//------------------------------// // The Secrets They Kept Long // Story: Legends Never Die: Friendship is Magic // by bookhorse125 //------------------------------// Cozy Glow stood in front of the School of Friendship, her eyes shut, her lips pressed tight together in a thin line, trying not to listen to the voices screaming in her head. Traitor! Liar! Coward! “Stop,” she whispered to herself in a broken voice. She took a deep breath and opened her eyes. The massive building was in such disrepair that it was almost unrecognizable, but Cozy could easily trace out the shape of the school from memory - hard, painful memory. She took a deep breath and reached out a shaking hoof and placed it on the door. Immediately, a wave of memories swamped her, and Cozy stumbled backwards as the images flashed behind her eyes, the emotions raged through her in a rushing torrent, ten times more painful than she ever remembered them being. She saw her friends, she saw the Cutie Mark Crusaders; she saw Smolder, Gallus, Sandbar, Yonna, Silverstream, Ocellus; she saw Starlight Glimmer trapped in a magical orb; she saw the enraged, and then heartbroken look on Twilight’s face as she returned from Tartarus after discovering everything Cozy had done; she remembered the furious looks on all of the students’ faces as they realized she had betrayed them; she saw the stone-cold faces of the guards who carried her off to Tartarus and left her there with all the nightmares and the screams and the endless endless terror- Coward! Traitor! Liar! “No,” Cozy muttered, shaking her head, trying to clear her mind. “No no no no no….” No one loves you! No one cares for you! No one will ever forgive you! Your parents abandoned you. Your friends left you. Your mentors turned on you. Who will ever give you a second chance? No one. “Please,” Cozy cried, tears sliding down her cheeks now, “please, please stop!” The voices didn’t stop. They screamed louder. The memories came back sharper. Cozy could feel her hooves betraying her as they took step after step back, away from the door. But she couldn’t waste any more time; she had to get inside. There was something she needed in there, something that Sunny needed in there, and there was no one else in all of Equestria who knew what or where it was. I have to do this. For Sunny. Cozy Glow gritted her teeth. She stopped in her tracks, and she forced one of her hooves to take a step forward. Go back! Traitor! Liar! “I am not,” Cozy muttered under her breath. “Not anymore.” She took another step forward. Her hooves were more sure now, not shaking as much. She took another one. The door was right in front of her. Cozy took a deep breath, and, her eyes burning with determination, she placed her hoof on the door. She fought through the pain and the memories and the screaming voices. And she pushed the door open. The door creaked as it swung on its hinges, letting daylight into the hall for the first time in a century. It was silent and dark, but as soon as Cozy saw the inside of the hall a splitting pain pierced her mind, and she collapsed with a cry of pain. Liar! Coward! Traitor! Please! she cried. Please stop! “I can’t,” she sobbed, her head in her hooves. “I can’t…” I can’t give up. Cozy swallowed another sob and tried to push herself to her hooves through the blinding pain in her head. She felt dizzy, like she might pass out, but she took another step forward. And another. And another. With every step, the voices screamed louder and louder, until Cozy felt like she was floating outside of herself, and the only thought she could consciously make was Just one more step. Just one more step. Just one… more… step… Traitor! Coward! Liar! “I am NOT!” Cozy Glow screamed, and she felt like she was screaming the words that she had needed to say for months - for years - the words she had shouted from the very depths of her heart even as her limbs had solidified into stone, that she had wanted to say ever since her very first lie. “I am NOT that ANYMORE!” A strong wind tore through the room, and Cozy Glow felt it tugging at her, pulling her forward, and suddenly the voices went silent, the splitting pain in her head vanished, and she was free. Cozy nearly collapsed, but caught herself, breathing heavily from the struggle. She shut her eyes and carefully took deep breaths, bringing her pounding heartbeat back down to normal. A gentle breeze ruffled her mane, blowing in gently through the open door. Cozy lay there for a while, against the dusty carpet, surrounded by the ruins of her former school, until she found the strength to stand up again. She took a deep breath, preparing herself, and she opened her eyes, letting it back out again. It was just as she had remembered, only darker, dustier, more ancient. But the busts of all of the Pillars of Equestria were still in their places. A wooden podium was set up on the raised dais at the end of the room. The darkened hallways stretched out to the dorms and classrooms, just as they always had. If Cozy shut her eyes and concentrated, she could still hear the bustle of when the school had been busy and full of life, as it should be. She felt a wave of sadness as she remembered how much this place had meant to Twilight, and she wondered if it could ever reclaim its former glory. Cozy Glow trotted through the building, finding her way without trying much, until she reached the library. The shelves were emptier than she remembered them, and the books were far from good condition. But there were still so many memories packed into this single room, and Cozy could feel herself slipping away again. Her hooves subconsciously found their way to a golden grate at the back of the room, underneath which pulsed a faint light. “Focus, Cozy,” she whispered to herself, shaking her head to clear away the fog. She turned and found the bookshelf she was looking for. Along the bottom was a loose board, but it had been nailed back into place since Cozy had been at school. Even so, one hundred years had not been kind to the library, and the nails were rusted and easily gave way when Cozy tugged on it. Hidden in the shadows and the cobwebs and the dust was an old book, which had been spared most of the trials of time. Cozy reached back for it and pulled it out, feeling a conflicting torrent of emotions. This book had been her downfall, but maybe it could be of some use now. Ancient Magic Artifacts and Their Uses. The title was embossed on the leather cover in gold, and the letters sparkled as Cozy brushed away the dust. The book had belonged to Twilight Sparkle. She had used it for one of her lessons, and then asked Cozy Glow to take it back to the library for her. Cozy had readily agreed, but upon entering the room in which she now sat, Cozy had hidden it beneath this bookshelf, knowing that she would need the knowledge it contained in order to drain all the magic from Equestria. She had wondered, those long nights trapped in Tartarus, if it had ever been found. Apparently it hadn’t. Cozy sat back on her hind legs and opened the book, flipping through the pages until she found what she was looking for. “Magic circles,” she muttered to herself, quickly scanning the page. “Maybe this could help Sunny…” She read on, not knowing that, over one hundred years ago, Sunny Starscout was running beneath the very same room. “Twilight!” Sunny winced as another rumble came from above, causing dust to shake from the ceiling. She burst out of the tunnel and galloped down the stairs and through the tent city that had been set up beneath the School of Friendship. Ponies and creatures alike turned to stare at her as she ran between tents, not even taking the time to slow down and apologize to anyone she nearly trampled. Twilight Sparkle poked her head out of the largest tent in the center and locked gazes with the earth pony galloping madly toward her. “Sunny?” Sunny skidded to a halt, breathing heavily. “The… wolves… they’re… coming,” she gasped, gesturing vaguely to the ceiling. Another shake. More dust rained from above, and all the creatures gathered around them started screaming and running back to their tents. Twilight’s friends joined the only two ponies who weren’t panicking outside the tent. “What’s going on?” Fluttershy asked, looking nervous. “Sunny says the wolves are coming,” Twilight said in a serious voice. She studied Sunny for a moment as she nodded frantically. “We have to find a way to protect everypony-” “How? We can’t fight those things!” Rainbow Dash cried over the tumultuous sound of the surrounding pandamonium. “We’ve tried! Only the Tree of Harmony’s magic down here protects us!” “Well we have to do something!” Sunny shot back, her temper suddenly flaring. “You ponies have faced hard things like this before, and you’ve always succeeded! You can’t back down now. These ponies and creatures need your help!” She waved a hoof at the chaos surrounding them. “If you won’t at least try and fight, then you might as well just hand yourselves over already! But as long as you have each other, there is nothing you guys can’t handle. I know you can do it!” She decided not include the fact that the Spirit of Harmony had told her that only Sunny would be able to defeat the wolves in her inspiring speech. Rainbow Dash, Applejack, Pinkie Pie, Rarity, Fluttershy, Spike, and Starlight Glimmer all adopted identical determined expressions, and they all split off to try and quell the chaos and calm everycreature down. Twilight was staring at Sunny with a strange expression, as if she was looking at something familiar. More dust trickled down from the ceiling, and both mares looked up. “Come on,” Twilight said to Sunny before she led her through the maze of tents, her friends joining them as they went. Starlight and Spike stayed behind to try and organize the mass of survivors and keep them from panicking anymore. “Come on, everycreature,” Starlight was saying calmly to a group of young creatures, “it’s going to be okay. Don’t be afraid, everything’s going to be alright. Just stick together, and we’ll all be fine.” “So how did you find out that the wolves were coming?” Applejack asked as they ran. Her country accent sounded strangely familiar to Sunny, but she couldn’t figure out where she had heard it before. “Uh… no time! I’ll tell you later!” Sunny stammered as Twilight spread her wings and flew up to the grate and used her magic to levitate it open. One by one, the ponies pulled their way out and shut the grate behind them, Sunny avoiding Applejack’s suspicious looks as they did so. She was glad when Twilight nodded seriously, turned, and led the group out of the room. Twilight dashed into the entrance hall, her friends right behind her, then turned and pushed the doors open as she ran through them and flew over the lake at the front of the school, not stopping until she stood in front of her gleaming castle, facing the main street of Ponyville. Her friends organized behind her, all except for Sunny, who was a little slow in joining them, because she kept stopping to gape. Sunny had only ever seen Ponyville and Twilight’s castle in her time, which meant that they were decrepit and ruined, with the forest slowly reclaiming them as their own. Twilight’s castle had been alright on the inside, and it was in the throne room that Sunny, Hitch, Zipp, Pipp, and Izzy had all been given magical thrones of their own, signifying their role as the new Guardians of Harmony. But she still felt her jaw drop at the massive crystal structure soaring into the sky before her, gleaming in the sunlight and positively radiating powerful magic. Sunny could feel her mind start to break down, and she had to tear her eyes away before she went insane. What she saw instead made her heart stop. Hundreds upon hundreds of shadow wolves were arrayed on the streets of Ponyville, their unnatural shadows blurring as they made contact with the bright sunlight. Their piercing white eyes sent shivers down Sunny’s back, and if she focused on one for too long, she could feel the edges of her mind grow fuzzy. The wolves radiated fear in the same way that the castle behind Sunny and the secret chamber under the school radiated harmony and good magic. There were so many of them that Sunny immediately regretted her decision to bring Twilight and her friends here. She should never have listened to the Tree of Harmony, she should have told them that they needed to hole up and hunker down and hold out as long as they could - not throw themselves at their enemies’ feet! The largest of the wolves stepped forward, and Sunny no longer felt the sunlight on her skin. All she felt was a cold, numbing terror. Her legs felt weak, as if she might collapse, but she gritted her teeth and stood her ground. These wolves had taken her friends from her - she would not rest until they were defeated. Then the wolf spoke. Give us Sunny Starscout, and we will leave in peace.