Diary of Cozy Glow
It wasn’t long until Aurora had been inducted into the army and made my personal lieutenant. This allowed us to spend a lot of time together in my private quarters, talking about our past, our present and our future. It didn’t take long before the subject of the time I spent in stone came up, I told her she couldn’t possibly understand what it was like being frozen in time, unable to move trapped with only your thoughts for company, she just told me:
“Trust me, I can, I was a tree, remember.”
I didn’t even consider that at first, but now that I thought about it, what she went through seemed rather similar. Except she was trapped for an even longer time in conditions that were even worse. For a moment I felt bad to complaining about my fate, when she had been stuck in literal hell. But she just told me to not worry and that she would be here for me from now on, I told her:
“I will never allow something to happen to you ever again, I will never abandon you again Aurora.”
It was at that point the alarm sounded, guards rushing into my chambers to inform me about the situation. It seemed like we had reports about ponies, seemingly up to no good, entering the sewers under Vil. Ponies who didn’t seem like the usual criminal types. I decided to investigate this issue in person. Gathering together a small squad consisting of me, Aurora, Sunset, the newly reanimated Silverwing, Darkmoon, as well as a small group of guards.
As we reached the location where the report indicated, we saw a closed sewer grate, hidden from plain sight from the ponies walking down the street by a pile of barrels from a nearby inn. Upon further inspection the sewer grate seemed like it had opened recently. We decided to go in through the grate in search of the intruders. As soon as we dropped into the darkness, we could hear a “Psst” coming from the tunnel behind us, I turned around with lightning speed, ordering the guards to detain whoever it was, only to see a young unicorn foal with a ragged brown coat standing behind us. He introduced himself as Quickhorn, an orphan who lived on the streets. He said he had seen something, but he expected a reward in turn for his information. I smiled and hooved him a gold coin, probably more than this orphan ever seen in his life. Quickhorn smiled and told me he had seen a group of strange ponies with cloaks that completely covered their bodies enter through this very grate and made their way towards the palace, following the stream of sewer water. I told the guards to let him go and hooved him another gold coin. He thanked me with tears in his eyes. Sunset and Aurora smiled at me. Sunset especially seemed proud. I considered it nothing special, I have been a poor orphan once upon a time, so I could empathize with their plight.
After following up the stream for another hundred feet or so, we could see iron security gate that used to block the passageway, but it had been cut and pulls to one side. We rounded the corner and 40 feet or so to the north was another grate with a small group of ponies gathered around it. I could hear screaming and shouting coming from the palace gardens on the other sides of the grate. A group of robed ponies with metal showing from under their robes blocked our path to the gardens in order prevent us from interfering with whatever was happening there. Aurora quickly mixed vials of different chemicals she was carrying together and threw that vial at the clockwork soldiers, it exploded the moment it made contact with one of the soldiers faces, taking him and several other soldiers out of commission. Aurora shouting “Boom” as the explosives went off. The clockwork soldiers not taken out by the blast ran for their lives. Allowing us access to the palace gardens.
When we arrived in the gardens, a ghastly sight awaited us, the guards were busy fighting clockwork soldiers while King Shining Horn and his Queen lied motionless upon the ground, if they were not dead yet they soon would be. Standing over the bodies of the two monarchs were two shadowy figures, one a clockwork pony draped in a cloak, the other an all too familiar changeling, Cipher. As the two figures blocked our path to the King and Queen, I gave an order to Darkmoon and Silverwing to engage the Clockwork assassin, while I, Sunset and Aurora focused on taking down Cipher. Fortunately, it seemed like Cipher was reluctant to engage all three of us directly, vanishing from sight in a manner that could only be the result of an invisibility spell. Together with the other assassin.
Seeing an opportunity, Aurora moved to the King to determine if he was still alive. Aurora confirmed that he was, but that he was both severely wounded and under the effects of a powerful poison. Aurora fortunately had an antidote that worked against most poisons in her satchel. When the antidote had been administered, Sunset put her glowing horn on the Kings’ wounds to heal him. Aurora confirmed that the King’s life was no longer at risk, but that he would remain unconscious for a while recovering.
It was at this point a shadowy figure appeared behind me, barely giving me time to react before plunging his dagger into my back, I could already feel the poison the dagger was coated in spread through my system. Cipher laughed maniacally:
“You may have escaped death during our last encounter, Cozy Glow, but this time I will make sure you will not escape alive. Prince Swift Blade deems you the biggest threat to our conquest of Taralos, and I tend to agree.”
Aurora saw that I was in danger, but during this exact moment Darkmoon, who was in the process of checking up on the Queen, yelled at her that the Queen needed an antidote as well, Darkmoon being unable to provide an antidote, even if his necromancy was more than enough to heal her physical wounds. Hesitating for only a moment, Aurora chose to come to my aid, she was always a good friend. But I dreaded the potential consequences to Taralos if Shining Horn lost his Queen. On the other hoof, it would open the door for me to become his new partner, to rule Taralos by his side.
Aurora threw a bomb with a small blast radius at Cipher, so that it didn’t risk catching me in the blast as well, hitting one of multiple illusionary mirror images that surrounded him, which making it very hard to tell which one was real and which one was an illusion. At that very moment, the other assassin emerged from the shadows, engaging some kind of device that spit-out multiple throwing stars and shooting them at Aurora, wounding her and presumably poisoning her as well.
“Why are you doing this? Why did you align with him?”
I shouted at Cipher, getting only enough time to hear his reply before I passed out from a combination of blood loss and poison.
“My kin, the doppelgangers have always been treated like pariahs within Taralos, because of our association with the Hive Queen, the goddess of insects. Swift Blade promised to change that, creating a new home both for my kind and for the Clockwork ponies.”
After I didn’t know how long, I regained consciousness and found Sunset standing over me with a glowing horn, my wounds healed. I surveyed the battlefield trying to assess the situation, Aurora seemed like she was safe for now, Darkmoon having summoned multiple skeletal ponies around her to protect her from the assassin’s shuriken. Cipher was still only a few feet behind me, but busy fighting off Silverwing, who seemed to have immediately rushed to my aid. The skeletal griffin, animated by the magic of Darkmoon made blow after blow against Cipher, hitting only a mirror image each time. But Cipher realized he was in a losing battle and decided to use an invisibility spell to vanish once again. It was fortunate that most common invisibility spells didn’t allow you to stay invisible while attacking, forcing him to reveal himself when he wanted to strike. But he could still strike anywhere, which was the reason I tried to make sure that if he appeared behind me again, I would be ready. Darkmoon reminded Aurora about administering the antidote to the Queen and ordered the skeletons around Aurora to protect the King, as well as summoning more skeletons around the Queen to protect her.
Silverwing decided to guard me from that point onward, trying to make sure Cipher couldn’t get to me with another sneak attack. That effort was in vain as despite Silverwing’s best efforts, Cipher once again appeared behind me and struck twice. I felt a fierce pain in my back, but I fought through the pain. Aurora once again chose to protect me over the Queen and attempted to throw a bomb at Cipher, narrowly missing him, before the other assassin appeared behind Aurora and struck her down. I screamed at Cipher, lacing every word with harmful enchantments.
“You will pay for this Cipher.”
The enchantment in these words seemed to take Cipher aback for just a moment, which allowed Silverwing to land a hit, not on a mirror image, but Cipher himself, coating the ground with green bug blood. At this point Darkmoon turned his attention towards Cipher and uttered an incantation, a dark spell that caused Cipher’s carapace to age and rot in the matter of seconds. Cipher screamed before looking around, the palace guards had managed to overwhelm the clockwork interlopers and were now surrounding the two assassins, we managed to distract them from long enough. Probably deciding he was fighting a losing battle, Cipher, as well as the other assassin cast yet another invisibility spell, this time disappearing for good. Probably using the invisibility to safely escape the palace garden and flee back to Swift Blade to report their failure, the King was safe. As for the Queen, her faith was far less certain. I also wasn’t feeling too good and collapsed moments after the fighting stopped.
I spent quite a lot of time in a hospital bed the following days while Aurora treated both me and the Queen for poison. I was glad that Aurora was able to survive they wounds she obtained during the battle, telling me that after Sunset and Darkmoon had healed her, that she administered an antidote on herself. It was lucky that she managed to stop the poison affecting both the King and herself in the early stages. With me and Queen Morning Rose, our fate was far more precarious as the poison was given a longer time to wreak havoc. But with great effort from Aurora, both my life and the life of the Queen were spared. During our stay in the hospital, Aurora was visited by Princess Scarlet Lance, who scolded her for taking so long to save the Queen. Aurora telling her that she regretted nothing, as without her assistance, I would have perished, and she prioritized the life of a close friend, over that of even the Queen. Scarlet Lance admitting that I was also a vital military target and therefore was saving, but that if it had come to pass that her brothers child had to grow up without a mother, that she would forever hold Aurora responsible for her failure to save her.
During the long hours of our hospital stay, I spent quite a bit of time talking to Queen Morning Rose, a unicorn with a white coat and a mark of destiny depicting a red rose. She was a gentle soul, not one for fighting and warfare, preferring instead to spend her time tending to the garden, as gardenin was her special talent. In that, she was truly like King Shining Horn, who also abhorred conflict and warfare. Yet despite all of that, Morning Rose told me she was grateful for the efforts of both me and my knights in protecting the kingdom, as without us, Taralos would have surely fallen to Shining Horn’s treacherous uncle by now. After all, someone had to do all that fighting so that the people of Taralos could live peaceful lives in the future, after the war was over. Yet, there was something that Cipher had told me that was bugging me. He claimed that Swift Blade wanted to claim the throne to provide a home to the Clockwork ponies and the doppelgangers, was this the truth? Did our enemy really have good intentions? Or was it just something that he told his followers so that they would help him claim the throne? Whatever the case, Shining Horn was a good king and more importantly, a friend. Therefore, I would stand by him in this fight, no matter if we were the good guys or not.
After both me and Morning Rose were released from the hospital wing. Rumors had already spread across Vil about the attempted assassination, and the role of me and my knights in thwarting it. I once again took the opportunity to take a walk around the city, surrounded by guards of course, in order to bask in the adoration of the people. I truly loved being a hero, if only I had realized that sooner. Maybe I could’ve saved myself, and others, a lot of grief.