Chapter 5: Replaced
Cozy Glow woke up the next morning. Wait a minute-no! She woke up when it was supposed to be morning. But strangely, the moon was still up and it was still night time.
"Oh right!" Cozy remembered. "Nightmare Moon has returned!"
But didn't her mother say Twilight Sparkle would handle her? Then again, Nightmare Moon has only returned for a few hours. Then after that, Nightmare Moon would turn back into her Aunt Luna, then she'll never get to meet her.....
"No, no, no, Cozy Glow!" She snapped out of it. She was doing it again! She was thinking of it like her mother was wrong. Of course her mother was right! She always was!
She pulled over the covers to go back to sleep, but all of a sudden she heard an explosive sound. She flew out of her bedroom and towards the grand balcony that gave her the best view of the Everfree Forest. What she saw caused her eyes to widen in amazement. At the Castle of The Two Sisters, rainbow light was shining from every direction from one of the towers. There were orange, pink, white, yellow, blue, and purple beams.
Cozy immediately flew directly off the balcony and towards the castle, curious to see what was causing the light. It only took her a few minutes to arrive there, then she flew in a window. Once she got inside, she ran down the hallway and peeked from behind the wall, then her jaw dropped at the sight.
Twilight Sparkle had a crown with her cutie mark on her head. Five other ponies surrounded her, with glowing necklaces around their necks, which Cozy Glow assumed were the Elements of Harmony that Celestia told her about. All of them were working in some sort of magical conjunction to form a powerful rainbow laser, which crashed down on who Cozy assumed from the silhouette was Nightmare Moon.
Cozy covered her eyes as there was a final flash of light, and a second later, she realized that the spell was finally over, and that her idol and the other five ponies were still wearing the Elements of Harmony, and that each crystal charm looked like their cutie marks.
"Gee, Twilight." The orange mare with a farm hat said. Her cutie mark and element was an apple. "I thought you were just spoutin' a lot of hooey, but I reckon we really do represent the Elements of friendship."
"Indeed you do."
Cozy Glow hid behind the wall a little more as soon as she heard the voice. The sun slowly raised into the sky, and Princess Celestia appeared in a flash of light. Five of the ponies bowed, while Twilight gasped in delight. "Princess Celestia!"
"Twilight Sparkle. My faithful student. I knew you could do it." She said as she bent down and hugged Twilight just like she did with Cozy Glow.
"But...You told me it was all an old pony tale."
"I told you that you needed to make some friends, nothing more. I saw the signs of Nightmare Moon's return, and I knew it was you who had the magic inside to defeat her, but you could not unleash it until you let true friendship into your heart."
Twilight and her new friends smiled at their success.
"Now if only another will as well. Princess Luna!"
Cozy Glow looked on the other end of the tower where there was another alicorn where Nightmare Moon previously stood. Her aunt looked just like her mother described. A shorter, blue, night-themed version of Celestia. "Aunt Luna...." Cozy breathed. She finally knew what her aunt looked like.
"It has been a thousand years since I have seen you like this." Celestia sat down on the floor beside her sister. "Time to put our differences behind us. We were meant to rule together, little sister."
"Sister?" Twilight and her friends said.
"Will you accept my friendship?" Celestia asked, standing up. Twilight and her friends also looked at Princess Luna with faces waiting for an answer.
The princess looked down and considered, then suddenly got up and hugged Celestia. "I'm so sorry" She apologized. "I missed you so much, big sister!" Tears of joy flowed out of her eyes.
"I've missed you, too." Celestia said, with tears in her own eyes as well.
Cozy watched the whole thing happen. It was rather bittersweet for her. She finally got to see her aunt, and she was reunited with her sister, and Cozy felt happy for her. But it was also sad that her Aunt managed a Happily Ever After and she didn't.
She watched the reunion without anypony noticing she was there. She saw it all happen. But she started to feel suspicious. She had the same feeling she did when she questioned if what her mother did to her was the right thing to do. But this time, it felt much stronger. Was what her mother did really the right thing? The two circumstances between Luna's banishment and Cozy's banishment were the same, her mother said so herself. Celestia banishing Luna was the right thing to do, and so was Cozy's. But Cozy questioned it a lot more now. Luna was now reunited, but Cozy would still be isolated for the rest of her life. If both banishments were the right thing to do, then why was Luna given the opportunity to return to a happy life?
Cozy shook her head. This was all starting to get really confusing. Was it right for her to be turned into a Pegasus, or was it wrong? She ultimately decided her mother was still right. But this time, as she flew out of the castle to return to her own, deep down, even when she denied it and assumed her mother was right, the question still lingered within her.
Ten moons has passed, and Cozy was now five years old. Every single day was the same. She'd study in the library to have a normal education, and flying books magically taught her like teachers. She also practiced flight training with a scoreboard in another room to get used to being a Pegasus, and even when she was a Pegasus, she still decided to study spells and magic, even if she won't be able to cast them. The closest magic she could do would be to study magical artifacts, or to make potions.
The Castle gave her everything she needed to learn and survive like a normal pony, but there was one thing it was never able to provide: parental love. She had everything she needed, and she learned to be like a normal pegasus, and still received her education, but the castle was still never able to support her with the love of a parent. If she needed help, it wasn't like she could express how she feels to anyone. She taught herself to be wise, and she eventually learned that she couldn't always count on others, and she has to be independent and deal with things herself. She also learned to be ambitious and smart with her decisions, and that achievement had to be earned instead of freely given.
Nopony has ever found out about her castle, and it was impossible for anypony to find out unless she told them. And her mother would deny it and never tell either. And who were they going to believe, a five year old girl, or the ruler of Equestria?
She sometimes went outside and spent some time hiking in the small network of mountains, and now she knows every inch of this place, she remembers every rock and every crack in the ground, and every snow cap and the way it's shaped.
Other times she would spend some time in Ponyville, because she could already feel that she's starting to lose her sanity without interacting with other ponies. But she knew she couldn't ever make any friends, cause then they will ask about her parents, and no one would believe the truth. She didn't have any parental love, she didn't have any support from friends, and she was still isolated in the mountains.
"I'm afraid not. I'm sorry Cozy. I really am. But a real Princess would never take even the smallest chance when it comes to one pony and her kingdom. Not even for her own daughter."
Cozy's lip quivered as she whispered softly . "But a mother would."
Cozy woke up with a sudden jolt and sat straight up in her bed. She had only gone to sleep for five minutes and she already had a nightmare. She hated whenever she had this dream, and she hated that she had to watch the bad memory all over again.
Usually after dreaming of the memory, Cozy would decide to go back to sleep. But this time, Cozy felt a little different, and she decided to stay awake a little longer. She got the covers off of her and moved the glowing curtains around the bed. She went to a corner of the room and pushed on a secret panel in the wall. It revealed a secret door for storage and was full of Cozy's stuff that she doesn't really use. She decided going through the stuff that she used in the past ten moons would make her feel better.
As she rummaged through a stack of pony tales' books, she noticed something was glowing in the far corner of the cabinet. She brushed off the friendship bracelets her step cousin Cadence made for her, and saw that underneath was the crystal jar containing the Voloverlangen flower. It was still missing one of it's petals that Cozy used to create her new home, otherwise it looked exactly as it did when it was in the throne room when her mother turned her into a Pegasus.
Cozy started questioning herself again. Was it really the right thing to do. Was it right for her mother to do that to her. Nightmare Moon was also dethroned, but Luna was able to return to her happy life and reunite with her sister. But it was made clear that Celestia intended Cozy to have her current fate forever. Did Luna deserve better than her? Were the circumstances different when Celestia turned against Luna compared to Cozy? This question bubbled within her stronger than ever before. She glanced at the flower and thought back in her nightmare. It was there the whole time when it happened in the throne room. If it could grant wishes, than perhaps she could find more clues in the overall meaning.
Cozy lifted the jar out of the cabinet and placed it on the floor. She gently took off the crystal jar and stared at the flower's soft, silky petals. She took a deep breath and closed her eyes before speaking:
"I wish to see the words of the prophecy again."
When she opened her eyes, she saw that another one of the petals fell off the flower, and it turned into a golden scroll. Cozy took the scroll and removed the silk, velvet, ribbon. She unraveled the scroll and in ink that seemed to be made of pure light the same colour as the Voloverlangen flower's magic, it read:
If Cozy Glow continues on her current path, the light in Equestria and beyond will stay as bright as ever. But if her heart is pained by magic, her happiness will turn to rage, and all of Equestria will crumble.
Cozy read the scroll over and over again, and the more times she read it, the less it made sense.
"The prophecy said that it was only a chance I would become evil. But I already knew that. That was a chance mom didn't want to take." She said to herself. "But there was also a chance that if I wasn't turned into a Pegasus, I would've brought more light than Equestria's ever seen. But I guess mom really didn't want to take chances."
"It said I would only become evil if my heart is pained by magic. And that my happiness would turn to rage." She recalled the last few years of her short life. She knew for sure that she never felt enough rage to replace her happiness when she was still an alicorn. Her life was very happy, and there was definitely never pure anger as stated in the prophecy. She read the part before again.
"If my heart is pained by magic." She repeated. "Like I said before, my heart was never angry, and my heart never felt pain before. Except when...."
The only time her heart was close to feeling pain was her abandonment. But that didn't explain being pained by magic. She wasn't casting a spell when her magic was drained. She honestly didn't know what to think anymore. She needs to talk to somepony about this.
Her face suddenly lit up since she had an idea. "I know! I can go talk to Twilight about this. After all, she is respected for her intellect and kindness in Ponyville. Every pony counts on her. Maybe she could give me some advice."
Cozy flew out of her bedroom, down the spiral staircase that led her to the middle floor hallway, and in front of it was the platform and the stairs that led her to the lower level, and a few yards in front was the main entrance. Cozy pushed past the double doors and flew all the way to Ponyville. Even though it took less than an hour to get there, it was nighttime when Cozy woke up from her nightmare, and she didn't want to be rude to disturb her idol at night, but her desire for advice overtook her politeness.
When she landed a few yards away from the Golden Oak Library, she saw all of Twilight's friends, but Twilight wasn't there. All of a sudden, a huge bright light appeared in the sky. The light was shaped like Twilight's cutie mark, and it descended towards the ground in front of Twilight's friends. Eventually the light subsided, and it revealed that Twilight was crouching on the ground.
"Twilight? Is that you?" Applejack asked.
Twilight got on to her feet, and spread out two, large, beautiful alicorn wings. Cozy and Twilight's friends all gasped in shock. Her idol was now an alicorn. When her shock disappeared, she couldn't help but notice that Twilight was now really similar to her. They both had a gift for powerful magic, and they both sometimes worry about things being perfect, they're both very smart, they both want to please Celestia, they were both alicorns at one point in their life, and even Twilight's horn aura was the exact same colour as Cozy's.
"You look just like a princess." Fluttershy said.
"That's because she is a princess."
This made Cozy choke on the air she was breathing. She was absolutely shocked. A princess? She has always viewed her idol like one, but she never thought she'd see her as an official alicorn princess. She didn't realize until now that her mother was a few yards in front of her, and she quickly dove behind some bushes by the Golden Oak Library.
"A..a princess?" Twilight asked.
Celestia nodded. "Since you've come to Ponyville, you've displayed the charity, compassion, devotion, integrity, optimism, and of course, the leadership of a true princess."
Those were the exact same words Celestia said about Cozy! She said that Cozy had all of those traits, and that she will soon be real princess once she's old enough. Cozy didn't know what to think of this, but then noticed that there was a royal chariot with two guards pulling it behind Celestia for when she arrived here. Cozy saw a brown box-ish thing in the corner of the chariot, and she wanted to know what it was. She quietly snuck around the Golden Oak Library and behind the chariot, and luckily, the guards didn't notice her. She crept on to the chariot and grabbed the brown box shaped object. It was a journal.
Cozy knew she shouldn't be looking into her mother's stuff, but her curiosity got the best of her, and she flipped to a random page in the journal. It showed a bunch of times of when they used to spend time with each other, and a journal entry beneath the pictures talked about how Celestia felt when it happened. After flipping through a few more pages, Cozy stopped at a page that talked about the day after her mother abandoned her. And she nearly dropped the journal after reading it.
It read: "Today is the first day I have to spend without my daughter. I immediately regret my decision of betraying her. Now I realized that when her heart would be pained by magic, it wasn't talking about Cozy's magic, it was talking about the element of magic. How did I not think of it before? I used the Elements of Harmony against my own daughter! That was the only time her heart was ever pained! I'm the one who would probably fulfill the prophecy! But now it's too late. Cozy is gone. The difference between Luna's banishment and Cozy's banishment is that I fully knew that Luna was evil, and there weren't any chances. I already knew for sure that she turned evil. Cozy, on the other hoof, I was so paranoid into thinking this prophecy was going to come true, I didn't think about self-fulfilling and I ended up being the one to pain her heart using magic. What have I done? But, now I don't think I have the strength to find Cozy. I'm scared of how she would react. I shouldn't bother to find her. I don't want to see how she'd react at my betrayal. I know that missing my daughter will be hard, but it's best if I don't bother to show up. Maybe she'll just get less angry over time. But in the meantime, I have my sister, and I have a student who's exactly like my daughter, so it wouldn't feel like I'm missing anypony in my life at all."
Cozy's heart felt completely torn. For ten moons she was so naive. She was so young, and used to obeying her mother. Yet all along it was the wrong thing for her mother to do. And during all those moons, Celestia didn't bother to find her, and she doesn't even mind pretending she doesn't exist. It almost sounded like Celestia wanted to betray her. And Celestia replaced her with Twilight to fill the void in her heart. Twilight becoming very successful, becoming a princess, protecting Equestria, that was what would've happened to Cozy if the prophecy didn't exist! Celestia gave Cozy's destiny to Twilight, and chose her student over her own daughter.
Cozy looked up from the journal and saw Celestia, Twilight and her friends all in a group hug. She closed the journal and took it with her, while barely able to stifle herself from bawling. Once she was out of sight from the group, she couldn't keep her tears from flowing anymore. Her heart was truly pained. She was completely heartbroken. She zipped through the Everfree Forest and flew all the way home at a rapid speed.
Cozy never stopped flying. Her wings kept flapping. She was supposed to be asleep in her bed, and she was very tired from waking up, but her tiredness disappeared as her energy was now fuelled from the pain of finding out the truth. Her hooves clamped on her mother's diary ever so tightly. The pain blinded her so much that she didn't even realize that a cockatrice was in front of her, and quickly remembered to shut her eyes.
She didn't even bother to use the main entrance when she returned to her castle. She flew all the way up to the grand balcony and went inside from there. She flew so fast into her room that she would have broken the doors down if she didn't leave it open when she left.
She didn't close the secret cabinet when she left either. She immediately flew towards it rummaged through her old things. Finally, she found what she was looking for.
It was a framed photo. The framework was made from pink and gold crystal. It was covered in glitter, and there were jewels shaped like suns in each corner. She remembered that she and her mother made this. It was the first thing they ever made together. The photo inside it was a picture of when she stood beside her mother in her last Summer Sun Celebration. She was almost four at that time, and it was the first time she stood beside her mother on the platform when Celestia raised the sun. They were waving at the cheering crowd after the sun was raised, and Cozy was flying beside her mother while being tucked in a hug by Celestia's wing. Her face was flushed with happiness, and it couldn't have been any different from the miserable look on the current Cozy.
Cozy looked at the photo as she went out of her room and sat on the grand balcony. She noticed that in the distance, she could see fireworks in Ponyville, and one of them exploded into the shape of Twilight's cutie mark with a crown over it.
Everything that was supposed to happen to Cozy, happened to Twilight. Her own mother chose Twilight over her daughter. All that time when Cozy was alone, Celestia filled the hole in her heart with another pony instead of admitting her mistakes. Cozy was always so obedient of listening to others, she didn't even think of listening to herself. She was so naive and such a goody-two-shoes to think her mother was right. She has finally learned the painful truth. All along, she was replaced.
Cozy looked down again at the photograph. And seeing how it was back then and seeing the situation she was in right now filled her with so much emotion. It filled her with sadness, it filled her with pain, and most of all, it filled her with pure rage!
Cozy took the photo out of the frame and her hoof crushed down on it. The crystal frame shattered into hundreds of pieces, and the glass would have hurted Cozy's hoof if the rage she was feeling wasn't so intense that it didn't make her feel immune to it. She took the photo and ripped it in half. She has finally learned. And now she knew what she had to do next.
And as her rage consumed her, the four year old alicorn disappeared from her completely, and her rage turned her eyes, her mother's violet eyes, into deep, scarlet, hatred, red.
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Two chapters left, then I will start working on "Ending of the End, part 3"
By reading this story, there is only one truth; the Magic of Harmony is a bitch and Celestia turned her daughter into a villain because of her cowardness to anything bad happen to her ponies and Equestria
9930382
I wouldn't say the Magic of Harmony was a bitch, it was the pony who used it against Cozy who was. Cozy's heart was pained by magic because Celestia used it against her. The element itself never intended itself to do anything to her.
But you are right, Celestia is a coward.
9930464
The reason I said The Magic of Harmony is a bitch; is those who want peace and happiness are corrupted by Harmony. Who’s to say Friendship can’t create monsters?
9930475
If that's the case, I agree. If you think about it, almost every villain is evil because of how friendship might've hurted them in the past
9930487
Yep.
Tirek: Scorpan betray him for friendship after they agree to absorb Equestria Magic.
Chrysalis: Thorax betray her for friendship for a better life, along with the entire hive. Unsure if Friendship with ponies or once love by a pony betray her.
Sombra: Being a creature of darkness in a kingdom of light, who's to say if the Crystal Ponies didn't continuedly made him hate them for being different.
This story makes a lot of sense. In my head, this is canon.
9933160
It's canon in mine as well😊
9933487
Keep up the good work.
Buck you Celestia....BUCK YOU
Honestly Celestia's speech to Luna in the show bothered me quite a bunch.
She acted like Luna alone is at fault even though I am pretty sure Celestia is to blame too for the NMM mess.
Like she didn't notice Luna was in pain and wasn't there for her iirc. Like both sisters messed up, not Luna alone.
Celestia's journal sure looks like she believes Luna alone is at fault. Like believing Luna fully turned evil on her own rather than not realizing she is at fault for Luna's downfall but also the citizens of Equestria were at fault too for taking Luna for granted.
Wished Celestia got called out on stuff such as this.
Celestia you idiot.