metal, and Cozy could feel her begin to shake. She didn't take the time to relish it. With her smile widening to its painful edges, Cozy slid the knife down the mare's hoof and into its cleft, pressing the dull side of its tip against the soft flesh for the barest moment before she tilted, and began to press it daringly in. Blood welled around the weapon's edge, and Cozy continued to tilt the knife, holding it upright a moment before she dragged it agonizingly down. That was when the mare started to buckle, taking deep, huffing breaths as she tried to curl her hoof away, but Cozy kept it steady. She kept the limb nice and even as she drew the first score across the mare's hoof, and a stream of blood began to well from the flesh in even time with her heartbeat. The mare began to cry out in pain through her stitches, but Cozy smiled on regardless, the gleaming hue of running red reflecting like a mirror in her wide eyes as she moved her knife over and started again from the top. Slowly. Methodically. Three more times, the mare's delicate frog was scored with four even, identical lines of streaming blood. Cozy kept her eyes trained on Starlight's face the whole time, wholly embracing the perverted feeling of enjoyment that bubbled in her throat to watch the mare jerk and seethe and weep. The brightly shining gem in her horn ring only illuminated the deep lines of expressive fear on her face, as well as her desperation to make it all stop. It made the filly giggle. It made her laugh. It made her heart beat fast enough to fool her into thinking she was alive. But when she set the knife down, the wounds were already starting to slow in their bleeding, and the mare was starting to sag. No fun. That was when Cozy's hoof found the little glass jar. "Hey, Counselor, I learned the other day in Professor Pinkie's class that salt is actually used in a lot of baking recipes! Isn't that interesting?" Starlight began to writhe anew. ---------- Underneath the school. ---------- The memory brought a smile to Cozy's face, though Starlight still wasn't looking at her. The mare remained defiant and boring, acting like she could have a moment to herself. As Cozy thought back to the long minutes she'd spent slathering the unicorn's fresh wounds with salt, though, a thought occurred to her. Of course she knew how to get Starlight's attention. Duh. Cozy's hoof jerked forward, striking the mare's wounded frog and breaking the filmy sheet of caked-on blood over it. The mare's head sprang back, once more banging her head into the pillar behind her as four streams of blood forcefully spurted out through the air, two of them painting Cozy's hoof with fake claws of red. The unicorn's muffled yelp brought the same warm, fuzzy feelings as it always did, helping the filly to smile widely as she stepped once more into the air. "Maybe you just don't remember what I asked you, is all!" She leaned forward, grinning right into the mare's blindfolded eyes as she rocked back and forth, flaring her nose for deeply unsteady breaths as Cozy let out a condescending coo. "Well, don't worry, Counselor. I didn't forget." Wherever Starlight's eyes must have been, Cozy abandoned her sight all the same, rising into the air with her tool hanging limply in the crook of her hoof. She let out a peal of mocking laughter as she rose, trailing off into a sigh as she alit on the top of the pillar and kicked her hooves out over its edge. Her voice rose in a songlike taunt as she knocked her head to one side then the other. "I found out what you did!" She trailed off into a giggle, covering her mouth with her free hoof as she stared down at the exhausted mare. "You traveled back in time to stop Twilight and her friends from meeting, didn't you?" The mare had been beaten repeatedly. She had been cut and strung up like a doll in progress. She hadn't eaten or drank anything in four days, and the blindfold she was wearing was probably fused to her eyes. Even through all of that, it still seemed as though the accusation had the mare sag especially low. She must've been very ashamed of herself. Cozy wouldn't have that problem. Unlike Starlight, Cozy Glow wasn't going to screw it up and fail. The filly's gaze trailed to the ceiling, her thoughts momentarily consumed by daydreams of the world without the Elements of Harmony. A world thrown into distress and discourse, just ripe for the taking. With everything she'd learned about friendship and Harmony, it wouldn't be hard to rise up when the time came. She kicked her leg out, then in. Out, and in. A pleasant hum rose in her throat as she began to sway, but before she'd even finished the first verse, the hum bled out into a lilting giggle. Unabashed and excited. The world needed the Elements of Harmony, and very soon, it was going to need Cozy, too. Her gaze crept once more to the mare, unmoving in her perpetual place at the column's base. Staring at the powerless unicorn, Cozy's smile began to curl, and darken, and as she kicked forward and descended towards the mare, resting either hindleg on each side of the mare's neck, her smile turned wicked. Sitting on Starlight's sagging shoulders, she bent down to whisper into her ear. Slowly, quietly, and chidingly. "You're going to stay down here for the rest of your life until you tell me how you did it." The mare's head began to fall forwards, until the motion was stopped short by Cozy's hoof, and a very pointed tap of metal against exposed bone. Then Starlight went deathly still. Once, twice, thrice. Cozy tapped the gleaming metal file against the side of Starlight's horn just above its ring, and with a low, taunting giggle, her voice crept down to twist around the unicorn's painfully straining ears. "Hey, Counselor Starlight. I'm about to do something really mean." And it was going to be so much fun. Cozy hooked her legs around Starlight's neck as the mare immediately tried to jerk her off, while the filly only laughed in unrestrainedly twisted delight. "I'm giving you five seconds to agree to tell me how to travel back in time, or else I'm going to saw off your horn, Miss Starlight!" Cozy cried out, her voice bleeding into a shrill cackle of demonic delight. All the while, Starlight pulled and jerked against the ropes holding her tightly, trying desperately to bash her rider back into the pillar. Cozy began to count out loud, while Starlight began to screech against her sewn-together lips. "One." She held fast against the unicorn, bucking her head back and forth for dear life. "Two." The fur of Starlight's face was matting with fresh tears. "Three." The mare's chest was flush with exerted breath, even through the pain of a broken rib. "Four." The hollow banging of flesh on unyielding crystal, the stifled bellowing of a mare fearing the worst, and the shallow tapping of metal on bone were all drowned out at once by the loud, final call of a filly who wore a maniacal, hollow hole in the shape of a smile. "Five!" Metal met bone, the bone-tingling sound of grinding began, and the mare jerked her head back with a smothered shriek and enough force to bash Cozy's head against the pillar. Even through the subtlest feeling of welling red on the back of her head, though, Cozy continued to smile. A wide smile. A twitching smile. A mad smile. The file began to edge back and forth, and the filly began to chatter. "Golly, Miss Starlight, you must be real attached to your horn, huh?" Each pass was met by a full-body shake from the mare she sat on top of, shivering and jerking and wailing behind her closed mouth while Cozy laughed. "Maybe it's a good thing I'm cutting it off! After all, Professor Rarity taught us all that holding onto things too tightly just ends up hurting!" Cozy's voice rose cheerily through the mare's din, watching with wild fascination as bone flakes fell to the floor in a growing pile with each and every push, and each time, the mare tried again to fling her head back. Lucky for Cozy, she knew when to brace. "Don't you think life would be a lot easier if you'd just given in?" The steady motion of her hoof working back and forth to the tune of low scraping seemed almost allegorical as she tilted her head thoughtfully, turning back to the top of Starlight's head with a resounding grin after a moment. "It's almost like your dumb old horn represents your silly, stupid defiance!" Her filing speed increased for a moment as the mare wailed again, though she slowed after a moment as the glint of frenzied mania wore from her eye, and she giggled to herself bashfully. "Aw, I guess that's just my wishful thinking." She shrugged, continuing to intently file through the base of Starlight's horn. "After all, you might still refuse to tell me even after I saw your horn off!" Almost halfway through. Cozy's smile slipped down. "I still won't let you go, though," she murmured, her voice suddenly and uncharacteristically quiet. The thought of it was maddening. She wouldn't allow the mare to hold out hope. Naivete deserved to be squashed. But then her voice cheerfully rose again with her smile. "Oh, well! I think I've heard that patience is a virtue, so-" The mare's struggle suddenly redoubled with a nearly audible squeal as, from behind the file stuck halfway into the mare's horn, a tide of red began to well. Cozy blinked, stopping for a moment as the mare writhed under her haunches and she watched the blood begin to run down into the mats of her purple mane. "Huh," she echoed after a moment of staring. "I didn't know horns bled." The filly thought about that to herself for a moment, before she shrugged again and continued with her sawing. "Don't worry, Starlight, after I cut all the way through this, I'll stuff some cloth down there so you don't bleed out!" As her efforts grew oddly easier under the grease of the fluid, Cozy giggled indulgently to herself. "I'd hate for you to go and die without my say-so!" The thought of it set Cozy's heart racing faster and her file grinding quicker. It was hard to say for sure whether it was excitement or anger, though either way, it made her laugh. Back and forth and back and forth and struggle and jerk and weep and scream and cry and bleed and- The rhythm grew so intoxicating that, for a moment, Cozy lost track of time. Suddenly, her hoof lost its purchase and swerved to the side, and something thunked to the floor. Suddenly, the mare was quiet and still, as was the cavern. After all the screaming, the silence almost seemed a little creepy. The filly glanced down at her bloody, somewhat dulled file before she tossed it away, registering the deafening clatter as she peered over the bleeding stump sporting a useless ring. On the mare's lap there sat a pink cone, its base slightly dyed in red. Cozy's heart skipped a beat at the sight, and she let out a awed gasp. Without thinking much of it, she pushed off the former unicorn's head and fluttered to the ground. Her eyes sparkling, the filly bent to retrieve the rent horn from the newly disabled mare's lap, carefully holding the surprisingly light object in the crook of her hoof for inspection. All of its circling rings and worn down facets just... stopped at the point it had been cut. It was inert. Useless. Powerless. As was the mare it belonged to. No matter how she turned it, Cozy couldn't seem to take her eyes off the former appendage. It was... intoxicating. She'd removed it from a pony. A part of their body cut off so she could hold it. She couldn't be the only one to see this. It was time for show and tell. Grinning, Cozy tossed the horn back into Starlight's lap, not bothering to scrutinize the hunched mare for signs of life as she cantered to the table. She scanned over it for a moment before she found the mirror she'd brought down two days ago, taking it between her teeth and trotting back to the bound mare. She was nearly bent in half, her head once more hung low as she always seemed to be when Cozy entered. It almost made Cozy simper. Did she think they were done? How nauseatingly cute. She passed the mirror from her mouth to her hoof, leaning low to look at Starlight's face, a scape of pink fur nearly completely marred by innumerable glistening streaks of running red where it wasn't covered by the blindfold. "Hey, Counselor Starlight, you wanna see something cool?" That made the mare's head rise an inch, though before her tired jaw could clench in confusion, Cozy reached forward to hook her hoof into the blindfold's bottom. She had been right in thinking it may have been sticky; the stained rag practically ripped as she raised it up over the former unicorn's former horn, leaving the cloth to soak in the running blood as, for the first time in days, the mare's eyes were exposed. Most of her fur had been completely smeared with blood and tears, leaving the areas around her eyes a messy collage of blended, caked in colors. Her left eye was even somewhat blackened, though Cozy couldn't actually remember when she'd hit Starlight in the face hard enough for it. Her eyes themselves were frosted shut by a foul sludge of grime and hardened fluid, seeming to act as a sort of glue in keeping the mare's eyes shut as her muscles tensed and tried to pry themselves open. Though the sight of her entire, messy face put Cozy off, she still swept her hoof carelessly across one eye and then the other, sending a spray of crumbling gristle to the floor and leaving the mare's face only slightly less disgusting. It allowed Starlight to open her eyes, at least. One, then the other, fluttering open inches at a time like a newborn, gradually exposing red-hued, bloodshot whites surrounding dull, lifeless purple. Even then, it took a while for her eyes to focus; the mare seemed to stare at nothing for a long period of quiet seconds. But as the cloth under her horn let a fresh stream of runny red slip down into the corner of her eye, her gaze finally seemed to focus with an unsteady blink. A gaze that widened, and shrunk as she stared back at her own grisly reflection. She was quiet, then, even as Cozy leaned in around the side of the mirror with a wide grin. "You've seen better days, huh, Counselor?" Her snicker had Starlight's ear flick once, though otherwise, the unicorn simply continued to stare at herself. Her bruised eye. Her sewn-together lips. The red smear in every inch of her fur. Her missing, bleeding horn. Cozy knew a lot about ponies, she liked to think. Holding the mare's horn in her hoof, she had thought that forcing Starlight to look at herself- her first sight in days- might finally break her. She'd get what she wanted. She could see the hopelessness in those uncertain eyes. The death of self in her expression as she saw what she'd been reduced to. When her eye glanced slightly to the side and she caught Cozy with a gleaming smile on her face, she knew she saw fear. But then something began to change. Starlight's brows began to furrow, and while the blood trickle down into her eyes, she did not blink it away. Her nose flared with a deep breath, and as Cozy's smile began to creep down, the mare turned to look her directly in the eyes. For a moment, they stared at each other. There was something... hard in Starlight's eyes, then. A look that Cozy didn't understand. Her jaw began to work up and down. For a few moments, as the mare began to breathe faster, Cozy thought she might've been trying to say something. As the mare's eyes popped, and her mouth twitched and jerked, and she began to hunch and heave, Cozy thought... there may have been something wrong. Then blood began to well from the mare's mouth, and Cozy knew. She knew what she'd done. The mirror fell to the floor and cracked on the crystal, but Cozy could only stare at the mare whose head hung forward once more, letting the welling spurts of blood that gushed from behind her stitches drip in sticky streams to her lap. Long, messy strands making puddles on the floor beneath her. The filly couldn't move. She made herself. "What did you do?" Cozy whispered breathlessly. She already knew. This was wrong. Starlight was choking up too much blood. She did it to herself. She was still bleeding from her horn. She shouldn't have done that. She shouldn't have done that. The puddle was growing larger. Her legs were becoming drenched with red. Cozy hadn't made it happen. Her hooves were getting sticky. Something felt hot. Cozy was afraid. Cozy was enraged. "What did you do, you stupid animal?!" she screamed as something inside of her burst, deafening the cavern for a moment before the filly turned and marched to the discarded file she'd used to cut Starlight's horn off. Nose flaring, gaze reddening, Cozy grabbed the tool in a hoof and fluttered back to the mare's front. Her mouth twitched into a venomous hiss as she slashed the sharp edge of the tool across the mare's face. She missed half the stitches, but the mare's flesh yielded in a new mouth regardless. Cozy threw the tool aside with a careless clatter as the mare coughed with her newly opened mouth, spraying a tide of blood out in a spattering wave that painted both of their fronts with sickeningly bright red. She coughed again, blood spurt out from her nose as she heaved, and something went splat on the mare's legs. Cozy didn't need to look to see what it was. She kept the blurry haze of her glare on the mare, feeling her veins in her forehead pop with heat as she jerked forward to smack the mare in the cheek. Her head jerked with the hit, but there was no point, not even as Cozy let her voice tear in a screech. "What's wrong with you?! Is it that bad to just do what I say?! To just tell me one little thing?!" She gasped for breath, feeling her body shake from the exertion of screaming, but she forced her voice to rise again, bracing and jerking her head down as she stamped her hoof. "Is it that important to defy me?! You'd rather die?! You care about proving me wrong that much?!" Cozy trailed off as her mouth filled with backwash that she hurriedly spit into the worsening slurry running over the floor. Panting, she forced herself to look up to the mare as her head swayed from one direction to the other, eventually leaning back against the pillar. Her eyes were open, but they were growing glossy. Her chin was a ceaseless stream of visceral blood. So much blood. Her eye trailed down, and the jagged shape of her torn mouth jerked. One way, then the other. Her voice. Hollow, gurgled, and broken. A thin whisper. A wet murmur. "...'ever... 'ell... you.. a-anyfing..." Her chest shook. Fluttered. An empty laugh. "...'ever... beshray.. m-my... f-friens..." And then her lips rose. Starlight smiled. Something hurt. Cozy knew she responded, but she didn't know what she said. All she could hear was the pounding. The rushing. The blood in her ears. On the floor. Everywhere. She turned from the mare, and suddenly, she was at the table. She blinked, and she was in front of the mare again. Nothing but flashes of black in-between. The dark was full of screaming. She couldn't control her mouth. When she spoke, it came out in a warbling cross between a hateful hiss and a sorrowful whine. "I won't let you have the satisfaction." It had been a long time since Cozy had killed. The phantom feeling of the knife plunging so deeply into the mare's chest that only the handle stuck out was... familiar, yet foreign. It seemed like another life. Another filly. What was different about the two of them, though? Neither of them had understood friendship. With their bodies pressed together, with Cozy's fur beginning to dampen with blood, and as Starlight's heart fluttered to an uneven stop against her hoof, she leaned in to whisper one last thing. A thin, barely spoken whisper. In the last few moments before Starlight's life left her, she stiffened. As her eyes dulled, her last breath came as a shaking gasp. A final, desperate grimace as her dying peace was stolen from her. Cozy smiled back. "I'll make sure you see your friends again, soon." Starlight Glimmer was dead when Cozy stepped away. Tied to a pillar made of crystal, a knife in her heart with her horn and her tongue sat in her red-stained lap, the diagonally slashed mouth of the pinkish mare's corpse was left in an eternal frown. A hollow, shallow plea for mercy that had never found air. The puddle was growing larger. The air felt heavier. Dense. Cozy Glow took a deep, scentless breath. She didn't smell blood anymore. Couldn't. Her gaze fell to her hooves, and she raised them for inspection. Stained beyond measure. She raised them higher, to her nose, and took a deep whiff. Nothing. She stuck her tongue out and dragged it along the side of one of them. Blood and saliva ran together as she slid her tongue back down then up again. She could feel the paste it made in her mouth. She could feel the burn in her throat. But it tasted like nothing. She didn't feel anything. Cozy Glow felt like nothing. When she stood, she did not give the mare's corpse a second glance. She didn't look at the table, nor at any of the tools she'd left there. She opened the door, stepped through, and closed it behind her. She turned left, heading towards the room with a lake she'd been using to clean herself for the past few days. As she walked silently through the dark halls, her mouth stayed firmly shut, yet something began to echo back at her. Hoofsteps began to tread after her in her wake, off-tune with her own. Somepony called her name. When she came to a fork in the tunnels, she stopped, staring forward at the wall. As it had been when she'd left the room, her expression was impassive, her face was smeared with blood, and her dull eyes were utterly devoid of life. The filly that stared back at her was smiling. There was laughing in her ears. When she turned left and walked into the dark hall, she found her throat had begun to ache. And the laugh was beginning to echo through the tunnels.