Lost In the Woods

by Apple Bottoms

Dear Diary:

Dear Diary:

You are stupid. Writing in you is stupid. You are made of stupid paper, with stupid binding, which all came from a very special kind of tree: Plantae Stupidicus. When I become supreme leader over all of Equestria, my first royal act will be to ban stupid diaries.

Twilight Velvet says writing in you will help organize my thoughts. Do you know why that is stupid? Of course you don’t, you are a stupid journal from a discount Back To School sale at a stupid general store from a stupid podunk nowhere that Twilight Velvet comes from, so I will have to explain it to you. I would not have to ‘organize my thoughts’ if I had not been foalnapped. YES!!!! FOALNAPPED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Cozy Glow underlined the word until she tore a hole in the page.

There I was, facing off against her bratling Princess Dumblight Dorkle the Princess of Dumbness, when Twilight Velvet suddenly grabbed me. I was fine, everything was well in hoof, and then nabbed by this dumbheaded unicorn! And foalnapped off to some distant mountain range!

Cozy Glow frowned at the page for a moment until the clutching feeling in her lungs subsided. Thinking about the part where her torso began to turn to stone, trapping the air in her lungs, still made her heart beat fast. Silently, she tore out the last two pages, the ones covered in her thick, enraged script, and balled them into a wad. She kicked it under her bed, then resumed.

Dear Diary:

Writing in you is stupid. I would not have to organize my thoughts if I hadn’t been foalnapped. Everything would have been fine if I was back home. I would have figured out a solution. I always do.

“Cozy? Breakfast is done. Are you almost ready?”

Cozy Glow frowned down at the diary and its pitiful three line entry. It would do. If Twilight Velvet wanted better from her, then she shouldn’t have foalnapped her and taken her away to an isolated cabin in the woods. “Yep.”

It hadn’t even been a week since she arrived at the cabin. She knew that, because Twilight Velvet kept one of those obnoxious cuddly-kitten calendars in the kitchen, and each day made a big show of talking about the day. It was apparently an everyday thing, and Cozy only had to count the minutes after her first bite of breakfast (oatmeal with honey and bean sprouts) before she’d start the routine. In three, two …

“Let’s see, what is today? Today is Wednesday!” Twilight Velvet drew an X through the matching day. Cozy Glow noted that she used her mouth to hold the marker, instead of her magic. It pleased her that it was a little wobbly. “Wednesdays are when we gather wood for the fire.”

Cozy Glow frowned at her. “That’s d-” Her stomach did a flip flop, and when Twilight Velvet turned a questioning look at her, she turned her frown towards her oatmeal. “Why do we need logs? You can make fire with magic.”

Calling something ‘dumb’ reminded her of their conversation a few nights ago, and that was not a memory that Cozy wanted to revisit. Cozy Glow had called Twilight Velvet a dumb-dumb; through some kind of mind-control Cozy Glow ended up crying, Twilight Velvet told her she was a good filly, and then they colored together. At the time it had made sense, but looking back on it filled her with a deep sense of confusion and no small amount of embarrassment. She was Cozy Glow! Scourge of Equestria, outlaw on the run! She wasn’t some dumb baby who needed hugs and kissy-wissies from her mommy-wommy! And besides, Twilight Velvet wasn’t even her mother, she was a foalnapper! She had to keep it together if she was going to make it out of here alive. Twilight Velvet was a unicorn, and the only possible solution had to be that she was casting some kind of mind-warping magic on Cozy Glow.

Since Cozy didn’t want to risk another mind-warping spell, so she avoided the d-word for the time being. No other reason.

“Well, I think it’s good to do things by hoof sometimes, don’t you?” Twilight Velvet explained as she carried her bowl of oatmeal over to the table. “What if there was an emergency, and I was too tired to use my magic? It’s always good to have a backup plan, especially when you’re in the woods.”

“We don’t have to be out in the woods,” Cozy Glow muttered into her oatmeal, and shot Twilight Velvet a sharp glance.

Twilight Velvet lifted her eyebrows at her, and Cozy Glow figured that she was buying time for her answer as she chewed. “My daughter is almost definitely searching for you. Very few places on the continent would be safe.”

“You took me to space?!”

Twilight Velvet shook her head with a little chuckle, which rankled Cozy Glow’s sore feelings. “No, no, we’re just very far from Equestria. This used to be an outpost, actually; one of the furthest places we had ever been. Ponies, I mean. We’re deep in the Griffon lands. But even up here, we’re miles and miles away from anypony else. It’s the first safe place I could think of, and teleportation magic is safest when you go somewhere you are familiar with.”

“You spend a lot of time planning foalnappings?”

Twilight Velvet’s reply was sarcastic. “Ha, ha, no. My father used to bring us camping out here. He thought it was important that we know how to work with our hooves and not just our horns. I had a lot of fun here as a filly.”

Probably because you weren’t foalnapped, Cozy Glow thought dourly.

“Gathering wood is still a chore, but getting out into the forest is always an adventure. When I was a little filly like you, I used to pretend I was a magical fairy princess, and I was gathering twigs to make magic potions.” Twilight Velvet smiled as she downed the last of her oatmeal and quickly carried her bowl to the sink. “C’mon! Let’s get going!”

“Yay,” Cozy Glow muttered to herself as Twilight Velvet bustled around the cabin, “can’t wait.”

Comments

[asdtroi8895]

I didn't expect getting a sequel to Only a Filly. I am very glad that we did, though. Cozy seems so be back to being closer to her show-self here. I'm guessing the initial shock of her situation wore off, which makes sense.

[AvoidingFever17]

“You took me to space?!”

Me: yes

[cozystar]

sequel sequel sequel

favorite parts of chapter 1: the journal entries and her feeling embarrassed and ashamed and yelling at herself for needing “from her mommmy-wommy” (I apologize if I copied the quote wrong, my short-term memory is poor at times). great start so excited to read the next chapters

[MorinoHisashi]

I keep forgetting that Twilight Velvet is Twilight Sparkle’s mother 😂😂 I’m like “Who?” And only put it together when she says “My daughter is most definitely looking for you” lol. Boy am I in another realm!!