My Sister, Cozy Glow

by Mica

Demons

Ma found out.

I was in the heat of the moment and everything, and well, I thought I could control myself and all, but Biscuit felt so nice, and well, my yelling got a bit too loud, and well, Ma got woken up.

I a’int gonna say much about it. I’ll just say that Biscuit “finished” when Ma opened the door. Well, Ma opened the door, and Biscuit was about to “finish,” so he had no choice to “finish” in front of Ma.

He was still moaning when Ma yelled “SPUR! YOU GET OUTTA THAT BED THIS INSTANT!”

Pa dragged Biscuit out of there faster than he could say “bye, Spur.” Ma dressed Biscuit’s wounds (just two small scrapes, and that was only cause he didn’t keep still like I told him to) and his parents came to get him. Pa kept me inside my room. I wasn’t allowed to say “bye” to him.

I haven’t gotten a bigger talking to in my whole life. Ma sat me down at the empty dinner table at two o’clock in the morning. I thought it was gonna wait till morning, but Ma insisted. She turned on one small lamp. Ma stared at me from across the table, like a hawk. Pa was too tired to deal with me, apparently, cause he was fast asleep on the couch.

“What is this!? Hmm!?” Ma quizzed me.

“A riding crop,” I answered correctly. I could still see a few strands of Biscuit’s fur caught in the leather.

“And what is this!?”

I think I answered Ma, but I answered so quietly that I couldn’t even hear myself. I forced some of my mane to uncurl so I could cover my face.

I explained the whole situation to Ma. At least she bothered to listen. “It was part of the whole thing, Ma. He wanted me to hurt him like that.”

“He wanted it?” Ma was in disbelief. “Oh Celestia, even yer sister came up with better excuses!”

I didn’t expect it. I mean, I thought Ma would be mad about me sleeping with him, but…cause I hurt him? That’s what she was mad about? Ma didn’t say anything that night about the fact I slept with Biscuit.

Or about the fact that she might have a grandchild.

“Why is this about my sister?” I said.

“You damn right know the reason, missy.”

I felt like throwing up. I got worried about being pregnant. Of course my sister never worried about being pregnant.

"This isn’t about her, MA!” I yelled. “I’M! NOT! MY SISTER!”

“Oh really? Cause yer actin’ just like her right now!”

We woke up Pa for a moment cause of our shouting. He opened a single eye. Then he closed it again.

I curled up into a ball and cried until I was gasping for breath. Gasping so bad, that I thought I was gonna choke to death. I wasn’t crying cause of what Ma said. It was two in the morning, and everypony says crazy things when they’re sleep deprived.

I was crying cause of what Cozy was saying.

A master of manipulation.

A master of torture.

You’re just like me, sis. Whether you like it or not.

“No I’m not…no I’m not…” I mumbled back to her. I felt the tears soaking into my fur.

I saw her again when I closed my eyes. Her stone face in the fire, refusing to melt away. Just smiling at me. That smile.

You’re even better than me, sis. I’m sitting here in Tartarus, sis, but YOU. You have great potential for evil. Even more than me. I’m surprised you can’t even see it. You ARE the embodiment of evil.

I’m working on a plan to escape. Wanna be friends once I get out?

Send my love to Ma and Pa. Sincerely…

“No I can’t, Cozy! I won’t!” My eyes were closed and I was so dang tired I thought it was Cozy’s hoof touching me, back from the dead.

I slapped it away. Hard.

“AAARGH!” I heard a high pitch scream. And then some really loud crying. Like pain. Like death. It sounded a lot like death.

Then, I opened my eyes. “Cozy…?”

I heard Ma’s voice say, “What’d you do that for!?”

“What?” I said.

“What in hell are you doing!?” Ma said, then she winced from the pain in her jaw.

See? What did I tell ya? You're a master.

“I thought you were my sister," I said to Ma.

“Your what!?”

“I heard her talkin’ to me in my head and I got mad at her, so I…and then I…” I trailed off, only cause I realized how insane I was sounding. It made perfect sense when her voice was in my head. It didn’t make any sense when I said it out.

It made me feel even more lonely. Cause it’s like everything that makes sense to me doesn’t make sense to anypony else.

Ma was massaging the spot where I punched her, and she was wincing. And Ma is not a scaredy-cat when it comes to pain. I guess I hit her pretty hard. If I had hit my sister with that much force, I think I’d have fractured her jaw.

I just wanted her to stop talking to me.

“I a’int hearing an apology, missy,” she said.

I had to spit it out before I hesitated again. “I know you’ll think I’m crazy and it doesn’t make any sense but I hear voices in my head Ma!”

Ma froze. “Voices!?”

“Yeah, okay? I hear my sister’s voice in my head. Now she’s in stone, but she still talks to me. And I can never get the hell to sleep cause she just keeps tauntin’ me all night long. And I thought if I punched her in the jaw then she’d shut up, so I punched her, but she wasn’t actually there, so instead I punched…” I trailed off again.

I was insane. Actually insane.

Ma just groaned and covered her bloodshot eyes with her hooves. The bruise I gave Ma was getting bigger by the minute. All I heard was her just whispering to herself “Oh, Celestia oh Celestia oh for the love of sweet Celestia.”

I wondered if Ma was gonna force me to see Ms. Glimmer.

“So…you say…you hear…voices!?” Ma said.

“Yes, Ma.”

“You hear your sister’s voice? In yer head?”

“Yes.”

“Every day?”

“Yes.”

“Even at night?”

“Yes.”

It was silent.

“Ma, I—”

“I believe you, okay hun?” she said, with very little sincerity. “It’s just…”

“What?”

“Just…I had to give birth to the two of y’all, HAVEN’T I SUFFERED ENOUGH!? And ya just gotta…ya just gotta…THROW this little THING about voices in your head, just to drive me to INSANITY, don’t you, ya little…ya little…”

That was the night Ma called her own daughter a bitch.

I felt sick to my stomach. I wondered if that was the “morning sickness" that I heard about.

Ma never called my sister a bitch. She was always too scared to scold my sister. The unicorn sawing incident, the stabbing of the animals, setting the house on fire by cooking peach cobbler and leaving it inside at high and adding a little extra butter—Ma knew about all those. She was too scared to scold my sister. So Ma’d always vent out her frustration on me. I was the one who got all the scolding. If I did something a little wrong—like I forgot to take out the garbage for the wild swamp ponies to pick up, she’d make that as an excuse to dump all her frustration with my sister on me. She’d yell at me. And she’d yell at me.

It took me a while to realize that. As a younger foal I always thought that Ma loved my sister and she hated me.

But I’m fourteen years old, and you know, I can stand up for myself now. Even though I was seething with anger, I acted all polite like a grown mare, and I said, “Ma, I promise, I’m tellin’ ya the truth about the voices in my head. And, well, Ma, I just felt quite insulted when you called me—”

“Just GO TO YOUR ROOM, COZY! I’M DANG SICK AN’ TIRED OF YER BULLSHIT!”

I did not go to my room.

“I’m not Cozy Glow,” I whispered. But it was silent enough that Ma could hear from across the table.

Ma was trembling silently. With this mortified look on her face. All the color gone.

Like stone. Pale gray stone.

---

Ma and I didn’t speak that morning, except when I asked Ma how her wound was, and she answered my question by taking off the bandage and showing me how red and inflamed it was. Even I felt sick looking at it. Being selfish like I am, I was worried again that that was something that happened if you were pregnant.

I wasn’t pregnant.

“It’s that bad, huh?” I said to Ma. And I chuckled a little at the end. For some horrible reason that I don’t wanna even try to think about.

“I’m sorry I hit ya, Ma,” I said. And it occurred to me that I hadn’t even said sorry to Ma.

Ma didn’t say nothing back.

And I found myself staring at my front hooves, thinking about how…about how powerful they were. They were trembling, and I was terrified. But I got this adrenaline rush from being terrified. Kind of like when you’re about to start a flying race. And you finish ahead of everypony else.

Oh golly sis! You won? You beat me?

I spent the morning outside, kicking pieces of gravel into the water until my legs got so tired I could barely walk back inside.

I didn’t hear my sister’s voice for a solid seven hours after that.

---

Ma felt better by supper time. She was packing our bags for our trip. Dinner was already prepared. Creamy potato soup, succotash, fried okra, and beignets and coffee for dessert.

“The gravel embankment’s eroding quite a bit,” Pa said, looking outside. “Was there a storm recently?”

“I was kicking some of the pieces of gravel,” I said.

“How many did you kick?”

“Like, maybe…a hundred.” More like a thousand, actually.

Pa gave me a look. But he didn’t ask me anything. “Well, you better stop doing that. Otherwise we’re gonna have to rebuild the embankment.”

“Okay, Pa.”

The thing I remember the most from supper was that Ma said at the table that the wound I gave her was doing much better.

“I still love you dear,” she said.

That’s doesn’t mean anything to me. “Well, you loved my sister too, didn’t ya, Ma?”

“But I love you more than her, sugarcube.”

“Why?”

Ma couldn’t really explain it, even though she tried. She looked into my eyes and took many deep breaths but all she said was, “I…I just do.”

I flew onto Ma’s lap. Just like old times. Except I’m almost Ma’s height and weight now. And she hugged me and I hugged her back.

Ma and I kept hugging. And Ma didn’t say nothing, I didn’t say nothing. It was silent, except for our out of sync breathing. We didn’t even smile or look at each other. But I knew she felt what I was feeling.

I stared at my hooves while I was hugging Ma, and I didn’t feel as much terrified as I felt…confused. What I did the night before, I couldn’t believe that it was me. I still don’t believe it. It makes more sense in my head if I imagine that I was another pony that night, when I yelled at Ma and hit her so hard I almost fractured her skull.

Or maybe like a demon. A demon entered me. And changed me. But then after the night ended, it left. And I were the same again.

I wonder if my sister felt like that a lot. Like, there’d be some demon that’d go inside her and change her. And then she’d fall asleep in Ma’s lap and wake up the next morning and she’d go back to being just an innocent little foal again.

Or maybe it doesn’t work that way, because she was the demon.

Ma stroked my mane affectionately. I could see the curls bounce in front of my face, like a mass of floppy springs. It was silent for a while.

“You always hated my mane, didn’t you?” I finally whispered to Ma.

“No, my little mint chocolate,” Ma said out loud. “You’ve got the prettiest mane in all of Equestria.”

"Then...when you got me ready for school in morning when I was a foal...you were just ventin' your frustration with Cozy out on me, weren't you?"

"I love your mane, dear. Your sister's too. It's just..."

"My sister didn't love you," I said.

Ma gazed down to the floor. I guess she finally realized.

That evening after supper, Ma and I sat on the dining chair, and Ma whispered a really pretty lullaby in my ear which I didn’t hear all of because I fell asleep.

Cozy Glow is still alive. No matter how hard Twilight tried: to zap her, to petrify her, to pulverize her…they lost that battle. She’s still alive. She’ll always be a part of our family.

And sometimes I wonder if it’s really all bad.

Author's Note:

Geez, I feel bad that each successive chapter is getting shorter and shorter in word count.

Despite the title, I hope this chapter was more optimistic/hopeful. Spur's on the up and up, I promise.

So yeah, surprise, I decided to post this chapter early instead of release two at once. Hope y'all enjoyed it! To be continued!

Comments

[jimerjam]

I wasn't expecting THAT kind of a thing here, but I guess I should not be surprised.....

[vortex123]

They need to see a family therapist. Someone with more experience then Starlight. In all honesty, I don't think Starlight even has the credentials to properly handle this bad of a problem.

[Thought Prism]

Man, there's so much emotional depth packed into each and every word.

[Thundoryey]

9933194
Well by the sounds of it starlight didn't have any credentials period. And she likely volunteered for it and they assumed for no good reason she would be a good candidate for the job.

[Mica]

9933218
Thank you. I try.

[truenorth14]

The first time I read the chapter I stopped when both Spur and her mum were going nuts, I thought they had gone off the deep end. I came back a little while later, I am rooting for Spur and her mum. I believe though that something needs to happen for closure, whether that be a certified therapist as opposed to that nutcase starlight or just an event to help them cope with Cozy's reign of terror.

Maybe they encounter a crystal pony, someone brainwashed by Sombra who would be able to empathize with them on the voices in your head bit.

Good story, very powerful.

[Darkstory]

I don't think the chapter was more optimistic but simply that Spur want to resist to the spirit of Cosy Glow but she have hurt his mother in the process

[Mica]

9933010
What kind of a thing?

[jimerjam]

9933824
uhh, the whole BDSM thing you hinted at?

[Mica]

9933831
Oh okay wasn't sure what you were referring to.

Well, the fact that Spur's cutie mark is a spur (a physical tool used to steer horses) is suspect. And not going into too much detail, but I see her being a dom as a way to cope with witnessing the horrible stuff her sister did.

[jimerjam]

9933840
Yes I know what a spur is I read books. Anyways good point, and good story, looking forward to the next installment.

[FarmFreshAppleTarts]

Her mom deserved the slap

[Nightflight406]

Please tell me, I'm not the only one thinking of this while reading this.

[Wiimeiser]

So I guess Cozy Glow has become Cozy Poe...

[Diamond Sparkle]

I think the mum wants her remaining daughter to spend a day as Cosy Glow for her.

[Mica]

9937234
As in Edgar Allen Allan Poe?

[FridayPie]

9938041
I suppose a Legend of Zelda reference. A ghost thingy out there.

[FanOfMostEverything]

Yeah, these ponies definitely need to see a therapist who didn't try to destory time and space. This particular spat may be over, but the root causes are still festering.

Still, they are making progress. I have to wonder if the parents will process the whole Biscuit situation in the next couple days.

[Mebreb]

So excited to find out what happens to Spur and what all this results in her becoming, I can't wait!

Also, am I the only one who thought the pic wasn't an edit because I haven't watched all of the show and I just absorb the story through fandom-osmosis?

[Cpt Creampuff]

9933840
If you wanna go a little deeper I assumed she got the spur because being dominating over others allowed her some type of control over something when usually she didn't while being around Cozy

[Cpt Creampuff]

9933226
To me I feel like Twilight was the one that assigned her to them solely because Twilight does have a habit of thinking she knows what's best for others when she doesn't.

[CoyoteXray]

I can't say for sure if Spur is mentally ill, but it appears that Cozy could be safely called a sadist. I do not envy the parents. They were obviously dealing with a mentally ill child, and had no clue how to handle it. Fearing one's child and what they might do is hardly unheard of when the child is mentally ill. Hard story to read, but it is interesting.

[honeyhoneyhoney]

Hurray! Ah hope ther’s more violence. Gahlly.

[Bigwig6666]

That was the night Ma called her own daughter a bitch.

This hit hard.

I love this story as its both heart-breaking yet wonderful to read. The unspoken bits like the quote above are just *chef's kiss* where Ma doesn't actually say it, but you understand how hurt Spur is from it.

[Namey Namd]

9946958
Twilight has always been a bit situational with the concept of emotions as usually it becomes more apparent and something she understands once she learns the details, her amending with Moondancer being the most apparent example as when redoing the party, her words at first were "I know, and I think it's my fault.....and now that I realize how important friendship is, I'd like to make up for my mistake with a new party, a party in honor of my friend, Moondancer"(the focus being that she understands the theory of why she's so upset, sticking to doing it to amend her mistake, not to truly bring Moondancer closure), and then later after Moondancer finally verbaly lashes at her, she says "You're right, this party can't make up for the way I hurt you, but please, don't let my mistake be the reason you can't be friends with anypony else"(she then changes the focus from amending the friendship between herself and Moondancer to trying to get her to believe in friendship again)
Considering that she's also settling into ruling Equestria, it's probably also not easy enough to spend proper time into fully understanding the family's situation, even if this occured immediately after Cozy was sent to Tartarus as the potential for Twilight to take over as ruler of Equestria came afterwards

[thesecretoftravelbutcool]

9941438
bro thats how i figured out harry potter its normal dnt wrry