"Well... I can certainly see why you came to me for advice. This is a considerable conundrum." Princess Celestia told her former student, sitting with her on the couch after she had listened to what had happened over the past month. Twilight had first come to Celestia and her sister, asking them what they had thought of trying to redeem the three of them, after everything had happened. The Princess of the Sun knew that Twilight wouldn't try anything foolish that could possibly endanger Equestria. In fact, they had received nothing but good news when it came to Chrysalis, and there had been no word from Scorpan as of yet.
But Cozy Glow was an entirely different story.
"Her own father wants absolutely nothing to do with her, and he has perfectly justifiable reasons." Twilight explained, sipping at the tea that her mentor had provided when she had been invited inside.
"A Princess' reign is full of incredibly difficult choices, Twilight. And there are times where such choices may indeed seem impossible. A balance has to be struck; depending on the scale, you have to decide what you believe is best for an individual, a group, or for all of Equestria, and at the same time, no matter the scale, you have to be sure that it is a choice that you can live with." Celestia told her.
"And if I feel like I can't live with any of them?" Twilight asked.
"Also understandable. You have to weigh the possible outcomes and alternatives, and pick the lesser of two, or three, or even more evils."
Twilight stared down into her tea.
"That reminds me of one of my favorite fantasy novels. It was about the travels and adventures of a monster hunter for hire. One of my favorite quotes from that book is how evil is evil, lesser, greater, it doesn't matter. If the choice is between one evil and another, he'd rather not choose at all. An understandable position." Twilight said.
"But choosing not to choose, isn't really a choice. That only leads to indifference and apathy. You taught Rainbow Dash that, remember?" Celestia reminded her.
"What about your battle with Luna? How did you choose what to do with her?" Twilight asked, sipping at her tea.
Celestia certainly understood why such a subject was brought up at this moment; it was probably the most relatable thing to Twilight's situation that could be discussed.
"In a way, I didn't. I had always shared the responsibility of wielding the Elements with Luna. Using their full force against her on my own was considerably taxing, while not even getting into my emotional state at the time. I had no way of knowing what the Elements would do to her. The Mare in the Moon prophecy came to me later, in a dream. It was one of the hardest choices I had to make in my life, but the difficulty was in the action, Twilight, not the choice. The choice was straightforward; banish my sister, or condemn the entire world to darkness and famine. That was it. Your dilemma is a bit more complicated."
Twilight considered Celestia's words.
"If I release her, even if she appears remorseful... There is absolutely no telling if it would be genuine. If I keep her petrified, it may as well only be a matter of time before she could escape, just as with what happened to Discord. I know Equestria has traditionally not believed in killing their prisoners..." Twilight paused, setting her tea on the end table.
"But what if ending her existence is the most merciful option?" She finished.
"Is it about mercy? Or is it about what is right and wrong? What is just?" Celestia retorted.
"I have a feeling you and I could discuss this for days. Weeks, even."
"I have no doubt. I can't tell you what to do, Twilight, I can only offer advice, because the choice is yours. My advice is unchanged; make sure you can live with your choice. Killing Cozy Glow may bring a couple ponies closure, but you must understand, taking a life is one of the heaviest choices you will ever make."
Starlight waited patiently in the hedge maze a short distance away from the two honor guards that watched over the center of the hedge maze, who she understood would not let her pass without Twilight present. She heard hoofsteps on the path behind her, and turned to see not Twilight, but a pony she hadn't seen in some time.
"Sunset Shimmer?" She asked, seeing Twilight's first student come up to her with a half-hearted smile under the Canterlot moonlight.
"I see Twilight needs quite a bit of help with what she has planned." Sunset answered as she came up to give her friend a hug.
"I wish I could say I was completely comfortable with this. To say that this is an ethical gray area is... an understatement." Starlight confessed.
"I think we're both here because of how much we trust her. She didn't come to this choice lightly." Sunset assured the other unicorn.
"I'm just wondering how she came to this choice." Starlight wondered.
"After weighing and thinking about all the options, this is the one I believe I can live with." The familiar voice said as she came around the other corner, the two unicorns turned to see Princess Twilight approach from the other side of the corridor. "And I absolutely appreciate your help with this, both of you. So, are you both ready?"
They both nodded, almost simultaneously.
"Alright then." Twilight stated, turning to the guards, who saluted, and let the trio pass into the center garden, where the petrified Cozy Glow floated, staring endlessly uncertain. Princess Twilight began charging her horn with magical energy, followed quickly by the other two as they took their places by her side.
"Surgere!" Twilight yelled as a purple beam shot from her horn.
"Veraque!" Sunset declared as a yellow beam shot from hers.
"Animus!" Starlight shouted, a white beam shooting from hers.
The three beams converged on the petrified pegasus filly, and exploded in a flash of white light that could be seen from anywhere in the city. It shined like a beacon for several moments, before returning the capital to the dark starry night.
I know the show always shies away from death in any situation, but I think Stoning is worse. If there really is no hope to reform a villain, why not just end their life? What merit is there in simply imprisoning them for all time, beyond keeping them in a state of torment?
There are three possibilities if you kill a villain:
1. They cease to exist after death (which is unlikely considering Twilight's entire original body was vaporized when she got her wings and she was given a new one), which is good, because there is no chance for them to break out and wreak havoc anymore and also they aren't being kept alive merely to suffer.
2. They reincarnate into a new life that isn't immediately burdened with the weight of their crimes, and a new upbringing gives them the chance to not grow up into monsters this time.
3. There is some kind of afterlife, almost certainly determined by a god or gods, or even just the fundamental force of harmony, that is much better able to dole out appropriate punishments and restitutions than any mere meatsack walking around in the world of the living.
I can't see a downside to killing a villain, except for whatever pony does it feeling bad. But they should already feel terrible for the petrification anyway if they have any guilt or ability to understand what the stoning is like.
What did they do? 😯
Interesting. I doupt they killed her, otherwhise why the epic lightshow?
Aw well, I guess I'll find out next chapter(s) since I'm too lazy to translate latin.
Interesting story.
9925998
A reform spell of some kind maybe?
9925999
Maybe it is taking her magic away? Cozy is a Pegasus. Maybe the light show is removing that ability?
Sugere is Portuguese for suggest.
Veraque is empathy in Latin
Animus is heart in Spanish.
Judging by the words it’s either a mind control spell or a spell that will allow them to dive deeper into cozy’s past.
9926167
You are two for three.
Or maybe three for three and Google's translation is shit.
9926167
Based on the words the author is indeed doing this:
https://derpibooru.org/2180348?q=cozy+glow
I doupt it takes her magic away. I just don't think that would look so dramatic, I mean look at Tirek. When he steals magic it's subdle enough for him to be stealthy about it.
9926167
Welp, that was a typo on my part.
It's supposed to be surgere, not sugere.
9926178
Which one was wrong?
9926262
Twilight's spell.
Ooh, a new spell? 👀 I’m certainly interested to see where this is going, as many would argue that reforming Cozy would be near impossible. I look forward to seeing your take.
9926277
Surgere is up in Latin.
So the spell is to finding out what happened to cozy in the past. After all cozy is still a child. And it’s the type of home that shapes the child’s life. So maybe it’s the father? Or mother?
It is shaping up to remind me of a miraculous ladybug FanFiction crossover with equestria Girls that’s I’m working on where Chloe sees someone gets taken to the mental hospital.
This sounds interesting. Though I will wait until it is complete so I can read the whole thing. But it seems to be a chapter a day so far.
Why does this say I posted on "The Child, Part 2"? I haven't even read ANY of the chapters yet for the above reason.
As a side note, I hope this does Cozy's past justice. The comics already gave us insight on Tirek's past(heck, the finale even namedrops Tirek's dad from said comic) and gave us the origin of Chrysalis and the Changeling race as a whole, so they are fine, but of course Cozy is a blank slate(and not the YouTuber). The idea of reforming the villains is interesting, and that is the best thing about how the finale dealt with them: they are neither dead or reformed, simply in an endless and painless sleep and have the potential to be freed(like Discord the second time) or for the spell to wear off(like Discord the first time), and thus ripe for fan stories. I know some people were mad at their fate, but I like it. Much better than returning to the status quo of Tartarus(though being sent to Tartarus isn't as bad as people think. It's nothing like its Greek namesake. It is a prison, not pony Hell), a reformation crammed into a couple minutes, them escaping, or killing them.
I imagine Tirek will be the easiest to reform, having no known mental instability. Chrysalis would be the hardest, absolutely despising friendship because in her eyes it took everything from her and, as seen in The Mean Six, basically teetering on the edge of insanity. That said, Cozy Glow is the one I am looking forward to the most, both because of backstory and because she is my favorite cause of how adorably evil she is, even when she is literally trying to murder somepony. And her cleverness that is still steeped in childishness(she obviously didn't really think her Season 8 plan through beyond the childish ideas of "Step 1: make everypony my friend, Step 2: Drain all magic, Step 3: ???, Step 4: Profit!", because had it succeeded, the results would have been apocalyptic) is fun as well. But I have faith that she can become adorably good as well, and, given she is your avatar, you probably care enough to do it right.
Also, any idea how long this will be in total? If not, I'll just check every week or so.
ALSO also...that art is scary...and features Grogar, interestingly enough. Dunno if that is relevant or not.
9927027
The final chapter is tomorrow.
I'm currently brainstorming a potential sequel, this one does end somewhat openly, so I'll see if it ever becomes something that I can post.
And still they didn't do anything to confirm whether she really was responsible for that fire.
Brainwashing for the greater good go!
No, he doesn't. He doesn't even know what happened. He just made an assumption