Chapter Seventeen: A Gift from Luna
She walked along the path all alone. Her wings slightly extended themselves, and every pitter patter of water that she trotted into the air echoed loudly across the walls of an unfamiliar, triangular corridor.
She took her sweet, and precious time, and went very softly, and slowly. Candles illuminated the arches brilliantly, and while she went under them, Cozy whispered to herself, "It's just a dream... Isn't it?"
There was an unexpected response, but it didn't make Cozy Glow feel discouraged. The tone coming from the Princess was anything but distasteful. Cozy trotted closer and closer towards a shadowed figure, and all the while, a warm and fuzzy feeling kept building up within her tiny chest.
"There you are..." Cozy took yet another step. "You've certainly been on your best behavior, haven't you?"
Her eyes were hidden behind the smoky waves of her mane, but Cozy could plainly see her smiling kindly.
"Yes, I've..." Cozy hiccuped, "D-done my best... P-Princess Luna? Is that you?"
She gave a toothy grin, and just remained where she was. Luna waited patiently for Cozy Glow to finish approaching her.
Cozy stood stock still for what felt like hours on end. She looked up, and when she started walking again, she slowly began to stare into the lustrous eyes of her ruler, and heard her say, "I'm just checking on you. I'm well aware that Twilight, as well as Starlight Glimmer has already fairly recently visited you, but I wanted to see you up close for myself, if only just this once. I've been meaning to see what your dreams were like, and it's nice to see..." She breathed in deeply before stating, "It's just very nice to see that you've been telling the truth. Of course, I honestly never doubted you for a second, but it's rare when a pony is able to hide their lies, and their dark plans inside of their dreams."
Cozy just kept staring, and asked, "You can visit the dreams of others?"
Luna nodded, and said, "I've been keeping my eye on you. Like I've already told you before... I'm thoroughly pleased with your progress, so I got you... a gift."
There was silence in the air, and Luna then turned to start walking forth. While she went, Cozy modestly followed along, and asked her Highness, "A g-g-gift? F-for me? Oh, Princess Luna, I... I just don't know what to say..."
Cozy just kept on smiling, and blushed at the mere thought. The Princess then brought Cozy Glow out of the castle, and the two of them found themselves high up in the sky. They were nestled safely on top of the moon itself, and behind Cozy Glow stood Luna's very own, marvelous evening palace. It twinkled vibrantly thanks to the numerous stars, asteroids, and lovely blue comets that dashed and danced along in the background.
"My present for you," Luna said, and shortly thereafter Cozy Glow promptly turned back around to tentatively face Luna once again. "It's this..."
She showed Cozy Glow a small, and perfectly curved shell. Its white crust had lunar markings on it while the summit contained beautiful, purple crystals within. They gleamed in the great vastness of interstellar space.
"Luna... this is... amazing..."
It slowly drifted, and Cozy held onto it with her trembling hooves. Her chest hurt, and tears began to float off from her muzzle. Her expression became more and more animated, and then Cozy Glow heard Luna tell her, "It's a very special moon rock. When you awaken, it'll be right next to your bed. I've placed it on the nightstand, and its magical properties will bring you luck wherever you go."
The surface of the many crystals reflected against Cozy's glistening eyes, and she thanked the Princess, "This... means a lot... I'll treasure it always!"
Luna laughed contently, and then told Cozy Glow, "I've enjoyed this nice nap with you, but now... it's time for me to take my leave. The sun is coming up, so... please, Cozy Glow... have a wonderful day, and keep up the good work that you've been doing."
All that the filly could do at that point was stand, and observe as Luna disappeared. The moon rock also went away, too, and soon, Cozy felt herself rising. She was peacefully falling back down to the planet. Tears just kept streaming serenely from her eyes, and Cozy Glow had never seen all of the bustling towns look the way they did. She went over countless buildings, and suburbs, until at last, she reached Ponyville.
She first flew clear across a wide, and lush plain of grass, and then, Cozy Glow raced in a circle, and looped around the Castle of Friendship. She was going faster than what was actually possible for a filly her age, and before she knew it, she was nearing the school. Next was Sugarcube Corner, and as the pegasus passed right through the walls belonging to the Carousel Boutique, and landed on her bed, she gasped with shock.
She blinked her eyes, and rubbed the sand away until she was able to somewhat see. Before her sat the gift Luna had spoken of, and Cozy lifted it upwards only to voice aloud, "This is... real. Th-thank you, P-Princess Luna..." She gently closed her eyes yet again, and tenderly held it close by to her heart. She sniffled, and used a wing to wipe away a few lingering drips of her salty tears. For the entire morning, Cozy didn't stop smiling, and at breakfast, Sweetie would finally have to question her about it.
"What's making you so cheerful today?" Sweetie Belle asked innocently.
Cozy just chewed some more of her cereal, and then after swallowing, she answered with a question of her own. "Has Princess Luna ever visited you in your dreams?"
Sweetie Belle could feel shivers cascading down her back. "Y-yes, she has. Why?" She calmly lowered her spoon.
"Has she visited you while you were dreaming lately?" Rarity asked.
Cozy Glow nodded extremely slowly, and she then told them, "She also gave me a gift. It's a... moon rock, and she said that it'll grant us good luck."
Rarity looked from Cozy to Sweetie, and smiled. Sweetie smirked as well, and then, Rarity told Cozy Glow with a relaxing tone, "Then... Luna's blessed you." She took a very delicate bite of her hot croissant, and further said to the two fillies, "Once breakfast is done, I say that we all go upstairs and see Cozy Glow's... What did you say it was? A moon rock?" She hoofed while chuckling, "It can't actually be from the moon, could it?"
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lovely!
Thanks for new chapter!
Oh wow that's actually pretty cool that Princess Luna gave her a gift and it's a moon rock that would be awesome to get a gift from Princess Luna I wonder if she ever get the chance to meet up with the rest of the young six she still needs to Amending some Fences with the rest of them and hopefully she can get the chance to get Queen Chrysalis and Tirek to hang out I guess we'll find out next time
it's nice to know that Cozy is being looked on in a new light after the good things she's done.
Pretty cool of Luna giving Cozy a gift for her good behavior. This is the friendship that Cozy needed.
Should be "Yes, she has." since Sweetie is talking about Luna.
Glad this is updating. Interesting premise here. Cute chapter over all. Looking forward to seeing more of this.
11016682
Fixed, thanks!
11016529
Then merely, this story isn't for you. Don't read it if you're not particularly fond of Cozy Glow, but also, if you simply just can't say something nicely, and in a friendly manner, then just don't say anything at all. Please move along, and take such levels of unfriendly toxicity somewhere else.
Well I've finally got around to reading this fic after months of gathering dust in my read it laters. I initially expected Starlight to have a much more important role in the fic, and though that has been a bit of a bummer (and the little time she got in the first couple of chapters was uncharacteristically annoying at that) I enjoyed the fic thus far nonetheless.
At first, I too thought that Tirek's reformation was done and gone all too fast. Cozy doing her research or "doing justice" to the show aren't good enough justifications for that. I respect the intent, can't praise the result.
That, however, changed with the later interactions between him and Cozy. Tirek's reformation now looks much more akin to something like Discord's, where at first he was only cooperating to save his skin, but slowly and very painfully started to understand true friendship.
I can't say the same about Chrysalis, though. This fic went with the struggle of Chrysalis staying true to her primitive ways vs Chrysalis loving and embracing the new ways of her children. I'm afraid to say, this premise in and of itself is doomed to be an underwhelming reformation at best.
In canon, everything Chrysalis did after losing her "queen" status was driven out of spite and for revenge, a feeling that only got more and more heated as canon progressed. I don't think it was officially confirmed, but I'd bet that she was also resentful of her children for "betraying" her. Yet, all of this inner conflict seems to have been brushed aside in this tale for the sake of a quick reformation.
And unlike Tirek, I don't see Chrysalis with room to grow from here anymore. She's already reformed, fully transformed (which mind you, it took Thorax and Pharynx a good amount of friendship understanding to complete) and she's already loving the two changelings she should feel most conflicted about.
11032495
Heya, thanks for the critique. I'm actually writing Chrysalis's next part, and you've given me some ideas that I can really work with. She's got room to grow still.
11036459
I hope your idea is not just for Chrysalis to be like "no I lov u but actually u betrayed me so I h8 u", cuz that'd undo everything that her transformation meant.
I'll stay tuned and see.
This was an adorable chapter perfect for the spirit of the holidays. I imagine that a gift from an alicorn is still akin to receiving a goodie from a god or a (benevolent, in this case) fae and the sheer amount of magical atmosphere in this chapter sure makes me think the gift will be significant later in the story. That mystery tag is still there for a reason, I'm sure.
For some reason, I didn't get the notifications for either of these comments when they went up, which is very frustrating.
10911482
Yeah, I was surprised by how much sudden leeway she had. Even if the main cast were all intentionally being too naive and permissive in how they treated Cozy... I imagine that would have just gotten her treated like the CMC in the early seasons of the show. And c'mon, they didn't always get off the hook when they did something wrong, and when they weren't in school or crusading afterward, their big sisters generally kept them in line. Plus, in that case, the Mane Six have learned from dealing with that trio of chaos-makers, so whining from Cozy would have been abounding anyway, yeah?
On the other side, she's gone from being in something more extreme than juvie to parole. Plus, amnesia clearly did a number on her, and combined with whatever isn't exactly right with her, I imagine a walking safety hazard like Cozy would've been told 'no' far more.
10990936
Huh, really? Just because of my comments? I certainly hadn't expected that, especially not after a) they were already published (and presumably combed through by pre-readers and editors) and b) so many months later when I'm just seeing these with the update.
I'll have to go back and read those when it's not finals.
I'd say that depends largely on how they're being reformed. For Luna, the audience was given a mystery, and Twilight and friends then gave her the dose of the closest thing to a pony holy artifact that exists, thus solving a story a thousand years in the making. Discord is weird but had one two-parter for initial characterization, one to lay out the terms of reformation, four episodes (Princess Twilight Sparkle, Twilight's Kingdom) to lay out most of the meat of keeping him reformed while laying out an intended character role, and some middle season slice of life episodes to help teach him here and there. (Sombra gets skipped over, and Tirek does too since he appears in this story.) Starlight has two introduction episodes, two where we struggle to learn about her until she accepts reformation, and multiple seasons to actually flesh it out. (Yes, I know I'm ignoring Luna's episodes here but she occupies an odd position of mostly getting friendship lesson-related episodes afterward, not quite 'here is how you be good again' types of stories since she is re-adjusting to a condition that none of the other characters had before.)
That means that the characters listed are generally getting ~4 or so episodes to flesh out the circumstances of their reformation. This reformation then takes up the central plot. The biggest emphasis and struggle the reformer has is getting them to accept the possibility in the first place, with the prior episodes focusing on a lot of interaction between the reformee and the reformer. Plus, the show also tended to suspend disbelief with a lot of later reformations involving characters who were more villainous instead of everyday antagonists. Even if the pacing is intentional, it falls into the trap of being harder to believe (more reasons below) and missing opportunities to reap all the benefits of fanfic writing in the first place, like in-depth focus, more time spent on storytelling, and shaping more believable interactions based on whatever ideas you want.
They had a lot of build-up of Cozy on her own, but the meat of the interactions does feel somewhat glossed over. While Cozy isn't an ordinary child in terms of personality, she is still a middle/elementary schooler that has no experience in counseling adult characters. If the protagonist were an adult character (or even Spike, though he's not exactly a kid anymore) that had experiences in reforming baddies, the pacing would be more sensible and reflect that they've been to this rodeo before. But a somewhat precocious kid with a cognitive impairment? One who needs magic to be anything close to a mature threat, since even a manipulative kid is still a kid? And she's going up against characters who canonically are the most hellbent on revenge, aggressive, and even sadistic towards little ponies? Two characters, who despite their friendship with Cozy, are beings with many generations lived to become as shrewd and terrible as they are? Who have led swarms and sucked the souls out of creatures? It becomes a lot harder to believe, and then there is the fact that while the build-up of Cozy confronting these characters is well written and filled with lots of lore/clues, once the initial lines of dialogue are exchanged, the atmosphere and tension feels lost. Characters normally try to resist reform, and it's a real fear that they can refuse, but things go both too smoothly and fast for Cozy Glow afterward if that makes sense. I still want to keep reading the story, it's just that the parts that would normally be the meatiest aren't as flavorful as I would've expected, and the portions are off.
"And this is why we had to chop you."
Okay, sorry, had to do it. On a serious note, you're totally right. The reason why I'm willing to go back and edit parts over is because I've already done so. This story has been tricky to get just right, so thank you again for the critique. You make several fine observations and points.
I don't have any pre-readers or editors for this particular story by the way. I've written all of this thus far myself.
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