//------------------------------//
// Cozy Glow, Part Two 
// Story: The Tiniest Changes 
// by Venlinelle 
//------------------------------//

The door shut behind Starlight with an ominous clunk.
It wasn’t any different from the rest of the doors in the castle. Same opaque, irregular green crystal. Same mysteriously quiet hinges. Same ornate frame. 	
Same megalomaniacal filly who wanted her dead in the room beyond. 
“Oh, golly, am I glad to see you!” Cozy beamed from an appropriately small writing desk. “I’d been starting to think everypony had forgotten about me. But I shouldn’t have worried; you’re the Princess of Empathy, after all! You’d never forget about little ol’ me.”
The logistics of Cozy’s residence within the castle had been hammered out with the other Princesses as best and as quickly as Starlight could manage—which was to say, as soon as Twilight had slept for eighteen straight hours. Most of the details, they agreed, would need to wait until they knew more. As a temporary measure, the filly was held in her room by a spell on the door which prevented its being opened by anypony but Starlight or Twilight. And, just in case, Starlight had placed a spell on Cozy herself which would alert her should she leave the walls of the castle. 
It wasn’t enough. Nothing could be. But you didn’t make a friend by formulating an inescapable prison; you made a resentful enemy. And Cozy Glow had that niche well and truly filled. 
Starlight ignored her… student’s… less-than-subtle taunting. “Good morning, Cozy.” She sat in a larger armchair in the corner, angled towards the writing desk. “Did you sleep well?”
“Like a foal!” Had Cozy’s voice always sounded quite that eerily positive? “This sure is a fancy place you’ve got here. No wonder Professor Twilight has so many friends.”
“…Right.” That… is going to need revisiting. She craned her neck to look at the desk. The arrangements of the materials on it looked suspiciously familiar.  “What are you working on?”
Cozy carefully folded the corner of a sheet of parchment covered in dense writing. “Oh, just journaling! I always like to keep track of my thoughts and feelings. Plus, if I ever don’t know what to write, I can do origami while I think!” 
“That’s clever!” 
“Thanks!”
“So,” Starlight continued conversationally. “Do you always journal in a format that can be used for long-distance kinetocommunicative ritual spells? Or is that just for special occasions.” 
Cozy’s eye twitched. 
“Of course, if you did, it’d be polite of me to tell you that ritual spells won’t work in any of the rooms in this wing of the castle. We think it’s a defense mechanism.”
Another twitch. “That sure is fascinating, professor.” 
Starlight rolled her eyes. “You need to burn the letter for that spell to work anyway. What exactly were you planning to light it with?”
“Oh, I dunno,” Cozy said, smile brittle as glass. “These crystals are pretty hard! Some types spark if you hit them just right, you know.” 
If this went on any longer, Starlight was going to contract some sort of illness from whatever artificial sweeteners made up that smile. “You know… You don’t need to keep up the act. It’s not fooling anyone in this castle, and nopony else can see you right now. Pretending to be cute isn’t—“
“I AM CUTE!” shrieked the filly. Starlight nearly slipped off her chair. Careful what you wish for.  Cozy leapt to her hooves—in her chair, putting her at eye level with Starlight. “I don’t HAVE to pretend! I’m ADORABLE! Not all of us have to make ourselves into a completely different pony so everypony forgets we destroyed the world, you know!” 
Her eyes returned to a more natural size, she smoothed her mane with a hoof, and she sat back down. “I’m trying to write to Tirek, since you’ll just read this if I don’t tell you. I don’t want him to worry when he doesn’t hear from me.”
That… didn’t sound like the Tirek Starlight had heard of. “…Would he worry?”
Cozy snorted impatiently. “Don’t be an imbecile. But friends tell each other that kinda thing. I would think you’d know that.”
Starlight decided not to point out that Cozy’s own scheme had required constant deception of everycreature around her for weeks on end. “Is he your friend?”
“What is this, a psychiatric consultancy?” snapped Cozy. 
“No!” Well, maybe a little. “I’ve just never heard somepony call Tirek that before. Mostly just… an evil centaur who tried to take over Equestria.”
“Hmph. Who says he can’t be both?” Cozy resumed writing. “Yes, he’s my friend. And… a lot of things. Even if he says he isn’t.”
Starlight sat up slightly in her chair. The relationship Cozy had alluded to sharing with the ancient centaur was unprecedented—could it be a crack through which she could better see the pegasus for who she really was? “What kind of things?”
“Meh,” Cozy shrugged. “Friend. Weird uncle. A buncha stuff. He doesn’t think of me that way, I know, but it’s hard… Well, after mom and dad…” She trailed off. 
Starlight’s ears perked up. That was another thing. Cozy Glow had been the most popular, most successful student in the school, and maybe that was why, somehow, nopony had ever thought to look any closer at her. But, now that Twilight had—pouring over what records the school kept, and asking around the town—she’d found what there was to see of Cozy’s life: nothing. 
She showed up to school by herself. Nopony knew more than surface-level details about her past, and, frequently, what ponies did claim to know was contradictory. She had no parents in Ponyville, and no record or registration that could lead to them elsewhere. Neither the six students who shared a connection with the Tree of Harmony nor the Cutie Mark Crusaders had ever seen her go somewhere that could be a home, and Cozy herself certainly wasn’t talking. It was as if she’d sprung out of the ground one day with no connections but what she made herself.
“Your mom and dad…” Starlight began. “If you don’t mind my asking, are they…?”
Cozy looked away—and then nodded.
Starlight stood, and walked to the filly’s side. Her eyes were squeezed shut. “I’m sorry. If you want, you can… talk to me about them? Or to anypony, if you’d rather I leave.”
Cozy’s lip trembled. And then shook.
And then she burst out laughing.
“HA! You– you—” She rolled off the chair and held her hooves to her barrel, giggling uncontrollably. Starlight leapt back, eyes wide. “You’re so easy! N-no wonder they put you in charge of empathy! Princess of believing every little thing anypony says! Ha!” She flipped back onto her hooves, glaring. “Listen, professor. If you want to LEARN, go suffocate your fat, anxious head in a book like your ridiculous friend, and DON’T think you can go poking around MINE! How stupid do you think I am?!”
Starlight, amidst the mental whiplash of going from preparing herself to comfort a crying foal to… this, couldn’t respond. 
Cozy pointed a wing at the door. “You know, I think I WOULD rather you leave. Go tell Twilight and every gullible idiot you know everything I said, and LEAVE. ME. ALONE!”
Finding her voice, Starlight managed a “If that’s what you need right now,” and hurried out the door. 
Clunk.
She was going to need more preparation. And a plan. 
And some help.





With a pop and a flash of light, Starlight appeared inside Trixie’s wagon. She was met with an undignified yelp and a cloud of smoke. Oops. 
“STARLIGHT! We—cough—talked about this!”
She peered guiltily through the swirling, pungent fog. “Er… Sorry.”
“Well come on!”
With another flash, Trixie teleported the pair outside of her wagon, along with the smoke, which dissipated in the noonday sun to reveal a coughing showpony. 
“I was calibrating my smoke bombs!” Trixie huffed. “I know you like showing off your precision teleportation, but ponyfeathers…”
Starlight fluttered her wings to dislodge any smoke bomb dust. “Does it help if I tell you how proud I am of how far your magic has come?”
Trixie, muzzle slightly blackened, was unimpressed. “No. You tell me that every day.”
“It’s not my fault you’re so easy to be proud of.”
Despite herself, Trixie blushed. Starlight leaned in and kissed her cheek. It only tasted a bit like sulfur. “I’m sorry, Trix. I’ve… got a lot on my mind. Which reminds me—”
“That you still need to tell me exactly what happened at your school?” interrupted her marefriend. 
“Well, it’s hardly my school—“
Trixie waved a dismissive hoof. “It will be once Twilight takes over the world.”
“Equestria, and you know that’s just a rumor—“
“What happened at the school, Starlight!”
Starlight sighed. “I’m getting to it. That’s kind of why I came to you first.”
“First?” Trixie’s lilac aura opened the windows to the wagon, allowing the remaining smoke to seep out. 
“Yeah. I’ll explain while I help you clean up.”





Fifteen minutes later, the wagon had been reorganized and restored to a relatively normal smell, and most of the broken china magically repaired for the six dozenth time. 
Trixie had stopped helping in favor of sitting slackjawed in her hammock around minute three. “Let me get this straight. When you said that one of Twilight’s students tried to get rid of all the magic in Equestria and trapped you in a ball, that was Cozy Glow.”
“Yes.”
“Cozy Glow with the mane.”
“Yes.”
“Cozy Glow with the color-coded teaching schedules.”
“Yes.”
“‘Oh golly gee’ Cozy Glow. Who made us cupcakes that one time.”
Starlight rolled her eyes. “Yes.” 
Trixie nodded slowly. “Right.” She thought for a long moment. “You know, if we spun it right, we could probably smear Twilight to the press with the fact that she wanted to send her to hell forever. Maybe if her popularity took enough of a hit, Celestia would have to put you in charge when she retires!”
This is the pony I fell in love with. 
At one time, Starlight might’ve pointed out, for instance, that Tartarus was a prison, while hell was an ancient religious concept. Or, perhaps, that Celestia had been fully on board with the Tartarus idea, making it very unlikely that Twilight’s acceptance of it would count against her. 
But she’d known Trixie for years now. So she just shrugged. “If she does, I’m making you do the paperwork.” 
Trixie gagged. “Blech. Sparkle can have the job.”
Starlight chuckled and carefully levitated herself into the other hammock. It was a bit cramped, but her marefriend had resolutely declined her offer to magically expand the interior into a pocket dimension. “Thought so. But I have to talk to you about something.” She grimaced. “I’m sorry I can’t stay right now. But I want to figure this out as soon as I can.”
Trixie made a ‘nonsense’ gesture. “The Great and Powerful Trixie is just as good at giving revelatory advice as she is at being a loving host. Talk away, Great and Powerful Assistant!”
Okay. How do I phrase this. Starlight chewed the inside of her cheek for a moment. “You… didn’t used to have a lot of friends.”
Trixie stared flatly at her. “I didn’t used to have any friends. What’s your point.” 
Diplomatic as ever, Starlight. “My point,” she said carefully, “Is that I want to talk to you, and some other ponies, about what changed that for them. What convinced them to give friendship another chance. If I’m going to help Cozy, I need somewhere to start. She’s… different, from anypony else I’ve ever seen. But there’s going to be some overlap.” 
To her surprise, Trixie smiled. “Well, shouldn’t you know all about that? You were there.”
Starlight winced. She remembered. Against her will. “You mean when I overreacted and left you and you almost—“
“Yes, I was there too.” Trixie, somehow, had always maintained an attitude towards near-death experiences which placed them, as a priority for concern, somewhere between a loose wagon wheel and the politics of Saddle Arabia. Though, to be fair, she was a resident of Ponyville. Maybe Starlight was the odd one out there. “But the Great and Powerful Trixie will jog your memory. It wasn’t that she—I—never wanted friends; I mean, I was a jerk, but I wasn’t like Chryssy or anything.” 
“You know she hates it when you call her that, right?” Starlight pointed out. “Our first game night I thought she’d suck you dry. Well, if she still could.”
“Don’t threaten me with a good time.” Trixie smirked victoriously when Starlight blushed. “Besides, she only pretends she doesn’t like it. Anyway. I wanted friends. I was just too selfish to see why I didn’t have any. Until you showed up.”
Starlight knew all that; she thought about it every time she wanted to remember something good she’d done for a change. “Right. But… What was different about me?”
“Your past,” Trixie said immediately, as if it were obvious. “I’ve thought about it a lot. I knew you were like me. Well, you were a supervillain and I was just kind of a bitch, but something like me. We had something in common I couldn’t give up. It was like… like only having one pony who’d care about me forced me to finally care myself.”
At least something good came of the old me. Starlight stared thoughtfully at the ceiling of the wagon. Could she work with that? Sure, she had something in common with Cozy Glow—a truly unfortunate quantity of somethings—but would bringing that up give the filly someone to confide in, or just enable her to act exactly the same as she always had? 
It was more than she’d had in mind before, at least. “Thanks. I might be able to use that.”
“No prob~” Trixie bowed, and nearly fell out of the hammock. “Eep! Say, by the way, what’re the odds of you having dinner with Cozy sometime soon, and what’re the odds I might be able to—“
“I’m not introducing you.” 
“Awwww. But you never fight evil fillies! And how could Trixie not want to meet somepony who clearly has such correct opinions about Twilight Sparkle? Trixie promises she’ll barely encourage her.”
“I can’t believe I still have dinner with you.” 





Do u only talk 2 me when u have a crisis 2 resolve? 
Starlight looked in confusion at the book Twilight—and, increasingly frequently, she herself—used to communicate with the human world. Shorthoof? she wrote back. She lay on her bed on her stomach, book and quill suspended in front of her. Conversations via the book could take a while, particularly on the end where writing had to be done by hand, and it paid to be comfortable while she waited.
Oh right. Sorry, displayed the book in glittery red ink. Humans communicate with text a lot more; guess I picked up some of their habits. 
She’d considered at length who to contact for advice. Trixie would’ve been insulted if she hadn’t been first, of course. But, since she saw Sunset Shimmer nearly every week anyway, she was a logical next choice. 
Don’t worry about it. Write however you like, she wrote back. And I haven’t written about a magical crisis in weeks!
Yeah, but you are now, aren’t you?
Smartass. As Sunset would say. Twilight told you about the incident?
Sure did. Nice to know that someone else’s school is getting blown up for a change. You should hear how Celestia—Principal Celestia, I mean—talks to the insurance companies these days. I swear she can do the RCV sometimes. 
Starlight giggled. She’d only met the human version of the princess of the sun once, but it’d been enough to convince her that they needed to facilitate a dinner party between the counterparts one of these days.
Anyway, are you okay? continued Sunset. I heard about Cozy Glow and everything.
Actually, Starlight wrote, That’s why I’m writing. I’m fine, but I volunteered to try and reform Cozy, and wasn’t sure where to start, so I’m asking creatures who… She paused.
Used to be assholes why they stopped? guessed Sunset. Humans had such fascinating expressions. 
Yeah. Sorry.
Ha! You should’ve heard my friends here after my demon phase—they stumbled all over their words for a year. But yeah, that’s a good question. It’s funny, I’ve thought so much about how to use my own experience to help people here, but it’s never come up for someone back in Equestria before. Like, officially. The game nights don’t count. Guess you need help from the original Empathy sometimes, huh~?
Neither Sunset nor the human Elements were ever going to let that go. You figured out that was your Element what, like a month before I did?
I’d make fun of you even if it was an hour. Hold on, I need to think for a sec. 
Starlight waited, and shifted on her immensely-comfortable bed, and tried not to think about the filly around a hundred feet away who was probably plotting her demise just as Starlight plotted her rehabilitation. Why couldn’t she just have gotten a normal princess job, like… like… Okay, so Equestria didn’t have any of those, but still.
Okay, wrote Sunset after a couple minutes. There was a lot of stuff that made me the way I used to be, but I think the big reason I started to get better was the others’ forgiveness. 
Starlight was acutely familiar with that phenomenon. They’re something else, aren’t they.
They really are. I mean, you stop a demon from killing you and your friends, conventional wisdom isn’t to help her to her feet. But fortunately for us, Twilight is just crazy. I wasn’t always that bad, but I had a pretty transactional worldview when I was a foal. And trying to survive in this world, and later at the high school, just made that worse. And if things had gone differently, I probably would’ve gotten right back up after the rainbow laser shtick and gone on being a selfish bitch. I didn’t want to necessarily, it was just… that’s how things worked. You know?
Starlight thought back, with some difficulty, to her thoughts in the mountains after fleeing her village. Yeah.
But then, when I saw they didn’t want to fight and were just worried I might be hurt… Everyone I’d almost killed was right there, but they weren’t mad at me. So I guess I didn’t know what to do. I just knew they were giving me an out from going on fighting and being angry, so I took it. 
That makes a lot of sense, Starlight wrote. And it did. She herself had never really even thought of plotting revenge after the… time travel incident; she was too shell-shocked from what she’d almost done to consider the possibility. But, if she had, what could she have done? Plot revenge against the pony who was letting her live in her house? Who let her read her books? Who made her dinner? By the time you can think about fighting again, you’re already in their lives and there’s nothing left to fight.
Ha. You make it sound so sinister, wrote Sunset. But yeah. Pretty much. Does that help? It kinda sounds like you already knew that, so, uh, you’re welcome for nothing! Sucker!
No, that’s really good! Starlight wrote hastily, nearly tearing a hole in the page of the book. Stupid custom unnaturally-sharp phoenix feather quills that Celestia insisted on giving all the other princesses every holiday. Equestria had a lot of holidays. Sometimes you need to hear it from somepony else—or somebody else—to think through it. I don’t know how much more I can forgive Cozy, since it’s not like she has any power left at this point, but thank you. 
Rad. Does this mean I have to go back to calc? Sunset doodled a frowning face.
You choose to keep attending that school at your age, Starlight pointed out.
It’s where my friends are! Respect your elders! 
After a moment, three sparkling red lines appeared on the page, flanked by a curved line. Of course. Snorting fondly, Starlight added two more lines in black ink, forming a stylized E surrounded by a heart.
It hadn’t been either of their ideas. But the human Pinkie Pie had started signing it by all of their conversations when Sunset wasn’t looking as soon as she’d discovered the two each represented Empathy, and it made Twilight smile so much that eventually they’d started doing it themselves as a joke. Well. It’d started as a joke, anyway.
We are so immature.
We are.





“She did WHAT?!”
Ears flattened, Starlight adjusted the volume on the communication spell significantly downward. It helped, but it didn’t reduce the portion of her vision taken up by Queen Chrysalis’s distorted white face. 
“Why does noling tell me anything anymore?! I’m going to have that larvae Ocellus—” Chrysalis trailed off as Starlight raised an eyebrow. “...Commended for her academic performance. Still, she could’ve perhaps sent an emergency memo about the fact that somepony nearly drained magic from Equestria forever!”
“Ocellus was one of the students who stopped Cozy; she’s enjoying some deserved rest,” Starlight replied diplomatically. “And surely you have a better source of intelligence than a schoolfilly.” Not that Chrysalis should’ve had any sources of covert intelligence in Equestria after the treaty, but it was Chrysalis. She’d probably find a much less harmless way to keep busy otherwise.
“Please. Who better to report than someling nopony would expect? Apparently you ponies haven’t gotten any less gullible, after all.” The queen’s performative scoff rippled the enchanted liquid filling the basin that maintained the spell. There was a room in the Canterlot palace specifically designed for long-distance scrying like this, but for more personal calls, Starlight preferred to use Twilight’s. Even if the lighting was terrible.
“I’ll… pretend I didn’t hear that.” Like everything else you somehow think it’s a good idea to tell an Equestrian official. Though, given the embarrassing quantity of the queen’s secrets that Starlight inexplicably found herself keeping, perhaps it was.
Suddenly, the second basin beside the first flickered with a teal glow, and the air above it solidified into an image of Tempest Shadow, sitting in a dimly-lit room which seemed half-filled with dusty oddities and a quarter-filled with unidentifiable machinery. “She’s not wrong,” she pointed out in a smooth voice. “You all really need some sort of warning system. How do you think it feels for your horn to stop working and to only find out two days afterward what in the dungeons of Cunabula is going on?”
“Tempest!” Starlight exclaimed happily. “I’m glad you could make it.”
“It’s Fizzlepop now, actually,” the dark purple unicorn said, with as smile that would make Maud proud. “I know I was on the fence about it, but hearing the scum traders in Klugetown say ‘Fizzlepop Berrytwist’ is too much fun to give up.”
Knowing Klugetown—not that she’d visited more than once, which was one time too many—the term “scum trader” was not a metaphor. “I’ll take your word for it.”
“See?” said Chrysalis, moving in her own room (which, being located in the dimmest intact room of the hive the queen had been able to find, was barely visible) to better face both unicorns. “Automatic alert system. Get on it.”
“That’s… not a bad idea,” admitted Starlight. It was easy to forget that so many of the crises of Equestria affected the broader world. Maybe she could make something like that her next priority as princess. “But this isn’t exactly a friendly call, I’m afraid.”
Tempest shrugged. “I don’t get friendly calls. What is it?”
“At least I’m more popular than some creatures,” grumbled Chrysalis. “What do you want?”
Starlight explained the situation for the third time that day. When she was done, Chrysalis and Tempest glanced at one another, exchanging in it a quantity of cynical and jaded emotions usually communicable only through maniacal laughs, or letters signed in kisses of blood.  
“You’re thinking what I am, I take it?” said Tempest.
“Obviously,” said Chrysalis.
This is what I get for asking them. Starlight crossed her forelegs. “I’m not sending her to Tartarus. Or cocooning her.” Tempest opened her mouth. “Or killing her.”
“Glimmer,” Chrysalis hissed. “If that filly had done what she did before we could generate our own love, she would’ve annihilated an entire sapient species. I know that’s something you ponies care about.”
“I’m well-aware of what she almost did,” said Starlight firmly. “Trust me, I’ve had nightmares about it twice already. But my decision is made. You can give me what help you can, or you can hang up.”
Tempest chuckled. “She’s kind of cute when she’s being authoritative.”
Chrysalis, who seemed as though she’d seriously been considering hanging up, nodded. “One of her few redeeming qualities.”
“Chrysalis…” Starlight growled.
“Oh fine. But you’re well-aware of what convinced me, given that you insisted upon doing it yourself,” Chrysalis said. She took a sip of Celestia-knew-what from a mug that was either decorated to resemble a rock or was, in fact, a rock. “I would never give up my throne. You… correctly… pointed out that accepting your ridiculous ideology was the only path conducive to retaining it. So that’s what I did. It was a practical calculation.” She thought for a moment, and mumbled something. 
“What was that?” Starlight asked. 
“I said, and I was tired of being hungry. Turn the volume up if your hearing is going.” She crossed her forelegs; it was adorable. “But still. Practicality.”
Starlight had more or less known as much. Between their initial confrontation at the hive, the diplomatic summit nearly two years prior, or one of the many other characteristically adrenaline-filled times she’d spent with the queen, she knew her better than any other pony. Still, Chrysalis’s… direct way of putting things never went unappreciated. If Starlight were entirely honest, it was her favorite thing about her.
Tempest—er, Fizzlepop—groaned, head resting on a hoof. “You call me for the first time in ages, and you ask me to talk about feelings. And worse, my feelings. And I thought you cared about me.”
“Hey, it could be worse,” Starlight pointed out. “I didn’t like that either, and then I got made into the princess of feelings. I’ve gotten used to it by now, but still.”
Tempest shuddered. “Good point. Alright. But I don’t… It was a while ago. And there was a storm, and I had a lot going on, and… I’m not you, okay? I have better things to do than introspect. You know I’ve had three separate rats try to buy my horn since I got back here? I haven’t had to blast any of them yet, but if they get any pushier, I’m not sure friendship is going to be enough to get them off my flank, and that’s besides the sharks—”
“Fizzle,” Starlight said gently, as Chrysalis struggled to contain her laughter. “You’re rambling.”
The normally-stoic unicorn snapped her mouth closed. “Uh. I know.”
“You don’t need to talk about anything you don’t want to. I’m just happy to talk to you again—”
“Ugh, don’t make it worse!” whined Tempest. “Fine. I lost any loyalty I had to the Storm King when I realized he wasn’t going to fix my horn. I was going to turn on him as soon as that happened. And then, when I saw him about to defeat you and Twilight and her friends… Well, he’d hurt me. They hadn’t. So I knew I had to do whatever I could to prevent him from getting what he wanted, which is why I went and did something as stupid as… jumping in front of that grenade.”
“Spite,” said Chrysalis approvingly. “Not very tasty, but certainly respectable.”
“I… don’t know,” Tempest said. “Maybe it was just to hurt him. Maybe I was grateful to my former enemies for at least being more honest than he was. Maybe it was… something else. I don’t know. Can we talk about something else now?”
“That’s okay,” said Starlight. “You’ve both been very helpful. I’ll probably call you again in the next few days; Cozy seems like she’s going to be…” She thought back to the filly’s unnerving laughter that morning. “...Challenging.”
“I quiver with anticipation,” deadpanned Chrysalis.





Trixie, Sunset, Chrysalis, and Tempest were ponies Starlight was familiar with—even if she’d only met Tempest in person a couple times since the whole debacle with the Storm King. She’d had to meet with them to hear exactly what they thought about their checkered pasts, of course, but she’d more or less expected what each of them would say. Especially Chrysalis, who, when she wasn’t in disguise, wore her heart—or whatever changelings had in place of hearts, anyway—on her sleeve to a degree she herself didn’t seem to realize. 
The last pony she’d scheduled a meeting with, however, wasn’t one she was familiar with beyond the manner in which every pony in a thousand-odd pony town was acquainted with one another, and, as she finished jotting down a series of notes onto a scroll in the castle library, she couldn’t help but feel a twinge of anxiety. Most of the new ponies she met these days were those the Map sent her to, or ones she ran across in her capacity as a Princess. Hopefully her social skills hadn’t gotten rustier than they already were.
Before she had the chance to talk herself into postponing her final meeting, she concentrated, and teleported with a pop! to reappear smack in the middle of the Cutie Mark Crusaders’ clubhouse. 
“And today’s first order of business is– AAH!” yelped a voice immediately recognizable as Applebloom’s. “What in– Oh! Counselor Starlight! Or, uh, is it Princess Starlight outside of school? Princess Glimmer?”
Starlight spared a moment to look around the clubhouse. She’d met with the self-proclaimed Crusaders many times in her role as counselor, but never outside of a professional capacity. Which… this might be? Was her new ‘project’ professional?
“She always told us to just call her Starlight in the school; why would this be any different?” said Sweetie Belle uncertainly, which was fortunate, as apparently the Princess of Empathy’s train of thought was no more stable than a twelve-year-old apple farmer’s. 
“Hey, what if we just alternate between all of them? That way we’re only kind of rude instead of really rude if we guess wrong!” piped Scootaloo. Starlight had somehow teleported directly between all three of them.
She stepped back awkwardly, careful to avoid stepping on a pile of construction paper. Being in direct line of sight of all three Crusaders was a good way for anything, pony or object, to develop sudden and varying mechanical faults. “Er, Starlight is fine! I wasn’t expecting the three of you. It’s good to see you, though!”
The three fillies exchanged a confused look. Applebloom hopped down from the ramshackle podium at the back of the tree house. “You weren’t? Uh, pardon, counselor, but are you sure you ended up in the right place?”
Starlight quickly double-checked the tetradimensional coordinates. “I think so. At least, this is where she said would be convenient to meet.”
“‘She’?” asked Scootaloo.
“Me,” said a voice from the door. All four mares turned, to see Diamond Tiara enter and carefully shut the door.
“Diamond!” Sweetie Belle exclaimed. “We were wondering when you’d get here!”
Diamond Tiara looked as confused as Starlight felt. “You… were? Also, why are you all here?”
“Well, you said to meet us here at four, dint’ya?” said Applebloom. 
“I’m pretty sure I just asked if I could use your clubhouse at four,” Diamond said. She took an uncertain seat on the rickety-looking stairs. 
Scootaloo waved a hoof. “Well yeah, but we just assumed you wanted to hold a meeting! You haven’t been to one in ages, and you are a nominal member now.”
“Honorary member,” corrected Sweetie Belle.
“Meh, same thing.”
“No it isn’t!”
“Actually,” Diamond interrupted, “I asked because I wanted to meet Starlight here.” She looked down. “...Is that okay? I guess I should’ve been clearer.”
Understanding dawned on the Crusaders’ faces. “Ohhh!” Applebloom said, smacking her forehead. “Um. Right. We knew that.”
“No we didn’t,” said Sweetie Belle. “But that’s okay! We’ll head out for a minute. Er, that is, if you’re still okay with attending a meeting after?”
“I brought over the gavel and everything,” said Scootaloo, eyes as pitiable as a waterlogged breezie. 
Diamond nodded rapidly. “Sure! Sorry I haven’t been over more.”
“Aw, that’s no problem!” said Applebloom, beaming. “Come on girls!” She shooed the other two towards the door. “Nice seein’ you Starlight! Counselor! Princess! Uh, whatever we should call you!”
“That was a joke,” hissed Scootaloo. And then the door shut, and Diamond and Starlight were alone.
Starlight blinked a few times. “...Hello.”
“Hi, Princess,” Diamond said hesitantly. She stood up from the stairs and repositioned herself in a somewhat shabby bean bag. “Sorry about that.”
“Oh, it’s no trouble,” Starlight said. She looked around. Finding another bean bag that was definitely too small for an adult pony, let alone an alicorn, she took a seat. “But if you don’t mind my asking, why…?”
“Why’d I ask you to meet here?” Diamond finished drily. “I mean… Look at you.”
Starlight did. It failed to answer her question. 
Diamond rolled her eyes. “I mean that you’re a princess. Duh. Have you met my mom? If you showed up at our house, she’d have you stuck inside for three days until you’d felt obligated to invite her to sixteen balls and… and… recommend her perfume line to the Duke of Trottingham or something.”
Starlight had met Spoiled Rich exactly one time, at, fittingly, a ball in Canterlot, and as loathe as she was to agree with Diamond’s dim view of her mother, she couldn’t say she’d seen any evidence to the contrary. Bafflingly, she’d been informed that Spoiled was actually far more amiable than she’d used to be. She had not felt the need to dig up her time travel spell to check.
“I see,” she said eventually. And then, because, well, she’d been a counselor several days a week for nearly six months, “Are things alright at home?”
Diamond snorted. “They’re amazing compared to how they were before I stood up to her. But, um, Princess… why did you want to see me?” She looked suddenly nervous. “Did my parents ask you to? Have I done something wrong?”
“No!” Starlight reassured quickly. And not entirely accurately. “Well… Not recently. This might sound unrelated, but do you know a filly named Cozy Glow?” 
Diamond nodded. “She’s one of the CMC’s friends, right? From Twilight’s new school? They mentioned they were helping her with her homework or something a while ago.”
‘CMC.’ I’ll remember that one. So Diamond didn’t know. Which made sense—the disaster had only concluded days prior. “...Yes. She was.”
The tense she’d chosen wasn’t lost on the purple filly. “Was? What happened?”
Starlight was well-aware that Cozy’s plan had not only involved foals younger than Diamond Tiara, but ultimately been stopped by them. And that was besides the fact that Cozy herself was younger. But, somehow, it felt… wrong, to narrate the full story to a foal who hadn’t been involved with it herself. The fact that anypony had been involved was a tragedy, and to add to that number, even by proxy, would be another. At least, that’s what Starlight’s incredibly biased emotions told her.
“A lot,” she said slowly, shifting on her disproportionate bean bag. “I think your friends will want to tell you the full story. But Cozy made some… mistakes.”
“Does this have anything to do with why magic stopped working for three days?” Diamond asked suspiciously. “Princess Twilight’s announcement at the town hall was really vague.”
“...Maybe. But like I said, you’ll probably know soon. But… That’s why I came to you. I’ve been going around to ponies I know—well, ponies and a changeling and a human—who’ve made mistakes in their pasts, and asking them about what convinced them to change, because I want to know if I can help Cozy do the same.” And prevent her from destroying the world. “But they’re all… well, adults. I know from what your friends have said that you used to be a bit of a bully.” Diamond’s expression grew guilty. “Not that I blame you! I mean, you know what I used to be like, or actually you probably don’t, so forget I said that. But, er, my point is that I wanted to hear from somepony your age what it was like to go through that… realization.” She trailed off. She’d never felt that confident with foals—or ponies of any age, but especially foals. At least in the school, they’d had to come to her. 
Diamond’s eyes were narrowed, but in thought, or perhaps evaluation, rather than challenge. “Huh.” She adjusted her tiara. It had the mark of a nervous tic. “At least you’re not another grown-up who wants to lecture me and make sure I don’t go back to being a ‘disruption’. I’ve heard that a lot.”
Starlight shook her head. “Nope. I trust your friends when they say you’ve changed. I just want to hear about it, if you’re comfortable telling me—no judgment.”
“And you’re not planning on like… rainbow lasering me, right?”
“Oh, the Elements couldn’t do that if they wanted to!” Starlight chuckled. “Lasers are inefficiently focused light, while the emissions from the Elements of Harmony are better understood as a combination of several types of magical energy which have been polarized in specific ways, but are arranged so that instead of repelling each other and losing focus, they actually…” Diamond Tiara was staring at her, slightly cross-eyed. “Erm. No, we aren’t.”
“Cool,” Diamond said slowly. “But… What exactly do you wanna know?”
Starlight shrugged—a gesture she’d gotten far more use out of since she’d sprouted wings. “You used to pick on the Crusaders. Why did you stop?”
“Well, they helped me!” said Diamond, almost defensively. “Their candidate beat me in the school election, and then they brought me here after I got in trouble with my mom. It was more than anypony else in class ever did for me. Well, except Silvy. Obviously.”
“Wait, back up,” Starlight interrupted. “You got in trouble for not winning a silly election?”
Diamond stomped a hoof. “It wasn’t silly! Mom really wanted me to win, and she gets… upset when she feels like ponies are wasting her time.”
Starlight wondered, privately, if there might be a member of the Rich family who did merit ‘rainbow lasering.’ She shelved the idea. One troubled filly at a time. “You… know that’s not reasonable of her, right?” she asked carefully.
“Well, duh. Or, um… I do now, anyway. The CMC kinda helped me see that. And helped me stand up to her. I’m… grateful, I guess.” She grimaced, as if the phrase had poked her tongue on the way out.
“I can see why,” Starlight said, taking mental notes. “They showed you you deserved better. That’s a good feeling.” She thought back to her ascension. “Even when it takes you a while to really believe.”
Diamond thought for a while, staring out the window. “I’ve never thought about it that way. I guess you’re right.” She giggled. “Funny how you get it better than the Crusaders do. You haven’t even, like, done anything wrong.”
Starlight let out a very un-Princessly snort. “Yeah. Funny.”





Starlight had intended to spend the day gathering input from creatures who’d been in a similar situation to Cozy Glow, and then, somehow, to distill all of the data she’d collected into a foolproof plan.
Instead, she had a scroll covered in so many scribbles and crossings-out (she knew a half-dozen erasing spells, but her head hurt enough as it was) that it resembled some sort of modern painting Rarity would fawn over. 
Sure, she was the Princess of Empathy, not of sociological analysis. But the Princess of Friendship got away with it.
She pushed aside a series of worries about whether her chosen domain had cursed her to an eternal life of subjectivity. So she didn’t entirely know how to help Cozy yet. That didn’t mean there weren’t a few things she could start with. 
So, after visiting the kitchen to pick up one of the salads she’d usually eat with Twilight or Trixie, she walked down a series of until-recently-disused corridors and knocked on Cozy’s door.
“No.” said a voice from within.
Charming. “I brought you dinner?”
“No.”
Starlight sighed. “You’re not going to escape and get to plan your revenge if you starve to death.”
“I’m not going to get to do anything ever again anyway!” shouted Cozy in a voice that probably would’ve been deafening if it hadn’t come through an inch of crystal.
Well, it was more than ‘No.’ “If you let me in, you’ll get to… not starve to death?”
Silence. Slowly, Starlight pushed open the door, salad held in her aura. Cozy was lying in bed. Or, rather, lying on a single pillow atop the bed. She looked… empty. 
Starlight felt a pang. That expression didn’t belong on anypony. No matter what they’d done.
She set the salad on the desk, and looked at the filly, who didn’t acknowledge her entry. “I… assume you’d prefer I leave?” asked Starlight gently. She’d wanted to talk, but…
Cozy didn’t turn. “You can stay. Or you could leave. You’re just going to do what you want, so it doesn’t really matter, does it.”
“That’s not true at all! If you want me to go, I’ll—”
“You’ll what? Leave me here forever?” Cozy finally rolled onto her side to face Starlight. “Please. You’re an alicorn. I’m a filly. You control what happens here, and you want to talk. Why pretend otherwise?”
“Social interaction isn’t about control,” protested Starlight with growing concern. “Yes, I had some things I wanted to say, but I’m not going to make sure that happens if somepony else doesn’t want to hear them. You don’t need to force me to leave for me to leave.”
Cozy looked genuinely confused. “Of course I do. And I can’t. So you—” But she snapped her mouth shut, glaring. “I see what you’re trying to do. It won’t work.”
Starlight closed the door. She would leave, but any insight into Cozy’s thoughts was worth a moment. “What am I trying to do?”
“Please.” There was a hint of the glare she’d grown used to. “Argue with me. Poke at something I clearly care about. Learn more information and use it to manipulate me. The more I talk, the more you win. I wasn’t born yesterday.”
Starlight’s first instinct was to protest. Cozy wasn’t wrong, necessarily—but it wasn’t like that. Starlight wanted to know her to help her, not to control her. 
Is that any different? asked a voice that sounded uncomfortably like her old self. You want her to accept your way of thinking. You want to win. You want her to do what you want, for your own benefit. 
It wasn’t the same! She had Cozy’s best interests at heart—and it wasn’t as if preventing worldwide calamity was a selfish motive anyway.
And isn’t that what we thought? The last time we locked ponies in a room and didn’t let them out until they believed everything we wanted them to?
Starlight resisted the urge to smack herself in the face with a wing, because Cozy was watching, and she didn’t want to give away… Wait. That could work.
Epiphany in hoof, instead of protesting, she simply said, “Yes.”
She was treated to a rare glimpse of a genuinely astonished Cozy Glow. It was adorable. Because what else would it be.
“I want to learn about you so I can help you,” Starlight continued. Cozy opened her mouth to protest. “Which, yes, is a type of manipulation. You’re right.”
Cozy sat up. Starlight hadn’t missed the distrustful, borderline-murderous expression, but after its blank predecessor, it almost made her smile. “Reverse psychology won’t work either, professor,” the filly said suspiciously.
“I know.” Starlight took a seat in the armchair. “So instead, how about a trade? You talk to me—in any way, about anything you want—and I’ll tell you about me.”
It was a gamble. Starlight knew almost nothing about Cozy Glow—nopony did—but she knew she valued information, and she knew she valued control. In her current situation, she had neither. But if Starlight accepted the slight risk that revealing some of her more personal secrets to a marechiavellian foal would entail, perhaps she'd at least know where to begin. Besides, even though she wasn't sure how to apply all of her findings from the day... Well, this had worked on Trixie. 
“That’s not fair,” Cozy noted with annoyance. “You don’t know anything about me. I know you don’t. Even what you’d get out of a conversation would be more valuable to you than anything about you would be to me—plus, I already know the important stuff anyway. Your friend left you, you went crazy and started a cult, you tried to destroy the world with time travel, Twilight took pity on you instead of killing you like anypony smart woulda done, blah blah blah. Blah. So what.”
Starlight placed a mental bet on the odds of the source of most of that information being Trixie. She loved the mare, but a lifetime of travel hadn’t given her the most functional sense of confidentiality. “Sure, you know the broad strokes of it. But do you know what I was thinking?”
After a pause, Cozy realized the question wasn’t rhetorical, and rolled her eyes. “No. Duh.”
“I know what you did,” pointed out Starlight. “And I still don’t know much about you as a pony, or why you did any of it, or what you want. We’re starting off even. If we both talk…”	
“...Whoever makes better use of their information wins,” Cozy said, eyes narrow. 
“Well, I was hoping we could better understand each other and get off on a better hoof…” Starlight trailed off at Cozy’s skeptical raised eyebrow. “Well. Either way. Deal?”
There was a visible struggle on Cozy’s face. But, after a long pause, she giggled. “Golly,” said the filly. “You sure know how to make an evening more interesting. Ramble away, professor. Just don’t be surprised when you bore me to sleep.”
The knowledge that some of Cozy’s mannerisms were apparently genuine tucked away for later, Starlight shifted in her seat, cast her mind back all those years, and took a deep breath. “I grew up in a small town called Sire’s Hollow, far north of here. I have mixed feelings on it now, but, back then, it was the only place I knew, so I didn’t care one way or the other. You’ve probably heard about Sunburst. He was…”