Years after the attack on Canterlot and the petrification of Cozy Glow, all hope for her seemed lost until one fateful day when a young, friendly voice called out to her consciousness inside her stone imprisonment. With the help of her new friend, Cozy decides to learn her lesson and give true friendship an honest try.
Sweet. Kind of rushed, but sweet. The plot is decent, the characterization is pretty good. It's sparse, but well developed for what is there. I really enjoyed the concept and I think you could do a lot of fun stuff with it. Looking forward to seeing more.
interesting,a filly capable of using conplex spell and detect Cozy lies despire being a blankflanl,Astral is not what she seems
spending several year in stone,i'm suprise that Cozy not being insane. if i were her,i'm would be talking to myself a long time ago
11087716
Interesting indeed! Astral will get her very own story eventually. I'd say at this point, she's halfway through earning her cutie mark. She's aware of her special talent by now; that it is something special that no other pony around can do. To other unicorns, it may be a complex spell, but for Astral, it's something that she just does, but has yet to gain the ability to fully control it at will without having to concentrate so hard on it, and of course, hasn't realized just how important it will be to her for the rest of her life.
That brings an interesting point, though: Telepathy being a complex spell. I like to view magic use as learnable and trainable spells for most unicorns that are willing to put in the work to learn them; the difficulty varying from pony to pony and how in tune they are with their natural energy and capability to harness and channel it. --That is, unless it happens to be your natural talent. Most ponies would have to learn to teleport efficiently and safely- not to displace living matter in the space they're teleporting to, how to detect magic resistance objects so they don't slam themselves into a wall or worse, become part of one. But if teleportation is your natural talent, you would just know this stuff intuitively. You might not be good at it at first, but the initial steps to pull it off would come naturally (and awkwardly, like magic puberty [teleporting without your clothes, or mane and tail, not maintaining your spatial orientation at the destination site, bringing parts of your previous environment with you, etc]). I can't speak for Pumpkin Cake, though. Maybe unicorn infants come with varying degrees of "wild magic" passed down from their parents, just like their initial immune system, and once it wears off, the infant becomes relatively inert until their own traits begin to develop and take place. Flurryheart is a whole other can of beans, though that I'd rather not explore here.
Thanks for reading! I hope you stick around for the rest of it.
11087718
I like to think that she's very strong-willed and minded. She's not just any normal filly, after all. Though, normal fillies don't normally end up in stone prisons. I didn't explore the idea in this story, but maybe having Discord's chaos magic bestowed upon her, however brief it was, left trace abilities for higher cognitive fortification, thus giving her the ability to remain as sane as she has in the time before Astral showed up.
11087382
Strap in, 'cause we're just getting started! Many adventures (and misadventures!) await Cozy and Astral (though mostly Cozy) once we get through this initial story, setting us up for the long run!
What kind of value specifically? And how did she come to be convinced of this revelation?
11088654
I'd say companionship, mainly. Especially that born of free will. Cozy's friend wants to come back and "hang out", all on her own. It's the first time Cozy has somepony in her life like this that she didn't have to trick or bribe or blackmail or anything, even with Astral knowing the truth about who Cozy was and the things she did. Having experienced true loneliness in the void of her stone imprisonment, she realized she needs other ponies "on her side" more than she ever thought, not just some form of henchponies or hired hooves to use and be later discarded. This friendship is something to work for and defend. Something more meaningful had now become very important to her. This is her reformation without outright saying it's her reformation.
Does the explanation work? Is it something I should add to the story? It seemed obvious to me, but since I'm the one writing it, I have a much better insight on the nuance of the story than first-time readers.
11088763
Perhaps. It goes to what we were talking about earlier. Modern audiences typically like some explanation in their stories, or at least being given enough dialogue or inner thoughts about a character's decisions, to come to a informed opinion about their motives.
You are welcome to get a second opinion, and I would definitely run any changes you are considering past someone you trust, before you make them. Sometimes people wind up compromising their original vision, based on (technically) sound advice, and the end result is awful. That being said, it is something I would advise considering.
Plus you already have the building blocks to show you can write believable character growth and introspection, so you should be able to translate the basic theme of her arc into a worthwhile dialogue, if only a few lines.
11089247
Well, not through dialogue, but I did do a minimal edit to cover this issue without interrupting what has already been established, written and committed. There's still plenty of opportunity for actual dialogue between the two later if I should need to revisit and reinforce the idea. I put a copy of the edited paragraph below so you don't have to go and find it:
After going over it a few times, I can see where that little bit of information does more to contribute to the story than not having it. If you got the time, let me know what you think.
Thanks!
weird, when Twilight gets stoned by that creature, she said don't remember anything. I guess Twilight say it to hide from her friend or her mind can't take it so it forgets all the experience
11095313
Not quite... The only thing we do see her say is "Huh? What happened?" shortly after she was revived. The next scene is Fluttershy explaining her own experience with the CMCs and the events of the night. We can assume Twilight was caught by surprise (her statue certainly had that expression) and the process of stoning was nearly instant since she wasn't expecting it and thus didn't try to fight it. Her internal experience might have been closer to that of sleep or a blank dream instead of panic and an urge to return to the real world since she wasn't even aware that anything was wrong in the first place. Saying that presents a side thought: Being stoned could very well be a positive experience under the right conditions; a perpetual lucid sandbox dream of sorts. It would depend on the pony.
Excuses aside, I imagine everypony's personal experience could range from being similar to quite different. It really depends on who they are mentally and like I said, the conditions of their stoning. I've spent some time considering if I should add the Alternate Universe tag to the story. I'm trying to keep established lore and canon intact, but since this story takes place after the end of the show, but before the final episode, there's still a lot of uncharted territory to explore. Luster Dawn likely hasn't even been born yet. Though it's not described in this story, I don't see Twilight being much taller here than she was before she left Ponyville.
It's a good observation, though. I had actually forgotten about that scene when I originally wrote this one. It could actually hold the power to change the debate over the harshness of Cozy Glow having been petrified in the first place and her experience throughout it (or lack thereof), and with that, also destroy the entire basis of this story! Like many others, I had latched more onto Discord's experience; that he was cognisant throughout it and even somewhat aware of the outside world. But then again, he was also a great magical being even more powerful than any of the realm's alicorns.
Still, I think your point has some value to it and is worth the discussion. Thanks!
I bet it was Discord.I bet he gonna use this to boost Flurry Heart confident this time
This is a cute moment.
It also puts Cozy's growth at a much more believable rate than what I had originally thought based on earlier chapters.
It will be nice to see where her growth goes from here.
Technically, Cozy Glow does talk in the third person when she's alone, but this still feels like a odd place for her to do it.
11096861
It's probably Sombra, going by the description in earlier chapters.
That poor filly. Good thing that Astral at least sees how what they did to her was so fundamentally wrong.
I wonder how much Twilight knows about Cozy being essentially tortured while in stone. I hope Astral gets her out soon.
I hope that whatever Cozy is planning, is to use against the third party that's been hiding in the shadows.
11134338
I believe I wrote elsewhere that she didn't agree with the stoning in the first place, and later regretted not standing up for her beliefs to Celestia and Luna. But at this point, it's very easy for Twilight to try not to worry herself over it. She was once stone back in season one, episode 17 "Stare Master", but for her, since it was so quick and unexpected, it was but a fleeting moment to her; a peaceful sleep. It would be easy for her to justify herself into incorrectly thinking that's just how it is for everypony.
Yeah, I'm really looking forward to what will happen in the future. The stories between cozy and astral are wonderful.
Overall a very wonderful and engaging story friend
, but wow is that a bittersweet ending 
Suffering in that void for longer, I hope she gets freed sometime...
magic of bushindo yay!
equestriato banzi!
come on, the previous chapter is already good. why mess it up with this cookie cutter happy ending?
11297250
Hmm... Maybe I'll write an alternate, non-canon epilogue just for you. Keep it bittersweet, then just bitter, then dark. (Seriously! I got the idea floating around my head, and it now wants out.)
Thank you for reading and taking the time to comment, even though there might be parts you don't exactly agree with. I really do appreciate it.
:P nice bait and switch, genuinely a very interesting story for that alone