Missing and Unexplained
Cozy Glow technically lived in Maretime Bay, but she had been spending less and less time there as the months passed since she had first come there. She actually spent a lot of time traveling to the Everfree Forest, where some of the last remnants of her old life were, and tried to pick up the pieces that she had smashed so long ago.
The creatures there were mostly welcoming, but she didn’t spend a lot of time with them. The only one who really knew how much she came and went was Sprout, and he obviously didn’t tell anyone else.
Just like Cozy, Sprout spent a lot of time in the ruins just outside the edges of Old Ponyville - the castle and school where Twilight’s lasting legacy should have lived on forever in gleaming altars in the magnificent monuments to the power of friendship. However, both had fallen into disrepair when the Everfree Forest consumed all of Ponyville so long ago. The castle was mostly fine, with a lot of dust in the curtains, but otherwise just empty, dirty, and neglected. The School of Friendship was faring almost as bad as the rest of Ponyville, but was made out of much more sturdy material than the rest of the town, and was therefore mostly intact. A few collapsed towers, and most of the windows broken, and the mosaics and carvings on the outside of the school beyond recognition, and ivy had grown up the sides of the walls, practically hiding the school entirely, but the waterfalls and lake were still there.
That was where Sprout always found her: standing at the edge of the lake, staring up at the last place she could have claimed that she had been happy.
Twilight’s castle had been rediscovered by Sunny and her friends before Cozy Gow had even been released from her stone prison, and the magic that had grown it in the first place was obviously still active. The magical map in the center of the room had updated itself to fit modern Equestria and the surrounding lands, and the chairs around the edge of the room, which used to be for Twilight and each of her friends, including Spike, had also magically shifted to just five seats, one for Sunny Starscout and each of her friends.
That was where Cozy always found Sprout: standing at the edge of the circle of thrones, looking at the only thing he had left of his friends, knowing that he would never be able to step inside that circle and be with them again.
They usually talked - Cozy would tell Sprout all about Sunny and her friends, and what was happening in Maretime Bay. She helped him master his earth pony magic when it came in, based on what she had heard Sunny and Hitch teach the other earth ponies. And Sprout had helped her figure out everything that had happened since Cozy had been turned to stone - everything that they knew of, anyway. And he helped her with her more personal project.
Cozy Glow loved her new friends - Jinx Evergreen, Rose Blossom, and Lofty Skies, who called themselves the Crusaders of Harmony. But even as happy as she had first felt when she had joined them in Maretime Bay, a new sadness had eventually overshadowed that happiness. Her past was still undealt with, and she had to deal with this new weight that had settled on her shoulders, that told her that something else was still coming, something she would have to fix. So she began journeying to the Everfree Forest, to find the remnants of her old life and try to figure out how she could atone for them.
One of her last conversations with Sprout had been about the very subject, actually.
“I tried to make up for what I did,” Sprout had said. He’d looked across the lake as if he could see something else than dark, pressing trees. “I actually thought that maybe I’d done it - that they would forgive me. That they had forgiven me. Maybe I had even done more than just make up for it. But then…” He had shivered, even though it was quite warm. “In the end, none of it mattered. I gave up everything I had done to get them to forgive me so that they would be free. And now I think that I’ve done enough, but… they don’t know any of it. If I went back to them, I would have to do it all over again.”
Cozy had looked down at her hooves. “None of the ponies - or creatures,” she’d amended, looking back up at the ruins of the School of Friendship, “that I wronged are still here. Except for you and… and Sunny and her friends. I want to think I’ve made it up to you guys - I think most of you have forgiven me. But I really wish…” She’d trailed off, unable to find the right words to say.
“That you could go back and fix it with everyone else?” Sprout had finished for her.
Cozy’d nodded. “It seems so childish,” she had said, standing up. “I mean, you never mess with time travel - we heard all about how that went wrong. You either accomplish nothing, or you mess things up so bad the future is even worse than it was. But I just… I want to say I’m sorry. I want them to know that. I don’t even really care if they forgive me, I just want them to know that I’m sorry.”
That had been yesterday.
Cozy Glow was preparing to head down the tunnel under the Tree of Harmony to Zephyr Heights to join her friends for a day at the Unity Festival. She hadn’t attended the first day, because she was trying to work up the courage to actually go inside the School of Friendship for the first time in nearly a century and a half. Every time she got close to the door, she came down with cold hooves and chickened out. She couldn’t go in there yet - too many memories, too much guilt. One time, she actually touched the doorknob - only to be yanked back to one of her last days at the school, when the mail pony had crashed into the school, and she had collected the letters and given them to Twilight Sparkle - the day she had started her spell to suck all of the magic out of Equestria.
Somehow, she knew that there had to be something in there - not just for her, but something that could help all of Equestria. She knew that the giant magical surge from Sunny Starscout that defeated Chrysalis wouldn’t go without its consequences. Besides, the school could hold more answers for how Equestria first fell.
But she just couldn’t do it.
Cozy was at the edge of the forest, about to venture out into the daisy fields to the large tree in the center, when a grasshopper suddenly appeared in front of her. It landed on a daisy in front of Cozy and started chirping insistently. Cozy stared at it for a moment before the grasshopper stopped then transformed into Midge.
“Right. I forgot that ponies don’t understand Grasshopper,” Midge said sheepishly.
Cozy raised an eyebrow. “Maybe grasshoppers don’t know how to speak Pony.”
Midge shrugged. “Maybe. Hey, have you seen Sprout anywhere?”
“Not since yesterday. He was over at the castle… Why?”
“Because we need to be done with this whole charade,” the changeling moaned, rubbing his forehead. “He hasn’t been back to Maretime Bay in months, and he won’t face his friends, so instead I got to do it for him, but it’s over now, Sunny knows what’s up - she just caught me, actually-”
“Sunny’s here?” Cozy looked around, trying to spot the earth pony. “Wait. Shouldn’t she be in Zephyr Heights?”
“That’s what I was wondering, but I had to get out of there,” Midge told her. “I think something must be wrong, but first, I need to talk to Sprout.”
“Why?” Cozy Glow asked, following Midge as he trotted briskly further into the forest.
“Because he needs to face his friends and tell them the truth! I’m sure that if he just told them that he traded their memories for their freedom, they’ll understand, and who knows, maybe there’s a way to get them back! He can’t keep hiding in the forest for the rest of his life.”
Cozy Glow had to bite her lip to keep from saying anything. She and Sprout had an unspoken rule: whatever they said to each other stayed with each other. Sprout didn’t tell the other creatures of the Everfree Forest about Cozy’s dilemma, and Cozy didn’t tell anypony about Sprout’s feelings toward his friends. “Maybe there’s a different way you could go about doing this? I mean, if we think that something’s wrong, then this might not be the best time to try and reason with Sprout-”
Midge halted, so suddenly that Cozy nearly ran into him. He stood still for a moment, his head bowed, and Cozy trotted up to face him, wondering what was going on. When she caught the look on his face, though, the question died in her throat.
“That’s exactly what I’m afraid of,” he said quietly. “If there really is something wrong - something that could destroy our world as we know it - Sunny and her friends, they’re going to need Sprout. I think that they won’t be able to solve this problem without him.” He looked up, a new fire in his eyes. “We have to find him and get him to go back to his friends and tell them everything.”
Cozy was still a bit unsure, but she agreed that something did feel off, and the way that Sprout looked when he talked about his friends always broke her heart a little bit. He cared about them all so much, but he believed that he would never be able to be with them again. So when Midge continued into the forest, she followed him.
She led Midge to Twilight’s castle, where she normally found Sprout. Midge pushed open one of the oaken doors and peered inside the dark entrance chamber. “Hello?” he called out tentatively. “Sprout? Are you in here?”
They didn’t hear anything, so Cozy trotted inside the castle and found her way to the throne room.
The chandelier above, which Cozy knew was made from the roots of the old Golden Oak Library, was still strung with all the crystalized memories that Twilight and her friends shared. The map table was still in the center of the room, surrounded by five thrones, each one marked with the cutie mark of one of the new Guardians of Harmony. Just looking at the room made waves of guilt wash over Cozy, but she forced those feelings away. She couldn’t focus on them right then. She had to find Sprout.
She scanned the room, looking for the red stallion, and she gasped.
“Sprout! There you are,” she said, running up to him. She should have suspected that something was wrong. He wasn’t facing the center of the room, and he was standing in one of the darkest corners of the room, one where the pulsing light from the map table didn’t quite reach. He stood completely still, his head bowed and his eyes closed.
Cozy came to a halt beside him and touched his shoulder. “Sprout?”
He opened his eyes and turned to face her, and Cozy Glow felt her heart climb into her throat.
Because Sprout’s eyes weren’t their usual green anymore. Now, they were completely black, all of the normal light that seemed to glow from within absolutely obscured in a churning sea of an empty void. He turned toward her.
“Wh-what…” Cozy’s voice trailed away. She started taking steps back, but in her haste, tripped over her own hooves. She caught a glimpse of Midge out of the corner of her eye. The changeling was standing, stock-still, watching Sprout in shock as he advanced slowly. Shadows began to pool out of Sprout’s empty eyes and wrap themselves around him, until they created something even more terrifying.
Standing in his place was a massive wolf, twice as tall as a normal pony, and made from pure, solid shadow. It seemed to absorb the light as it touched it, and it radiated waves of fear and panic that made Cozy’s heart beat twenty times faster.
But the worst part about the shadow wolf was its eyes.
They were white, and glowing, but cold and empty at the same time. As Cozy stared into them, she felt something dark begin to creep at the edges of her mind, wanting to drag her to the same place that it had surely imprisoned Sprout. She could feel her eyes growing heavy, knew that if she closed them, then the monster would attack.
You… the wolf hissed, its voice more in her head than anything else. So perfect… So much shame, so much guilt, so much sorrow…
It continued to take menacing steps toward her, its large paws making no sound as they padded across the floor.
“You stay away from her!” Midge suddenly yelled. With a roar, he changed into a massive black-and-white bear with six legs and bug-like wings. The bugbear charged at the wolf, but the wolf merely snarled in its direction, and shadows leapt out from the crevices of the room and wrapped around the bugbear before tossing it across the room. Midge transformed into his normal form as he hit the wall with a sickening thud, and then slid to the floor, unconscious.
Cozy Glow scrambled to her hooves and hastily tried to move away from the wolf, trying to put as much distance between her and it as possible, but the wolf kept coming.
Nowhere left to run, little pony, the shadow wolf said in her mind. We are stronger now… stronger than you will ever know…
It suddenly came to a halt, looking down its muzzle almost reproachfully at Cozy.
I see, it said. Using old magic. It won’t be enough to stop us soon, little pony. Soon, we will be the strongest forces in this world, and the pitiful powers of friendship will be nothing to stand in our way. So cower within your magic circles while you can.
Magic circles? Cozy wondered. Then she looked around. She was standing just inside the circle of thrones in the center of the chamber. All of the thrones were now glowing, and a glowing line connected each of them, forming a circle around the map table - a circle that Cozy was inside of, and apparently the wolf could not penetrate.
The wolf cast one last look at her before it dissolved into shadows and shot out of the room in a dark blur.
Cozy wanted to run after it, but she was scared to leave the magic protection. But more than that, she was scared of those wolves - and what they might be doing to her friends.
Stats
Page generated in 0.019 seconds
Total duration
975 users online
1,669,656 hits today, 2,782,760 yesterday
FIMFiction
My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic Fanfiction
Designed and coded by knighty & Xaquseg - © 2011-2024
Follow & Support Us
Support us
SubStar
Chat!
Discord
Follow us
Twitter
MLP: Friendship is Magic® - © 2024 Hasbro Inc.®
Fimfiction is in no way affiliated with or endorsed by Hasbro Inc.®
Glow
All i'm actually glad that sprout and cozy are not alone they have each other sends both of them are outcast but hopefully not too long
Oh dear this is really getting nerve wrecking so cozy glow living outside Maretime Bay she still hasn't really adapt to the modern year and the only one who she can talk with was sprout since he can never go back to his friends have a sense he made a deal for their freedom but it looks Midge told her what was happening especially he said they needed sprout or things will get much worser so they decided to find him but what they found was not him but it turns out to be the shadow wolves again trying to get cozy glow but Midge stop that but still not enough to still come close to cozy glow but somehow the magical shield of the castle activated but cozy understood that this is getting more serious and very scary at the same time i just hold everybody can regroup before things gets much worser than ever well i guess we'll find out next time
Ooh, what if (this is just a prediction) at the end, they use the Elements of Harmony to create a bigger and stronger version of that around Equestria, like what Twilight did when she fought Opaline?
Also, what happened to Comet? If I’m correct then doesn’t this take place after Secrets of Starlight?
Oh, my. Things are getting out of hoof for Cozy.