//------------------------------//
// Part 1: Beautiful Summer Sun 
// Story: My Guardian Cozy 
// by Idyll 
//------------------------------//

“Wake up,” says a pegasus mare rocking my shoulder.
 
I could hardly squint to see her. The room turns bright.
 
The standing pegasus yawns. She turns around. Pulling off my blankie with as much focus as she could muster so early in the morning, she bucks me right in the side.
 
My only protection is a Princess-sized t-shirt of a knight chess piece with snipped holes by my wings. My muscles, sore from yesterday and every other day before that, aren’t happy, but they’ve gone numb at this point. I’m too also numb to resist her with any more than a jaw rub as she bites my hair and drags my body off from my cozy nook in the wall to the crystalline floor. I land on my hooves before dropping.
 
“Wake up!” she shouts again, kicking and rolling me with her forelegs. But I’m still too snug between my own feathers to be convinced. The barracks are narrow; you could easily touch both sides at once.
 
That could’ve been the end of it: she leaves, and I would’ve been left to deal with the consequences of later. But no! We look out for each other… mostly to avoid collective punishment, but we do look out. Instead, between the sounds of various other ponies groaning and neighing, I hear the taps of her hooves fade out, pause, and return.
 
Something drips onto my face: two drops a second. Then it starts leaking. Our room is underground, miserable, and cold, and so is this. When a bit of liquid seeps through my lips, my sensitive teeth start to tingle. She starts hosing me completely, aiming for my nostrils, then across my shirt to my nether regions, then back up, drawing circles around my face, back down, making it look as if I had wetted myself. 

She lightly taps another sleeping mare, a unicorn, in her bed, who rolls over, and with a leg dangling, looks at me and starts chuckling all dopey.
 
I stretch my upper body up and snatch the water bottle from her mouth. She dodges my attempts to hit her across her face. I charge my shoulder and toss the half-filled bottle. The pegasus dodges the attacks and sticks out a tongue. But I threw hard. The bottle bounces off the next wall and delivers her a lovely blow.
 
The room watches as I roll back towards my wall. Under my bed are boxes of my things. From a two-thirds-empty jar of foal’s breath, a flower grown near Kirin reserves, suspended in an agent, I pluck out a pedal and eat the thing raw, chewing it into mush before swallowing.
 
As I wait for the Sound of Silence curse to wear off—which the idiot sleeping opposite forces me to inflict on myself every night—I admire myself on the floor. Everything from our ceiling to the wall and below is made of crystal. And we’re responsible for keeping our barracks clean. 

Being pleased with anything you do here was a conflicting when you hated everything Royal so much. But I’m sure once I can secure and enact the finer details of my plan, I’ll be able to laugh all of this off later. Though there couldn’t be a worse job in any period of Equestria than being a royal guard to a spoiled Princess.
 
I’m as close as a pony could get to “knowing your enemies.” There was no use retreading ground with Twilight. So, I got myself a makeover and spent the better part of a year getting myself into this room of frat-house fillies with no manners. My squad, very high up, includes ten ponies including me, all mares, and two reformed changelings—I guess their gender is drone? The ponies are: two unicorns (one crystal, one flesh), six pegasi, and two crystal earth ponies.
 
I once was literally the ghost of a filly haunting her own body, stuck in a limbo with nothing to watch or do but soak in despair and hatred; and I was losing myself.
 
Discord made sure I was conscious. He made sure I could hear. My eyes however were clouded by stony cataracts. But the last sight I saw was of those three smirking, and Discord so happy with himself for coming up with this torment—oh golly, you! You got me. You really did! If we had played along with your plan forever, you would’ve dealt with us all the same; but I guess I passed up my chance at doing the right thing. I should’ve turned my filly back on you guys: all-powerful Grogar and the only two creatures who cared, and cried all the way to Twilight Sparkles. Perhaps she would’ve rewarded me with a pillow and an extra inch of ceiling space in my new tighter, lonelier cage in Tartarus. 

And all because I said the truth that Friend is Power to her one—her one—question. That made me hopeless. A lost cause. That’s how she treats her right-hoof filly? Whatever. She wouldn’t have helped me anyways. I have no regrets other than not destroying her when I had the chance.
 
Back to the reflective floor. I saw myself: white coat; silver, straight, glittery, mane (and a bit bedheaded); and red eyes. Chrysalis hated the idea of me coming here, calling it a “convoluted suicide,” a “pathetic fantasy” of mine, and a “deplorable plan only a pony could conjure.” But at least she didn’t disfigure me. I still look adorable. Not as adorable as Cozy Glow, but prettier than everycreature here, that’s for sure!
 
My cutie mark is a boring old dagger pointing downwards to show I’m ‘tuff. Chrysalis refused to transfigure me a chess-related cutie mark, “None of my disguises are that on the muzzle,” so I had to go with this poetry that shouts: “backstabber.” At least I got this shirt. And don’t worry. This disguise doesn’t need me to wear an enchanted bow or chug a potion every hour. Every cell that makes up my skin, coat, eyes, bow, tail, feathers, mane, and bones has been altered. It’ll take a routine of magic and chemicals four times a day over a week to rekindle my old colors. She even nudged my face bones a skosh. But my cheeks are still as bubbly as ever! As I’m constantly reminded by—
 
Biting water hits my withers and the edges of my mane. Great. Now the unicorn’s joined.
 
“I’m awake!” I yell. Her eyelids and body flinches and she casts a shield. The room starts to clap. “Go to Tartarus! All of you!”
 
Maybe this is why they love waking me. 

No pony nice has ever heard a non-filly Cozy, and it’s been ten years since I’ve had to breathe again, so all I had to do was cut out my “golly-ness.” So basically, turn it into a boring, basic, and bland baby of itself. Piece of cake mostly, though I really gotta remember who I am and how to breath 4-7-8 whenever my temper gets tested.
 
Poorly-acted dramas of fear and heartbreak line my path out of the room. A few of my fellow guards are too tired to taunt, so they merely watch, amused.
 
The last pony to the exit, another pegasus mare, slaps me on the rear. 

“You woke me, grumpy,” she says, legs still curled under her blanket. While staring at her, I use a hind leg to topple over a stack of a stack of comics under her bed. “Oh, real mature,” she says. It takes her a few seconds to figure out why I took two steps back. Drip, drip, drip. I squeeze the bottom of my shirt like an udder.
 
“Hey!” she shouts.
 
I use a flap of my wings to dodge her grab—she catches herself on the wet floor—and I exit the room.
 
Good gosh, do I always forget what air smells like! That room is always a den of musk: sweat, pine oil, and baby-power. The baby powder isn’t working. And the ventilation is almost always broken; but either way, it’s cold, so the sweating thing remains a mystery. Freezing temperatures aren’t a problem for a pegasus pony such as myself, but you could tell when others were awake and it's never not awkward, at least when you don’t drop dead from exhaustion.
 
The clock in between the “hallway”—more of a tunnel—reads five o’ four. How I love the summer! Today is a Saturday too. As long as “my Princess” is awake, I have to be awake, which speaks for itself, really. Hardly any other squads know this issue. 

Twilight will raise the Sun in about thirty minutes. 
 
Most of the other barracks are still sound asleep, so the showers mostly have just our group.
 
I look around before flying up to a vent. Inside are a bunch of toiletry bags. I grab mine. Flurry Heart’s a rude and bossy boss, though Shining is my real boss. She would beat me, berate me, and parade my useless position—but I have better things to do than practice Them’s Fightin’ Herds. Like: clean her bedroom, wardrobe (bigger than our barrack, by the way), and bathroom because “I trust you,” “I don’t want all of Equestria sniffing through my stuff,” “You don’t have to do it, but if you brush my back I’ll brush—” Oh, shut up! At least I get to steal a few of things. There’s a spectrum of soap bars on a shelf next to her bathtub, from red wine to cucumber & tea. Of course, I “redistributed” a few to myself. Pony coats need care, after all, especially white ones. As her guard, she should bear some responsibility in making sure I have what I need to look after myself.
 
The water from the showers is…
 
I buck the wall. The dangling luminescent crystals shake.
 
“Woah,” says one of the two changelings from my group. They’re mostly used as decoys during diplomatic visits and as comfort for Flurry who was and still is close to Thorax.
 
“Don’t you ‘woah’ me. Have you all just been standing around here without heating?”
 
There’s a pause before I heard a half-blocked chuckle whistling in his throat. “You’re really mad.”
 
“Yeah, because Princess F.H. has us waking up at five AM! I bet a thousand bits she won’t be up before nine.” I abuse the shower button, waiting for the heaters to turn on. “Seems I’ll also need a stronger potion if you’re sticking your nosy muzzle in my heart and reading my most personal private feelings!”
 
Emotional deodorant was a Pony invention made a century after the “sparkly-eyed pegasus” tribe got drained to extinction by my dearest friend Chryssie. It’s optional for royal guards now, but I choose to wear it after Pharynx said I smelled like a psychopath. Not many drones have seen enough sides of Cozy Glow back when she was a filly to suss me out, and they can’t know purely from petrification because I’ve been told that alters the smell—if it wasn’t already drowned out by our combined rightful anger. But better safe than have situations like this:
 
“Spraying your chest won’t do much if bucking the wall,” he says. “I mean, it’s obvious you’re mad. Also funny. A pinch of bitter. Spicy.”
 
“What do you know?” I continue spraying, feeling a brief but deep tightness everywhere as my body absorbed the potion. That should last me for a few days. “We’re working on a Saturday and they can’t even give us warm water?”
 
“It is five AM,” says the changeling.
 
“Doesn’t matter.” There isn’t enough time to kick down the mechanic’s door and grab and drag his flank all the way here. So, I take a mental note of this and enter my frozen stream of water. 

I’m a pegasus pony. Our cities are tens of degrees colder than grounded villages. A lack of warmth is only an insult. A few drops of shampoo on my mane and tail—which isn’t Flurry’s because her hair is like steel wool and irritates my scalp red—and I start scrubbing. The slight glitter to my hair is my disguise's only bedazzling feature.
 
The changeling places a hoof into my stream of water and recoils. At least in their default form, they aren’t the best at keeping warm. Their bodies could produce their own antifreeze, sure, but at the expense of wanting to hibernate. “Maybe you’re right about the water, Softz,” says the changeling, before transforming into a copy of me, without permission, pirating my coat and feathers. 
 
“Softz” is my nickname. A pony’s name says a lot about their calling. Applebloom comes at an apple farm. Scootaloo rides a scooter last I saw her… I guess Sweetie Belle is sweet. 

Since I really needed this gig, I had to choose something that would say—and reaffirm to Chrysalis—that I was a royal suck-up, who’d have no meaning if she couldn’t live her “purpose.” And I couldn’t pick “Guardian Angel” because that’s the name of the mare who dragged my harmless filly self to Tartarus! I still remember all their names… So “Silver Seraph” was what I chose, matching with the hair and the high-ranking winged pony serving a powerful being—but unless they’re desperate for my help, nocreature call me that! They call me “Soft,” “Softz” “Softie,” etc., or “Cherub,” or “Cheubz,” because I’m, “shorter, lower-ranking, and have too much of a baby face” to “seriously” be called Seraph. Awful nickname. It grates my ears when they say it, but that’s probably the point with these idiots.
 
Even Cadance had stuttered nearly calling me that a few times. Now she says my name with so much articulation that I always expect her to add: “If that is your real name” to the end of her sentence. It isn’t, but neither is Cozy Glow.
 
After also rubbing my body with soap and rinsing, I notice the reluctance of the pegasus pony, whose comics I had soiled, standing next to me. She turns towards me, holding a standard-issued brush for clearing the fuzz off our coat. Then she trips me and I slip on my own soapy water. "Whoops." While I’m down, she dates to ask, “Hey, uh, Seraph...do you wanna… uh, groom each other?”
 
I get up, growling at her, go to wrap Flurry’s towel around myself, and hide my bag back into the vents. The need to be condescending is burning in my throat, but to be frank, brushing your own flank is like cutting your own mane. You could easily reach, but it’s awkward, and hardly quick or thorough. So I just say, “I’m not doing it,” and leave. Pegasi genetically have a pretty bad fuzz situation, but at least we move around a lot.
 
The cafeteria is closed. Their meals usually tasted like papier-mâché anyways. All that is here to eat right now are energy bars, packets of chips, and cup noodles from a few vending machines, one of which loved to scam. There is a shared kettle in our barrack, but I want to spoil myself, not burn my tongue with kirin-dragon spices. 

I go upstairs to the first level of the building. The security ponies live on take-out and coffee and nap under blue fluorescent lights. The ones below are warmer thanks to decay. Casting only a glance, they unlock the gates. 

Twilight hadn’t yet raised the Sun.
 
Our building isn’t attached to the four legs of the Crystal Castle, but it stands right across and is linked underground by the series of tunnels and chambers where I slept and bathed. If the crystal heart were to shatter, we’d have some protection. If only they could actually keep the heating fixed. The nicest thing about this station is a nearby park. Crystal apple trees shade benches where senile ponies would sit and watch their grandfoals play with the critters. A bit unproductive. 

Passing by me as I walk down the streets are joggers. They would do a half-salute. My wings would autonomously wave back; I was born too polite.
 
Every day, a coffee truck would park in front of this park. This is my favorite crystal pony. He's serving a jogger and brewing the order of a front-counter guard from our station when he greets me. “Good morning, Seraph.”
 
“See you’re not allowed to sleep, either,” I reply. “Morning to you too! Just my usual pastry.”
 
“Can I—”
 
“NO! I don’t want a coffee.” Coffee isn’t my thing. Chrysalis loves it despite it being, I’m pretty sure, poisonous to bugs. All I want from this stallion are his warm and not-too-crunchy strawberry puffs. My poor tummy aches for freshly baked confections, not microwaved rations. For a young mare without expenses or a leaching family, my pay still doesn’t make up for the hours and pain I sacrifice for the creatures I despise. But at least I can afford whatever treat I want from this menu. But I can’t save them because my loser bunkies keep eating my stuff!
 
“Here you go.” The stallion slides me a white paper bag.
 
I tell him, “Keep the change.”
 
I release my wings and do a few stretches before taking flight.
 
Based on the shop lights and steam of the train chugging in from the snowy horizon, I could tell it’s around half past five; I must be quick about this. The ground within the Crystal Heart’s reach is as clear as could be. The skies inside had a mild scattering of light clouds. I circle around one loose collection to craft a bean-shaped chair. My body sinks as I lean myself back, hind legs dangling over the edge.
 
And no, I’m of average pegasi weight and height, so I won’t be letting off the parties. This is my one pleasure. The temperatures up here are perfect for a pegasi. 

The ground is a study web of streetlamps and a drizzling constellation of homes resembling salt lamps. Schools have broken up for the summer holidays. Many ponies are planning to travel this season.
 
Don’t worry, Flurry doesn’t even know how to buy a ticket. Not for anything. When she does use public transport, she gets her own carriage, if not the whole vehicle. She’ll never be affected by the surge of commuters too much. At most, she’ll whine about the places being crowded. Many creatures means many adoring fans. That leaves me with two extra problems: I have to shoo away the crowds of colts and fillies and foal-adults wearing creepy t-shirts of her face, and I have to console the Princess herself.
 
“You don’t know what it’s like to be so worshiped and adored”, she once said. “You can’t announce your plans to anypony or else the paparazzi will hunt you down. You can’t even sneeze in public, or they’ll use your photo in an article about hay season—with a really ugly face by the way. But that’s not as bad as the constant praising and worshiping of the ground you walk on. I chuckled at a school filly’s painting once and the media reported that she tossed herself off a cliff! I mean, she was a pegasus, but still! It’s so much pressure…”
 
Yes, yes, Flurry. “Let it all out,” I replied. “Please blabber on about how just awful your life is! You’re right: I have no idea what it’s like to be so loved. I’m afraid my advice could come across a teensy bit shallow. Why don’t I pull you home in your golden-laced carriage and ask your personal chef to brew you a feel-better cocoa? I could call up the directors of some Applewood studio and book you a premier to an unreleased movie? Or I could fly to the store and decree that they hoof over that new gaming gizmo box with the virtual-reality goggles and pack it with a game on pre-order? Or you go to bed early for once, on the bed that I made, and if so, I’ll herd some clouds over to make it rain over the whole Empire so that you can fall asleep to the soothing drip of droplets against your ceiling-spanning windows!”
 
I never said that. Well, I did, but less passive-aggressively. Only out of necessity.
 
Sun’s still not up. I gobble up the rest of my breakfast and brush the crumbs off my belly. As I spin my cloud chair, feeling each second of freedom before I'm forced to serve Your Highness, I stop and notice Cadance and Shining’s bedroom windows are lit. No surprises there; those two actually have jobs, even if Saturdays are half-days. I also spot, down below, Shining Armor himself—jogging. 

Oh golly, curse my perfect vision. Popping in and out to me as he passes under the streetlamps, I could see what he’s wearing: a tight pair of fruity blue shorts that had a slit for his tail with a white tank top and sweatbands.
 
“Idiot,” I mutter, tossing up and down a crumpled-up ball of my pastry bag.
 
A creature behind me gasps.
 
There are crystal earth ponies, and there are crystal unicorns: a rare tribe, mostly fitting as nobles due to a preference Sombra had—gee, I wonder why? But there aren’t that many crystal pegasi. Besides tourists, ninety percent of fliers here work for the Crystal Government, yet still, they’re the tribe most in demand. Me and my pegasi guard “friends” had all been trained by Canterlot. And if you were to be fired, you’d be sent back to Gallus who’ll decide whether to cancel your five-year-long contract or have you posted to some less-than-desirable location. No, not the Griffon embassy! Please, Captain, I’m used to Tartarus; send me there instead! Though I’d really prefer the Sombra treatment.
 
I clear my throat and spin around. “P-Princess?!”
 
Flurry Heart is standing on a cloud, still in her jammies: sky-blue with a queen chess piece and white edges: separate shirt, and trousers. No hat, and she has bedhead. Her height is near Cadance’s, enough for her to be able to rest her chin on my head, and ponies had big heads. Her mouth is agape and her eyes are wide open.
 
“P-Princess Flurry Heart?” I say. “You’re… up so early. I would’ve thought it was Hearth’s Warming Day. He-he…”
 
“Don’t try to change the subject,” she says, disappointed. “Did you call my dad an idiot?” She has... sharp eyes. And she turns away. “I thought you were better than that…”
 
“I was thinking of somepony else. I was—”
 
Her expression makes me check my hooves to see if I had somehow turned coral. Nope, all’s good. I’m not Cozy. She’s only mad at me.
 
“Were you thinking of me?!” she asks, stepping closer and closer until my wings enter hovering mode, piercing and killing my poor chair. “How could you, you stone-hearted…”
 
“...Princess, I…”
 
Flurry starts to chuckle. “I’m kidding! You could tell I was kidding, right?'' She pushes one side of my collarbone, softly to her, which is pretty hard. “You really gotta lighten up! Why so serious?” she says in a psychotic, nasally voice. “It’s the beginning of summer!”
 
“Pff! Of course I knew you were joking.” I cross my upper legs.
 
“Uh, no, you didn't,” she says matter-of-factly. “Your eyes were like—Oh Frolicking Flurrryyyyy!” Her eyelids are magically pulled backwards to mock my alleged dinner plates. Then she starts to rub her eyelids’ lower sides.
 
“No—no!” I say. “My eyes were only ‘oh frolicking Flurry’ because I couldn’t help but notice yours look bloodshot. Is it allergies? What happened to the eye drops the nurses gave you?”
 
Flurry took a few sniffles. Then she starts to inhale erratically: warning signs of impending doom—her sneezes. I flew a reasonable hoofball-field’s length away.
 
But she teleports behind me, still sucking up air—before making a fake “achoo!”
 
Flurry chuckles. “Come on! Just because I sneeze doesn’t mean I’m gonna blow a hole into the ceiling. I’m not that bad at controlling my magic anymore.”
 
“...When you were feeling really sick two weeks ago, you—”
 
“Well, yeah, but that’s Blu Flu,” she defends, “not allergies! Come on—” She levitates over a cloud for me to stand on and grabs my wing. “Makes me sneeze. I can prove it!”
 
“...Nah.”
 
“You can trust me! ...Sorry.” Flurry lets go of my wing. “But you can’t say my horn’s a loose cannon unless you do! Okay?”
 
“Sure thing, Princess.” I salute her. “So, about your eye drops?”
 
“Oh, thaaaat—yeah, I kept closing my eyelids as it dropped, or it would hit my muzzle, and—can you help me out?”
 
“...Sure...” I’m used to these sorts of jobs by now. “Just don’t tell your father I called him an idiot.”
 
“Oh, so you were referring to him?” Flurry looks so smug.
 
“You knew, I was. He looks silly in those shorts.”
 
“You’re giving me so much blackmail to use against you, Softie,” Flurry says.
 
“I thought we agreed on mutually assured destruction?” I retort. “We wouldn’t want me to spill all of the many juicy secrets I have on you, now would we?”
 
And I had lots to share, first with her parents, then her Alicorn aunts, then the press; in the opposite of that order and in loops—if need be. Screw our leader—one of our two hornhead—I’m the one she whines to about anything the most! Hey, can you tell Mom I accidentally shattered her caretaker’s old mug? Can you check if this part of my body looks normal? Hey Seraph, please don’t tell anypony, but, uhm, my bathroom’s “throne” is a… I don’t know how to fix it... Ugh, fine! At least it’s not a bucket in a cage.
 
Flurry lies and says, “Hah! I don’t care about ponies knowing that stuff about me.”
 
“Sure, Princess.” Another example of our stalemate: the Princess wants me to call her “Flurry”; I want her to call me Silver or Seraph. She calls me neither unless she’s desperate and needs my help. I call her Princess unless I’m commanding her to help me do the thing she wants me to do. Not the most potent insult when you’re an actual Princess—and the first innate Alicorn born since Equestria’s founding at that—but at least I can win over an eye roll when I really stress the word. “I’m sure you don’t, Princesssss.”
 
“Can you just help me out or not?” Flurry asks.
 
“Of course, of course,” I say. “That’s why I vowed to you and sanctified, isn’t it? Can I just go get my armor first before your whimsical dad yells at me?”
 
“Oh, don’t worry about that!” She dismisses my very real concerns with a wave of her hoof. “Won’t you help a Princess out first? Or at least a friend?”
 
“...You better defend me,” I say. “And don’t you struggle too much! Okay, Princess?”
 
“I won’t!” she assures as we both spread our wings and glide to her bedroom balcony. “Besides, this is your job. It’s fulfilling! Isn’t that what jobs are for?”
 
“What do you know about jobs?” I say to her face.
 
She struggled.