//------------------------------// // Chapter 12: The Source of Control // Story: Empress Cozy Glow part 2: The Reckoning // by Betty_Starlight //------------------------------// The yellow filly looked down at her mug of cocoa dejectedly while she struggled to hold it in her forehooves and bring it to her mouth… She manages to get it halfway up, before the cup falls and suddenly glows as the white filly on her right forces her horn to glow and her eyes squint with concentration! I smile while watching a small bit of cocoa splash onto the floor and the yellow filly stares on with dejected orange eyes, “See? The cocoa exercise was a great idea! It teaches Apple Bloom how to use magick and gives Sweetie Belle extra incentive for using her hooves!” The yellow filly looks at me and says in a civilized, albeit rough tone, “Yeah, but it keeps teasing me with cocoa!” “I think I’m gettin’ tha hang of this!” The white filly on the side says… You know, it’s hard to remember that’s Apple Bloom in there! “Well, AB is getting the hang of magick, and Sweetie is sorta learning to work with her hooves! I’ll go outside now and see how Scoots is doing with my wings!” before turning to trot toward the door… “Well, I don’t like it! I never get any cocoa!” The yellow filly pouts as I’m trotting. “What if I helped you?” Apple Bloom asks Sweetie. “What do you mean?” I hear the other filly say as I trot out the door and swing it back shut behind me... I stare forward and see a pink filly with her face on the ground as she says the word, “OW!” I look down and say in my now raspy voice, “Oh, golly! Are you okay Scootaloo?” She looks up at me and I see she roughed up my snout a bit, and exclaims, “Not really! I can’t fly!” as I begin to see the beginnings of tears forming in the bottoms of her two brown eyes… I widen my eyes and decide not to be mad at the fact that she’s hurting my body as I say to her, “Well, you just need practice!” She sighs, “Yeah yeah yeah! I know! But uh, well, something happened when I was in the air awhile ago!” I frown with interest, “Huh? What happened Scootaloo?” She stares at me with enormous brunette eyes and says, “Well, when I was flying, I somehow felt called and like I suddenly knew how to flap my wings!” “What?” “Heh heh! Yeah!” She nods her head and forms a small smile on her muzzle, “When I was in the air earlier, I actually flew for quite awhile last time! Like, maybe ten minutes?” “Well, what happened? Why are you crashing into the ground now?” “I kinda lost it?” “What do you mean, lost it?” She sighs, “It’s hard to explain! Uh, you ever suddenly know something that you really shouldn’t know and then it just disappears?” “No!” She smiles, “Well, it’s like that!” I gaze at the other pegasus carefully… “I guess it’s muscle memory from when I was in charge?” Her eyes widen and smile lowers, “Muscle memory?” I smile, “Yeah! Like, my body is so used to moving a certain way that it’s gonna keep doing that, even if it’s your mind inside my brain now!” She smiles, “Oh, okay! That makes sense Scoota-Glow!” I frown, “What did you just call me?” She giggles, “Oh, I figured that since we’re in each other’s bodies now, that changes our names kinda, you know? So you’re Scoota-Glow! I’m Cozyloo! And in there is Apple Belle and Sweetie Bloom!” “That’s dumb! We are not doing that!” “Well, I like it!” I suddenly hear a squeaky voice behind me say with a country drawl. “I guess that means I’m Apple Belle then, since that’s the rule, right? Inhabited body’s name goes first!” I see the other, yellower filly say… I look back at the filly with a bow in her mane, “Who’s coming up with these rules?” The white filly on her right stares at her and says with a twang, “And I’m Sweetie Bloom!” before smiling… “We’re doing this aren’t we?” The yellow filly stares at me, “Come on Scoota-Glow! It’ll be great!” The white filly smiles at me, “Yeah!” I narrow my eyes when I suddenly realize that my new name is Scoota-Glow… I say lowly, “This is dumb… “ <*****> “Oh, golly! So wait, what?” I say in confusion as I stare at the white filly… The filly who then says with a musical country drawl, “Cozyloo said it would be better if you got used to her body an’ all it can do, so she said she wanted ta give you lessons on er scooter!” “So why isn’t she here?” Her eyes widen, “Beats me!” Suddenly, a scooter shoots up from the hill-slope on our right and we see a majestic looking pink filly riding it with her forehooves on the steering bar and a focused look in her brown eyes! We see it soar over us and land to the left as she jackknifes it to the right and it skids to a stop on the dirt trail leading that direction! She smiles and says squeakily, “You know, these larger wings take some getting used to and it’s very different from flying, but once I understood how to move my wings while I riding my scooter, the rest kinda fell into place! Hiya Scoota-glow! What’s up Sweetie Bloom?” I narrow my eyes as I still think this is weird and dumb! … Sweetie Bloom then smiles and says to Cozyloo, “Hiya Cozyloo! We were just coming up here to meet you! What took you so long?” “Well, I’m used to those smaller wings that can’t fly! But these are different and larger! Took me a few minutes to figure out how to use them, and I got a new scrape on my body… Uh,” she frowns and turns to me, “sorry about roughing up your body Scoota-glow!” “That’s gonna hurt, when I get back in there, huh?” She sighs and frowns, “Well, it’s not gonna feel good? I’ll make it up to you, though! Promise!” and nods. “Oh, golly!” She sighs, “Now Scoota-Glow! We need to teach you how to use a scooter!” “Why?” She smiles, “Because you’re me now!” I frown, “What?” <*****> Now, I know what Cozyloo told me… I know and understand all the words and fully comprehend what it means when they’re all together in that particular sequence as a sentence… I know this… I also know that none of that really mattered when I was screaming down the hillside riding Scootaloo’s scooter! “I’M GONNA DIIIIIIIIEEEEEEE!!!!!” I scream in my raspy voice while the wooden vehicle flew down the dirt path leading out of town to the west! As I saw the red brick wall approaching, just outside the school on the North side, several thoughts raced through my mind… How do I stop this thing? I hope this doesn’t hurt too much? Oh, golly! This is gonna suck! Now, what happens next, I can’t quite explain? I threw the scooter to the side and jammed my rear left hoof down onto the pavement, forcing the contraption to skid to a stop as it gets thrown to the side! It jerks to the side to a complete halt, and I blink, “Oh, golly! Why did I do that?” “Scoota-Glow! Are you okay?” I hear a pink filly ask me as she flaps towards me in the air and floats closer to stop in the air and float over me while flapping her wings to maintain altitude… I turn my head right towards her and look up to say, “I’m fine! Your instincts saved me! Wow! You know how to hover now!” Her brown eyes widen, “I uh, oh wow! I’m hovering! I’m actually hovering!” I frown when I think about this and my instinctive stop, “This muscle memory thing goes pretty deep, huh?” She frowns when she realizes that she’s using her new wings perfectly now, “I uh, I guess so?” I nod, “It’s also important to note that neither of us really did these things until we had a good reason to!” Her mouth narrows, “What?” I smile, “Think about it Cozyloo! I didn’t know how to stop until I had a really good freaking reason to! You didn’t know how to use your wings until you thought you needed to check up on me! Incentives is what makes it happen!” “Oh, wow! That’s interesting! It’ll be pretty neat to see what else you can do while you’re training! Ready for another go up the hill?” I really didn’t feel like it, so I smile and cheerfully reply, “Sure thing Cozyloo!” and I’m not sure why I said that? She grins and cheerfully replies, “Alright, lets get you back up the hill!” <*****> You know, it’s really odd, but only when I was on the top of the hill again, behind the bar of that scooter did I actually think about my life… I’m a Crusader again, although it wasn’t my first choice… I’ve embraced Twilight’s love, even though I didn’t think I really wanted or needed it… And now, I’m following this stupid naming convention and learning to scooter, despite the fact that I really should have wings… I frowned while looking back down the hill as I suddenly felt like my life was out of my hooves… And only then did I really think about it… “Scoota-Glow! Still with us?” “Yeah?” I say back to the squeaky voice, despite never moving my view from downhill… “Are you ready to go?” The voice asks… “Not yet… “I reply… “Uh, gimme a minute… “ “Take your time! Just remember what I said, it’s all in your back hoof!” My back hoof? Is that the real source of control? I pondered as I stared down the slope… As I lurched forward, I heard a squeaky voice shout, “You got this! Go!” And at that moment, instinct took over! I grinned like a mad-pony as I began peddling with my left back hoof to gain more speed as I sped down the hillside! I widen my eyes as I feel a surge of adrenaline coursing through my four legs and little wings, that I soon begin flapping vigorously to give me yet even more speed! I put both my back hooves onto the wooden vehicle and turn the handle to the right hard, in order to cause the speeding scooter to change course suddenly and run almost, but not quite parallel to the same brick wall I almost crashed into earlier! Back hooves indeed! I think to myself as my body begins acting differently… I grin devilishly in my new body as I begin peddling with my right back hoof and flapping my wings to feel the cool air rushing through them and I skid to the right finally, away from the wall to my side, and I soon gaze forward and furrow my brow to survey the land in front of me so I’ll know what moves I need to make next with my scooter… (To be continued… )