> My Final Confession: Relapse
>  by jmj
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

> Act I: Interrupting your regularly scheduled program
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Dear viewers, a scandalous plot has been uncovered by the best news agency in Canterlotian history, Perfect News. Under the guidance of our founder, Future Perfect, I, the esteemed progeny Past Tense, have acquired for a very special broadcast an illuminating recording found at the scene of an attempted murder that explains the sudden change in Equestrian governance.

Many questions have been on pony lips over the last few months since the Royal Guard Commander Shining Armor became the Speaker of the Castle under the supposed orders of the ailing Princess Twilight Sparkle. Princess Sparkle, as you all know, has made no public appearances due to “illness” and placed Commander Armor as her personal mouthpiece, meaning only our new Speaker and physicians have laid eyes upon her in recent history.

What is this illness? Why does it keep Princess Twilight bed-ridden and quarantined? Why was Doctor Pheromone, the princess’ personal physician, removed from the castle shortly after Princess Twilight contracted this terrible ailment and a state-run group of physicians brought in to oversee the recuperation of our beloved princess? Does this sound like a government conspiracy to anyone else?

Of course it does, and Perfect News, as always, is the one to report the truth and expose corruption within our society. Under the Sparkle regime, friendship and unity have thrived with a minimal amount of scandal but each time a shady dealing or tasty tidbit fell from the control of the crown, we were here to present it. 

And so, Perfect News brings to you, loyal viewers, the truth the government wishes to conceal.

A video tape was secretly copied by a Perfect News informant before destruction by the Royal Inquisition. Smuggled courageously by our anonymous informant, who was arrested on charges of treason shortly after delivering the video. What awaited on that tape was enough evidence to condemn the actions of the state and reveal the whole seedy conspiracy. So much, in fact, that members of the Royal Guard and Royal Inquisition stormed the headquarters of Perfect News and seized the original evidence and destroyed it. Taking with them not only the ashes of the tape but our own, beloved, Future Perfect under false charges. The brazen illegality of Shining Armor’s actions will be brought to public viewing by this broadcast.

Under threat of persecution and retaliation for going live with any information of the tape, Perfect News has decided to run the story because the truth is not afraid of the action from this or any government. Nothing can stifle the truth, it’s what our founder has always believed.

Broadcasting from a secret location, I, Past Tense, will read the surviving transcription documents from the aforementioned cassette in full while Perfect News teams, likewise working from secret locations, connect what portions of the video were salvaged or hidden from the Inquisition Interceptance Task Force. We hope to have pieced the surviving clips of the video airing by noon tomorrow and no amount of Royal Guard or Royal Inquisition interference will halt the truth.

Here in my hoof are the original transcriptions from the video. Transcribed by Future Perfect himself, I will now begin reading what Perfect News calls, The Inadvertent Final Confessions of Pinkamena Diane Pie.
> Introductions
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

The black screen flitters to life. Rolling static falls like rain until an image appears within the pixelated snowstorm steadily falling from the top of the screen to the bottom border and repeating in a cycle of falling. 

The image is strangely distorted and stretches diagonally with a hissing audio track before righting itself. A wicker picnic basket swings in the mouth of a young mare wearing a sunhat. She looks back and laughs whimsically at the camera. She and whomever is holding the camera are following a worn path surrounded by old, thick trees. 

The picture distorts and changes with a quick crackle. Inside the frame is a beech colored table edge that the camera appears to be lying on. Gingerbread walls connected with cemented frosting and adorned with too many assorted sweets and candies to be able to recognize them all fill the shot.  

A gash of red evening light splays across the various confections-turned-construction and the solid wood of the table. The view remains fixed on the aged leather-colored wall for a few seconds while muffled, unintelligible voices are heard as if something is covering the microphone. The picture moves subtly as though the camera is being tampered with from outside of its field of view.

“ ..err nat … ca … umblic. Cozy! Why do … gler,” an unknown voice sputters.

“Ung … No, listen …, “ replies a second faceless voice.

The first returns, an alcoholic slur paints what words are decipherable, “ … aste of time! I don’t understand … t’s the big deal with … ref... ing.”

The microphone continues to chop up the voices as the second unknown retaliates, “ … old you it would be … we nev… any fun.”

The video suddenly cuts out and reappears staring off of a light wooden table, dark with unknown stains. A window is centered in the frame, and a sliver of darkness pokes through the cotton candy draperies. The blade of a large gleaming knife is buried in the sanded table edge barely within frame. In the background the wall that had been previously viewed can be seen with the shadows of the speakers. One is the tall, lean shadow of an adult pony while the other is far smaller and more rounded, indicating a foal. Judging by the voices both are female. The sound quality is no longer muffled.

 “I swear to the stars that I should have just put you in an oven when I found you! Is that what you want?” The original voice is somewhat deeper than the second, a slight wavering of age wears on the timbre.

 “It’s better than being bored to death! Why don’t you do it, then? I won’t even try to fly away. I’ll just stand right here and let you do whate ... Hey!”

The tall shadow grows on the wall and eclipses the small one. A pink face appears but before the camera can focus enough to identify the owner,  the points of filed teeth clamp down on the knife and tear it free of the tableThe camera bounces away to a warmly glowing oven. Something can be seen through the window cooking but only as a silhouette.

 “Ooh, scary. Now you’ve got a knife. I didn’t ask to be here, you know. Someone brought me here. Someone who is boring and sad and lonely!” the younger, filly voice strikes like the charge of a bull.

The mare speaks around the hilt of the knife, giving a muffled reply, ”Lonely am I? I’m going to split your belly open and make friends with your kidneys. Who will be lonely then?”

Exasperated, the filly lashes out, “Do it, then! I dare you! You don’t scare me and I’m tired of hearing you cry and whine all the time about those losers you used to be friends with.”

“Shut up!”

“Oh no, I made my pegasus friend into cupcakes. Boo hoo hoo! She tasted like spoiled nanners.”

There’s a loud screech followed by slamming and cursing before the table upends, jerking the camera free of gravity and sending it spiraling towards the floor.
> Intro 2: Cozy's Cooking Corner
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

The feed returns looking directly up from below and into the pink muzzle of a filly. A vibrant blue canopy of curling locks drifts around her head and her brows hunch. A small piece of rolled tissue paper tinged with a dark red stain plugs one of her nostrils while curious eyes the color of raw meat flicker across the lens.

 “Okay… okay. I think it’s working. That was a nasty spill you took Mr. Camera. I thought she had broken you when my big old noggin hit you. To be fair you left a pretty good lump on my head, though. So we both came out a little worse for wear.”

The camera spins too quickly to make out much more than color streaks and motion blur but the house appears to be one large room with each area separated by candy-tile patterns. It is impossible to tell if the house is made from, or modeled after, baked goods. 

The camera is gently placed on a table that looks familiar with permanently stained dark blotches marring the peachy beech wood. The filly appears in frame and gives a sweet smile, her features soft and plump with her clashing color scheme causing her to appear what most would consider to be cute. The filly hums a merry tune to herself as she places a large wooden bowl onto the table and surrounds it with ingredients used in cooking: flour, sugar, eggs, milk, and various other items. The filly drops from sight behind the table and then re-emerges and appears to count inaudibly over the items before staring into the camera and grinning widely.

“Welcome to the … ummm …”, she brings a hoof to her chin and looks absently to the ceiling. “Cozy’s Cooking Corner! With your golly gee, adorable host, Cozy Glow! Since this is the inaugural voyage of the Corner … and the first time I’ve ever tried to actually cook anything … we are going to do something easy and meat-free!”

Cozy adopts a short smile and lilts her head softly to the side. “Now, I know what you are thinking, ‘meat free?’ But aren’t all pony meals free of meat?’ Well, mine are but sometimes there are some real weirdos out there. I happen to live with one of them. Her name is Pinkamena! You wonderful folks may recall her from a string of murders some time back.”

Cozy refers to the infamous ‘Cupcake Killer’ from decades ago. Though the former Celestial government officially pronounced Pinkamena Pie dead after a five year ponyhunt, her name still draws a gasp from campfire horror stories around Equestria. While the initial rampage of the mare totaled a high body count, she disappeared after several pursuits and, if our former Princess is to be believed, committed suicide inside of Red Velvet Cakery emporium after a standoff with the Royal Guard. Only the occasional missing pony conjures the legend into household conversation once more.

“She acts like she’s some big deal scary monster or something. You know what she really is? A big crybaby!” Cozy Glow touches her head and grunts while looking off-camera. Narrowing her eyes she pulls the blood-soaked tissue paper from her nose and it disappears below the table. She pauses and continues to look away from the camera at something unknown. 

Canterlot Royal Guard detectives identified her as the filly involved in an attempted government coup. See attached file.

“Anyway,” Cozy chews the word as if it tastes bitter, “It’s a beautiful morning and I’m very hungry for … some …uh ... flapjacks! So let’s get out our… ummm… big stir-spoon.” 

Rummaging around in something off-screen and making several clanking noises, Cozy murmurs to herself until she hefts a large wooden paddle-like utensil, called a peel, much too large for mixing pancake batter. Struggling to maintain the utensil, Cozy drops more than lays it on the table and grunts audibly as the other bowls rattle and shift.

“Okay… so, now we have our stirrer. Let’s preheat the oven and let it be getting nice and hot while we put the ingredients together.”

Cozy turns and opens the small brick oven, humming the same song as before while she builds a fire. The small pink pony crawls halfway inside to light the tinder she prepared. After a few grumbles, a couple curse words, and a minor freak out, Cozy retracts from the oven with soot streaking down her left cheek. The mop of blue curls now heavy with ashes, she sneezes and momentarily disappears in a burst of dark clouds. She recovers quickly and hustles to her initial placement behind the table.

“Hard part: accomplished!” Cozy salutes with one foreleg and bounces happily. “Now, let’s put in a cup of flour!” The filly struggles with a full bag of Royal Emblem flour. It teeters in her grip as far more than a cup pours into a large, wooden mixing bowl. Much of the white powder spills around the bowl, onto and behind the table as Cozy replaces the half-empty bag.

“So that’s about enough flour. Next … we … need … one of these things…ah! This! Caker’s powder!” Cozy takes a small, dark bowl into her hooves of another white powder. It is obviously ‘Baking Powder’. The bowl is small but deep, and appears to hold far more baking powder than is necessary. The filly unceremoniously dumps the entirety into the mixing bowl.

“Yep. Now we need eggs and milk. We have to be careful with eggs because they are easy to crack.” The filly takes the first egg and taps it gently onto the edge of the bowl. It refuses to crack, sending a short storm of anger through Cozy’s features. She tries again, much harder this time. “So you just need to ...UGH!”

Cozy splatters the egg against the table into a plasmatic mess. Shell shards decorate the filly’s hoof and float in a pond of albumen.

“Hmm… let’s try that again.” Cozy takes another egg, still dripping from the embryo imbroglio. The egg barely touches the table and remains intact. Cozy tries again with the same result and then taps a little harder but still not enough to crack the egg. “Come on you!”

Darkness crosses the mare and her eyes bulge. She brings back the egg angrily and catches herself in the soot-soaked locks. A hollow thump like a woodpecker attacking  a dead tree pierces the kitchen and Cozy cries out sharply, dropping the egg into the unseen floor with an audible crunch. She grabs at her head and rubs violently while tears form in her eyes. “Right on the knot! Oh-ho-ho! Why did I do that? Owwwwwwwwwieeeeeee!”

The mare’s voice returns from off-screen, now more sober and annoyed. “You just don’t know how to be quiet do you?

Cozy stiffens for a moment and snaps her eyes to the right of the camera while still rubbing at her head. Her teeth are gritted and she sniffles in defense. “Well, excuse me Miss sleep-all-day. Some of us like to do more than just snooze!”

“Some of us don’t go to sleep early and snore like a dragon for hours!” 

“Go to sleep? Is that what you call it? I call it being knocked out, you hateful grouch!” Another sniffle escapes the filly as she accuses the disembodied voice.

Cozy’s bitter eyes follow something moving and the slow clacking of hooves on tile approach until a middle-aged mare steps into the field of view. Lithe and strong, she is coated in soft pink fur a few shades darker than that of the filly. Standing out in the coat are many speckles of graying hairs. A curtain of deep magenta mane flows like water down one side of her head. Like her coat, it has grayed as well; now a steel-colored shock streaks the longer side. A hairless scar is all that exists of a cutie mark and tiny gaps appear within her coat as she moves, bald reminders of old wounds. She has aged, but little has physically changed since her wanted posters decorated so many cities and villages of Equestria. 

She towers over the filly and glowers down at her. A splotch of dried blood stands at the corner of her mouth and a thin black cut barely a half-inch long opens along her cheek when her mouth stretches to speak. As suspected, the Canterlot Royal Guard have identified the mare as Pinkamena Diane Pie. Please refer to the attached case file.

“It could have been much … much worse, you know.” Pinkamena’s grin is a slice of Tartarus looming above the filly.

“Are you going to stand there and threaten me all morning or are we going to actually do something?” Cozy pouts her lip and still rubs at her head with one leg while meeting the monster’s grim visage. 

Pinkamena smacks the filly’s hoof away from the soiled blue locks of mane. Cozy flinches but doesn’t recoil, tilting her head forward. Taking her hooves and gently pressing against the filly’s head, Pinkamena grunts softly and spreads the mane, peering inside. “You’ll live, for now. There’s a nasty knot here but I doubt it’s putting any kind of pressure on what little brain you have.”

“You smell like booze.” Cozy’s words are stilted and piercing.

“Not your concern, Cozy.” Pinkamena releases the filly’s head. “Let’s just forget about last night.”

“No wonder you slept so late. Did you stay up drinking and crying agai...GULP!” 

Pinkamena growls and latches onto the filly’s throat with her hooves. The thin lips pull back to reveal her gnashing, pointed teeth.

“I said, we are going to FORGET about last night, Cozy. Do you understand me?”

“Yes, Pinkie… I-I’m sorry.” The filly struggles against the hoof cutting off her breath. 

Releasing Cozy, Pinkamena’s hard expression softens and she turns her back to the camera, inspecting the oven. Cozy sticks her tongue out at Pinkamena’s back. Pinkamena misses the gesture as Cozy quickly sports a smile when the mare faces back around and flitters ice-blue eyes around the floor and table, absorbing the mess. Her eyes are hard, tiny diamonds surrounded by darkened bags. “Don’t call me Pinkie. You know I don’t like it. What, exactly, are you trying to make? I see a lot of things here.”

“Sorry, Pinkamena.” Cozy stammers the name out. “Ummm... this is Cozy’s Cooking Corner’s first episode. I thought flap jacks would be easy and …”

“And?”

The filly’s cheeks flush and her eyes drift down to the floor with a slight frown. “I wanted to say that I was sorry for … for what I said. It was wrong of me to be so mean to you. I thought making breakfast for us would be a good way to apologize.”

“I was unaware that you knew how to cook.” The contents of the bowl slide around as Pinkamena looks into it. Her brows form an M as her gaze falls upon the spilled flour, crushed eggs, and the various instruments strewn upon the table. “You don’t have a clue what you are doing, do you?”

Cozy’s laugh is like a wagon rolling down a hill, trailing off to a ravine where it crashes, flips, and sinks. 

Pinkamena disappears from frame and reappears with a small, leathery bag capped with a stopper. The mare tugs a tallow colored ribbon from Cozy’s mane and presses the bottle into the blue locks before tying it down with the ribbon. The filly’s eyes close and a stinging hiss slips from her lips like a viper sliding into a sleeping bag. She jerks away.

“It’s ice. Let’s get that swelling down. So… this is way too much flour and baking powder unless you meant to feed all of Equestria. How about we …” Pinkamena spots the camera and her head tilts off of its axis. Her eyes squint as if struggling to discern the camera before raising one accusing brow to Cozy. “I see … just wanted to say sorry, huh?”

“Well, … yes, but I thought I might as well make it fun too. What’s so wrong with that?”

The two stare at each other for an uncomfortable moment, their wills struggling for dominance. Cozy’s cheeks pop up into a disarmingly cute smile and Pinkamena covers her eyes with one hoof and sighs. “Where’d you even find that thing? I thought I’d gotten rid of it.”

“Somewhere. I had it last night too, but I guess you wouldn’t remember that.”
 
Pinkamena appears to let the jab slide, “So how does this thing work? I could never figure it out before.”

Cozy puffs with excitement and cheers happily. “Ohhhh! I just knew you would like it if you tried it! Here, let me show you!” Cozy dashes towards the camera and chuckles to herself. Hooves envelope the field of view and the filly’s soft coat consumes almost the entire screen while the camera begins to shake and lift from the table.

“I didn’t say anything about liking it, I just don’t want you to burn down my…”

The video dies with a burst of static and is replaced with an unknown, pallid pink mare smiling sweetly and sitting on a red and white patched blanket. She appears to be wearing a green sundress. There is no sound but the mare brushes back a few loose strands of orange mane tied up in a ponytail and appears to be laying out paper plates from a wide wicker basket. A nutmeg stallion canters over and sits down beside the mare. He says something causing the young mare to blossom a bright red before leaning in and kissing the stallion. The image distorts angrily and Cozy quickly runs back behind the counter where Pinkamena awaits with the corpse of a smile. The table has been cleared, cleaned, and reset with less utensils and ingredients.

“Today we are…”

“No, no… let me introduce it.”

“Well, you were just standing there doing nothing.” Pinkamena rebutts Cozy, who shifts and bumps into her while clearing her throat in annoyance. The mare rolls her eyes and steps to the side.

“Welcome to Cozy’s Cooking Corner! I’m Cozy Glow and I’m joined by my assistant Pinkie Pie …” It is Pinkamena’s turn to bump into Cozy who stammers before brightening into a giant smile. “I mean, Pinkamena.” The filly slips back into her hostess persona. “Here at Cozy’s Corner we know the value of a hearty, nutritious breakfast but we also know that most ponies just don’t have the time to prepare an elaborate meal. So we are going to show you a quick and tasty breakfast item that has all of the nutrition you need to get your busy day started off right.”

Pinkamena, who had been staring into the ether, interrupts with a strong, sharp jab of excitement. “Muffins! Blueberry, strawberry, oatmeal, banana, all topped with cream cheese frosting!”

Cozy draws back a step and screws her face up as she peers at the tall mare. “Umm… flapjacks. We were making flapjacks.”

“Oh… oh yes, flapjacks. Sorry, old habits.” Pinkamena looks away and frowns to herself. Her gaze drifts off once more.

“While muffins are wonderful and come in a variety of flavors and styles, they aren’t quite as um … portable?” Cozy strains for a moment to think. “Okay, so maybe they are more portable for a pony on the go but they really can’t have any delicious maple …” Cozy strains again. “Well, I guess you can put syrup on them but we didn’t prepare the right ingredients for muffins so we are going to continue making flapjacks.”

Pinkamena returns to the here and now. “Actually, they use almost the exact same ingredients.”

A vein begins to throb on Cozy’s forehead.. “Okay, fine. We’re making muffins! We were all along! Just a funny little, uh, gag here at the Cooking Corner. So we have already preheated our oven but we can start putting the ingredients into a big old mixing bowl.”

Cozy begins mixing ingredients while Pinkamena stops her from making mistakes. There are  a lot of concerned looks from Pinkamena and it is painfully obvious that the filly’s reservoir of culinary artistry is sized somewhere between thimbleful and desert. Pinkamena interrupts and shows the filly how to measure, demonstrates a method of cracking eggs, and stops Cozy from pouring various ingredients onto the unseen floor. While the experience is tedious, both are smiling by the end over a pan of fresh, steaming muffins.

Pinkamena holds a knife, handle first, to the filly. “Okay, take the knife and make a cross section.”

“A what?” Cozy’s confusion is apparent.

“A cross section. That’s where you cut the food in half so you can see how delicious it is inside and out.”

“Oh, like what you said you did to those hikers last week?”

“Yeah … something like that.”

“It’s not going to stink is it?”

“Why … why would it stink, Cozy?”

“You said the hikers stunk when you opened them.”

Pinkamena sighs to herself. “It’s … It’s not the same. This should smell really good.”

The first episode of Cozy’s Cooking Corner ends with Cozy slicing a muffin in half, berries and warm oats exhaling piping steam from the inside while gooey cream cheese drips slowly into the newly halved muffin. The baked good suddenly appears jittering inside the whole frame, indicating that the pair may have discovered a basic form of editing.

Cozy’s voice rattles the camera due to proximity and elation. “Join us next time at Cozy’s Cooking Corner for more wholesome goodies, tips, and tricks!”

The video dies with a static snap.
> Memories
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Pinkamena is sitting in a chair with her back to the camera some distance away. She appears to be reading something and has a set of spectacles propped on her muzzle. There is a crack on the only visible lens. Her mane runs like blood from a new wound down her neck and back.

A carved wooden plate sectioned by raised dividers is visible at the bottom of the screen close to the camera. A large helping of broccoli steams in one of the pockets. Another pocket appears to hold some loose kernels of corn and a used, wet spoon drifting lazily in leftover juice. The picture dances back and forth for a moment until the operator, satisfied with the view, sets the camera in place.

Cozy can be heard giggling softly, and the camera remains fixed to the table in a clear indication that she is attempting to be covert. Across and in front of Pinkamena is an empty rose-colored couch with green trim and a pair of old, threadbare throw pillows flattened with use. There are lamps lit nearby, but much of the rest of the house is shrouded in darkness.

“You never did! Why do you lie so much?” Cozy’s words are tinted with titters. It’s apparent that the two had been in mid-conversation before the camcorder was switched on. Cozy’s voice suddenly fills the audio, but is hushed and conspiratorial so that Pinkamena can’t hear her. “She’s lying.”

“I did, Cozy. I worked in a bakery in Ponyville. How do you think I learned how to bake so well? I baked at least thirty pans of cookies, muffins, doughnuts, and other things a day. Sheesh, I don’t even want to think about how many cakes I baked and decorated. Or even worse … how many I ate.” Pinkamena’s head lifts in thought. “I should have been so fat.”

Cozy whispers to the camera. “She’s kind of fat now.” 

The spoon moves and reveals itself to be full of corn. A couple of fat, juice-wallered kernels fall from the spoon as it ascends. It returns, empty, to rest on the plate. “I used to live in Ponyville, you know,” says Cozy as she chews.

“Was it still small?”

“Yep, and you know what else?” Cozy’s tone is knowing and playful.

“What else?”

“There were no bakeries in town! So you are lying! Caught you!” The accusation is ripe with childish glee.

Consumed by her book, Pinkamena doesn’t take the bait. “Well, that makes sense. I know the Cakes moved away after what happened. I doubt anyone else wanted to start a new bakery in Ponyville after that. Kind of taboo. They probably think there are ghosts or something.”

“Taboo?” The filly laughs and repeats the word. Another spoon of corn moves up and down. “What does ‘taboo’ mean? Did you just make it up?”

“I most certainly did not make it up. It means forbidden for social reasons. If something is taboo you aren’t supposed to do it.” She pauses for a moment. “I know you aren’t eating your broccoli.”

“Ugh… broccoli is taboo.”

Pinkamena flips a page and smiles to herself while giving a very quiet laugh.

Cozy conspires with the camera once more after chewing another spoonful. “She thinks she’s so smart. I think she made that word up.”

Pinkamena lifts her head from the book and leans it against the cushion of her seat. Her eyes appear to be closed. “What do you think about making lemon bars tomorrow? The lemons are in season right now and we have some that need to be used anyway. Mrs. Cake used to make the best lemon bars I have ever tasted. I have her recipe here but I really wish I could just ask her what she did that made them so special. She probably would say something about love or family or friends being the special ingredient.” 

Pinkamena goes quiet and her features droop slightly. The pages in the book close and open to the inside cover. The camera cannot see but Pinkamena traces a hoof over the page and she chews her lip, head dropping to her chest. “If that’s true, I bet her lemon bars taste pretty awful now.”

The spoon slices the piece of broccoli in half. Fibrous strings of the vegetables flesh struggle to remain intact but the spoon severs them and hefts the piece away. The remaining chunk tips over and juice spills out around it. “I love lemon bars! I haven’t had them in forever. Will you let me do it? Like today?”

Pinkamena’s head snaps like a spring. “Huh? Oh … oh yeah, of course I will, Cozy. You should learn to cook for yourself in case something was to happen to me.”

“What do you mean by that? What would happen to you?”

“N-nothing, Cozy. I’m not as young as I used to be, is all. Time catches up with everypony.”

There’s a long silence except for the chomping of vegetables so close to the camera. “So are you going to admit it?”

“Admit what?”

“That you lied about working in a bakery? Duh!”

A deep sigh resonates in Pinkamena’s chest as she sinks into the cushions of the chair. “Why do you insist that I’m lying, Cozy? What do I have to gain by telling you I worked at Sugar Cube Corner when I didn’t?”

The spoon rattles against the hardwood and gulping noises are heard in close proximity to the camera. An empty transparent glass slams just inside the frame. Small rivulets of juice blaze a trail towards the bottom of the glass. “You just want to mess with me. Just like everyone else! Everypony lied to me for no good reason. I ended up getting turned to stone because of it. It wasn’t very fun, you know. I was there for a long time.”

“You’re right. That’s why I cut you free of the others on that statue and dragged your heavy little stone body all the way back here; so I could lie to you. Too bad you figured me out before I could execute my master plan.”

Cozy doesn’t answer right away. The spoon dawdles back and forth on the plate making tiny scraping noises. Her voice is weak, unguarded for the first time. “Why did you ...  help me?”

Pinkamena stretches her long legs and hops to her hooves. She turns to face Cozy and takes a step towards her. Glacial eyes stop on the camera, a smirk twisting her lips into a crooked scratch. “Maybe I thought such a cute filly shouldn’t be petrified forever. That’s a stiff punishment for one so small, even if she did try to take over Equestria. Did you learn anything from your failure?”

Cozy raises an eyebrow. “Get better help next time,” she says, her voice flat and impertinent..

“How about there not being a next time? Someone might miss you if you got turned to stone again.” Having crossed the distance, Pinkamena stands partially in the frame from the shoulder down to the knee.

“Nobody would miss me. I think you are like me, nobody likes you.” The filly’s tone has turned dour. “I think you were lonely. That’s why you brought me here.”

“Maybe. Or maybe I didn’t think being stone was a harsh enough punishment. Bad fillies like you have to learn the hard way. They have to eat … broccoli.” The camera suddenly jerks loose in one fluid motion of the mare’s leg. The camera spins and looks down on the top of Cozy’s blue curls. Pinkamena kisses the top of the filly’s head causing an explosion of giggles before the camera is shut off.
> Too Much
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

The camera can’t pick up much light as it sways back and forth, but occasional glimmers from the moon’s light on dew outline several species of plant life. A wall appears and disappears between lurching, awkward swings. Pinkamena can be heard grumbling, but it seems to be gibberish. 

The lens focuses in and out on a cobbled path that gleams like pearls in the moonlight. The swaying motion ceases as the camera is hefted onto what appears to be a wrought-iron bench. Directly adjacent is another bench of similar design. Fireflies twinkle as they fly among thick trees in the background. A small garden lies just inside the frame with a bald spot in the center surrounded by dark flowers. Pinkamena staggers into frame carrying a tall bottle of unknown liquid. It sloshes as she nearly falls onto the bench.

“I had to keep her here for nearly two whole years, Twilight! That sweet foal ... two years ... without moving or speaking … or doing anything while the magic bled off. And … I-I forget how long she was in Canterlot before I could … I could save her. From you.” It is apparent that Pinkamena has been drinking and she shakes her head, taking it in her forelegs and growling, struggling to maintain a sitting posture.

“I grew … I grew up on a rock farm. I’ve talked to more rocks in my life than ponies. They don’t … they don’t judge me. They don’t make … lies, like you do. I talked to her every day until the stone was thin enough for her to break free.” Her eyes wobble and fidget in their sockets when she stares into the camera. “I guess you and your precious teacher didn't figure on some pony leaving her in an Old World nexus. You’re not … not so smart, after a-all.”

The bottle comes up and swishes the dark liquid around within as Pinkamena swallows another mouthful. “I told her all of my pain and she listened, not like you. She was a-a rock and I kn-ow how to talk to rocks. She … doesn’t judge me. She’s just a filly and you hurt her.”

“Rocks … they are better friends. Than you’ll ever be. You did this to me. I… I asked for help after I got hurt. You remember? When we were the … the elements of harmony. You said we were friends, all of us. I got hurt and everyone thought I would die. Pinkie sense failed ... cracked my melon.” She demonstrates her words by bringing the bottle of wine against the side of her head hard enough to resound a deep, dreadful noise.

The mare’s foreleg comes up and rubs absently in her thick mane as if nursing an injury, but not in the place she just smacked with the bottle.

“When a melon cracks, it rots. What's a mare supposed to do when all of a sudden ponies crying ... ponies screaming are just as funny as rubber chickens? You were the smartest pony in Ponyville. The smartest in Equestria, and … m-my friend. So I came to you ... I wanted to … to hurt others. I came to you for help. You aren’t my friend, Twilight. I was stupid.”

She turns the bottle and draws the undulating, abyssal liquid down her throat. Gleaming silver lines like lightning bolts catch and disappear on the mare’s cheeks in the moonlight.

“I can’t forgive you for laughing at me … I wasn’t joking! You said it was a joke! I ki-killed Dash three days later. I cut her up! She was m-my first, Twilight. You! You could have stopped it! You should have helped me.” The mare lays down on the bench with her eyes clenched closed and breathing erratically. Her back heaves in gouts of air.

Fitfully she struggles to rise from the bench but gives up, collapsing back down into the cool iron. “I’ll never f-forgive you for that. You said I-I could have another life … I hate you. It was a lie.”

“ ... and I think you knew it.”

Pinkamena goes still except for a ragged breathing. The battery indicator light flickers and the video dies.
> Hang Over Part 1
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

The image of Pinkamena with her head in her hooves appears through crackling static. She's sitting at the kitchen table. A plate of food remains untouched next to her elbow. The camera rocks and zooms in on Pinkamena’s ear randomly before zooming back out to center the mare in frame.

“Do you want to talk about what you did?” Cozy’s voice drips with confrontation as she playfully questions her.

“Shut up, Cozy.”

Never one to leave a soft spot exposed but unused, the filly twists her words to exploit Pinkamena’s momentary weakness. “How many bottles of wine did you drink, Pinkie? I found one in the bed and another outside next to ‘somepony’ passed out in the garden. Were there more?” Her tone is playfully innocent despite the wicked intent.

“Please… not right now. And don’t call me Pinkie. That’s not me.” The mare slinks in her chair and shakes her head slowly back and forth.

A short pink leg juts from the camera and scoots the plate of greasy vegetables and eggs beneath Pinkamena’s nose. “You should really have something to eat, Pinkamena. These leftovers are pretty greasy and they are going to go bad soon if you don’t eat them.”

“Get it away! I’m sick, damn it!” The mare turns away as her body arches and locks with a hard, stomach rending dry heave.

The act drops and Cozy’s voice comes out raw and acrid. “You should be sick! You drink too much. It’s not flattering, you know. Throwing up in the mornings?”

A piercing crystal orb glimmers dangerously behind a curtain of magenta mane. The mare slams her hooves onto the table, spilling her food and snarling at the younger pony, “Go do something else, Cozy!”

“Fine. Maybe I’ll go drink some of those bottles and show you what YOU always look like,” Cozy pouts.

“Do whatever you want. Just don’t go outside; something’s going to happen today.”

“What do you mean, ‘something is going to happen today’ are you a witch or something? Does being miserable give you special powers?”

“No, I just have a good memory.”

“Huh? How could you remember something that hasn’t happened yet?”

Striking like a cobra, with eyes like slits and teeth forming a series of snarling W’s splitting her head nearly in half, Pinkamena lets out a furious growl.

The camera jumps as Cozy recoils. “Okay! Okay! I’m getting out of here. Don’t bite my head off because you can’t control yourself!” Tiny hooves clatter against the floor and fade away as she runs into another part of the home outside of the view of the camera.

Pinkamena shakes her head and presses a hoof to the folds of her frayed,unwashed mane. Simpering and rubbing a circular pattern into her head with the hoof, she moans miserably under her breath and notices the camera.

“Damn it, Cozy.”

She reaches a long leg towards the camera and, muttering to herself, turns it off.
> Hang Over Part 2
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

A distorted image rolls and twists like a carnival ride. The beige mare and nutmeg stallion are still seated on the checkered blanket but hold thick slices of cherry cake to each other. A round, black cherry topples from the frosting fencing and lands abruptly onto the chest of the stallion. Both ponies laugh inaudibly. 

The video suddenly cuts back to a still frame of Cozy smiling behind the table with an assortment of ingredients including a wicker bowl of lemons. Pinkamena stands languid with her head tilted to the floor. Teetering to the side of the table, the mare looks ghost-like, drained of color, and unstable. It is apparent that very little time has passed and the magenta mare is still showing signs of sickness.

“Welcome back to Cozy’s Cooking Corner! Today we are joined, once again, by our wonderful guest Pinkamena! You know, we here at the Corner believe that you should put a little bit of yourself into what you bake. So, since our guest is so sour today, we are making lemon bars! Now we usually like things to be very sweet, like your wonderful host, but I get the feeling that today’s treat is going to be REALLY sour. Right, Pinkamena?” Cozy’s language is bubbly and cute but files to a point as she glares up at the mare. Pinkamena meets the look with a mirror of annoyance. They share the moment and bask in the chill of each other’s vexation, neither shrinking.

“Anyway, first we need to make the crust. This confection uses a butter base so we have to use a lot of butter."

Cozy smiles sweetly at the camera and stands still. A few seconds pass by slowly and her face scrunches up like a dry-rotted rubber band. Her deep pink eyes flicker in her head and her smile returns but with grinding teeth. “Any moment now our GUEST is going to show us how to mix the butter and flour into a bowl.”

Pinkamena reluctantly reaches for the butter and begins scooting it into the bowl when she lurches with an audible stomach contraction. Setting the butter tray down hastily, Pinkamena turns her head aside and holds as still as stone, prompting an angry elbow from Cozy. "Just do it already! You're ruining this!" the filly whispers through gritted teeth.

Annoyed, Pinkamena takes the butter again. It's malleable and slick as it topples and oozes into the bowl of flour. Pinkamena's eyes jitter as the semi-liquid butter slops before her. She lurches and drops the tray with a loud clatter. Cozy leaps back in shock and horror as black fluid spouts from Pinkamena's mouth. Like a putrid orgasm, the bile, stomach acid, and dark wine regurgitate into the bowl from the rending throes of the spasm, filling it and pouring over the sides to contaminate other nearby ingredients. Cozy's expression turns gruesome and the filly begins yelling at the wobbling, gasping mare.

The video ends abruptly.

The video returns with Cozy bathed in the flickering edge of lamplight. The low angle makes the filly loom like a giant while she adjusts the camera. A toothy grin sprouts across her face, and her eyes are malignant and twinkling darkly in the dimness pressing in around her from barren, unfinished walls.

“Welcome back to Cozy’s Cooking Corner. We had to take a short break in order to clean up the mess our guest made. Not to worry, though. Our guest is upstairs sleeping off her hangover. She will be back to her fine and dandy ways before too long but that brings me to an important topic: depression.”

Cozy crosses her forelegs and adopts a tough, serious expression. “Depression is something that affects ponies everywhere and everyone deals with it differently. Even your cutie-pie host knows what it’s like to be depressed; it’s kind of like when everyone tells you that you just aren’t good enough no matter what you do to make them happy. Your darling host decided to try and take over Equestria with the help of some real idiots because she was so sad. We made a good run but you really shouldn’t employ fools to your scheme because being turned to stone for such a long time can really make you depressed.”

Cozy’s lips quiver around her smile and her gaze becomes distant and introverted. A shiver runs through her small body and she snaps back to the camera.

“Well, our friend Pinkamena is ALWAYS depressed and we here at the Corner thought we would make a nice surprise for her when she wakes up. Making a surprise not only will help Pinkamena be happier but makes you feel so much better too.” Cozy’s lips sprout a toothy grin.

“I was pretty upset and maybe even a little depressed when our lemon bars segment was ruined but that’s okay because doing a good deed for somepony we care about will solve that twinge of sadness deep down in our hearts … the one Miss Pinkamena fills with wine.” The smile falters and commits suicide as Cozy’s eyes seem to stare through the camera and into the shadows of her mind. Her fixed stare is penetrating with a depth of black abyss dulling the life normally seen in the eyes. “The one that makes you feel worthless and never goes away, Twilight Sparkle.”

Cozy moves towards the camera, her soulless eyes like black mirrors coated in the webs of long demised spiders. The camera is lifted and Cozy trots into an earthen-walled room. The floor is tiled with hardened cookies and grouted with petrified frosting. 

The camera sweeps the room and a blurred image of what appears to be equine bones cuffed to a block of concrete pass unacknowledged by Cozy. The dim light from the lamp illuminates the floor only a few feet ahead, but glistening dots like will-o’-the wisps dance into frame. A wine rack standing taller than the filly and adorned with bottles of black liquid struggles to come into focus as the camera is placed on something even with Cozy’s height.

“Making wine is a tough job and it took months to make what you see here. We have three racks here lined up like shelves. There’s nearly one hundred bottles. So let’s talk about how to make wine.”

Cozy stands in the darkness by the wine rack and grins sweetly. “First you have to gather fruit, honey, or grain. Your host almost broke her wing after falling out of a tree helping Pinkamena gather bushels of wild apples, cherries, pears, oranges, and more berries than I could eat in a year.” The filly makes a sour face as she explains the trials endured getting the ingredients for the wine.

”I also got stung by bees while robbing them of honey, chased by a whole colony of rabbits, and I don’t want to remember the chimera-boars. The Everfree is a dangerous place but there are lots of tasty things growing inside if you are brave enough to harvest them.”

Cozy’s frustrations mount as she continues to explain. “Next, you have to mash them up and cover them in sugar inside a container. Don’t forget the yeast! You know what? Let’s just skip to the good part. Once you have all of your wine fermented and bottled you get to drink it and ruin things!”

Cozy’s features harden and she takes a bottle from the rack. She throws it towards the floor where the glass shatters, its blood-colored liquid bathing the filly in a rain of wine. She snarls and reaches for another. “You hurt your friends! Mess up their shows! Make them feel alone! And say mean things because you hate yourself most of all!”

With each sentence another bottle is launched into oblivion and another spray of crimson coats the filly. “But not anymore! You don’t get to hurt me and kill yourself because you hate your life! Not when there isn’t any wine left!”

Cozy turns and launches a double kick with her back legs. Despite her diminutive size, the rack shakes, teeters, and crashes to the floor. The other pair of racks fall like dominoes. Cozy begins laughing hysterically as the recording crackles from the decibel shattering volume. Liquid pools above Cozy’s hooves, and she cackles to herself. For a moment the sloshing liquid and laughter are the only sounds, but it’s broken by hooves on wood and a sudden, clenching gasp. Cozy turns to look just aside the camera.

“Surprise!” The filly cries in ecstasy and throws her forelegs above her head.

The filly’s grin hikes up her cheeks, the winking lamplight shining from her teeth and slitted eyes. She stands staring with emphatic glee, a parody of mirth, but, as the time wears painfully on, it begins to falter and sag like playdough. Her features take on questioning shapes as the sound of hooves on wood returns and becomes distant. A door slams heavily. The light recedes and Cozy turns back to the camera with concern etched into her brow and eyes.

“I-I thought she would be mad.” The pink filly’s eyes dart around the darkness as if she’s searching for something, but her body stays silently still like a statue. "I thought she'd yell or hit me....something."

A streak of pain crosses the filly, “Why … why didn’t she say anything? What was that look?”

The cellar is a wreck of jagged wood poking up like broken ribs from the blood-liquid sloshing around Cozy’s hooves. Cozy faces the detritus, rump to the camera. A small, dripping red hoof lifts to her mouth and she absently bites at it. 

After a moment, Cozy sobs deeply and spins to the camera, making the few steps quickly. Flicking the power off with the sounds of panic and hyperventilation, Cozy's cheeks glisten with moisture.
> Strife
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Cozy is half seen in the frame from her muzzle down to her belly. She scoots the camera until Pinkamena appears in the background on one of the worn couches. Silent as the grave, the mare sits and stares into the unknown space outside of the camera’s view. Cozy’s puffy red eye slithers into the frame as she frowns. She whispers softly to the camera, her voice as fragile as egg shells. “She won’t talk to me. She won’t look at me. I-I really messed up.”

Slumping down onto the table, Cozy appears defeated and clenches her eyes tightly. Tears fall like silver streams from thawing snow onto the table’s thirsty surface. The filly sighs, “I know I’m bad … I’m not like other ponies. I think there’s something wrong with me … in here.”

The wine on the filly has dried into streaks and splotches of burgundy-black as she buries a hoof into her curled mane. Her leg slumps lifelessly to the table and she turns her head until her cheek is flat against the table. “Miss Pinkamena came and got me from where I was petrified. She didn’t have to … I’d never seen her before in my life so I don’t know what made her help me. I’ve never had anyone do something like that for me.”

“The worst part of being turned to stone is that you still sort of know what’s going on. Time stops but it doesn’t … I don’t know how to say it. I saw ponies who came to see us ‘villains’ and tell their foals not to end up like that bad filly. I was there for a long time, not sure how long exactly, but sometimes I could recognize foals who had visited a long time ago, come back as adults to gawk with their own foals.”

“It felt like a millennium. It didn’t hurt being a statue but it made me think about the things I had done.” Cozy wipes her eyes with the back of a foreleg without lifting her head. Her voice cracks and whittles away from the strain of speaking. “I’d do them again. I hate those ponies. They said such nasty things about me but they don’t know who I am.” her small pink eyes roll to the camera, puffy from the tears. “They don’t know how hard I tried to be like them and how … how much it hurt to always fail. I’m not a normal pony … but it still hurts to be lonely. Why couldn’t they just accept me for who I was instead of what they wanted me to be?”

Cozy sighs deeply, but it’s broken with a quick succession of tiny sobs. Her wind comes out in a gust. “I thought … it doesn’t matter what I thought.”

“I ruin everything. My parents left me because of how I ruined their lives. I was really little then, but I remember them fighting all the time. I ruined them.” Tears continue to roll down her cheek and spread onto the table. 

“I hated the orphanage and escaped to Ponyville where I ruined every friendship I tried to make. Then, after all of that, I ruined my own life trying to take over and show Twilight that I wasn’t a failure.”

Pinkamena’s ear pricks, the first motion made from her until now, and, unbeknownst to Cozy, begins edging towards her in slick, soft motions.

“I was always alone … until Pinkamena. She brought me to this candy house in the Everfree and talked to me every day until the stoning spell broke. For the first time somebody actually wanted to be with me; someone wanted to be my friend.”  Cozy’s voice cracks and she lays her head to the table, covering it with her legs. “And, now ... I’ve ruined that too.”

Pinkamena has crept into the kitchen and stands behind the upset filly. Cozy sobs, and muffled squeaking sounds of regret leak to the camera. Pinkamena has a hoof to her lips and her eyes shiver with moisture. “Do we really need all this drama, Cozy?”

Cozy jerks up like a striking serpent, features a mess of tear-rivers and puffiness. The filly wipes at her eyes arduously. “I wasn’t cr-crying. Or being dramatic.”

Wrapping her in a hug, Pinkamena kisses her cheek gently and pulls Cozy close. Cozy continues to sob while Pinkamena closes her eyes and soothes her. “I know. It’s alright. We’re two of a kind, Cozy. I’ve been through a lot to be here with you. You’ll never be alone again, Sweetheart. Not this time … please, oh stars, please. Not this time.”

“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I was just mad and worried. You drink so much, Pinkamena, and you’re not yourself then.” Burying her face into the mare’s chest, Cozy fights to calm herself but her shoulders hunch rhythmically.

Pinkamena sinks down to Cozy’s level and smiles at her. “Well, I don’t have much of a choice about that now, huh? I’ll just have to tough it out.”

Cozy looks down, her cheeks reddening with shame.

“I love you, Cozy. Do you know how you can tell?”

The filly gingerly looks up with big, pink eyes. “How?”

Pinkamena reveals her sharp, pointed teeth,  locking them together in a vile, Cheshire cat smile. Her eyes become wide, and  her pupils, pin-points of hard, frozen madness. “Because even though I want to cut your bratty little throat, I’d rather have you here, with me, and alive.”

A shy grin is birthed on Cozy’s face and she bumps her forehead to Pinkamena’s. “I love you, too, Pinkie.”

The moment lingers until a sudden crunch and scream pierces the silence. Pinkamena jerks her head around and sighs with resignation. Cozy screws up her face in fear and emits a sharp gasp. The filly spins to look at Pinkamena, questions pouring from her eyes as she hangs onto the mare.

The howls light in Pinkamena’s ears, setting them a’twitch. She pats the filly’s back and releases her frustration in a sigh. “It seems I was right, again. It’s one of the traps, Cozy. Stop grabbing onto me like that. Let us see what we have caught.”

The graying mare walks out of the frame but Cozy remains still. A smirk plays on her cheeks as she watches Pinkamena move away. She dashes to the camera and a muted chuckling can be heard. The filly whispers to herself, just loud enough for the microphone to pick up.

“That went better than expected.”
> Inquisition
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

The rapid beating of wings fills the microphone as the camera switches to record. An aerial view captures a bouncing tangle of brush, leaves, and deadwood littering the ground a few feet below. A peppermint fence closes in and disappears below the frame. It captures a treeless, bald spot in a valley where Pinkamena has made her home. The cottage stands alone, surrounded by the dense hills of the Everfree forest tall enough to conceal this pocket of flat, grassy land. It is evening, and the sky has turned the color of infected skin. The looming trees cause it to seem much darker than it should be. Cozy pauses to hover now and again while searching near the edge of the treeline. Harrowing cries of pain seem to come from everywhere. The camera zooms quickly to Pinkamena grimacing down into a large hole.

Cozy zips to her and lights on the ground beside the mare. The cries of pain are causes the sound to clip and the video dips into a pony-made hole. It is evident from the scattering of leaves and brush surrounding the pit that it had been covered carefully, like a baker would attentively decorate a cake. There is no doubt the pit was nearly imperceptible before it was too late. The bottom is lined with rows of sharpened sticks coated with an unidentified green muck: a venomous maw of sharp, angry teeth. 

In the middle of the trap with several of the carved wooden stakes tearing holes through his body, lies a stallion. Blood pours from the wounds and puddles around him, staining his white coat crimson. He wears light, leathery armor bearing an orange sigil. 

He looks towards the camera, staked in place. His cries begin to ease away, but tears spill from his eyes and his breathing is ragged; one of the cruel barbs has likely collapsed a lung. A backpack and a canvas hood lay beside him. Cozy gasps sharply and the camera wobbles, struggling to keep the grim vision in frame.

“Royal Inquisition, huh?" Pinkamena scoffs.

The stallion coughs like a pneumonia patient and spits a thick, red mass at her but it falls short by many feet.

"Now, why exactly would Twilight send an inquisitor this deep into the Everfree forest?” Pinkamena smirks into the hole, her voice haughty and prickling.

“Inquisitor? What’s that?” 

“Hush, Cozy. Give our guest room to speak; I have a feeling he doesn’t have very long left to do so.” Pinkamena’s eyes narrow and the edges of her teeth begin to poke from behind her lips.

The stallion moans painfully and attempts to clear his throat, coughing up a thick, bloody clot of phlegm that dribbles down his chin and glistens sickly in the fading evening light. He struggles to speak but redoubles his efforts, his eyes meeting the mare’s free of fear. “I’m inquisitor Iron Scales of the Princess’ Royal Guard. I don’t … I don’t have to answer to the likes of you.”

Pinkamena feigns displeasure at the condescension. Her teeth unlock one by one as her grin spreads like a disease. “Sure, I understand you don’t HAVE to, but you do know who I am, right? I doubt your presence here is a coincidence.”

The camera zooms in on the dying stallion as he glares angrily towards Pinkamena and then directly at the camera. “Pinkamena Diane Pie, of course. For this long Princess Twilight has allowed you to live so far from civilized society despite your cr-crimes. And Co-Cozy Glow.” The inquisitor faces Cozy. “How apt … that you are here. Both of Equestria’s biggest monsters sharing a den. Poetic, really.”

“Monster?” Cozy huffs. Her voice twinges high and breaks from frustration. “You must be mistaken. YOU are the one working for a monster. You and the ‘civilized’ society you are part of. We are ….”

“Cozy!” Pinkamena rebukes the smaller pony.

The view spins to Pinkamena, her eyes like pin-pricks of hate and a wide, toothy smile eating it’s way up her jaws.

“Let him speak, my dear. He’s come a long way to die terribly. Whether it’s in a pit quickly or tied down on our kitchen table slowly is up to him.”

There is only the grating of stakes on bone and muffled moans as the camera turns back to Iron Scales. He lays his head to the dirt floor of the pit and is silently resolute in his conviction.

“Before you have made your decision, sir, you understand that simply telling me why you are here instead of making me dig through your personal items… or your entrails while you yet live, will earn you the reprieve of a fast death.” Her smile unzips a little more, dagger-teeth unveiling a couple at a time. She giggles with a sickening playfulness. “You see, my friend here is still a filly despite the many years she endured as a prisoner of the state. I’m not one to allow a young, innocent one such as her to take part in the systematic torture of another. It may damage her sensibilities … more, I mean. Your precious Twilight has done a rather crooked turn already to her. So, do me a favor, kind sir, and just tell me of your own volition. Because, either way, you will tell me.”

Cozy is quiet and shifts between Pinkamena and Iron Scales. The video lingers on Pinkamena while she speaks. A short gasp escapes the filly.

Iron Scales growls at the pain and pushes himself to stand, the stakes holding him to the floor of the trap like the talons of an eagle. Though his body fails, his spirit hardens. “I will not break my allegiance to Twilight to make things more convenient for a demon like you! And definitely not for the sake of your devil filly. May you both rot in Tartarus for eternity.”

The grin wearing Pinkamena’s face nearly doubles, reaching its maximum size. Her eyes are razor slits of eerie blue. “I do so love you inquisitors. I’ve never seen your type break in loyalty." She pauses, chuckles sadistically, and continues, "Then let me tell you why you are here. You seek the capture of myself, Miss Pinkamena Diane Pie, for your most honorable Princess of Friendship, Twilight Sparkle. I’m certain that you carry paperwork in your journal stating this fact.”

“How do you …” Cozy begins but is cut off by the mare.

“YOUR ORDERS are to bring me in alive. I am to undergo trial by one, the Princess herself as my judge. The Royal Inquisition, being the greatest hunters of Equestria, have been charged with this personally and the pony to succeed in this task shall be rewarded handsomely: a promotion, a cache of bits, and the glory of being the one to apprehend the devil herself. Quite a distinction, sir.”

The inquisitor realizes his fate has been sealed and says something unknown, most likely a prayer or a recitation of oath. He then casts his eye to the pair once more. “You know much, monster. I have nothing more to say to beasts like you. Do with me what you will. My allegiance is to the Princess of frie”

A wood cutting axe buries to the handle in the inquisitor’s forehead, ending his speech and causing his body to go limp except for one twitching leg. An eyeball bursts from the socket and lays listlessly in the dirt. Cozy gasps again and the framing falls away from the body of the inquisitor. The camera falls to the grassy carpet beside the pit. Cozy retches and coughs and the camera turns off.
> Truths Part 1
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

An inky darkness fills the monitor. Derelict upon the screen, a single beam of moonlight rolls strangely across a landscape of unknown shape. Colors are unknown dreams in the monochromatic low light. The drawing of breath is the only recognizable sound, filling the camera. A quick, sharp breathing followed by a longer, partially labored rotation. A cry of old, worn springs gagged with cloth as shrill as any nightbird tears the silence.

“Cozy, put the camera away. It’s very late.” Pinkamena’s voice trails off. It is weary and old like items in an antique shop. “Why are you still up? It’s difficult to sleep when you keep flopping. My back's not as young as it once was.”

“Sorry …” The filly’s voice is small. The view rolls to the side, looking up into the bar of curving light. The light is wool-textured and  illuminates a blanket.

“You didn’t eat anything for dinner, Cozy. Are you hungry?” There’s genuine worry in the words spoken clemently. 

Cozy releases a stunted grunt before replying, “I-I couldn’t eat. Not after that. I mean, I knew what was going to happen but … it was different actually seeing it.”

The forms move and a long leg extends from the right of the screen to the left, a cracked hoof lays before the camera. “You get used to it.”

“I guess …” Cozy murmurs fitfully. “I never killed anyone when I … did what I did. I’m not sure I could ever get used to it.” A pom-pom of dark curls appears as Cozy rolls over.

“I don’t want you to have to get used to it. I’d rather you not know the guilt of taking a life, Cozy.” The hoof moves into Cozy’s mane and strokes the curls back repeatedly. “But if you kill others, you get used to it. They stop being real. They are just things. Screaming things, bleeding things, but things, nonetheless.”

“I didn’t want to kill anyone. I just wanted others to like me. Friendship was power and I wanted to be the most powerful: to be the Empress of Friendship.” 

“How did you plan on becoming an empress without killing someone? Celestia wouldn’t just roll over and let you take what was hers. And if you did, somehow, there’s always someone who wants to take that power from you.” Pinkamena explains gently. “You have to defend what you have, even if what you have means something only to you.”

“How do you do that? How do you defend what is yours?”

“The best way to deal with those who want what you have is to kill them. If you let them live, they could come back.” The hoof goes still. “Look at what happened to you. Turned to stone for … well, a long time, but here you are free of the curse and, no doubt, plotting again. Do you still want to be the Empress?”

Cozy responds despondently, “If the possibility opened up, yes. More for revenge now than anything.” The filly becomes matter of fact, taciturn. “I want to make them pay for what they did to me. It was … it was very hard, Pinkie.”

“I know, honey. I know it was difficult. After seeing what you saw today, would you kill to get what you want?”

There is a silence and the blade of light curves and bends as something moves in the darkness.

“I don’t know. I wanted their affection. I wanted to be loved like no other and to use that love as my power. Even though I hate them, I don’t think I would want to kill them.”

“That’s good. Taking another’s life leaves its mark on you. Even if you don’t know it.” Pinkamena sighs, her voice is sharp like a knife. "They leave scars that can't be undone."

Silence grows between the two and it seems time stops altogether. Finally, Cozy ends the drought. “There’s only one pony I think I would like to kill.”

“And who is that?”

“Twilight Sparkle. Nobody else ever understood me but they weren’t mean about it. They were all stupid, of course, but not mean.” Cozy recollects, a twinge of pain rattles in her tiny voice. “I think Twilight knew m-my problems and exploited them. She made me think I could be a … a normal pony if I tried hard enough and, every time I failed, she would do everything she could to make me feel small and useless.”

“Sounds like her.”

“I hate her for that, Pinkamena. I want to punish the others but I want to kill Twilight for making me do the things I did. She ruined my life and took advantage of the situation when I did. I’d like to see her cut open and ripped apart while she begs for mercy.” The innocence of the filly melts away as her anger seeps and bleeds into the words.

Pinkamena chuckles to herself and the bar of light moves again. “I’ve been killing ponies for a long, long time. More time than even you, Cozy, who has felt time stop, could ever appreciate. I’m … regretful of a lot of the things I’ve done now. There was a time that I found it exhilarating and I lived to make others die horribly. I used to find such a thrill in the act of murder. It’s not so, now. I didn’t want to kill that stallion today.” A pained sigh escapes the mare and she moans. “I wish I had a bottle of wine.”

“Why … Why did you if you didn’t want to?” The question is curious and receptive, probing the mare’s reasoning.

“Had he survived, he would have brought others upon us and ended this little bit of life we have. Cozy, you are my only and dearest friend. I’d like to give you some kind of life. Even if it’s just trapped here in exile with me. We have each other and that means more to me than any of the lives I’ve taken. I will...err... would do it all over again to be here … to make it work this time.”

Silence descends upon them again and everything is still for a long time.

“Do you think there are more of them? The inquisitors?” the filly asks.

“Yes. There are more.”

“Will they find us?”

Another long pause filled with a deep sigh and heavy, nervous breathing.

“They will … the inquisitors are very good at their jobs. I’ve dealt with them in the past . I've nearly been killed several times. I've thought I would die from my injuries but I'm still here. Still breathing. Still trying to fix things." Pinkamena murmurs to herself for a moment, repeating something unintelligible. 

"What?"

"Oh, sorry. I said, I’ve never dealt with more than one at a time so if a group ever shows up I want you to run, Cozy. Run into the forest and take everything I’ve taught with you. If more than one ever show up, I won’t be able to stop them. If I were young again I may have a chance but those days are long gone for me. However you might have time to escape. I don’t think they know you are here with me so they won’t search for you. But, if they find you they will take you back to Twilight who will, undoubtedly, turn you back to stone.”

“What will they do to you? Will they turn you to stone with me? If … you were with me, I might not mind it so much.”

“Secret execution would be the best plan of action for me. Disavow of any knowledge of my existence. But, Twilight has other plans for me. Worse ones. I’d never see this you again.”

Cozy makes a soft, displeased sound. “I want you to be with me, Pinkamena. I-I don’t want to be alone again. I lived alone for a long, long time. Promise me you won’t leave me …”

Pinkamena’s breath catches and is followed by what sounds like a soft, hidden sob. “I won’t leave you by choice, Cozy. I’d rather you live than be a statue permanently. I can’t promise I won’t leave you alone, my dear, but I promise I won’t leave you by choice. Not again. I Pinkie promise.”

“Not again? What do you mean?”

“Nothing … just stupid old me. I’ll make you something if you are hungry, Cozy.”

“No. I’ll be okay.”

There’s the sound of rustling and the light beam dances. The stillness of the grave befalls the pair except for the rhythmic thrum of shallow breathing. Cozy interrupts the night once more, “Pinkamena, are we ... monsters?”

“What?” her voice is tense like a spring about to snap under the pressure.

“The inquisitor … he called us monsters. Are we?”

An age passes as Pinkamena deliberates upon the question. She begins to answer several times but pauses to gather her words. Her reply is simple and honest. “Yes, Sweetheart. At least in this world5.”

“Is … I-is that why my parents abandoned me? Is that why I’m so bad?”

Pinkamena scoffs, answering with annoyance but not at the filly. “Your parents, whoever they were, are the bad ones. Not you… not for that.” The mare grumbles to herself but calms quickly. “You need guidance and are a creation of circumstance. You're a tragic heroine mislabeled by our society."

"I've done bad things, Pinkamena. Just like you."

"No... not like me. Don't say that. You're a victim of this foul world. I'm... I am a  monster. Many times over."

“What made you want to kill ponies? We fight sometimes, but we’re friends. Why aren’t you friends with others?” Cozy’s questions are soft and sympathetic, inviting Pinkamena to answer.

A deep, troubled groan creeps from the mare. She is uncertain for a moment but gives in to the question. “Something happened to me a long, long time ago, Cozy. I used to have lots and lots of friends. Everyone loved me and I loved everyone."

"what happened?"

"I was helping Twilight, Rainbow Dash, and all of my friends stop this big threat to Equestria.”

“Wow. I didn’t know you were friends with all of them. They were the ones who helped Celestia beat me.”

“Had things been different, I may have been with them to stop you. You and I would have been enemies.” The hoof rubs playfully in the mess of mane on Cozy’s head again. “We did everything together and were very close. Anyway, while helping stop this potential invasion I got hurt. Here …”

The grainy darkness moves and Pinkamena’s head slides into the beam of light. She guides a tiny leg into her mane and rubs the hoof against her head.

“Oh!” the filly exclaims but then continues with confusion, “I… I don’t feel anything.”

“It’s gone now but my skull was cracked. I’ve heard about head trauma changing a pony and I know it can happen. After that injury, I was different. Games, pranks, and parties weren’t what made me laugh; it was pain. I enjoyed the suffering of others. I wanted to hurt my friends. I lived for the party of others’ screams and I thoroughly enjoyed it. I would laugh so hard and long that I thought I may die from laughter. Seems like lifetimes ago now, but I eventually managed to get it under control ... for the most part.”

“You … don’t want to do that anymore?”

“Not really.” Pinkamena is quiet and her voice wavers. “Now I only kill when I have to.”

“What do you mean you have to?”

Her reply is curt and snappy. “I just do! Let’s drop it.”

“Is that why you drank so much?”

Pinkamena is exasperated and she becomes sarcastic. “Yes, you’ve won the detective award, Cozy. Can we please stop talking about it? Someone destroyed all of my wine and I really need a drink right now.”

The filly’s coos are like soft cotton, “I’m sorry, Pinkamena. Couldn’t you do anything about the injury? See a doctor or someone?”

“I did. I …” Pinkamena calms and searches for the right words. “I was a very weird pony. Nobody really knew what to make of me before the incident and they still didn’t afterward. They said I was ‘wired differently’ than others.”

“Not even the smartest ponies knew how to help?”

“I went to Twilight and she acted like she didn’t have time for me. I … started killing ponies before she took me seriously. Some time later she gave me a choice. I think I made the wrong one because it took away the only thing that was important to me during those years of terror. I’m still paying for it. I wonder if the choice Twilight gave me was my punishment in disguise?”

“I-I don’t know what you are talking about. It sounds like your friend, Twilight, abandoned you and then hurt you when she’s the one to blame.” The filly heavily exaggerates the name of the princess. 

“She’s very smart. I’m certain she knew what she was doing. I’ve hated her for a long time for the suffering I’ve endured. If there is one pony out there that I would enjoy killing, it’s her.” A sinister giggle eschews from the mare, a sharp tone of malicious mirth unheard up until this point.

Cozy replies with excitement. “Maybe we should. Her inquisitors are going to find us, right?”

“Yes, at some point they will find us and take one, or both, of us to see Twilight. I’ve seen it in my nightmares.”

“Is that how you knew what the inquisitor was here for even though he didn’t want to talk? Do you see the future in your dreams, Pinkamena?”

Giving a light laugh, Pinkamena replies, “Nobody can really see the future, Cozy. But … it’s almost like I’ve done this before. I know things I shouldn’t. Like that Twilight would be impossible to get to.”

“I bet we could if we put our heads together.”

“Maybe, but we should appreciate what we have before picking a fight with a princess alicorn. She’s smart and incredibly powerful now. I just want to spend what time I have left with you, Cozy. I’d like to see you grow up and start a new life somewhere nobody knows you. You have a chance. If we play our cards right, you might be able to be happy someday.”

“I’m happy with you, Pinkie. Happier than I’ve been in my whole life. Even if you throw up in my lemon bars.”

There’s a rustling of blanket, the squeak of springs, and a flash of pink in the light. Pinkamena’s eye is illuminated as she squeezes tightly into a throng of blue curls, sobbing softly.

Cozy’s voice is soothing and sweet as cream cheese icing. “I won’t abandon you, Pinkamena. I’ll always be your friend.”

The battery icon flashes and Cozy’s mop of mane slides away, revealing the soft pink of her coat. A vile little grin spreads across her cheeks just before the power dies.
> Cozy's Cooking Corner: Zebra Bars
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Familiar poses and sets of utensils blink into frame. Cozy and Pinkamena stand behind the blemished table stationed with bowls, whisks, and spoons. Several ingredients are in jars of various sizes and shapes. The oven behind the pair glows a soft orange.

“Welcome back, dear viewer, to another installment of Cozy’s Cooking Corner!” Cozy explodes with cheerfulness. “Thanks for tuning in to see your cutie-licious, golly-gee wonderful host Cozy Glow create wonderful treats for you and your friends and family. We are joined by our bestest friend in the whole world, Miss Pinkamena!”

Pinkamena waves punily and gives a weak, one-sided smile.

“We were thinking that this show needs something more exotic than lemon bars and muffins, so, today, we are going to whip up something truly scrumptious and difficult to get right. Miss Pinkamena, what did you come up with?” Cozy smiles sweetly and spins around to her co-host with forelegs raised in excitement.

“Zebra bars.” Pinkamena looks as if she is being forced to be part of the show. She feigns a smile but her every word and action seems wooden.

Cozy throws her legs up and cheers joyfully. “Made with REAL zebra!”

The older mare scrunches her eyebrows and looks back and forth from Cozy to the camera. “Ummm … it’s just the name because they are white with black stripes.”

The filly deflates and gives an annoyed look to her co-host. “That’s not very exotic. Is that the best we can do today?”

Pinkamena raises an eyebrow and her tone becomes less than playful. “I’m not made of ingredients, Cozy. Do you know how hard it is to get a bag of flour, a sack of sugar, or almost any ingredients out here? I stock up once or twice a year and make them last. You know that. That’s why we pick so many wild fruits and vegetables. Zebra bars use up a lot of resources.” She then glares at the filly and states pointedly, “So did the lemon bars that we threw away before they were even made.”

Refusing to give an inch, the filly meets the stare. “Whose fault was that?” Cozy’s voice has an edge to it and her toothy smile wavers between cute and malicious. Narrowing her eyes angrily, Pinkamena smacks a hoof onto the table loudly.

The mare grits her teeth and speaks through them, provoked. “I didn’t WANT to make them in the first place, Cozy. You acted like a spoiled foal until I agreed to help.”

Cozy rolls her eyes.

“Stop rolling your eyes or I’ll roll your little head on the floor. Let’s make the zebra bars. I know where some anise grows and we can make some kind of dessert with that.” 

The filly raises an eyebrow and her features sag as she makes a confused face. “What’s … what’s anise?”

“It’s a plant that tastes a lot like licorice. We can…”

“Licorice!” Cozy shouts and hops like a kangaroo with excitement. “ I love licorice! Wait … red or black?

Pinkamena sighs and rubs her temples, eyes clenched. “Black … got a problem with that?”

Cozy is like a rocket taking off, “I LOOOOOOOOVVVVVVVVEEEEEEE black licorice! Oh, please! Please let’s do that!”

“Sure, we’ll do it, but let’s make these zebra bars first. I used to make them all the time at Sugarcube Corner and I’m feeling nostalgic.”

Cozy bounces and hops, the curls of her mane flopping from enthusiasm. Spinning like a ballerina, the filly pirouettes and pauses to address the camera, mid twirl. “We have a two for one special today at Cozy’s Cooking Corner! Stay tuned after the main show to see how to make some delicious black licorice!”

A hoof wraps around the filly and Pinkamena draws her in for a hug. Cozy wraps her small forelegs around the older mare and then they turn back to the camera. “Okay, Cozy. Get that bowl and pay attention. First we need to …”

Cozy follows Pinkamena’s instructions to mix flour and eggs, adding in butter and other ingredients. There are several cuts to the tape to show the process and zoom in on the batter. Much of the dead time has been cut. Pinkamena perks up while instructing the filly and appears to enjoy the segment. Cozy Glow loses herself in the process and genuinely seems to have fun. During the segment where they mix icing another argument breaks out but it dies quickly and they become absorbed by their work. The segment is nearly fifteen minutes long. 

The treats look wonderful and somewhat professional due to Pinkamena’s practiced hoof despite Cozy’s clumsy attempts. The video cuts and returns with each one holding a zebra bar and sitting on a green couch.

“Look how nice these have turned out! Dear viewer, we here at the Corner sure hope that your batch has baked as beautiful as these. On visual inspection, I rate these bars a solid 8 out of 10. Now we get to the best part! The taste test!”

The pair tap their baked goods together and cheer a toast before biting into them. Cozy’s eyes widen and she glows brightly. Pinkamena has difficulty chewing with her sharpened teeth but smiles at the result. She appears to be lost in herself as she carefully savors the bite.

“Ten! Ten of ten! Perfect balance of sweet and buttery! What do you think, Miss Pinkamena?” The filly turns to regard her friend.

The mare’s eyes pop open and she looks at Cozy for a moment with searching eyes. “Oh, they are great. Probably … probably the best I’ve ever tasted.”

The blue-mopped filly laughs giddily and takes another bite. She swallows it almost without chewing. “Stay tuned for the bonus episode! Licorice!”

Pinkamena shifts to look at the evening light filling the window with a gentle orange glow and her smile falters as she finishes her treat. “Cozy it’s getting late in the evening. Are you sure you want to do this tonight?”

The filly rotates from the camera to focus on Pinkamena with her head lilting to the side. “We don’t ...have to do it tonight but can we get the anus? Please?”

Pinkamena covers her mouth and gives a mirthful giggle. One of Cozy’s ears turn to the side and her head tilts further to one side.

“It’s anise, Cozy. Anise, not anus. I guess I can get it before it’s dark.”

“I’ll stay here and clean the dishes as a thank you for helping me. I’m sorry we argued a little bit.” The filly bashfully looks to the floor and places one hoof over the other before striking forward in a slick, agile movement and wrapping Pinkamena in as big a hug as she could muster. Cozy coos almost imperceptibly and the mare melts, wrapping the filly in her forelegs and pressing a kiss into her mane.

“It’s okay. I’m not the easiest to get along with all the time.” Pinkamena sounds warm, not something one can get used to easily.

Cozy blushes a deep color of maroon. “Yeah, me either. You know, if I had ever really had a mom, Miss Pinkamena, I would want it to be you.”

The magenta mare pulls Cozy closer to her chest and a single crystalline tears drip down her muzzle like a scratch and fall into the thick, curled mane of the younger pony. Pinkamena sniffles once and clenches her eyes, lips quivering as she enjoys the warmth of the filly wrapped in her embrace.

“Where do you have to go to get the anise?”

Wiping her eyes with the backs of her forelegs and clearing her throat, Pinkamena sniffles wetly and gathers herself. Her voice wavers at first but the natural timbre returns quickly. “Over the western hill. There’s a patch near the raspberry bushes. Do you remember them? It’s not terribly far but I need to go now in order to get back before it’s completely dark.”

Cozy nods and runs off-screen. When she returns, she's carrying a wicker basket in her mouth and lays it before Pinkamena. “Be careful! I’ll make sure to have everything spic and span by the time you get back!”

The mare strokes Cozy’s cheek with one tattered hoof, gives a gentle smile, and takes the basket. She walks out of the frame. Cozy moves to turn the camera off.
> Collapse
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

The camera shakes roughly and a flash of pastel pink skitters by. It appears this recording is accidental. The house is strangely well-lit despite the windows painted a dark blue with the fall of evening. A gray plane of smoke splits the house in half a few feet above the floor. Cozy coughs somewhere out of frame. Piles of untouched dishes lay in the same locations as they had been at the end of the previous cooking segment.

“Have to hurry… Okay. Looks good. Yes, this will definitely do. Don’t forget the camera.”

Pink legs appear around the camera and it is hefted into a bag, pressing against an over-ripe plum. The plum squishes against the lens and drops of juice roll spread out. Suddenly the image disappears.







Labored breathing on a black screen. Nothing can be heard but Cozy murmurs and mumbles to herself between deep, rapid breaths. “Come on… does this thing have a ‘night mode’ or something? It’s too dark.”

Unrecognizable blobs of black and dark grayscale lumps congeal from the murk and, occasionally, forest plant-life reflects a minute orange light as the camera sways and spins. Something crackles and roars like a rushing river in the background. The sounds of hooves tapping at the frame of the camera click and clack lightly. The camera zooms and then returns. A titling sequence appears with just the letter A flashing repeatedly.

“Oh, neat. I’ll remember that. There has to be a button or something.” The filly is rapidly getting her breathing under control.

The A disappears and is replaced by the word GAIN and a small meter of separate, square blocks blinks to life. Blocks begin to appear and the inky darkness begins to take on proper forms of trees and bushes.

“Snickerdoodle! I’ve done it. Have to find Miss Pinkamena. Western hill...It’s a lot harder at night.”

The camera spins behind Cozy and a great ball of fire roars in the valley far below the filly. One can just barely make out the enormous candy cane supports and brownie tiled roof as the raging inferno devours Pinkamena’s house. Dark bubbling gobs of burning sugar grow like tumors and pop like boils.

“I’m never going to find her like this… MISS PINKAMENA! PINKAMENA! HELP!”

Cozy flies a few feet from the ground. The camera flickers from the forest floor to hovering eye level. It is apparent that the filly is using the viewfinder to pierce the darkness of the woods. There is no discernible path the filly follows as she cries out now and again for Pinkamena. For many minutes this goes on until a high-pitched voice cuts through the thrumming of tiny wings and the distant consummation of the inferno.

“Cozy? COZY!”

“I hear you! I’m … I’m … “ The camcorder spins back and forth looking at similar plantlife as before. “I don’t know where I am!”

“I’m coming! Stay still!”

The tromping of hooves through snapping undergrowth fades in and becomes loud until Pinkamena appears from behind a tree carrying the wicker basket full of anise. The basket falls from her lips and rolls to the forest floor. Her eyes dance with the image of the burning home reflecting in them. She stares blankly but without surprise.

“What happened, Cozy? What happened to our home?” Her voice is strangely calm and flat as she looks from camera to the glow out of screen.

“Inquisitors came!” the filly shouts. ”I thought you were coming back and I went to the window and saw four or five of them outside. I hid and they kicked open the door! I was so scared! I thought for sure they would find me.”

Pinkamena bites her lip until a dribble of dark blood slips down her chin. She looks hard at the filly with her brows furrowed inversely. Concern and disappointment seem to cross her face. She starts to speak and stops, reconsidering. “At least you’re not hurt. I couldn’t take losing you. We need to go. It won’t take long for them to find us up here. Especially not after the racket we just made.” 

“Where? Where can we go now?” the filly asks.

The mare sighs and looks at her hooves before turning back to the ruination of her home. A look of despair crosses her features but something else streaks across as well: resignation.

“The only other place I know.”
> Act II: Return
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Sugarcube Corner had seen better days. Though the building is shadowed by the deepest part of the night, it is apparent that time has not been kind to the abandoned structure. The building, long in disuse since the previous owners had attempted to sell it after relocating their business elsewhere, had largely spent time unprepared for the temperature shifts. What would have been minor repairs have turned into more significant undertakings. Many of the roof tiles have rotted or slid loose. The decorative trim resembling icing has all but disappeared. Faux peppermint sticks, once the delightful trim of the front door that thrilled ponies and served as the gateway to a delicious wonderland of sugary treats. Are cracked, discolored, and warped. The windows and front door have been boarded shut. The sign that used to hang out front designating this structure as a confectionist shop is long since gone; only a pair of chains, fused with rust, remain frozen in time.

“This place?” Cozy steadies the camera to frame the disused structure and then spins back to Pinkamena, who is wearing a traveling cloak to conceal her identity. Shadows obscure the area beneath the hood even with the gain turned up on the camcorder. Behind her the streets of Ponyville are barren. 

“This is where it all started for me in Ponyville. It was the first place I ever truly called home.” The hooded figure of Pinkamena stares into the past, head up and tracing the dim frame. “I screwed that all up, though. This is where my life truly began and ended.” 

“Oh! That makes sense. When I lived in Ponyville and attended the friendship school, this place was …” she struggles to recall the term, “faboo!”

“Taboo, Cozy.” Pinkamena corrects the filly as she tests the boards blocking the front door and finds them resilient despite their weathered appearance.

“Yeah. Taboo. Ponies used to dare each other to go inside. Everyone knew it was an evil place.” Cozy chuckles to herself.

“Places aren’t evil, Cozy. Ponies are.” Pinkamena looks the building over once more and grimaces. “Did you ever go inside?”

“Me? No, not myself. But, I did see some others go inside once.” 

“How?”

“They pried the boards loose on the back door. Then, when they were inside, I slammed the door closed and propped a board against it so they couldn’t get out.” Cozy has a small, evil fit of laughter. “They screamed and I think one or two started crying.”

“Let’s check and see if it’s still open.” Pinkamena faces the filly, a blue glint shines beneath the hood. “Do you have to record everything, Cozy? Out of all the things for you to bring with you, you chose that camera?”

“I like it. We’re making memories, right? So it’s important to both of us.” 

“They’ll likely just use it as evidence against us when the inquisitors come.” the cloaked mare chides. “We’re damned already but you are double damning us.” 

“Does it matter? There will be no pity for us, Pinkie.” Cozy replies.

“I guess not.” The mare reaches a hoof out and presses it against the ruined Sugarcube Corner. She lets it linger and her head droops. “At some point memories are all we have.” A wind rustles the microphone as it tears down the empty street. Finally, she turns away and begins moving around the edge of the building. Cozy is silent as she follows. 

Pinkamena pauses suddenly and turns to the camera, annoyance crossing her features. “Stop calling me Pinkie. Pinkie Pie died a long time ago. I hate when you call me that.”

Streets flank Sugarcube Corner on three sides, and the back is separated from the next building by a short backyard. A once-beloved fixture of Ponyville’s downtown, the local government ensures that the  grass is neatly cut, and the tiny flower gardens residing at the edge of the street are refreshed weekly with new blooms. A single, large oak resides behind the building. Across the cobblestone street are a row of businesses, their windows dark and lifeless like a corpse’s eyes. They watch the pair enter the backyard and test the mettle of the damaged back door.

“I think I can kick it open but it’s going to make a lot of noise. You can see in the dark with that thing, right?”

“Yeah.”

“Watch for movement in the windows of those buildings across the street. The one over there,” Pinkamena indicates the lone building on the opposite street, “is a warehouse. I doubt anybody will be there at this time but most of the businesses here have homes upstairs for the business owner. Or they used to, at least. A lot of them are different from when I lived here.”

“Aye aye, Captain!” The filly is a little too loud and a small hoof salutes from the top of the camera. The frame turns and zooms to upstairs windows one at a time while a series of heavy blows echo out. The raking, tearing sound of splintering wood fills the microphone. It suddenly is replaced by a hollow rattling and the wail of a rusty hinge swinging open. The buildings remain lifeless as Cozy sweeps them.

“Okay, come on. Hurry!” The camera remains still. “Cozy! Get inside!” Pinkamena’s hushed voice still resonates with annoyance.

“Okay, okay! I was just making sure. Geez!” Cozy is ushered inside. The door, and what little light filtered from the outside, slam closed behind them. A wooden lock slides into place with the squeak of old wood.

The inside of the kitchen of the former confectionary has been gutted. All electrical appliances have been removed, leaving empty spaces of less-thickly gathered dust in their stead; ghosts of a time long past. Bits of wood and dirt decorate the floor. 

The camera turns towards the wall where a lightswitch protrudes. Cozy reaches for it but her leg is swatted down by Pinkamena, her hood now thrown back and a pained grimace twisting her face. “Cozy, use your brain. Are you really just going to advertise that we are here like that?”

“It’s hard to see in here and I miss electricity. We’ve roughed it long enough. Candles, lanterns, and the world of a hundred and fifty years ago was your cottage.” The filly retorts, a stain of embarrassment in her voice. 

“You want electric light? Flip that switch and see how long it takes to be under the burning spotlight of the statue garden again. Is that what you want?” Pinkamena stands awkwardly and though her words are annoyed, they lack anger. She begins to walk away but with a new, obvious limp as one of her back legs lag grotesquely at a strange angle. She visibly winces as weight comes down upon it.

“Point taken.” Cozy notices the troublesome gait. “What’s wrong? Are you hurt?”

Pinkamena curses under her breath and exits the room slowly. She begins climbing a flight of aged stairs. Little clouds of dust puff and twirl as she drags herself up one step at a time. Cozy follows directly, waiting for the mare to take one labored step at a time. After the fourth, Pinkamena pauses and shakes her head with frustration.

“I can’t do it.” The mare grumbles, hot seething noises escape her gritted teeth and she collapses to one side on the stairs. 

“What’s wrong?” Cozy sounds genuinely worried and places the camera down on a step. It faces the wall, where a patch of the drywall is broken and a black, hairy spider has made a home in the opening. It rests in the center of the net-like trap and watches silently. A pair of drained, cocooned victims decorate the web. Their corpses jiggle from the vibrations of the ponies’ hoofsteps.

“I can’t make it upstairs. I popped something loose when I was kicking the boards.” 

“What, what can I do? Here, lean on me and I’ll…”

Pinkamena shrieks and grunts achingly. “Stop, stop! Just let me sit here. Just leave me alone. Don’t touch me”

“I only tried to help!”

“I know. Thanks, Cozy. I’m not mad at you. It just hurts a lot.” Her breathing is labored and mired in half-moans as she pivots onto her side.

“Ho-how can I help?” The filly asks.

“Just get away from me.” 

“You’re just going to live here on the stairs?” Cozy folds her forelegs like a frustrated mother.

Pinkamena is silent except for the groans.

“I thought so. So why were you trying to go upstairs? I’ll go.”

“I had a room in the attic. There’s steps leading up to it down the hall on the second floor. If anything is left it will be there. I wouldn’t imagine the Cakes would want anything that reminded them of me ...” her voice trails at the end. 

“I’ll go look. You just stay here.” Cozy’s hooves rattle on the stairs and begin to fade.

“Cozy!”

“Yeah?” the clacking of hooves pause distantly.

“There’s probably nothing there but … be careful.”

“I will.”

The spider watches from inside of the cracked wall nest. Vibrations continue to shake the web and the patient hunter seems content to bounce along. Pinkamena’s seething continues and the spider suddenly dashes deeper into the darkness and disappears. A pink leg eases in front of the camera but the view becomes warped and spins with many clacking noises. Step, wall, ceiling, and darkness wheel in in alternating frenzy finally halting on a rotated angle staring at the bottom of the dusty stairs. Pinkamena is lower on the stairs than before, scooting down them one at a time, her right leg protruding like a wayward oar. It hangs to one side and she presses a hoof against it with each seething motion until she comes to sit on the ground floor once more beside the camera. She moans and lays against the dirty hardwood. Crumbles of plaster and other unknown particles stick in her coat and mane. She breathes hard, each rasping respiration a labored dirge of pain. Her cutie-mark barren hip is estranged from her body; a deformed lump wobbles grotesquely and rhythmically with each breath. The leg hangs loose like a criminal from a noose.    

Hooves on stairs rattles downward quickly and Cozy’s legs appear behind Pinkamena on the stairs. They titter nervously and shift her weight from one to the other. “The door was locked to the attic.”

“Okay. I used to have a spare key. I can’t recall where I hid it right now though. We can’t stay here in the open. If someone comes to check on the house we’ll be discovered too easily.” Her eyes are closed and she is very still as she speaks.

“We-we need to do something about your leg, Pinkamena. It … it looks really disturbing.” Cozy’s voice is discomforted. Though her head is outside of the frame, it is easy to imagine the disgust on her face and the shock in her eyes gazing at Pinkamena's hip.

Pinkamena groans and squeezes her eyes closed at the thought. “I know… I know. Get something: a piece of wood, an old rag, anything small enough to fit in my mouth.”

“What?” The word is thoroughly dripping with confusion.

“Find something!” Pinkamena growls and shakes her head to herself as the filly dashes back up the stairs.

Cozy returns a few moments later with a chunk of baluster from the bannister. She drops it before the injured mare and sits beside her. “This?”

“That’s fine. It’ll do. I need you to help me, Cozy. You aren’t going to like it, but I’m not going to be able to walk again without your help. Think you can do it?” Her blue eyes are already floating in tears as she looks helplessly to Cozy who can only nod and swallow a lump in her throat.

“Good. This has happened before,” Pinkamena explains slowly. “My leg is out of socket. I think I hurt my back too, but the leg is what’s keeping me from walking.”

“Why? Why did it come out?” Cozy asks softly.

“I’m old, honey.” Pinkamena attempts a laugh but the pain steals it. “I’ll help you get my leg in the right position and when I tell you to push, you will have to push and work the bone back into the joint, OK?”

A shiver runs down Cozy’s spine and she makes a dreadful, heaving noise. “No… I can’t.”

“Then you’ll need to leave right now. You can get far away from Ponyville before I’m found. Just leave me here.” Pinkamena lays her head back down to the floor and goes still. “I won’t be able to protect you if someone finds me.”

“I’m not leaving you. I wouldn’t leave you like this.” Cozy gently touches Pinkamena’s shoulder and rubs very softly. 

“Then you’ll need to help me. I know you can do it, Cozy. You’re stronger than you look.” Pinkamena’s ear flattens at Cozy’s touch.

“Ok… I can do it. I’ll do it for you.” Another shiver runs through the filly but she stands and maneuvers behind the mare in preparation.

“We’ll lift my leg. You keep it up and I’ll guide it to the joint. When I tell you, you have to push down very hard. You may have to wiggle it back in.”

“Is it going to hurt you?” Worry troubles Cozy’s features and her mouth hangs open.

“Very, very much. Just don’t stop until you feel it pop back in no matter what. Ok?”  She breathes harder, her trepidation mounting.

“Ok. I can do this. I can.” Cozy repeats this as a mantra and looks uneasy. Her hooves move to support Pinkamena’s flopping leg.

“Lift!” The word comes out as a  moan ripping through clenched teeth. Pinkamena’s foreleg reaches to assist as Cozy tugs her leg up from the knee. Her long foreleg adjusts the free bone floating inside the muscles and guides it above the damaged socket. Pain hisses through the mare’s teeth and she does her best to muffle the scream that fights to be free. Cozy shakes and shudders as Pinkamena’s hoof fumbles back and forth searching for the socket.

Pinkamena takes the broken baluster into her mouth, her razored teeth splintering through the ancient wood. Tears roll down her cheeks and she casts a streaking eye to the pegasus. She growls through the wooden bit, “Now! Push it in, Cozy!”

Cozy jabs with all of her might and Pinkamena howls into the bit. Her cry is muffled but the pain in the shriek is very real. Her teeth crush the wood as Cozy puts all of her weight behind the attempt to re-socket Pinkamena’s leg. 

Cozy’s wings thrum to life, adding force to her struggle to rotate the bone against the socket. The meat beneath the bone flows and rolls like water trapped in a bottle. Pinkamena’s forelegs clutch at nothing and shake from the pain devouring her lower half. Tears stream down her cheeks, and her throat bulges with the violence of the cries crashing against the bit like raucous tsunami waves on rocks. Her muscles tighten like iron and ripple beneath her coat.

“I can’t get it to go in!” Cozy cries, tears beginning to drip from her chin as she slams down against the stubborn joint.

The leg flops like a landbound fish as the pegasus works. Suddenly, it pops sickeningly and audibly with a suction like a lollipop being pulled from a mouth. Pinkamena kicks Cozy away with the injured leg. She rolls over onto her back and sobs painfully into the wooden bit. Magenta mane hair streams about as Cozy moves to hug Pinkamena. 

Pinkamena shakes momentarily but the tremors ease away and she swallows Cozy into her forelegs, pulling the pegasus onto her so that their bellies rest against each other. She spits the baluster away, now sporting many new tooth-sized holes and a long line of viscous saliva. Pinkamena’s breathing returns to normal and she hugs Cozy. “Good job, Honey. Good job.” Her words betray her exhaustion,and she lays very still with the filly nuzzling into her neck.

The light in the kitchen has become softer and Pinkamena turns her head to look outside of the frame. “We’ll have to give up on tonight, Cozy. Come on. Get your camera. I hope it’s okay. I accidentally knocked it down the stairs. Let’s go down to the basement and try to get some sleep.”

Cozy rolls from Pinkamena and takes the camera. The video cuts off.
> Cozy Confides
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

The gain indicator appears and flashes at the bottom of the screen. The multitude of dots begin to deteriorate one at a time and a picture forms from the heavily saturated image. Cozy is looking into the lens with a studious expression. Her pink tongue pokes out of her mouth, perched between her lips like a mouse in a trap.

The zoom filters back and more of the filly comes into frame. A small smile appears as her tongue ducks back into her mouth. “Mr. Camera, Pinkamena is going to be the end of you, I think. You’re lucky to still be functional.”

Cozy takes the camera and flips it up onto her shoulder, spinning around to reveal the basement of Sugarcube Corner. 

Concrete floors and walls surround the wide, deep room. Approximately the size of the entire first floor of the confectionary, the huge room is barren. Rafters and supports of the first floor hang from above like an ancient skeleton. Wires dangle like stray hairs and some terminate in ancient bulbs dimly scattering a sepia illumination, dotted with filth. Any furniture that used to be stored has long since been moved or confiscated, leaving the room stale and desolate except for a pile of aged supplies in a corner. Several massive sacks marked Royal Emblem flour hold the still body of Pinkamena. Light snoring wafts to the camera. In the rear of the room, the lone feature left from a better, happier time is the brick oven made into the concrete foundation. It’s girded door sags open like an old, toothless beast.

Cozy drags her travel bag into the frame. She rummages through the bag and lays items aside: a bottle of water, a thick book with the words “Mrs. Cake’s Family Recipes”, and a ball of yarn. She continues to pillage the bag until she pulls out a wrapped good. Carefully unwrapping it, it’s revealed as a leftover zebra bar. She bites into it and looks over her shoulder to her sleeping companion across the room. She savors the treat and eats slowly while playing with the camcorder. 

Cozy finishes her meal and turns back to the camera with a bright, cheerful smile. She falls back into the hostess persona, “I guess Cozy’s Cooking Corner is on hiatus until further notice. Sorry, folks. We here at the Corner understand that you are unhappy, and we just want you to know that we are too. Hopefully, soon we will be able to continue our broadcasts and once again teach you, our jubilous fans, the art of baking! Don’t worry, your sweetest host in the whole world, has a plan to get back to baking as soon as possible. Stay tuned!”

Falling out of the role, Cozy reaches for the camcorder but pauses. She retracts her leg slowly, turning her head to face the sleeping Pinkamena once more. 

“You know what?” A perplexed look contorts Cozy’s features as she looks back to the camera. “I don’t understand Pinkie. She’s … not what I expected, I guess.” Cozy looks down at her hooves and taps them absently against the concrete. “I mean, when she came to get me, I recognized her from the stories. It wasn’t hard, everybody knew. I was really little at the time and living at the orphanage, but even we heard what was happening in Ponvyille. They wouldn’t let us out to play for months and we had to be in bed by 7pm every night.”

Clouding with memory, Cozy’s eyes are gray windows to her mind. Opaque to the point of obfuscation, only glints of her inner self dampen like shadows across the hazy mirrors. “I thought she would kill me. Just break me apart with a hammer or something but she didn’t. She placed me in her garden and would come outside and talk to me. Sometimes all day. She would say crazy things like ‘I’m so happy you are back with me’ and ‘I’ve missed you for so long’. But, why would she say that? I’d never met her. By the time I moved to Ponyville, she was long gone. Most ponies thought she was dead by then, just a ghost haunting the town.”

A short sigh comes from Cozy and she blinks away the haze. “I really do think she’s crazy and I know she’s killed ponies.” A shiver runs through her and her brows cross. “But … it’s not like what they said. I said on the first episode of my show that she eats meat but I’ve never seen that. There were lots of rumors that the monster called Pinkamena would eat her victims after she tortured them to death. I’ve never seen either of those things, I just said it because that’s what ponies think. She’s almost always nice to me and she took care of me like nobody else ever has. When I was still a statue, she would bring an umbrella out for me when it rained and move me inside near the ovens when it snowed. I was just barely sentient stone but I could perceive my surroundings. She cares about me. She actually cares about what I do and have to say. Even when we fight, she still takes care of me.” Cozy reflects, going silent for a moment as she rubs the spot in her mane where the knot used to be. Pinkamena snores soundly in the background.

“I thought she’d kill me and eat me for a long time after the petrification spell broke. I had nowhere to go but the forest so I just stayed with her and expected to get cut apart every day. When she fed me I thought it was to fatten me up. When she would tell me I was pretty I thought she was admiring the coat she would skin from me. But instead, she just wanted to make me feel good or what was best for me. I didn’t trust her the entirety of the first year but, here we are. I don’t know if she has gone soft with age and was just lonely or if she’s really not as scary as they made her out to be.”

“If she weren’t crazy, I think she’d be a good mom. Well, grandma now. Sometimes I see flashes of the monster in her. Just peeks at the horror story others weaved long ago. I think it only comes out when necessary. The rest of the time she’s just sad, old Pinkie Pie. I bet Pinkie Pie was a really nice pony. Pinkamena tells me Pinkie Pie is dead but I don’t think she’s right about that.”

Cozy watches Pinkamena sleep from her spot near the camera. “She’s so weird … but, I need her.” She snaps straight like a piece of rebar. “For my plans, I mean.”

The camera shuts off with a quick flick of pink hoof.
> Key Hunt
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

An image appears. A trio of young ponies stand on the cobbled street in front of the boarded up Sugarcube Corner. The evening light cascades over them and ignites the stones of the street in a deep red. Their attention is drawn to ice cream cones, the ultimate refreshment for young ponies in the middle of summer. The camera wobbles in a familiar pattern, indicating Cozy is hovering. The edges of dark boards wander in and out of the sides of the frame and the dirty window pane augments the colors of the ponies. 

“Look at them.” Cozy whispers to the camera before chuckling to herself. The trio appear to be about the same age as Cozy before her petrification. 

One of the group turns and looks up at the house. She finishes her ice cream and turns to her comrades, saying something to them and laughing as they shrink away and shake their heads. The one speaking brushes her hoof down her puffed-up chest and points at the house.

“Oh! She wants to come in. She won’t like what she finds if she does,” Cozy talks to herself. 

The filly outside steps closer to the house but her bravado begins to fade as she nears the steps to the main door. Still, pushing forward, the filly begins to climb the stairs. A tile falls from the roof right in front of the window and clatters loudly against the ground. The filly jumps and her muffled shriek is picked up through the glass. Dashing back to her friends, all bravery nullified, the other two laugh at her. 

An adult pegasus walks up, orange coated with short purple mane spiked forward and chastises the three fillies who then run off. The adult’s cutie mark is a tri-colored shield with a purple wing in the center. She watches the three dash away and then faces the building. Sadness fills her features and she shakes her head softly before going on her way.

“That one looked kind of familiar. Oh, well.”

“Did you find them yet?” Pinkamena calls from the next room.

“What happened to being quiet? You can’t just yell at me like that,” Cozy chides and begins swinging the camera around piles of rubbish and dilapidation.

Pinkamena steps into the field of view from around a corner. “Oh, I should have known. Goofing off instead of looking for them.”

“I AM looking! It’s not easy to find something that you hid when you used to live here.” The room is empty and covered in thick dust. “There’s nothing to look at anyway. There’s nothing left but filth and broken pieces of drywall.”

“The keys wouldn’t be out in the open, Cozy. I put them … somewhere.” The mare takes her head in her hooves and clenches her eyes, trying to recollect. “In a hiding place. I just can’t remember where it was.” Pinkamena pulls her head up, a serious expression on her face, biting her lip with furrowed brows. 

“Okay. I’ll just magically know where your hiding place is. Don’t you worry, Pinkamena, I’m good at finding things with only vague directions of where they are.” Her words are upbeat and bubbly.

“Being snide isn’t going to help.” Pinkamena looks from one doorway to the next and growls to herself. “It was definitely in the house.”

“In the house. Great! We’ve eliminated the rest of the world. Should be easy now.” 

Pinkamena glares at the camera. “You are not helping.”

The camera turns to the floor and a small hoof juts out to scratch at the ruined floorboards. “I am! Look! I’ll just check every floorboard in the whole house to see which one is loose. Just like in that story by Edgar Allen Pony. I’ll find the thing you hid.” There’s a bite to Cozy’s words this time, the bubbly act dropped.

“Good. I’ll stuff you into it when you find it. Keep looking,” Pinkamena retorts. Her hooves grow distant and Cozy drifts over the floor, hoof prodding and prying on each board while she grumbles under her breath.

“How creative, ‘I’ll kill you’. Get some new material,” Cozy complains quietly. The floor is scratched and beyond repair. Cozy’s small hoof tests the corner of each plank for security as she slowly makes her way across where the counter of the confectionary stood. “This is so boring.”

Cozy continues checking, each new tile greeted with throaty lamentations. After several minutes, Cozy flutters to the floor and complains, “I’m getting hungry! What are we going to do about food?”

From another room, Pinkamena answers with a disgruntled sigh, “We’ll have to go steal something to eat. Flour doesn’t have a very good shelf life so the bags of flour in the basement are worthless. The sugar is still good but we can’t just eat sugar.”

“When do you want to do that? Aren’t you hungry?”

Pinkamena steps back into the room and nods gently, casting her eyes from one side of the room to the other probingly. It’s clear she is aggravated. “We will have to wait until it gets late. Walking around in cloaks is suspicious so we can’t really afford to be out at times others will see us. You might be able to get away with just combing your mane a different style. Young ponies don’t attract a ton of attention and I doubt your colors are going to be remembered so vividly that you will get recognized just walking down the street.”

“Are you saying nobody remembers me?” There’s hurt in Cozy’s reply but also a sharpness that is indicative of challenge. “I almost took over, you know. What did you do? Kill a few ponies and cook them up? That doesn’t seem so bad.”

Blue eyes roll and Pinkamena shakes her head in indignance. “I’m not boasting or trying to make you feel like what you did wasn’t impressive. I’m just saying that appearances favor you. You’re innocent-looking, young, and rumors of ‘Cozy Glow’ don’t exactly spell out what you look like. I have pointed teeth… it was stupid to do that…  a scar where my cutie mark should be, and ‘pink’ is in my name.”

“Uh-huh,” Cozy dismisses Pinkamena’s statement.

Pinkamena gives a look of contempt to the filly. “Why do you cling to this, Cozy? Can’t you see that it’s not fun or ‘cool’ to be like us? It’s hard and … and lonely.”

“Maybe I want to be just like you.” 

“Please, nobody wants to be like me. A ruined party pony whose name is synonymous with cruelty and derangement? Some of us have no choice. I used to make others so happy… Why are you proud of what you did? Of deliberately being so evil?” Pinkamena sags and turns away from the camera.

“I want to make everybody respect me, even if that means fearing me, because I’m the best! They’ll look at me and smile, by force if necessary! Everybody will know me and love me!” Cozy nearly shouts, emotion welling in her voice. “I’m better than you, Pinkamena! I don’t regret the things I have done even though I didn’t have a choice either! I didn’t choose to be abandoned by my parents! I didn’t choose to always feel empty like I’m missing something important! I didn’t choose to be isolated and clueless about what friendship is!” Cozy’s voice is like a piece of unrefined granite, hard and rough. It wavers almost imperceptibly at the end.

Spinning to face the camera, Pinkamena gnashes her teeth and glares angrily. Her emotions a tornado, Pinkamena’s demeanor rapidly melts into an expression of pity and her lip finds a familiar perch between triangular, razored teeth. 

“Put the camera down and come here.” A drop of blood rolls down her muzzle leaving a dark, black trail.

“No!” The tiny voice cracks.

Pinkamena closes the distance, absorbing the view of the camera. The picture shakes and the sound of struggle fills the audio. It presses into the darker coat of the mare and slips free, clattering to the floor. Flashes of various pink colors as legs and haunches appear on the screen momentarily while  the ponies wrestle. Truncated, stressed cries mix with the scraping of hooves and strained grunts. A tiny image appears in the lower right hand corner of a battery encircled within a no symbol. Type words appear on screen spelling out ‘check connection’.

“Don’t touch me, you hag!”

“Just stop! Stop fighting! It’s alright, Cozy.”

“I hate you!”

“Hate me all you want, just stop!”

A long pink leg stretches out in front of the camera with a smaller, lighter-colored one inside of it and rearing to kick out. Soft sobs can be heard filtering into the audio and the smaller leg slides up to rest against the larger one.

“I’m here, honey. It’s alright. It’s going to be okay. Shhh…You are better than me. I want you to be. You’re my little filly.”

The camera cuts out completely.
> Cooking Corner: Gazpacho Panzanella
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

The video rolls and the image of a much younger Pinkamena looks questioningly at the camera. Her coat is free of gray strands, tighter, and slightly more vivacious. Her ice-blue eyes are clear like glacial waters as she peers into the lens. Streaks of carmine liquid drip down her left cheek and gather in small pools at her collarbone. Behind her, the picnic of the pallid pink mare and her stallion partner lay in shambles. 

The picnic basket has been crushed, the food once decorating plates now mashed or strewn aside. The body of the stallion is stretched across the checked sheet they had previously sat upon sharing a moment of romance, content in time spent with one another. His abdomen has been opened and the bright sun illuminates the organs inside like a paper lantern. Much of his entrails have been pulled free to swell and bloat in the sun. Already the shadows of carrion birds slice across the grisly scene as they circle above. 

Words are painted in the stallion’s blood across the blanket in a repeating pattern. In the center are two words drawn large and emphasized,

‘Stay Out!’

Pinkamena looks deeply into the camera and a shiver runs through the entirety of her form hard enough to appear to break her. She gasps for breath and falls into deep sobs. Her hooves wrap her head as glistening tears pour like waterfalls. Shaking her head in disgust, Pinkamena shudders before the inaudible video and a wail rips from her before she collapses into a quivering heap.

The video begins to distort and the image suddenly changes to Cozy Glow standing behind a makeshift table of boards and boxes. The disused brick oven in the background and concrete floors marks this as the basement of Sugarcube Corner. There are a few ceramic bowls spread across the faux table with different vegetables poking above the rims. A single paring knife lays to one side. The pegasus wears a frown and appears drained and tired.

“Okay, we’re on,” Pinkamena’s familiar voice comes from off-screen and she bursts into frame beside the filly to the usual spot she occupies for ‘Cozy’s Cooking Corner’. An attempt at a mirthful smile spreads across her lips and she gently nudges Cozy.

Cozy looks away and toward the floor as she crosses her forelegs about her chest with a pouting lip protruding forward.

“Uh… Hello again, wonderful viewers!” Pinkamena picks up the slack and begins the segment with her best television personality facsimile. “Today a-at Cozy’s Cooking Corner we are going to break from tradition and bring to you something a little different. Normally, The Corner is all about baking sweet treats and dainty delectables for yourself, your friends, and loved ones, but sometimes you just need something simple, quick, and free from the labors of cooking. But, let me, the guest host, make way for our most wonderful, magnificutest host in the world, Cozy Glow!” 

Pinkamena holds her hooves out in presentation of Cozy who puts her elbows onto the provisional table and rests her chin up on them, disconnected from the act Pinkamena is putting on.

Biting her lip once more, Pinkamena reaches out and lightly touches Cozy’s shoulder. The pegasus doesn’t react. Turning back to the camera, Pinkamena ignites another smile. “We know that everyone loves the sweet treats we usually make, but this recipe is sure to win over even the coldest hearts. So let’s give this delectable dish a good try. Come on, Cozy! Tell the viewers what we’re making!”

Cozy rolls an annoyed, uncaring eye to the camera and mumbles more than speaks, “Gas-punch pansies.”

Pinkamena giggles playfully and continues her facade, “So close! It’s difficult to say but we’re making gazpacho panzanella! This dish is a combination recipe from two other pony cultures! Gazpacho is a delicious soup from Caballoza made from cucumbers, tomatoes, and garlic. We will be adding basil and turning it into an exquisite salad! We will also be using day-old bread to make panzanella, or breadcrumbs, to go with the salad. Panzanella comes from Bitaly where bread, pasta and all things gluten are superior.”

“First we take the tomatoes and cut them into bite-sized chunks.” Pinkamena ushers a bowl of small tomatoes towards Cozy. The pegasus looks into them and sighs but takes the knife into her mouth and begins slicing. Pinkamena notices and grins to herself.

“Tomatoes, or tomate, in Caballoza, are one of your guest-host’s favorite foods. They pop like eyeballs in your mouth and are just bursting with flavor. The way their insides spill around your tongue and percolate the taste buds is simply exquisite.” Pinkamena brings her hooves together and claps. “Don’t you agree, superific host, Cozy?”

Cozy, carefully but fumblingly cutting the tomatoes nods indifferently. “I guess. But don’t compare them to eyeballs. Why would you make that comparison?”

Pinkamena’s mouth pulls back from a smile into concern as Cozy awkwardly slices the tomatoes. “Remember to be careful when cutting, don’t want to cut yourself. Always cut away and use good form so that the blade doesn’t catch your hoof or the flesh behind it. Or worse, holding it wrong could even slice your lips or tongue. How could you, our amicable viewers, enjoy the scrumptious delights we make here on The Corner without a tongue?”

The tomatoes are placed back into the bowl in sopping chunks. Cozy looks up at the pink mare for the next instruction.

“Next we take the cucumbers and skin them. Now, I, your slaughterrorific, co-host know almost everything there is to know about skinning, so let’s practice on the cucumbers!”

Cozy makes a face, “Hey! That’s not what this show is about. You can’t just say weird things like that. Eyeballs, skinning?”

“Sorry, Cozy. Guess I can’t help myself but maybe I can change. If I practice and try hard enough, maybe I can learn to forget about the things that have made me who I am and become a better pony.” Pinkamena tussles the mane of the smaller pony.

“Maybe. Do that last part over.”

“So, stupendous viewers, next we take the cucumber and skin it. Now I know what you housewives are thinking, ‘why waste a perfectly good cucumber by eating it’ and, you know, now and then, I agree with you but…”

“Hey!” Cozy interrupts again and looks up at Pinkamena with judgmental eyes. “Come on, I’m not THAT little. I know what you’re talking about. That’s pretty gross, don’t you think? We don’t make those kinds of jokes at Cozy’s Cooking Corner! It’s TV-Y rated!”

“Oh, I’m sorry, Cozy. I-I’m not as experienced with making a show as you are. I just keep messing up. Maybe you should resume your hosting duties and I will cut up the vegetables?” Pinkamena flushes, watching the pegasus come alive a little more.

“Yeah, that’s probably a good idea. I mean, you weren’t bad at it, but you really need to work on some things.” Cozy scoots the knife over to her co-host and moves more towards the center of the table, a weak smile beginning to sprout on her lips.

Cozy clears her throat and becomes the character she has created, “Welcome back viewers! Your buoyant, beautiful host Cozy is here to tell you the next step of making …. uh … guppie penchant pantsandtie.”

“Gazpacho Panzanella.” Pinkamena whispers and takes the knife into her mouth.

“Yep! Thank you, Miss Pinkamena and may I say that you are looking especially sweet today. Not as sweet and lovable as yours truly, but you have a kind of glow around you that I just can’t explain.”

“Thanks, Cozy. You must be rubbing off on me, I suppose.”

“Well, our next step is to skin the cucumbers and cube them into morsels about the same size as the tomatoes. Right, Miss Pinkamena?” The pegasus looks for reassurement.

“That’s right, Cozy. All you have to do is put the edge of the knife just under the skin of the cucumber and ..” the blade effortlessly slices through as the earth pony spins the gourd-family fruit around, knife peeling the dark green flesh in a swirling strip. It tails off leaving the cucumber naked, soft meat glistening with wet life. The coiled strip is one long piece, Pinkamena’s skill with a knife is still as sharp as the blades she uses. “Voila!” She immediately begins dicing the cucumber with blurring speed. In just a few seconds the fruit is a series of thick, almost perfectly squared chunks. They are mixed with the tomatoes.

“You’re really good at that. How did you get so … you know what, I don’t think I don’t think I want to know.”

The mare laughs in response and brings out one of the two garlic cloves. She makes a quick slice to rid the outer fibrous shell and uses the back, blunt side of the blade in combination with her hooves to excrete the soft, inner cloves from their protective layerings. 

“Now we just chop the garlic into fine pieces. We don’t want to use too much or it will take over the flavor.” Cozy coughs and her eyes begin to water from the odor of the garlic. She moves away from the table for a moment.

Pinkamena shows no sign of weakness to the acrid vegetable and finishes the job quickly and masterfully. She replaces the leftover garlic into another bowl and covers them with an empty plate. 

Cozy returns to the ad hoc table. “Where did you get all of this?”

“Stole it from a couple gardens. I also found a home with a window open and borrowed some plates and things. There’s carrots and a few other things for the next few days but we will need to make them last. Every time I go out it’s another chance we’re taking.”

“Cozy’s Cooking Corner does not condone acts of theft, loyal viewers. Times are difficult for your most gracious host and her surprisingly skilled co-host.” She grins widely and pushes the next bowl over, full of basil leaves. She makes a face at it and looks up to her co-host perplexed.

“Basil leaves. We crush them up.”

“Next we will take the basil leaves, viewers. Fresh is the best for this … umm, plant. It needs to be crushed finely so let’s watch our co-host work her magic!”

Pinkamena takes the empty bowl the cucumber was in and slides it down into the bowl of basil leaves. She twists and grinds the upper bowl into the bottom one repeatedly, effectively turning the bowls into a facsimile mortar and pestle. 

“Oh...that’s a neat trick.” Cozy tells her friend and then turns to the camera. “We’re lucky here at The Corner to have such a knowledgeable co-host. If you folks at home are on a bit of a budget, as we are, then this method of grinding requires fewer instruments and works just as well.”

Pinkamena tosses in the finely minced garlic and begins crushing again with the bowls until the mixture inside resembles a thick, green paste. “Got it. I couldn’t get everything we needed so there’s no oil. It’s going to be a little dry but it should still be pretty tasty. Just need to cut up the bread. Day old is better because it’s a little harder. We should really fry it some but we can’t make a fire without giving away that we’re in here.”

“You heard her, folks! Brilliant budget breakfast, lunch, or dinner!” Cozy begins explaining what Pinkamena just said in her host character while Pinkamena slices the bread into pieces and mixes with the tomato and cucumber. She then spills the contents onto two plates and uses the knife to direct some of the garlic-basil paste into the creation as well.

“There you have it, intrepid viewers! Gazpacho Panvanilla!” Cozy quickly looks to Pinkamena for accuracy. 

“Close enough. Good job.”

“TASTE TEST!” Diving into her plate, Cozy crunches on the meat of the cucumber and pops her head back up with a series of warm onomatopoeias all she can muster to describe how good the food is. Pinkamena begins eating as well, seemingly satisfied with the result.

Cozy gulps down her mouthful and cocks her head playfully to the camera. “We sincerely hope your version of this dish turned out just as well as ours! Until next time, friendly viewers, we love all of you! Keep cooking!”

The segment over, Cozy eats in a more controlled fashion and licks the plate at the end. She grins to Pinkamena, finishing her food, and turns to saunter back to the brick oven dormant in the background.

“I wish we could use this. It’s pretty similar to the one back home, huh?” Cozy’s observation is astute; the oven is similar in size and shape. It is evident that this was the concept Pinkamena went with while designing her own.

“If it still stood, yes. It’s very similar. I never used a better oven than this one. Mine was a crude copy that never really lived up to this one’s ability. I think Mr. Cake designed it, actually. It’s perfect for baking.” Pinkamena finishes her meal and moves to join Cozy in front of the oven.

“You sound like you were happy here, Pinkie,” the pegasus observes.

“Yes, I was. It was a long time ago though. I’ve forgotten what it felt like.”

Cozy watches Pinkamena’s shoulders droop and the pegasus lays her head against the older pony’s shoulder. “Maybe when all this is over we can come back and use this oven again. Or is it broken, like us?”

A gentle chuckle spills from the mare and she scoops Cozy around the neck, pulling the curly mane against her chest. “That’s a nice idea. I’d love that. It’s probably just a dream, though. One way or another, I think our time together will end soon.”

“Not if we end that tyrant, Twilight Sparkle first. If we got rid of her and took over we could do whatever we wanted.” Cozy sounds vicious, her words spears like lunging towards the Princess of Friendship.

A resigned sigh escapes Pinkamena and she turns to face the smaller pony. She looks sad but also a little annoyed. “Let’s stop the charade, okay, Cozy?”

Cozy looks confused and turns her head cutely. “What do you mean, Pinkie?”

Her former name stings the mare visually and she twitches as if something has struck her. “No more of that. Stop calling me Pinkie, it's painful to me. Just like being back here in this place is painful to me.”

“I … okay. But what do you mean, ‘the charade’?” Cozy asks innocently.

A growl comes from deep within the mare and her eyes narrow. She still has Cozy pulled close and her foreleg tightens around the pegasus’ neck. “You know exactly what I’m talking about.”

Cozy attempts to pull back from the grip but the effort is fruitless. “Hey, that hurts a little, Pinkamena.”

“Being here brings back a lot of painful memories for me, Cozy. It reminds me constantly of all the things I did. How my friends died by my hooves only a few feet from where we stand, their bodies dismembered and butchered. Turned into edibles in this very oven. Of all the places in this world, this is the most harrowing for me. It’s like spiders in my brain.” Pinkamena’s eyes flash wildly and peer unblinking into the filly. “I’m here because I want to make you happy but I can’t take the lies anymore. Let’s not play these games or I might do something else I regret. The ghosts of my dead friends haunt me here and I can’t take their voices and your lies both.”

Cozy squirms but appears transfixed, if not hypnotized, by Pinkamena’s unblinking stare. Cozy breathes hard, her voice squeaking as she speaks, “I di-didn’t lie.”

Pinkamena pushes Cozy onto her back and stands over her, a smile beginning to spread like a disease across her lips. The pupils of her eyes vibrate and her words are broken by the beginnings of laughter. “Yes, haha, you did. My dear, dear, filly. You … haha … have been quite naughty of late. Hahaha. Tell me about the inquisitors again.”

Cozy is near speechless and begins to tremble against the concrete floor. “Th--they came while yo-you were gone and bur-burned—”

“YOU burned my house down, Cozy! Hahahaha. In ... hahaha ... order to use me as your … hahahaha ... weapon against Twilight.” 

“I … I don’t know what you’re talking about. Please, you’re scaring me.” Cozy is quite uncomfortable. Her squirming does nothing to placate Pinkamena, whose grin continues to widen, her head unzipping to reveal those dagger teeth. Pinkamena presses down onto Cozy, looming above her, eyes shaking in their sockets and saliva dripping from her pointed teeth.

“You’re … hahahahahaha … very smart, my dear. Hahahaha. Quite the perspicacious,... hahahahaha ... intuitive filly. Manipulative. Hahahaha. But I’ve seen … hahahaha … your thoughts and plans. I’m … not as foolish …. Hahaha … as you think. I’ve given up so many lives … hahahah … for you. I’ve lived ...hahaha … horrors you can’t conceive of …. Hahaha … to be here with you. But your lies are hurting me.” Pinkmena sounds like a different pony, her voice has changed and bears the inflection of madness. It’s as if something else entirely is possessing the pony we have seen until this point. Her movements are twitchy and quick as she lowers herself onto Cozy Glow. As impossible as it seems, her jaw appears to unhinge and open impossibly wide as if to devour the pegasus alive. The laughter is shrill and manic, piercing to the ear. In this reporter’s opinion, this is the monster from all those years ago. This is the real Pinkamena hiding behind the melancholic mare I’ve observed on video up until now.

Cozy must sense this as well as her movements have become desperate and panicked. She breathes in short bursts and squeals in terror. Her eyes clench and tears slip from them. “Please! Please, Pinkamena! I’m sorry! I started the fire! I’m sorry I’ve been tricking you! Please don’t kill me!” she cries as her back hooves strike out in all directions. One such kick catches a brick below the gaping maw of the oven and it falls to the floor with a loud crack.

Pinkamena's attention and her head snaps to the oven as the brick falls loose, her frightening visage thankfully hidden from the view of the camera. When she turns back to face the filly, it’s the Pinkamena we have grown accustomed to. In an instant the monster has retreated back into the depths from which it came. “Kill you? I’d never kill you, Cozy.” She smiles softly to the horrified filly who is confused and struggling to regain her composure. Pinkamena abruptly jerks forward to kiss Cozy’s forehead. The smile disappears in an instant however and her voice becomes cold and severe. “But I’m done with the lies. I’m going to kill Twilight for you because you are my entire world. Not because you tricked me into it. Be honest with me, Cozy. I know the difference.”

Cozy nods quickly and wipes her face. She struggles to formulate words but stammers out, “I… I’m sorry.”

Releasing the pegasus, Pinkamena turns her full attention to the oven and the thing inside the hole left by the brick. “Look what you found! How could I forget? There’s a loose brick here with a little space behind it. I would always hide the extra key to my bedroom in it just in case I lost my regular one. In case of key emergency.”

Cozy remains very still and stays on her back. 

“It’s getting late. We’ll look in my old room tomorrow. Did you put the latch down on the door to the basement?”

Cozy watches, eyes large and uncertain. She nods in very quick, short movements at Pinkamena.

“I’ll just make sure.” Pinkamena moves towards the camera and notices it. “I’ll turn this off as well. I guess you forgot to turn it off.” As she walks to the camera, her grin spreads wildly and she chuckles to herself. Her eyes become wild once more as she reaches a leg out to shut the power off. Cozy staggers to her hooves in the background, wary and watching the mare. Pinkamena’s grin leans in close and the video ends.
> Chuckling
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

An exhausted face appears on-screen. Cozy’s eyes are weighed with sleeplessness, rimmed with dry irritation. She looks over her shoulder but the camera faces the ceiling of the basement. “I’m really tired but Pinkamena is creeping me out. She keeps …”

A crooked burst of laughter like that of a dementiatic senior finds the video and Cozy stiffens at the sound. “ … doing that!” A snore cuts the laugh in half and replaces it in a steady rhythm. Cozy turns the camera to Pinkamena, sprawled out on her back, mouth agape and mane strewn like the braids of a mop around her head. The impromptu bed of expired flour bags doesn’t look comfortable and there are no items of comfort such as pillows or blankets. 

Cozy zooms in on Pinkamena’s open mouth. Her tongue is like a frightened clam receding deeply into her throat. Her cheeks pull back into a weak grin and she emits a sinister chuckle as if she had obtained a forbidden knowledge. Her tongue clicks the roof of her mouth and another prolonged snore rips from the mare.

“She keeps doing that. After last night, I-I don’t  know what to think. I’ve never seen her like that.” Cozy hums to herself as she continues to record Pinkamena. A tune known only to the pegasus, it’s somber and wandering. “She’s not as dumb as I thought. That’s probably good. I should have figured that out already but she just acts so clueless most of the time. Maybe …” Cozy yawns and sets the camera down facing the sacks. She climbs onto them and lays down on her side, facing away from Pinkamena and to the camera. “I’m so tired. Creepy or not, I need to sleep.”

The young pegasus’ eyes close and her body begins to relax, breathing becoming slow and steady. Another bout of laughter issues from Pinkamena and Cozy’s eyes pop open, wide as saucers. She groans and stuffs her ears with her hooves. “Stop being creepy!”

Pinkamena rolls forward like a vampire waking from its coffin from behind Cozy and looks around, a yawn stretching her jaws wide. She giggles playfully and leans over Cozy, kissing her head. A look of confusion passes over her at the sight of Cozy with her ears plugged. “What are you doing?”

Cozy flops onto her back and looks up at the mare. “You won’t stop laughing in your sleep! I get it, I was wrong and you scared me plenty last night. Please stop so I can rest.”

“Have you been awake the whole time?” Pinkamena peers up towards the door to the basement before returning her gaze to the pegasus.

“Mostly. I’ve never heard you laugh like that. It’s creepy!” Cozy sounds bratty and entitled but also weary and weak.

“Ooh, I see. Are you scared of me? Afraid of what … things … I might do to you if you were to go to sleep?” A toothy grin widens on Pinkamena’s face and her eyes narrow.

“Stop! I said I was sorry.” Cozy shuffles uncomfortably as Pinkamena leans over her.

One of Pinkamena’s forelegs comes to rest on Cozy’s pudgy, soft belly. The mare chuckles evilly and smirks at the filly. “I wonder what sort of good things are in here?”

“That’s not funny!” Cozy squirms against the hoof prodding her gut.

“How about I just take a bite and find out?” Pinkamena opens her mouth, filed teeth glinting with saliva under the dim light like wet razors. She lowers towards Cozy’s exposed flesh and lightly touches it with her teeth, causing Cozy to squeal and thrash with her forelegs, but then wraps her lips around the belly and blows hard causing a raucous explosion of raspberries. 

Cozy laughs and continues to thrash. “Stop! Stop!” Her voice is giggly and bouncy instead of tainted in concern this time. The pair wrestle around for a few minutes. Cozy tries again and again to escape, only for Pinkamena to drag her back and plant another raspberry, or give the tender underlegs a tickle. They finally calm down and Pinkamena cuddles Cozy to her like a teddy bear. Cozy has a small smile on her face but looks as if she could fall asleep at any moment.

“I love you, Pinkamena,” Cozy weakly says and closes her eyes.

“Love you too, my little filly,” Pinkamena answers.

“I should have known you were just playing last night. You just … take things too far sometimes.” Cozy turns towards Pinkamena, snuggling into her chest. Pinkamena is facing the camera and a look of doubt crosses her features. 

“I wasn’t playing, honey. I … I was upset last night. I haven’t been that upset in a while.” Concern forms in her brow like a W. “Not in a very long time.”

“It’s my fault. I … burned down your home to make you want to kill Twilight. I tried to use you. You’ve always been so nice to me. I … really shouldn’t have done that. I just hate her so much. For what she did to me. To you.” 

“And you want to take over Equestria.”

“Yes. With you. We can be partners! It’s okay. I wouldn’t mind sharing my kingdom if it’s me and you.”

"How do you think we could deal with an alicorn like Twilight, Cozy? She's much stronger than us and she has magic."

"I think her crown gives her powers. Maybe if we could get that it would turn one of us into an alicorn princess. That's what I heard while I was still in the statue garden."

Cradling the young pony, Pinkamena smiles and kisses her blue locks of mane. “We'll see. No more lies or tricks, okay? Just be honest with me.”

“Why did you get so scary last night?” 

There’s a long pause before Pinkamena answers. “This place just reminds me of so many things. Some good things, some bad things, and some terrible things. Between that and watching you maneuver your plans on me, it just hurt my feelings, I guess. Something I’ve struggled to conquer reared its head.” She can't keep her eyes still as she speaks. They betray her gentle words.

“For a minute, I thought you would really hurt me.” Cozy delves deeper towards unconsciousness, eyes closed and body growing more and more limp with each slowly spoken word.

“Never, Cozy. I’ll never really hurt you. Not even if … don’t worry about it.” Pinkamena lays her head on Cozy’s and kisses into her mane again.

“You’re … scary.” Cozy dozes off, her words fragile but heavy.

“I know,” Pinkamena answers quietly, almost whispering. “Sometimes, I scare myself.”
> The Attic
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Type Setter? What? What do you mean they’ve … could it be interference from weather? Their signal just went dead? The equipment there is very old, are we certain it’s not just a technical problem? Set? Set? Well, try again. We still have the other sites, right? 

Loyal viewers, it seems we here at Perfect News are experiencing some technical problems from our relays. Do not fear, the truth will continue to be told. Viewers from the greater West Equestrian plains, we apologize for the lack of clarity and quality of our stream. Perfect News engineers have been dispatched to ameliorate the issue with the relays and we hope to bring the high quality, high definition stream back to you as soon as possible.

Set. Set? Type Setter, please keep the team informed of the situation.

We apologize for the interruption, viewers. Let us continue.






The video doesn’t cut, the picture just changes indicating it has been edited. 

The camera picks up the basement bathed in amber light from the overhead bulbs. The sound of Cozy’s wings beating quickly hums in the background as the frame hovers above the brown concrete. “She wasn’t with me when I woke up. I checked the camera and found her getting out of bed a little while after I fell asleep. She seemed fine but she’s … she’s being weird again.” Her voice is wispy and hushed. “I can hear her upstairs but she doesn’t sound right. I can’t tell what she’s doing.”

Zipping up the basement stairs, Cozy suddenly lights on the ground floor. The depth of the night fills the boarded windows and just enough of the street lamp’s false illumination slinks through the corroded panes to hint at the design of the gutted confectionary. The house may not be haunted but it would be an attractive location for the creatures of horror to reside. Cobwebs and dirt are the primary residents of Sugarcube Corner but Cozy pays no mind to the state of the building. 

A distant moan slows the pegasus as she reaches the stairs to the second floor. The gain icon appears at the bottom of the screen and much of the darkness is forcibly removed through technology. Cozy’s breathing is bated and heavy with excitement. Slowly, she begins her ascent to the second floor. The stairs are old and creak as each leg carefully, procedurally seeks purchase of the next step. Another moan breaks the silence and Cozy gasps, air catching in her lungs momentarily before letting it out. It was like an injured animal’s howl: raw, pained, and bestial. 

Cozy swallows with a resonating gulp and takes the second floor landing. She tilts the camera down the hallway. It’s filthy, much like the first floor, with scraps of trash and broken building material littering the floor. Several doors lie open and darkly inviting. Cozy begins down the hall, pausing to peek inside each door revealing empty rooms in various states of decay. Boarded windows neglect the moon’s light except for the slivers that catch in moth eaten, threadbare curtains that hang like tattered ghosts from forgotten, tarnished rods.The once loved building is a corpse, bare and shriveled.

From down the hall comes a hysterical giggling like a deranged hyena. Cozy’s breath catches again and she grunts. The camera trembles in her grasp but she continues her trek one step at a time. Her breathing has not improved and one can almost hear her heart racing. She comes to the turn at the end of the hall and tilts the camera out again, finding a dead end except for another open door leading to the barren bedroom of the former owners  and the stairs leading to the attic. “She’s upstairs. She has to be.” Her voice barely comes through the audio.

Making the turn and taking the first steps up the final staircase, a door awaits at the top. It used to be a bright pink but time has worn it down; strips of muted paint hang like a corpse’s mane and what lies beneath is gray and lifeless--a wormhaunt. The door is open, inviting Cozy. The key released from Pinkamena’s hiding place protrudes from the lock. A string clings to the key with an emblem of dusty balloons reflective in the dim moonlight spilling from the open threshold. A steady warbling trickles down the stairs to the microphone and Cozy hesitates. Difficult to understand, the jargon appears to be a conversation composed of only one party speaking with two distinct mannerisms but sharing the same voice.

“Is she talking to herself?” Cozy questions quietly, making her way up each step painfully slowly. 

“…  ish … ould … ie.”

“Y … hel .. her.”

“… oo hard. Ired of … rting.”

The voices become easier to distinguish as Cozy approaches the door. The sucking of sobs and shrill moans of misery pour from the mouth of the door. Pausing only long enough to take a deep breath, Cozy has come to the doorway. She mumbles something breathlessly and too quiet to discern before the lens of the camcorder peeks around the cracked door frame.

Inside the attic room posters remind of happier times. Photographs, faded and covered with filth, still cling to the once-bright walls. Pinkie Pie and her friends, the bulk of the town of Ponyville is represented in those images. While time has claimed many of them, a number of the ponies in the pictures are identifiable as victims and yet they pose happily with their friend in the time before the murders. Now they are but ghosts trapped to the wall, haunting the home of their death. 

The floor is littered with decrepit party supplies and ticker tape nearly dry-rotted into oblivion. A banner of multiple colors stretches across the length of the room with the webs of long-dead spiders hanging as a reminder that time has marched well-past the days when this room was a place of happiness. The wretched banner bears the words ‘Life is a Party’, though many of the letters are badly damaged. A bed is pushed against the left wall, centered against it with a single wide window streaming the silver light from outside into the room. A pale moon rides low in the western sky and nears its routine demise against the far mountains of the Everfree. Sitting on the bed, curled forward toward the window is Pinkamena. Her shoulders slump with sobs and she places something on the worn quilt still hugging the mattress. A painful moan eschews from the mare as she holds her head in her hooves.

She suddenly jerks upright, cutting the wails of complete misery and sadness in half. “I said stop! You just can’t stop being so pathetic, can you?” The voice is untainted from the desperation previously weighing down the mare and chastising like an angry mother.

“I’m sorry. It’s just so difficult. How many times do I have to do this? Why can’t it ever end right? Is this my curse?” The reply is sloppy and sputters with dripping tears and saliva.

“You’ll do it as many times as you have to. Sometime, maybe this time, it will all be over. There has to be a light at the end of the tunnel. You know that. Even when you can’t see it, it’s ahead … through the darkness.” Higher pitched, Pinkamena attempts to soothe herself.

“Do you really still believe that?” She is barely able to warble the words out as her lungs catch and she swallows the misery lodging in her throat with a thick gulp. “How can you after everything I’ve done?”

“Don’t you see how close you’ve gotten? Every time has been another step forward, closer to freedom.” She replies to herself completely oblivious to the physical distress of her body. She jerks as if something hit her at high velocity and she sings a few broken, estranged bars.


“I like to see you grin…


I’d love to see you beam.


The corners of your mouth turned up


Is always Pink…”



“But,” Pinkamena sniffles, voice cracking, “it takes so much from me. I don’t have anything left to give. It has to end, one way or another.” She crumples forward like wet paper, jerking with sobs before giggling her way back to a sitting position.

“Just end it then. Get one of the kitchen knives you stole and dig them into your arteries. You can’t tell me you don’t know where to cut.” She begins to laugh maniacally. The light from the window framing her in silhouette, jagged teeth twisting up into a sickening grin while her cheeks and neck glisten with tears. 

“I can’t abandon Cozy. I won’t do it.” The grin alters and fails spectacularly, concern and fear return in its place. “You know what her life is like and what her future holds if we ever stop trying to fix things. She’ll become a statue forever or die at the hooves of Twilight. You’ve seen it. I love her and don’t want that to happen but I’m empty.”

“I’ll protect her this time. I know what to expect. It will be different. Talking won’t work! You’ve tried almost every time and it never changes. At best Cozy and I have mere months together unless Twilight is eliminated. If not, try, try, try, try, try again.”. 

“Try, try, try, try, try, try … try … try … try,” the pink mare rocks to the rhythm of the word.

“The letter. They still love you. All of your friends will love you again if you succeed. It’s a chance at a new life. Stop moping, Pinkie. You can do it.” Tears stream from her eyes and she falls forward, the curtain of mane splaying out and enveloping her body from view.

“But the blood. There’s so much on my hooves. And it’s my choice. It’s been my choice almost every time. It’s not you, it’s me! I’m just as unforgivable! I can’t help her, don’t you see? It’s never going to happen the way I want it too! This is Tartarus! I’ve died so long ago that I can’t even remember it and this is my punishment!”

A symphony of jagged giggles fill the room. “You are weak and worthless, pitying yourself. Sure the lines blur but you are still in control. You’re not dead yet and there is much work to be done. If we can’t have what you want, we can give Cozy what she wants. You can do that for her. Isn’t that what you want? For that child to be happy?”

“Of course it is. It’s… what she deserves. And this torment is what I deserve. I’ll never see the end of my torture but, please, Stars Above, let my Cozy free from your damnation.”

“Then you will stop crying and start planning. Ask her about the crown, though she is small she may know more than you think. Maybe this is the boon from your ‘Stars’.”

“I can do it. I CAN do it! One more time. Whatever happens, I’ve got to try! Just one more time. Please, just give me the strength to do it one more time.”

Pinkamena wrenches up and a bright blue glimmer flashes through her mane as her head snaps to the door. “Someone’s here.” Cozy gasps and falls back a step just as Pinkamena crawls from the bed like a spider, moving supernaturally fast towards the door.

Ducking behind the door frame, Cozy is silent. There’s nowhere to hide on the third floor, just the attic and the landing. Cozy turns the camera to face the door again to find hard, steely eyes glaring down at her with a malicious grin, robed in magenta and gray mane.

“Pinkamena!” Cozy cries out, the camera pitching and tumbling to the landing from her grasp. Upside down, the filly hugs into Pinkamena’s chest.

“Cozy! You scared me.” She kisses Cozy’s head, features softening. “ I thought someone had found us out.”

“I… I was scared when I woke up and you were gone. Are you okay? I thought I heard you talking.” Cozy’s cover appears to be accepted by the earth pony who only smiles amiably and strokes the pegasus.

“I just found something from Mrs. Cake. A letter. It was laying on my bed and addressed to me. It was touching. I’m sorry, I was just upset. You know how I get.”

“I know. I just worry about you sometimes,” her words are steeped in innuendo. 

Pinkamena makes a soft cooing sound and strokes the curls of Cozy’s mane. “Come on. We don’t have to sleep in the basement anymore. My bed is a little bouncy but it will fit us both comfortably.”

Cozy turns and picks the camera up. Hovering into the room, she follows Pinkamena and places the camera on a surviving nightstand before hovering over the bed and landing beside the mare. Cozy tucks her front hooves between her thighs and looks down sheepishly.

“What’s wrong?” Pinkamena asks softly, nuzzling the pegasus.

“You said you want me to be honest, right?” Cozy looks away from Pinkamena and lets out a sigh.

“Yes.”

Cozy looks up at her with big, sparkling eyes. “I saw you. You were talking to yourself.”

Freezing in place, Pinkamena grimaces and stammers, eyes wide with embarrassment as her cheeks flush. “You saw that, huh?”

Cozy, laying a foreleg on Pinkamena’s hip weakly smiles. “You really are crazy, aren’t you?”

The pink mare can’t stifle back a chuckle and shrugs. “What gave it away?”

Cozy smirks and giggles a little. “I thought maybe the stories were wrong about you.”

“No, honey, they are correct. Not that I’ve heard all of them, but I’d guess they are pretty close to the truth.” The redness dissipates and Pinkamena talks in a regular tone, her shoulders slope and relax as if some pressure has been released. “But it’s not as bad as it once was.”

“Will you be honest with me, too?” Cozy lays her head against Pinkamena’s side and closes her eyes, nestling her cheek against the warm fur.

“As truthful as I can be, Cozy.” The magenta mare rubs Cozy’s curls.

“You know something you aren’t telling me. What is it?” Warm and soothing, Cozy coos gingerly to Pinkamena.

“There’s some things you wouldn’t believe if I told you. I know, I’ve tried. When the time is right, I’ll tell you everything. For now, just know that we have set events into motion that will mark our end.” Pinkamena speaks with calm assurance, like a spirit guide or the tricksters who tell fortunes for bits in the lower parts of Canterlot. Her prophecy sounds like the ravings of a lunatic, which, of course, she is.

“What do you mean?” 

Pinkamena speaks calmly while rubbing the filly. “If we stay here, inquisitors will find us eventually. My best guess is a couple of months. If we run we might be able to squeeze out another month. Your best option would be to leave tomorrow night. Change your mane, give up on your takeover plans, and live a quiet life in some town that even Twilight doesn’t know exists. It wouldn’t be much but you would probably get to live your life free of captivity.”

“I won’t leave you. I don’t care if you are crazy, you’ve been the closest thing to a Mo--friend I’ve ever had.” Cozy wraps her forelegs around Pinkamena and rubs her face in the magenta coat.

“Cozy, I’m old and have lived a life full of pain. I don’t want that for you. You could be a normal filly somewhere far away. You don’t have to be like me. I don’t want that for you.”

“And I don’t want to be alone again. We stay together or we … we die together. Either way I’m with you.”

“Then, as you have said, my dear, our best bet to end this is to kill Princess Twilight.” Her words have the ring of certitude. “It will be dangerous and … we probably won’t win. Or we can sit and wait to be dragged before her like dogs in chains. I’ll do whatever you want.”

Cozy rests against the mare, her eyes closed. She appears to be sleeping and doesn’t answer but suddenly casts her eyes to Pinkamena, slanted and full of hate. “We kill her. We can do it if we work together. If we lose, at least we go out on our own terms. I won’t become her prisoner again.”

Pinkamena bites her lip hard enough to bleed and the light vacates her eyes as she frowns at Cozy’s decision. “We will need a plan. A good one. Let’s put our heads together. Tell me about the crown.”

The pair are conspiratorial, engrossed in whispers. Slowly Pinkamena’s slump straightens while a new, dark glimmer takes root in her sparkling eyes. Pinkamena lowers her head and presses it against Cozy’s. They both chuckle vilely. A moment later, Cozy hops from the bed and moves to the camera, shutting it off.
> To Pinkie Pie
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Perfect News’ connection in the Royal Guard was able to proffer Equestria’s finest news source with what is believed to be the actual letter which prompted Pinkamena’s burst of madness. Somehow it survived the raid on Perfect News headquarters due to the uncanny bravery of the staff. Found in the raid of Sugarcube Corner, hidden beneath the pillow Pinkamena would have slept on, it is a true find in this bizarre case. Eloquent and emotional, it is easy to see that the bonds formed by Pinkie Pie’s loved ones still remain despite the horrors she has committed. A testament to ponies everywhere, Mrs. Cake’s letter shows the enduring heart of equinity. 

Pinkie,
I’m not sure what to put in this letter that I doubt you will ever see. I guess I should just try to write out my our thoughts. I don’t understand what has happened to you and I really wish I could. How could our fun-loving party pony do the things you’ve done? Never, in my wildest dreams would I have thought you capable of such barbaric, monstrous acts. And not only that, but to do them in the basement of our home. The home we shared. After you disappeared, our business all but ended. Nobody wanted anything to do with Sugarcube Corner after the bodies were found. Only by planning for our foals’ future did we have enough bits to move away from Ponyville, away from our friends, to start a new life somewhere else. 
We blame you, Pinkie. Of course, we do. You, who we opened our house to. Who we opened our hearts to when you first appeared in Ponyville alone and without means to take care of yourself. We invited you, not knowing who you were or what you were capable of, into our home and gave you a job. We took care of you, Pinkie, like you were our own. What thanks do we get for these kind deeds? To have our livelihood ruined and our hearts shattered!  I don’t think either of us can ever fully recover from the wicked blow you have dealt us. 
Carrot and I cannot understand how you could murder anyone. At first we thought it was all some big mistake. Surely our sweet Pinkie Pie was innocent of the charges levied against her. But we were wrong. The authorities scoured the basement and found what little remained of our neighbors and friends. We saw their remains, hacked up and rotten. We saw the cupcakes and pies that you left in the basement oven. It was disgusting. We know you did it but we just can’t understand why. I suppose we never will.
Despite the monster you have become, we recall how you used to be. We never speak of you around the foals and rarely to each other but we both want you to know something. Despite all you have done and how you have hurt us, we cannot find it in our hearts to hate you. We choose to remember you how you were when you were ours. We always thought of you as one of our children, Pinkie. I don’t think that will ever change. That is what cut us so deeply. We loved you. We still love you. We cannot change what you have done or bring back those who are no longer with us due to whatever changed in you but we also do not wish harm upon you. If this is the life you have chosen then it is not in our power to bring you back to what we once had together. We will never see each other again, Pinkie, and that is probably a blessing, but not a day goes by I don’t shed a tear at the demise of our friend, our oldest foal, our Pinkie.
     We will always love you,
Mrs. Cake

> Visitation
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

The arching branches of the forest suffocate the silvery tendrils of the moon, rendering the path through the Everfree nearly imperceptible even with the gain turned to the maximum. Lurching limbs encroach upon the hoof-path just as the grabbing bushes, weeds, and vines recover a path that, while never rigorously traveled, once stood free of the strangulating grasp of wild, fervent nature.

 From the bowels of the foliage comes the calls of the denizens of the night; hoots, growls, and the skittering of tiny feet racing through the known alleys and crevices of a brutal world ungoverned by the rules of society. In the dense forests only the law of nature presides. Pinkamena and Cozy stride through the foliage.

“I didn’t think there was anyone who was brave enough to live out here other than you.” Cozy hovers behind Pinkamena using the camera’s gain to view into the abyssal recesses of the forest and remain aligned with the dissipating dirt path.

“Bravery? I don’t see it as that. Necessity, maybe. Or a love for the natural world?” Pinkamena replies without looking back, continuing to tread forward and occasionally ducking or snapping a vine that has crossed the path.

“Which was us?”

“Necessity, of course. We couldn’t have stayed in any town for very long.”

“I like to think we were brave.” Cozy retorts.

“Brave? How was it brave?” Pinkamena probes gently, her tone calm and inquisitive.

“We both did what we wanted, despite the governs of society, and attempted to upset the status quo. Albeit for different reasons and gains.” Cozy smugly answers. “That’s pretty brave to me.”

“You don’t talk like a filly sometimes, Cozy. Are you sure you’re not just undersized?” 

“No, don’t try to curb the subject away by making fun of me. Why aren’t we brave?” 

Pinkamena chuckles to herself before answering. “Okay, okay. I’ll agree with you to an extent. Being who you are meant to be in the face of adversity is brave. It takes a lot to step into a world that doesn’t accept you and say ‘here I am and I don’t care what you think’ but is that what either of us have done?”

Cozy is silent for a moment, a short humming noise fills the audio. “Yes. I was brave to confront Twilight and Celestia for rulership. You know how strong they are. Despite the odds, I almost won.”

“You were foolish, honey.” Free of barbs, Pinkamena speaks bluntly.

Cozy harumphs angrily and zips before Pinkamena, the camera zooming so closely that only her face fits in the frame. “Are you trying to pick a fight or something?”

Rolling her eyes, Pinkamena reaches out and pushes the camera away. “You could have used your gifts and bided your time, been less emotional, and became something important. Maybe even princess, if you would have just waited. Even if it was for selfish reasons, you may have done good for Equestria and ponies would have loved you. Instead, you attacked and ostracized yourself forever. Anyone who recognizes you will hate you. Your name will be forever marked as a villain and you will never get the power or affection you wanted so badly.”

Cozy simpers almost imperceptibly and counters, “Yeah? What about you? How foolish is it to go on a killing spree and be hated forever?”

“Very. Of course, I didn’t do it for power or fame or the adulation of others. I did it out of necessity. I had to do it. Despite what I wanted, there were forces out of my control.” Pinkamena begins walking again. “And I’m not trying to hurt you, judge you, or make excuses for myself. I think you are extremely intelligent and gifted, Cozy. You chose poorly, twice in your case. As did I. So we lived in the woods out of necessity for our crimes.”

“We’re about to try again. We are literally going, right now, to get what we need for our plan against Princess Twilight. So are we foolish?” Cozy floats beside Pinkamena, dodging the wilderness as it threatens her.

“We have a half-baked plan and know our chances are slim, so yes, Cozy, we are being foolish. However, we are also desperate, so this is out of necessity. Our advantage is we know our times will end soon and that gives us power. Like a cornered animal, we will fight harder because failing means certain doom.” Pinkamena explains calmly and confidently to the pegasus. Her tone is motherly and teaching.

“You keep saying we don’t have much time left. How do you know that? We lived for years at your cottage in the forest. Why can’t we just move to some other remote place?” Cozy slips behind the mare again as the forest pushes the path to a single-file gauntlet of roots and vine nooses.

“Yes, I lived a long time there but it was primarily under Celestia's reign. She was a fool and was quite happy to pretend I didn't exist. Together, you and I lived there for a little while. For whatever reason, Twilight wants to find me. She's not content to let me live out my days in peace and you are caught up in her search for me. She won't stop; she's not like Celestia was. And even if we could find a new place you don’t want to do that and, even if you did, our fates are sealed.”

“You sound so spooky when you talk like that. How can you really KNOW what will happen?” Accusatory and irritated, Cozy berates Pinkamena.

“I just know. Calm down. We’re almost there. Put on a good face for this.”

Cozy stabs her hooftip in Pinkamena’s direction. “You still aren’t being honest with me, hypocrite,” she grumbles.

“In due time, my darling.”

An orange glow dances in the distance, marking the end of their forest journey.

“So is she as crazy as you? Is she foolish for living out here too?” Cozy stabs, this time with her words.

“She’s different, not crazy.” Pinkamena answers coolly. “And she’s definitely not a fool so do your part right.”

“Fine.”

A clearing appears with a tree centered within it, bulbous, squat, and large. A multitude of colored bottles holding ingredients or elixirs hang from its branches, and a small fire reflects from each, showering the tree in flickering light. Several hoof-carved tribal masks painted in various sharp colors decorate the nearby stumps and ragged overhang of vines and foliage.

Carved into the tree are a window and door illuminated by another fire from within. A mask hangs above the door of aqua and yellow. Somewhat in the appearance of a skull, it denotes the occupation of the one who dwells inside: witchdoctor. 

“Are you sure about this? I mean, it doesn’t look like the pony who lives here wants visitors.” The camera zooms on several of the masks and Cozy’s breathing pauses.

“It’s fine. I was worried she may have died. Considering the fire, I think it’s safe to assume she’s still kicking.” Pinkamena steps up to the door and raises a hoof to knock but the door swings open as she brings her hoof down. Standing inside the frame is the form of a zebra. The white and black of her coat has given way to shades of gray but the markings are still recognizable. Her mane is long and hangs to either side of her head like the thick coils of a mop. Lines of age streak her features and her blue eyes have glazed over with a milky film. Though she stands with her muzzle forward, her ears ping keenly at attention.

Cozy lets out a short, surprised cry and a small grin appears on the zebra. Her eyes still seek for visual purchase but it is obvious that she is blind. Pinkamena backs away a step, the zebra being within close proximity.


“There’s no reason, 

I can conceive.

For two ponies to visit,

So late this eve.” 



The zebra breathes deeply, her ears rotating in awkward, twisting motions as her other senses compensate for the loss of her sight.

“What’s wrong with her eyes?” Cozy stammers, the camera in Cozy’s grasp retreating a step at a time.

Pinkamena turns to face the camera and speaks softly but her intonation is stern. “That’s rude, honey.” Turning back to the zebra, Pinkamena adds, “Hello, Zecora.”

At Pinkamena’s voice, Zecora smirks to herself before stepping back into the tree.



	“Come inside,

 And let us talk,

You’ve come quite far,

 For just a walk.”


Pinkamena motions to the door with a nod and Cozy dashes in front. Audibly the door closes as the camera focuses on many strange decorations inside of the tree home: more bottles, dried herbs, and various other unknown ingredients, many of which appear dubious in nature and all too similar to preserved pieces of various forest fauna. The home is one large room inside the girth of the hollow tree. Various shelves line the walls and a small, neat bed is tucked into a natural alcove. In the center is a giant cooking pot, large enough for huge batches of alchemical reagents, or even a pony. 

Zecora sits at one side, her body gaunt and hunching lightly at the shoulders. Age has taken a toll on her, but her movements bely the venerable visual cues. Her profession, no doubt, has dismissed many of the particularly damaging issues associated with aging. She sits behind the gently gurgling cauldron and motions for her visitors to do likewise. Phlegmy eyes stare ahead silently as the zebra feels the pair complying to her kinesic demand.



“Please excuse this

Prolegomena,

But I will not aid you,

Pinkamena.


For whatever reason,

You are here.

My answer’s no

And will not veer.”


The zebra pushes herself up, spine popping loudly from the act, in defiance of Cozy and Pinkamena’s visit. Her features are steadfast. 

The camera turns to Pinkamena who looks displeased. “I should have known better than to attempt to hide my identity from you, Zecora. You’ve always been so hard to dupe. Even without your sight you can probably spot an owl on a branch from miles away.”

Zecora smiles slightly and replies with a calm, steady tone,



“Though my vision,

Is now a joke,

My other senses

Have awoke.


But you’ve not come

For pleasantry

So state the business

You have with me.”


Pinkamena begins to grin like a sinister politician and her pupils contract. A short, muffled giggle bubbles like the green goop in the pot. Cozy’s breathing elevates while zooming in on her friend’s alteration. Zecora resiliently stares ahead blindly but smirks snidely.

Neck popping from the sudden jerk, Pinkamena’s head snaps to the side and begins to shake like a palsy victim. Spasmodically, it turns to the other side with another loud crack. “Zecora. I’ve come to request your assistance in a matter of the utmost importance. Are we not friends?” Pinkamena’s blue eyes almost glow in the firelight of the cauldron. Her voice is high and strained as if it is barely contained by the physical limits of her vocal cords.



“A friend, yes, 

Long ago.

But now to equinity,

You are a foe.


I recognize

That you are frustrated

But I’ll die before

My answer’s abated.”


Pinkamena’s teeth gnash together angrily and Cozy grumbles to herself. Zecora’s ears turn to the pegasus.



“And who is this

Of such small size

A disciple this monster

Has hypnotized?”



The camera zooms to the smug zebra. Cozy growls and almost yells in reply, “She’s my m… my friend! She didn’t hypnotize me. I live with her because she’s good to me. Who are you, zebra witch, to belittle me or her? You’re no better than either of us!”

“Cozy, it’s fine. Zecora doesn’t have to help us.” The camcorder turns back to Pinkamena, now calm and unsettlingly collected. It’s as if she’s suddenly become another pony altogether from the last image of her just a few moments before.

“Pinkamena, we didn’t come all the way out here to have her ruin our chance to—”

“Cozy! I said, it’s fine. We’ll work something else out.”



	“Ah, the voice 

I did not know,

Was the voice 

Of Cozy Glow.


Even if

It means my end.

To your schemes,

I’ll be no friend.”


Zecora remains resolute and Cozy squeals angrily like a pint-sized teapot signaling the water is boiling. Pinkamena suddenly fills the camera as she moves before Cozy, her forelegs edging the screen on both sides in a motion to restrain the fuming pegasus.

Cozy growls like Cerberus himself. “Pinkie! I want to make zebra bars again! Tonight!” 

“Go outside and calm down, honey.” The magenta mare struggles with the diminutive pegasus.

“No! I’m not failing this time! Not because of a—”

Pinkamena’s features change instantly, her pupils restrict and her head tilts to the side. She does not grin, but sneers violently. She speaks slowly, deliberately, and as cold as tundra snow. “Go outside now. I will handle this.”

Grumbling and whimpering, Cozy beats her wings and zips to the door, opening it and darting outside. The heavy door slams thunderously and Cozy begins an angry tirade to the wilderness. “Go outside! I’ll show you ‘go outside’! What do you think you can do to scare that blind old hag? She’s not scared of you and she’s just as stubborn…” Much of what Cozy says is redundant. Her temper unchecked, she rages and rambles to herself, zipping from one end of the clearing to another. She knocks a mask from its place in a tree and watches it tumble to the ground. She then lands on it and drives a small hoof against the carved wood several times. Many minutes go by as Cozy vents her frustrations.

The video cuts in and out but it is apparent that some time has passed. The skies are lightening to a deep purple and many of the night calls have ceased, leaving the forest in an eerie silence. The tantrum, having met its fate, frees Cozy to spy. She pokes the lens against the lone window of the tree. Inside, Pinkamena has her head hanging low and Zecora sightlessly stares with her mouth agape. Pinkamena places her head in her hooves and shakes it back and forth. She then looks to the floor and soundlessly mouths words uninterpretable by the video. Zecora begins to nod and stands, coming over to the magenta mare. The zebra’s hooves feel softly, prodding Pinkamena gently as they decipher her anatomy before pulling her into an embrace. Pinkamena returns the hug and whispers something into the flickering ear of the zebra.

“What in Tartarus? Did she really fool her?” Cozy questions what she sees and is still questioning as Pinkamena and Zecora walk towards the door of the tree. Cozy darts away from the window and places the camera down by the fire, looking back at herself. She feigns ignorance as the door opens and Pinkamena calls for her.

“Come in, Cozy. It’s too late to head home and Zecora needs time to make the sleeping powder. She’s going to let us stay here until nightfall.” Her voice is weak and heavy with exhaustion. Zecora steps outside and disappears into the forest, a large pack on her back and a root-digging tail serving as surrogate eyes.

Cozy watches the zebra disappear into the forest, swallowed by it even as the light illuminates the boughs of the trees and the bowels of darkness within. She then steps inside with Pinkamena. 

“Sorry I had to have you leave, Cozy. You weren’t helping the situation.” Pinkamena weakly apologizes.

“It’s okay. Just tell me how you talked that hag into giving us the sleeping powder.” Cozy chuckles vilely and turns the camera up to her mentor who only sighs and looks shattered.

“I told her the truth. Threatening her wouldn’t work. Nothing we could have done to persuade her would have been enough because she could have tampered with the powder and caused it to fail or become inert after a short time.”

“How do we know she won’t do that now?” Cozy sounds disappointed and confused.

“I guess we don’t. We’ll need to test it when we get back to Sugarcube Corner, but I think she’s going to help us.”

“Who can we test it on?”

“I have an idea for that, too. An old friend who still lives in Ponyville will volunteer. She’ll be perfect for what we need.” Pinkamena chuckles to herself feebly.

“Will you kill her?”

“We definitely will have to make a scene, Cozy. She’s known for being dramatic.”

Cozy is silent for a moment, a tick in her grunts reveals she is digesting a piece of information not to her taste. “You still won’t tell me the truth but you’ll tell Zecora?” Cozy sounds tired and her accusation is more disappointment than anger. 

“It was necessary, my filly. I want this to work more than you’ll ever know. Please trust me.” Pinkamena practically begs Cozy not to make another scene.

The video turns to the bed that Pinkamena is leading them to, a red blanket and down mattress looking very inviting and warm. Cozy sighs in resignment and fragilely answers “Okay. As long as we get what we need.” Cozy flutters to the bed and curls against the wall. Pinkamena slides in next to her and takes the camera from her. 

“Which button?”

“The one … no not that one. Yeah, that one.”

The frame moves erratically as Pinkamena attempts to turn the camera off. Cozy looks to the camera with heavily bagged eyes. She yawns widely, uvula glistening at the back of her throat. “Will you snuggle me to sleep, Pinkamena?”

“Of course, I will, honey. As soon as I turn thi” The camera abruptly shuts off.
> Act III: Signal Loss/ Test
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

So, it can’t be coincidence, Set? They are being shut down? Hoofington, Fillydelphia, and Manehattan are reporting stream loss? Thanks, Set. No, no we have to make the announcement so that the public knows what is going on. Then we will continue. Don’t send anyone topside and make sure the doors are locked.

Loyal viewers, Perfect News is being targeted by the Royal Guard. Several more of our relays have just went offline and many cities in Equestria  have been rendered deaf to the truth by our government. They want to keep you all in the dark about the recent developments within our society. Our acting dictator, Shining Armor, is stomping on the right to freedom of the press in order to conceal his power grab. We ask you, the people of our nation, to stand up for your rights if we are taken off the air. The blatant illegality of media censorship is the first step to tyranny.

Don’t worry, we here at our secret location will continue to bring the story to you until the very last moment. Time may be of the essence so let us continue.







Presented to the camera is a mason jar filled nearly to the brim with a powder the color of brown sugar. Cozy pops her head into frame and smiles cutely. “Sleeping powder. Doesn’t look like a lot, does it? But, Pinkamena says, it’s concentrated. Like when a cook reduces a sauce, making the flavor stronger.”

Sitting the jar down on a desk in the wasted bedroom, Cozy supplements it with another much smaller vial. “And the antidote. If someone drinks it before exposure to the powder, the powder will have no effect on them.”

Something rustles in the darkness of the open door behind the Pegasus and one of her diminutive ears flicks back, the rest of her noggin swiveling to follow suit. Unperturbed, Cozy turns back and begins loosening the lid of the large jar. Sticking the edge of one hoof in, she scoops a tiny amount of the finely ground powder onto the keratin and inspects it closely. “It really is well made… Zebra magic!”

Cozy smirks and her eyes become slits as they narrow with mischievous intent. “Listen, Cooking Corner fans, I’m here all alone while Pinkamena goes to nab us some dinner and items for our scheme … and I’m bored. So I’m going to let you in on our plans. 

First, we have to make a distraction, something that will bring the Royal Guards here while we make our way to Canterlot. I’m … I’m not sure what that entails but Pinkamena knows and has been creepily giggling about it all day. I have to stay upstairs, she says, but I’m going to conveniently leave you, Mr. Camera, down here to record what she does. Even ... even if it’s bad, I want to know.

Second, we are going to sneak into the castle. I have a plan for that as long as Pinkamena can find the stuff I need.”

A gray streaked pink tail flitters at the edge of the screen and disappears as a cross expression spills across Cozy’s features. Again, the Pegasus looks behind her, movements quicker this time. Blue curls flounce in place from the jerking motion. It is evident Cozy is surveying the dilapidated bedroom by the slight tilts and rotations of her neck and head.

“Then we use this stuff here,” she taps the jar, “after taking the antidote to put the whole castle to sleep. Pinkie says she knows how we can distribute it quickly. It should knock out everyone, including Twilight. That will make it easy to steal her crown. Once we have that, it should grant me powers, change me into an alicorn princess. Similar to when I took Discord’s power … but more controllable and less stupid. With that, I can rule all of Equestria! I want to kill Twilight but maybe I’ll lock her up in stone for a few centuries! Parade her friends and family before her and make them worship me as their God-Empress with Pinkamena right there with me!” She begins laughing maniacally and holding her hooves up in a victory she has yet to attain. She closes her eyes, most likely lost in her imagination.

An unmanicured pink hoof with many cracks and abrasions darts to the open jar, dipping lightly, and exiting the frame with a small pile of the dusty substance. The agility is marvelous but the stealth is more remarkable as Cozy Glow is completely ignorant of the action only a few inches from her.

Cozy’s wings titter as she looks back to the camera, a wry smile dancing on her lips. “Anyway, Zebra’s might be rude but, if this stuff works, it will be amazing and mostly worth it.”

“Cozy, what did I say about staying up tonight and making videos?” Pinkamena’s voice comes from seemingly nowhere causing the Pegasus to snap upright, eyes as wide as empty bowls. She puts on a sheepish grin and giggles lightly. “Oh! There you are. Golly, you sure are sneaky, Miss Pinkamena. I… I… um, was just wondering how we were going to test the powder.”

“I’m glad you are so curious. Since you have disobeyed me, again, it saves me from having to go out to find a ‘volunteer’,” a sinister chuckle like the sputtering of a drowning child bubbles sickly.

Cozy turns to face Pinkamena just outside of frame. “What do you mean?” Her whole body twists in the desk chair to be met with a blast of caramel-colored dust directly across her snout. Sprinkles like powdered cocoa dot the filly like freckles. It clouds the pastel filly’s cheeks and she sputters and coughs, partial expletives pour from her but are lost to meaning as Cozy’s eyes roll and she unsteadily attempts to keep herself upright. Small legs ragdoll up in search of something to grasp to no avail as her wings flutter instinctually. Cozy falls back out of the chair and out of frame with a heavy thud as her back legs cartwheel up next to the chair.

Pinkamena enters the frame with a sadistic grin of knives flashing in the minimal light. She looks down over the chair and a deep snoring fills the audio. “Curiosity killed the Cozy, my dear.” A high pitched chuckle issues from her throat and Pinkamena turns and flips the camera’s power.
> Cozy's Cooking Corner: Guts
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

The familiar, cold walls of the basement are washed in amber light. Rocking and swaying, the camera is placed hard on the floor and the microphone picks up the grinding scrape of concrete against plastic. Hooves scratch and clack in the gloom to the rhythm of an epileptic seizure. A bottle swings into frame, the gold and black label identifies the beverage as a mid-tier wine from a local vineyard. The rose-colored substance inside fills only half of the clear bottle. Pinkamena walks out to the middle of the basement floor, cradling the bottle like an infant. There’s a slight wobble in her hip but she appears not to notice or care. 

 “Hi… today on the Cozy’s Cooking Corner I’m going to serve a chunk of myself.” It’s evident that she is intoxicated. Words slither from her more than fall from the slur. Her locomotion and balance do not appear severely affected but her eyelids weigh heavily over the cold pools of ice below. “As you can see, I’ve been out stealing food again. Fortunately for me, I found a couple bottles of wine. Cozy’d be mad, I bet. I had to hide them from her…  but she’s upstairs sleeping and I’m back down in this damn dungeon.”

Surveying the basement, Pinkamena’s lip quivers. “This place … I can’t stand it and yet I love it. There’s just so many memories. Lifetimes of memories. Some ponies believe that a home can absorb the energy of those who live within it. Kind of take on a life of their own." She holds the bottle high and shakes her head with frustration. "Sugar Cube Corner used to be a place of joy and happiness. I’d wait on customers, bake, and spend time with my friends here. The Cakes were my second family and I loved them, all of them, so much. My heart was always full.” She presses a cracked and damaged hoof into her breast and shakes her head pitifully.

“Sugar Cube Corner doesn’t deserve this. I remember how vibrant and colorful it was. Not just because I was happy here but because all of my friends were happy too. This old place shared their love and was beautiful because of it. Sugar Cube Corner is as much a part of this world as any of us were and it had its own way of presenting its affection and happiness. Sugar Cube Corner was the source of my life, my heart. Each beat propelled me to heights of joy and mirth I'd never imagined. Now it’s dead … just like me. Two old husks pretending there's any hope left within our hollow, forgotten walls.”

Pinkamena pauses to take a heavy swig from the bottle. A short stream of liquid dribbles unnoticed down her chin and to the floor. “After I was hurt, I had such weird thoughts. I used to believe that I was the only real pony and all the others around me were just … I don’t know … shadows of my consciousness? It was hard to be happy with them once that thought got into my head. How could they really make me smile when they were just parts of me? I … I spent enough time in my own head when I was little and living on my family’s rock farm; it was crushing. I was so different from my sisters and parents that I always felt alone. I was never happy there.”

Touching a wall with one hoof, Pinkamena goes quiet. After a moment she presses her forehead to it and a shimmering tear drips from her clenched eyelid. The bottle comes up again and she sucks down almost all of the liquid inside. The bottle clinks sharply as it hits the floor, released from her hold.  “I came to Ponyville and I found what life was--what happiness was. I had friends, I had a purpose. I wasn’t wasting my time anymore and it filled me up inside with such a warmth that I sometimes thought I would explode. And then it all stopped after my skull cracked. They weren't my friends; they were me. They had never existed and it was just me playing games with myself to stave off the loneliness. Just like I used to on the farm.”

“Figments … just pretend games that silly fillies play. I was so angry, not at them but at myself for being so lonely that I would dupe myself into believing that I could be happy. That anypony else was real. There was only one answer: I had to kill them all. I’d strip them apart one by one until I found another real pony. Until I could find a real friend. I wouldn’t be picky about it, as long as they were independent of me, I’d be happy if I could just find one other spirit like me.

And I did … trapped in stone. After decades of cutting my way through what I thought were fakes, I found my Cozy. We spent years together and my bloodthirst was slated. I didn’t want to hurt anypony else because I was finally happy. She was with me and I loved her. Cozy saved me from myself.”

Pinkamena snarls to herself, “And Twilight ruined it. I think I was happier than I had ever been in my whole life and it all ended. She took my Cozy from me and placed her back in the garden, leaving me alone once more.”

The alcohol seems to affect the mare as her knees buckle and only the wall holds her up. Sliding down to a sitting position. Her speech begins to slur. “At least she fixed me. My injury was gone. I know I was mentally ill. When my skull cracked, something changed and filled me with strange perspectives. But at least that was an excuse. I couldn’t control those thoughts. I couldn’t fix what had hurt me permanently. Now what’s my excuse? Because I knew everyone had a soul again, it made me hate them for locking my sweet filly. I had to save her … had to get back to her the only way I knew how. 

Before, I didn’t care when I killed; they didn’t matter because they weren’t real to me but now I know I am robbing them of their lives and their happiness every time I kill them. I’m … I’m sorry. But how else can I get back to Cozy? I can’t abandon her. It takes a piece of me to hurt others now. Death by a thousand cuts. I don't know how many more cuts I can take before my black heart just gives up.”

Pinkamena wipes at her eyes, her jaws unzip upside down into a frightening frown. Her jaw shakes and she begins to sob in heavy, wet heaves. Flooded eyes pop open and search the rafters of the basement. “Rainbow Dash, Berry Punch, Derpy, Miss Cheerilee, everyone else … I’m sorry for what I’ve done! Sugar Cube Corner … you’re still my home and … I’m so sorry for the things I’ve done to you.”

The weight of Pinkamena’s head threatens to topple her forward as she begins to pass out. Just before her forehead touches the floor and she eschews a steady, rough snore, she squeezes out a few weak words, “Please … forgive me … everyone.”
> Distraction
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Cozy’s face fills the frame. Her soft features are strained with focus and the tip of her pale, pink tongue pokes from the corner of her mouth. The view shakes as a bag of flour is laid across the camera, pressing it down into another expired sack. Cozy is hiding the camera. She steps back, casts a look behind her and grins. Her wings flutter rapidly and she zips up the basement stairs. The sickly light of the ancient bulbs snaps out as Cozy exits the frame.

For a long while nothing occurs and we can peruse the new features of Sugar Cube Corner’s basement. The camera’s gain setting has been automated and the formless blobs of ink in the darkness slowly take distinguishable forms. The rickety, dry-rotted stairs are in the corner of the frame and a shallow light spills down from the open door. Just off center of the room is a makeshift table, constructed from broken hunks of wooden pallets. Nails jut out at awkward angles from either  being pried apart or a complete lack of skill in hammering. On the table are a number of provisional instruments: kitchen knives, the ill-used hammer, pliers, and various other tools a handypony would have in a toolbox. From this angle, they appear weathered and well-used but not miskept or dirty. Probably stolen, the tools are used but loved.

In the center of the room, occupying the most space with the table nearby is the door to Pinkamena’s bedroom turned on its axis and balanced on a sawhorse. The edges of brackets that normally connect a door to the frame have been repurposed to attach the once-colorful chunk of wood to the sawhorse. A garden hose is drilled and tied into the top of the door and stretched up and over the supporting rafter beams of the basement. The hose loops over the supports and angles back down to its  home in a mounted garden-hose crank. The contraption is a rough and ready devised raising and lowering device. Leather belts have been screwed into the door in a two-one-two pattern proffering the meaning of the apparatus obvious: it is a crude recreation of the torture table found once before in this basement.

Voices come indistinctly to the microphone, mere babblings of sound indistinguishable and running together. Presently, they begin to take edge and definition.

“I just want to help!” Cozy complains.

“I told you already, no! I don’t want you here for this!” Pinkamena answers angrily and with strain between deep breaths.

“I’ve already seen you murder a pony. I … I’m not a baby! I could … I CAN stomach it.”

“Shut up!” The lights flip on, drowning the world in a blinding white until the gain adjusts automatically. Pinkamena labors down the stairs, a large, still burlap sack following her. Something inside bounces off each step with a hollow thump until it reaches the bottom. She pauses to catch her breath and Cozy appears at the top of the steps and buzzes down them on fluttering wings.

“I can handle it. Last time I … I just …”

“No! Now get upstairs and get ready. We both have our parts to play and we don’t have time to waste. Be ready to leave when I’m done.” Cozy storms up the stairs, the violence of each step threatening to dismantle the worn, old staircase. “And shut the door!”

The door slams and dust falls from the rafters. Pinkamena shakes her head and rolls her eyes. A moment later, she resumes dragging the sack to the table. She unwraps the twine at the top and slides the itchy fabric down and away from the contents: a sleeping unicorn mare. She smiles softly.  “Still as pretty as ever, my old friend. I can’t say I’m surprised, looks were always your thing but I bet I could peel your whole face off before I touched any actual skin with the amount of make-up you’re wearing.” Pinkamena presses a hoof into her bad hip and seethes as she rubs small circles into the muscle. “Come on, body. Hold together. We’re almost done. Just a little more work to do.”

Pinkamena’s hip wobbles as she loads the unconscious body of the grayish mare onto the table and sets to work securing her hooves and waist with the leather belts. The mare’s mane is fancy and styled professionally in high, soft loops that curl off to one side. Her tail is similarly done and each has a wide stripe of gray enduring between the vibrant purple; a mark of age, but one of refinement and careful self-preservation, embracing the beauty inherent in living a long life.

Pinkamena absently rubs at her hip again and checks the straps, one in particular as she smiles. She takes a moment, looking her former friend over. ‘Rarity, I’m sorry for what is going to happen. You’ll never understand but maybe we can be friends again one day, in a better place.” A frown appears on Pinkamena and she sighs to herself. “Okay, let’s get this over with. Time to do your thing…”

The pink mare’s head jerks to the side and shudders. The frown neutralizes and turns up, a grin spreading from ear to ear replaces it. “Oh goody! It’s time to harvest.” Tilting her head, eyes widening so that the reflective blue surfaces can sparkle as she prods the sleeping unicorn’s cutie mark. “I always did love your cutie mark.”

Turning away, Pinkamena produces a bucket from off-screen and chuckles. “You are no good to me asleep, Rari-baby!” The bucket swings and brown-tinged water covers the mare and she wakes with a gasp.

“COLD! What in the hay is going on here.” Rarity’s lips tremble and she shrinks as much as the restraints allow. Somehow her mane stays in perfect shape. A smear of caramel color across her muzzle indicates Pinkamena knocked her out with the sleeping powder in order to bag and bring her to this dungeon. She struggles, head twisting to make sense of the situation. “What?”

“Hi, Rarity! Long time no see.” Pinkamena flashes a sadistically gleeful smile to the struggling unicorn. Rarity bolts  up straight like an iron bar has substituted her spine. The wrestling with the restraints pause as her eyes go wide in terror. She gasps long and loudly.

“P … Puh … Pinkie Pie! I thought you were dead!”

Pinkamena’s eyes narrow and she shakes her head. “That’s an awfully weird way to say hello to one of your best friends after such a long time. Oh well, I’m not dead yet and I’m back in Ponyville.”

Rarity laughs distressingly and makes a smile, the falsity of the expression is obvious but she realizes the need to placate Pinkamena. “Oh, how rude of me. It was simply … the shock of seeing you. My, Pinkie, how well you’ve aged. I would guess you were a mare still in your twenties with your … umm … horribly mutilated cutie marks.”

Pinkie smiles playfully, seeming to embrace the compliment earnestly. She turns and shows the wrecked flanks off in all their grisly glory. “Thanks! I did it myself! But, let’s not talk about me. Let’s talk about you and the rest of Ponyville. I hope you missed me as much as I’ve missed you. It does my heart good to see you. I can barely contain my excitement.”

Rarity struggles lightly against the straps and she continues the stilted conversation. ‘Oh, Darling, had we but known you would be coming home. We could have planned such a wonderful party for you. You … still love parties, don’t you?”

“Parties? Oh, I love them. I’d have them everyday, all day, if I could but there’s so few ponies where I’ve been that I was restricted to one or two a year. But that’s okay. Now that I’m back …” Pinkamena chuckles horridly and her head shakes like a kettle about to blow, “ we can have lots of parties. Lots and lots! We’ll make up for all the lost time. But, since my return was a surprise, I thought we'd have a ‘Welcome Back Surprise’ Party!”

“Oh my, Pinkie … that does sound magnificent. Perhaps you could untie me? I could go get all of our friends.”

“It’s okay. I wanted to share it with my best friend. Do you know who that is?” She draws close to Rarity’s cheek, pressing right up against it.

“I … I would … hazard to guess, me?” The table traps her and Pinkamena’s fangs embrace the soft flesh of her neck and cheek.

Planting a sudden kiss on Rarity's cheek, Pinkamena pulls away and begins inspecting the instruments on the rudimentary table. “Oh, good guess.  It would have been Rainbow Dash but … something really bad happened to her. She was a bad party guest and was not invited back. I hope you will be much better than her.”

Sweat breaks out across Rarity’s forehead and runs into one of her blue eyes, causing the eyelid to spasm from the stinging sensation. “Oh, my dear, you know I love parties and would not dream of … of being a bad guest. Shouldn't I have dressed up for such an occasion? I could just run home quickly and be back before you finish cleaning your … your, umm, tools.”

“A GOOD guest wouldn’t want to leave so early. I mean, it doesn’t matter to me if you aren't dressed up. We’d just ruin those pretty clothes anyway.” The kitchen knife is a poor substitute for the medical grade tools she once used and it fails to shine in the light but it draws a happy sigh from the mare.

Rarity fights to control the steady rising and falling of her chest as it begins to pump more quickly. “Of … of course. How foolish of me. Oh my that looks sharp!”

“This?” Pinkamena holds the old knife up before Rarity and gives a judging, condescending expression. “This is trash but it’s all I have to work with. It rips more than cuts.”

Rarity stumbles over her words but managed to continue her play, “Oh, I need my glasses, Pinkie. That’s the problem with getting older, isn’t it?”

“That won’t be a problem for much longer, Rarity. Getting older, I mean.” Pinkamena presses the knife to Rarity’s cheek and giggles. "Or needing glasses, either."

“Pinkie … Pinkie, please. Let’s talk about this.” Rarity’s voice cracks as the dull knife scrapes across her cheek and down to one lip. She squeals loudly and kicks to no avail as Pinkamena brings the blade up before her eyes, a long clump of cosmetics piled on the metal.

“Look at this!” The blade comes down quickly to the pink coat of Pinkamena’s other foreleg and leaves a thick line of white make-up. “I can barely cut through your maquillage. I bet the face underneath this one is so very pretty. That’s the one I want.”

Rarity let’s slip a loud 'eep' and she turns her head away, hiding the blemish in her foundation. “You’d hate that one, Pinkie. It’s all leathery now. Why, I’m sure there are younger … not-quite-as-attractive faces as mine for you to have. I’ll help you find a nice one … or even introduce you to my beautician … just … just PLEASE DON'T KILL ME!” The unicorn bursts into tears, her precious mascara runs like spilled ink as she wails.

Pinkamena chuckles and hugs her former friend’s head to her chest. “There, there. It’s okay. There she is. There’s my Rarity. It’s so rude to pretend to be happy to see me. Do you really think I can’t tell the difference?”

“Pinkie, darling, please. I’m …  I know it’s shameful to say things to save your own skin but I’m still too young to die!”

“I expected as much and I know you’re scared, Rarity. How about this? We will both stop the charade.” Pinkie winds her hoof in an expression of ‘move along’. “At one time the begging and crying was a real turn-on for me but it’s so … what’s the word? Overdone? Just isn't the same as it used to be.”

“Oh, thank heavens, you’ll let me go then? I promise I won’t tell another soul about this, Pinkie.” Rarity feebly smiles, the gouge of removed cosmetics marring one side of her face and revealing far less appealing skin beneath.

“Okay, first off, don’t call me Pinkie. I can’t stand it. And, of course you’d tell someone--probably the guards. And, while I did want to see you again, I’m afraid our visit is less than cordial. I am going to kill you but we can make it facile.” Pinkamena stands before Rarity and grasps the thick plastic hose. Rarity begins bawling with dramatically overdrawn sobs. Pinkamena begins to crank the lever and the hose retracts into the reel, lifting the door and the unicorn to an upright position. 

Rarity is a mess of hysterics and only quietens when Pinkamena slaps her hard across the face with her hoof. “Rarity! For once in your life, be brave. Your end has come. Let’s make it simple and fun.”

“I … I’m not ready, Pinkie. I still have so much to … AGH!” At the mention of her name, Pinkamena slaps the unicorn once more, hard enough that a few drops of blood spill form her left nostril. “What! What?”

“Listen, already! Every time you call me Pinkie”, she spits at the name, “I’m going to take things a step higher on the unforgiving ladder. There’s only three steps and it goes from ‘relatively painless’ to ‘beg me to kill you over a week’. Calling me … that name … or lying to me is a step. Because we are friends, I’ll forgive you for the last one but that’s your only warning, comprende?”

Rarity, shivering and weeping nods silently to sobs. blood dribbles from her muzzle and darkens her bright coat one drop at a time.

“Good. I’d hate to have to mess up that pretty face anymore but you know what they say, true beauty is on the inside.” Pinkamena presses up against the soft belly of the unicorn. Her ear cupped against the tummy flesh, Pinkamena makes a series of gentle soothing and satisfied hums. “Oh, I think you will be the most beautiful pony on the inside. I can just hear those pretty organs working.” Her jaw seems to unhinge and she bites into Rarity’s ponch just hard enough to draw blood. Rarity shrieks and convulses, her legs shaking in the restraints, the flesh around the leather straps bruising a deep purple almost the same color as her mane. 

A ring of red-running holes are left when Pinkamena pulls away, shallow and superficial the wound looks bad but has done no real damage to the unicorn. “Oh, Rari-baby, I can't wait to get in here. But, let’s catch up a bit first. Your shop seems to be doing well. I saw all kinds of new things there. I also noticed you designed this year’s filly-scouts outfits.”

Rarity tries to see her stomach, stretching her neck to view the tiny dots. “Please Pinki ...” The name draws a flair of ire and a warning flash of blue flame from Pinkamena’s gaze. “ ... aaamena!”

Pinkamena sighs and shakes her head, eye rolling. ‘You are acting like a filly, Rarity. I’m trying to catch up here. Despite what you think, I still like you. I probably still love you. You are, after all, the first pony I chose to party with since I came back. You are going to die, but let’s try and have a nice, friendly chat first. Just accept your fate. And answer my questions or," she pulls a hacksaw up from the table. “We’ll just CUT to the chase.” She giggles playfully to herself as Rarity clenches her eyes and capitulates.

“Carousel Boutique struggled for a while but I’ve made many friends in upscale cities throughout Equestria. I’ve actually had to hire help to keep up with the orders. And, it was nice to give those poor young fillies in the scouts something nicer to wear than those dreadful green uniforms. I did it free of charge.” Her eyes follow the saw as if they were glued to it’s serrated edge. “They were very fine. It’s good to give back to the community. Especially this one that has gone through such a distasteful past.”

“Oh it wasn’t so bad. In fact, it tasted pretty good” Pinkamena giggles playfully and lays the saw back in place. “I’m happy you’ve led a fulfilling life. What about our other friends? Fluttershy? Applejack? I know where Twilight is, and Rainbow Dash too, for that matter.”

Rarity grimaces at the names of her friends but acquiesces. “Fluttershy is still doing her animal things in the forest just outside of Ponyville. And… " She pauses momentarily and the dark wells of fear soften a bit, "Oh, of course you couldn’t know. Applejack died last year.”

“What? She’s dead?” This seems to genuinely bother Pinkamena. Her mouth hangs open and she ceases to play with the various tools, turning her full attention to Rarity. “What … what happened?”

“Oh, dear, she had a heart attack. If I told her once, I must have told her a million times that she shouldn’t work so hard ALL the time. Her heart seized mid-kick in last year’s apple bucking season. Apple Bloom turned out okay, though. She runs Sweet Apple Acres with her husband.” For a moment, Rarity seems to forget her situation. Pinkamena slumps visibly and Rarity responds as a friend, albeit a friend tied to a piece of wood. “I’m sorry, dear.”

“It’s alright. She may have been too hard to wrestle down at this age and with my bad hip. She got away clean …” a hoof wipes at her eyes and she turns back to Rarity. “Fluttershy’s doing okay?”

“I suppose. She sort of shut down for a long time. Spent time in a mental health institute for a few months after you … uh, left. Now her knees give her trouble. Pegasi should really spend most of their time on clouds, not earth. Years of ground-life have caused her a lot of arthritis and it flares up pretty often.”

“My hip does that sometimes. Can’t get out of bed some winter mornings.” Pinkamena stands with a tiny smile replacing the dagger-toothed grin. “Ginger and turmeric tea help quite a bit. At least enough to function.”

“Oh, I couldn’t live without my cat’s claw. I have it imported from Haywaii. Don’t tell a soul, Pinkie Pie, but I hate being old. My shoulders and neck ache all the time.” The pair sound like old biddies sharing pains and wisdom.

“I wake up so early now, way before the sun comes up. I just can’t stay asleep. There’s things that need to get done and I’d just toss and turn until sunrise anyway.”

“Same here, Darling. Coffee is the only way I don’t feel miserable all day long.”

They both go silent, the situation resettling around them. Pinkamena begins to wipe at a pair of pliers. Rarity looks at her shackles, she pauses and looks again at the one holding her right foreleg and her horn emits a soft blue glow. The band begins to move but the magic silences when Pinkamena returns her gaze. 

“You know, Pinkie. I did miss you. The old you, I mean. I don’t know what you’ve become, darling, but somewhere inside I think my friend still lives.”

“Rarity … stop. That pony died a long time ago. I’m all that’s left and I’m not the same one you remember.” Laying both forelegs on the table, Pinkamena shakes her head silently to herself. “And … if there was anything left, she’s buried below the deeds she has committed.”

The magic titters to life, dimly glowing while Rarity watches Pinkamena for any sign of motion. The strap begins moving once more, loosening a tiny bit every second.

“Twilight has a search for you ongoing. We all thought you had died a long time ago. Maybe if you turn yourself in. Get some help. Maybe you could be released in a few years. I’d come visit you while you were there. Bring you some cat’s claw tea. It has to be better than your ghastly homebrew stuff. I … I’m glad you’re still alive, Pinkie.”

There’s another moment of silence between the two. Rarity secretly unbuckling the restraint on one leg while Pinkamena stands and surveys the assorted items on the table.

“That’s three, Rarity.” Pinkamena says.

“What? Three what, darling?” She pulls with her foreleg but the cuff is still too tight.

A giant smile rips across Pinkamena’s face. “That’s three times you called me ‘Pinkie’. I hope you packed a lunch because things are going to take a while and they are going to be very … very bad.” She takes up the dull knife and sweeps around, bringing it in an arc toward the unicorn. Rarity shrieks and the strap on her foreleg comes free, her hoof coming down quickly and catching Pinkamena behind the ear. The knife bites into the wood of the door and sticks as Pinkamena flails and staggers back, tripping over the table of tools and flipping onto her back. She pops to a sitting position but her body swims in circular motions and she falls back as she attempts to stand again. 

Rarity’s magic flares to life and she frees another appendage almost instantly. With two free, the remaining bands come off just as Pinkamena gets her hooves under her again.

“I’ll cut you apart, Rarity! I won’t need to tan your hide, it’s practically leather already!” Pinkamena still seems unable to hold her balance and her attempt at grappling the unicorn terminates with Rarity dodging the lunge and dashing for the stairs as Pinkamena crashes onto the table. The hose reel releases and the table flattens, sending the mare toppling over the other side.

Rarity makes the first floor and her screams are clearly heard getting further and further away. Cozy suddenly flies down the stairs wearing a fancy, frilled filly scout uniform. She looks from Pinkamena to the basement door and back.

“She’s escaped! We have to catch her!” 

“No, we don’t. I let her go. I told you we needed a distraction.” Pinkamena stands without a sign of vestibular dysfunction. She chuckles to herself and grins at the filly.

“But she’ll tell everybody and the Royal… Oh.” Cozy begins to nod to herself, curling her lip into a tiny purse. “Yeah, she’s the perfect distraction. It’ll take an hour to get the story from her between fainting spells and all the attention she’ll lavish. Wish I had thought of that.”

“Get your stuff. We need to get out of here now. We have miles to put behind us.” Pinkamena saunters over to the camera, pulling it from the hiding place. “I’ll get this. Really, Cozy?”

Cozy chuckles and offers only a shrug behind the mare. “Did you have fun hurting her?”

“I always wanted to slap her when I was young so it was nice to finally get that out but … it was actually nice to see her.”

Pinkamena turns the camera off.
> End of the Road: Part 1
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

The streets of Canterlot are stained red in the late evening and many ponies bustle about their business unconcerned by the duo walking amongst them. The camera hovers and Cozy chuckles playfully as the lens sweeps across the cobbled streets and businesses before coming to rest on the grimacing Pinkamena. “Cozy, come on. We’re trying to be inconspicuous and you’re just whizzing around with a camera.”

“It’s fine. Nobody knows anything. They are too busy with their own lives. Plus, we look really cute so I doubt anybody would think we are who we are.” 

Pinkamena’s mane is tucked up under a wide beige hat. A long quail feather pokes from a turquoise band at the base of the hat. The brim is buttoned up on one side while the rest is pulled down, concealing much of the mare’s visage behind a curtain of shadow. She is sporting a filly scout leader ensemble made by Rarity. Sticking with the olive and beige theme, it fits loosely around her lithe frame. Upon the chest are a multitude of badges representing different skills acquired. The trim and belt are both turquoise and shimmer with a pearlescent lavender tone when the dying sun catches them. The glimmering belt has a set of travel packs conveniently covering the shredded flanks where her cutie marks used to be.

“Cute? I don’t think we'd pass as cute,” she grumps.

“Well, too bad. We are cute as can be.” The camera pans down and Cozy’s hooves tap out a little dance on the pavement. A filly scout uniform wraps her small frame in olive and turquoise. There are far less badges on her breast than Pinkamena’s.

“Why are you so happy? Shouldn’t you be scared? Nervous at least?” Pinkamena eyes the camera bitterly.

“Nope. Tonight we take over. I can’t wait! No more running! No more hiding! Warm baths … oh they will feel so good. We’ll have servants pamper us and we’ll finally have a little luxury.” 

“And Twilight’s blood on your hooves?” Her tone is pointed.

“Yep!” Cozy answers matter-of-factly and continues to hop and prance down the street.

Pinkamena goes silent as they come upon heavier traffic. Waves of ponies come and go, various storefronts pass until the pair are clear enough to speak again. Pinkamena keeps her hat low and tilts her head towards the ground, checking the saddlebags on her flanks now and again. Once the population density has dissipated, Pinkamena continues their conversation. “Just like that? Just kill her without remorse and go jump in a bubble bath?”

“One fit for a queen. Or an Empress.” A sinister chuckle escapes the pegasus filly.

“I had hoped you would feel an ounce of regret for what we are planning, honey,” Pinkamena chides.

“Why? Did she regret what she did to either of us? Does she deserve anything more than a swift death? When I get the crown, I’m going to mount her body above the …”

“Shut up! I don’t want to hear that! Have you not learned a thing? Do you not … see what my life has become? I don’t want this for you.” Pinkamena is breathless and agitated. Tiny, jerking motions bely her ease. “I know it’s hard to let go of your dreams, Cozy, but sometimes, the best thing you can do is know when those dreams are hurting you.”

A crier for a newspaper stands on a busy corner, a pile of newspapers lay in a cart near him. “Ponyville menace returns! Pinkamena Diane Pie sighted in Sugar Cube Corner! Royal Guard dispatched to search the town!” Pinkamena dips her head as they pass, the crier appears right beside the mare. “Paper, Miss? Only 2 bits!”

Pinkamena shakes her head in the negative and the crier pauses, a look of curiosity taking hold in his features as he looms closer. Shirking away, Pinkamena’s lips begin to turn up into a smile.

“I’ll take one, young’un! I lived through that monster’s reign of terror once. I bet it’s not her. She’s been dead for years.” An unseen but elderly sounding pony catches the attention of the crier who turns away with a smile. The clinking of bits into a metallic box rattle.

“Thank you, sir!” 

Cozy and Pinkamena move quickly, putting distance between themselves and the crowds. “You hypocrite. What about you? Do you want to just run away or something? Suddenly you are getting cold hooves? I know what I want and that’s the crown. That and for you to stay with me. You can be my advisor. If that means Twilight has to die, then I don’t care.” Cozy sounds cute and bubbly as she speaks and Pinkamena shakes her head in reply.

“Taking a life … even one of someone who has done you harm will put you on a road that you will never return from.” A drop of blood rolls down her lip from the familiar place that Pinkamena bites. “Not that it matters, though. It’s too late and I don’t think there’s another way.”

“Being cryptic again?" Cozy rolls her eyes. "So instead we steal the crown … and?”

“Turn her to stone, like you suggested before. It’s fitting and poetic. You would retain some mote of your innocence.” Another group of ponies filter by and the sun has lowered a bit more as shades of purple creep into the city.

“I’m not innocent. And neither are you. What if things don’t go according to plan? What if we have to fight her?” Cozy grumbles and the camera lifts to see the castle in the distance.

“We probably won’t survive, but if we do … let me be the one to do it. I will take that burden and put it with all the others. Maybe it will be the one that puts me over the edge.” Pinkamena looks away and goes silent, whether with guilt or frustration is unknown.

“You’re so dramatic … like a teenager.”

The camera cuts on and off. Each time the castle looms closer until the giant entrance doors fill the frame and a member of the royal guard watches the pair approach. 

"Okay, honey. Remember the plan ..." Pinkamena whispers.

The face of a guard looks down into the camera. Night has fallen but it’s the dim blue of a new night’s birth. A confused look rests in his eyes as he steps between the entrance and the pair. “Castle’s closed. Tours will resume tomorrow morning. Please return to your homes.” The guard is burly and strong. His white coat and green mane are well groomed and clean, his armor shined to a reflective gleam.

“Scoutmaster?” Cozy asks with a streak of pain as the camera turns to Pinkamena, hat low and teeth hidden behind a warm, friendly, and closed smile. “Princess Twilight said we could visit the castle today, right?”

“Of … of course she did, sweetie.” Pinkamena answers, looking down to the camera so the hat hides her face. Her eyes are wide and wild, blue lights dance behind them that flash like lightning. “Kind sir, we are representing the 305th filly scouts out of Ponyville. We are dreadfully sorry for the late intrusion. We tried to catch the train earlier this morning but Ponyville … well ... “ she leans close to the guard and whispers something about a halt on transportation services due to recent events and motions to Cozy with a quick shake of her head.

The guard looks uncertainly to the pair and stammers, “Be … be that as it may I cannot let you …” Cozy begins to cry, the camera falls to the steps of the palace and sways back and forth to the wails of the child.

“Please Mr. Guard. I … I’ve always wanted to come to the castle. Scoutmaster? Do we really have to go home?” Cozy pouts, her lower lip thrust forward while crystalline tears form in her eyes.

“I … I can’t, young miss. It’s orders.”

“Sweetie, step over there for a moment so I can talk to the nice guard, okay?” Pinkamena pats Cozy’s scout hat and motion for her to step away. The pegasus does as she’s asked and wipes at her eyes, soft coos and whimpers escaping her.

“Mr. Guard, I’m sure you understand what is going on in Ponyville. Her mother and father abandoned her when she was young and she has been taken care of by her grandmother. We did have the princess’ permission to visit the castle today but, as I have explained, the trains only recently began running again.” Pinkamena never raises her head but her tone is soft and remorseful.

“I apologize for the situation of the filly but …”

“The mare that was attacked last night was her grandmother. That child heard her only relative taken by that monster. By Twilight’s grace nothing permanent was done to the kindly old mare, but I was asked to take her away from Ponyville until this crisis has been dealt with. Now, here she is: in a city she doesn’t know, still frightened by the events last night, and a ball of nerves. She's jumped at shadows all day. A young thing like her shouldn’t know that feeling. I hoped that we would still be able to visit the castle, give her some comfort in this trying time.” The guard looks to the crying Cozy and back to Pinkamena. “Please, sir. For the child. We won’t stay long. I promise we won’t stay long.”

The guard clears his throat and nods slightly. “Fine. I think one guide is still here.  Little filly, what is your name?”

Cozy rubs her eyes “Clover Shine, sir.”

“Clover, I grant you and your scoutmaster permission to enter the castle. I’m sorry for the inconvenience and please remember that the guard will deal with the incident in Ponyville quickly.” The guard moves aside and Cozy runs up and hugs his massive hoof. 

“Thank you, Mr. Guard. You’re such a nice pony.” Her small wings flutter happily.

“Thank you, sir.” Pinkamena nods softly, almost bowing to the guard. “Clover, collect your camera and let’s go inside.”

“Yes, ma’am.” The camera lifts and begins to hover again as the guard opens the door to the palace.

The palace opens into a large receiving hall rife with ornate inscriptions, statues, tapestries, and illustrations of equinity back to the dawn of time decorate the marble walls. The floors are highly polished and each step rattles off a loud tap that reverberates down to the far side, disturbing the pristine silence. A large central staircase of white and gold leads to a second floor and the audience chamber of the royalty. At the bottom of the staircase stands two guards at attention, another pair standing firmly in the entrances to the east and west wings of the castle. Though they do not move, their eyes are assuredly fixed upon the late arrivals. The door guard enters a door in the east wing and returns a few moments later.

"A tour guide will be with you shortly. Please enjoy yourselves." His hooves clack loudly as he comes to attention and then returns to his post outside, the heavy door shutting behind him.

Neither of the villains seem impressed with the raw splendor of the castle nor do they buckle under the visage of the guards. From a doorway to the east comes a short, caramel-colored mare wearing a golden uniform. Frustration passes through her features before being replaced by a genial smile. Her eyes are tired and a badge on her breast reads T. Surprise. She approaches the duo quickly. “Welcome to Canterlot castle. My name is Toffee Surprise. I was just informed of your visit and will be your tour guide. We are pleased to host you this evening and hope your experience will be a memorable one.”

Pinkamena bobs her head and Cozy does her best curtsy. “Thank you, Toffee. We do apologize for the late intrusion and the extra work we are asking of you.”

“It’s my pleasure to stay late this evening. It’s not like I had a date I’ve been looking forward to or anything.” Her smile twitches at the corners of her mouth. “If you’d please step this way we can begin the tour. It usually takes an hour but due to the small size of this group, I’m certain we can cut it down to half an hour.”

A short chuckle escapes Pinkamena, “Yes, I’m sure it won’t take as long as normal.”

“I’m just so excited to be here, Miss Surprise. Thank you for showing us around!” Cozy is a ball of excitement. “Do you think we will get to meet Princess Twilight?”

The guide’s smile has locked in place but a vein bulges in her forehead momentarily. “I’m sorry but the princess has adjourned her activities for the evening and has retired to the royal chambers. Even our normally scheduled tours rarely get to see her.”

“That’s okay,” Cozy beams, “I bet we’ll see her sometime soon.”

“Well, if you will both please follow me … this is the entrance hall. The murals you see …” Toffee begins her practiced spiel and the pair fall in line, acting the part of the tourist. Pinkamena keeps her scout hat low and Cozy’s tell-tale locks are imprisoned beneath her own diminutive cap. The camera zooms occasionally on what the guide is explaining but much of the video is searching, watching the behavior of the guards nearby, or peering into darkened hallways. 

The guide ushers the pair quickly from exhibit to exhibit and room to room. Her countenance is practiced and measured to allow the minimum time between rooms. Cozy and Pinkamena pretend to enjoy their tour and thank the guide repeatedly. Ballroom, audience hall, and many other beautiful rooms are presented for the duo and, soon enough, they are led back towards the entrance.

“Well,” Toffee concludes, “thank you once more for taking the guided tour of the castle and we hope that your visit to Canter …”

“I’m kind of hungry, scoutmaster,” Cozy says. 

“It has been a while since we’ve eaten. Doesn’t the tour include a brief stop for refreshments, Toffee?” Pinkamena asks softly.

The vein in Toffee Surprise’s head pops out like a 3d picture. “Unfortunately, our kitchen staff has already gone home for the evening. All of our normal tour staff, except me, have already left.”

“Oh, we’re not fussy. Just a couple cookies. Maybe a box of juice or two. I’m sure something as simple as that would do fine,” Pinkamena grins to herself and the camera zooms in on the pumping vein and twitching smile of the guide.

“Why, of course. I’m sure I can find something QUICK for our guests. If you would please follow me to the kitchen.”

The kitchen was larger than the others we have seen by a large degree. One enormous room, much of the center was empty but several prep tables, retarders, and sinks line the walls. Pinkamena looks over a selection of kitchen knives mounted to a wall via magnetic strips. There are at least a dozen glimmering blades curved in all manner of ways for their various uses. “Wow, look at that, Miss P … scoutmaster.”

Cozy gestures towards an industrial brick oven and Pinkamena pauses at the sight of it. It is highly decorated but also practical in all of its glory. The door is larger than a pony and the room must have been built around the giant oven to accommodate its size. There is a smaller door to the side, built into the wall, that houses kindling for the massive oven and it is well stocked with fine beech wood logs split into triangular hunks. Scrutinizing the details, Pinkamena is fascinated by the cooking dispensary. “It’s beautiful. Probably the best I’ve ever seen.” She inspects the brick and mortar work and she appears genuinely impressed by the structure. “Better than anything I’ve ever used. And far larger. You could make thirty pies inside, I bet.”

“Yes, well, this is the castle after all and not some backwoods, podunk bakery. If you two would wait here, I will find some refreshments.” Toffee rolls her eyes and disappears into an adjoining room. 

“Okay, Cozy. Let’s get the sleeping powder unpacked. When she comes back, we’ll put her out first and then the rest.” The camera zooms in on Pinkamena as she begins to unbuckle the packs on her flanks, the ruined hide of her flanks like melted plastic glistening under the electric light.

“I’ve done good, right? My plan was good, right?” Cozy joins the elder mare and unscrews the top to the mason jar containing the cream-colored powder.

“You’re a natural actress, my love.” Pinkamena lays a hoof over Cozy’s. “Here, let’s take the antidote first. Just in case.” Producing the small vial of green liquid, Pinkamena pops the cork from its mouth and swigs about half of it in one go before handing it to the pegasus. Cozy dumps the remains of the glass vial into her mouth and gags instantly. She fusses and struggles but manages to swallow.

“Oh … that’s awful. I might throw up.” Cozy wretches.

“It’s not that bad. Stop being dramatic. Get some of that powder ready. I’ll lead, you hit her right in the face, okay?” Casting eyes back towards the door, Pinkamena hurries Cozy along and screws the lid tightly before replacing it in her pack.

“Roger, admiral.” Cozy salutes off the top of the camera.

Toffee’s rump comes through the door and the rest follows after with a tray of cheeses, crackers, and juice boxes. Her smile is as fake as ever as she beams to the pair. “Here they are. They are not as fancy as what we would usually serve but I’m sure you won’t notice.” 

Pinkamena steps forward to help, her tones soft and gentle despite the mocking. “Oh what a lovely platter. Let me take that from you and we can all share this wonderful snack. You’ve really been too kind to us and I’m certain you must be hungry.”

“A little. I would have eaten already if I had not stayed ... and I skipped lunch today. Maybe just a slice of brie or gruyere until I can get something more satiating.” The tray slips from her grasp to that of Pinkamena’s. Taking no time to dawdle, Cozy tosses the dust and it clouds around Toffee Surprise’s face. She snorts and coughs, staggering back. She makes an attempt to speak but sinks to the tiled floor in a heap of snoring splendor.

“We need to get this oven going.” Pinkamena places the tray on a prep station and Cozy quickly snags a couple pieces of cheese and stuffs them into her mouth. Tossing the hat and tugging away the scoutmaster uniform, Pinkamena pauses and eyes Cozy.

"What? I’m hungry! She brought it for us, after all.” Cozy places the camera on the prep station and the field of view changes. Most of the giant room is centered in the frame as well as the doorless opening from the hall. To the left of the frame is the enormous brick oven. Pinkamena pulls the heavy door to the oven open with a grunt. Cozy swallows more than chews her food while the magenta mare begins stuffing chunks of kindling into the oven.

“Sip some juice, too. If things go wrong it might be better to have a full stomach when you are turned to stone. Then again, eating like that may give you a permanent tummy ache.” Load after load of wood enters the oven from the elder mare.

“That’s not going to happen this time. We’ll do it. That or I’ll make Twilight kill me. I’d rather be dead than petrified again.” Cozy snatches the juice and greedily sucks it down, pulverizing the carton with suction. She tosses the empty pack back onto the tray, pulls the scout uniform off,  and dashes to help Pinkamena. 

The duo fill the oven over the next few minutes. Cozy crawls inside, soot smearing her pastel coat and bright blue curls, to place the logs into appropriate positions. They are both breathing hard from the effort as Pinkamena places a bundle of papers and easily combustible material into the mouth of the oven. She finds some matches nearby and hands them to Cozy who disappears into the oven and lights the fire. 

“I … don’t … see how … starting a fire … is going to help.” Cozy pants, concentrating on getting her breath back as she pops from the oven, a warm glow already embracing her small body.

Pinkamena watches the growing embers until satisfaction and then shuts the iron door and locks it into place as the flames catch. “The sleeping powder is more potent when it is forced into a chemical reaction. That’s what Zecora told me.”

“Oh … so are there chemicals in there? I didn’t see anything but wood.”

“Fire is a chemical reaction, sweetie. We’ll get the fire going, toss in the jar of powder, and wait for it to take effect.” Pinkamena pulls Cozy to her and kisses her head.

“Oh, okay, but won’t the smoke go up the chimney?” Cozy looks skeptically to the earth pony.

“We’ll close the flue and open the door. The smoke will have nowhere to go but into the castle. It should knock out anyone who smells it. I think so, at least.” Pinkamena bites her lip.

“I hope it works.” Cozy cuddles Pinkamena’s shoulder and neck.

“Me too.”

Cozy moves to the kitchen entrance and listens for guards. Pinkamena pays close attention to the fire growing inside the oven. After a few minutes, she opens the door and throws the jar inside. The glass breaks and a series of tiny, bright miniature explosions snap, crackle, and pop out of the mouth of the oven. Pinkamena ducks and Cozy runs to get a look. 

“Wow! It’s like a fireworks show in there!” Cozy giggles and claps her hooves together while Pinkamena pulls a lever that closes the flue, blocking the smoke from exiting out of the normal means. Just as she had said, a billowing caramel-brown fog erupts from the oven and fills the kitchen before flowing out of the doorway and into the hall that led the pair into the kitchen.

Pinkamena and Cozy begin coughing and drop to the floor where there’s still clean air. The oven crackles and snaps like forest twigs tread upon by a many-legged, clumsy beast. Smoke pours like cake batter from the oven and a few cries of help go up before being rent in half by chemically-aided slumber from the hallway. The duo chuckles to themselves and stay prone on the white-tiled floor until the preternatural smoke returns to a normal, black wood smoke. Pinkamena hops to her hooves, rushes to the flue lever, and flips it back up. The smoke ceases to roll from the open-gate of the oven and what remains in the kitchen dilutes.

The pair are both very still, ears pinging like radar dishes but the only sound is that of the fire in the brick oven. “I … I think they’re all asleep, Cozy,” Pinkamena says and smiles to her cohort. The silence in the castle is palpable and the two continue to wait, a few playful chuckles escape them.

Cozy cheers and flaps her wings triumphantly. “Then we only have to find Twilight and …”

Sharp, deliberate hooves echo on the tile from the hallway outside and the earth pony and pegasus turn quickly to face the door. The hoofsteps are heavy and quick as they approach, much heavier than that of a typical guard. The pair look to one another knowingly; it can only be the sound of an adult alicorn.
> End of the Road: Part 2
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

"What in the name of Celestia is going on here? Smoke throughout the castle, all the guards unrousably asleep!” Princess Twilight Sparkle fills the doorway with a concerned but curious expression, but it crashes as she fixes her alicorn eyes on Pinkamena and Cozy Glow. The crown on her head seems to pulsate with magic and it thrums with her long, elegant horn.

“Pinkie Pie.” Twilight narrows her eyes and sighs with frustration. “After all the inquisitors and guards I’ve sent throughout Equestria and other realms, you come to me. I suppose the reports from Ponyville are true after all. I thought Rarity had gone senile but to find you here is rather unexpected.”

“Don’t forget about me!” Cozy grumbles and glares daggers to the Princess.

“I wondered where you had gone, Cozy. I didn’t think it would be with the serial killer here.” The Princess is large and ominously standing above them. She regards them with curiosity more than malice. “So, what was the plan then? Two ponies come in here, put everyone to sleep with some cocamamy scheme and then … kill me, I would hazard to guess?”

Cozy stirs first, “It would be a lot easier if you just gave us your crown and allowed the transition of power over to me.”

“I’m sure it would but I’m not so inclined to let the ponies of Equestria be subjugated by a murderer and a narcissistic child.” The Princess shows no fear of the two and watches them closely. Pinkamena is still while Cozy appears ready for a fight despite her diminutive size.

“Let us go, Twilight. Please,” Pinkamena speaks, her words are passive and beleaguered with exhaustion. 

“What? You came here, Pinkie. I can’t just let you go after what you’ve done.” Twilight scoffs at the audacity Pinkamena has presented. 

“It’s your fault. Please. We haven’t hurt anyone except those who came to bring us harm. We just want to be left alone to live peacefully.” Pinkamena looks on the verge of tears.

“What are you saying, Miss Pinkamena? She’s right here! The guards are all asleep! We can take her here and now and rule by morning!” Cozy snaps angrily. 

“There it is. You want to kill me and take the throne for yourselves? Whatever scheme you are at, I won’t tolerate it, Pinkie. You, a vile killer of ponies, who uses your guile and trickery to lure your victims.” Twilight stomps a hoof to the tile, a small crack weaves through the ceramic.Her muscles ripple expectantly.

Pinkamena turns her head to the floor. “Twilight, for once, please listen to me. Didn’t I come to you so long ago about what would come to pass if you didn’t help me? Please, just let us live our lives.” Her eyes downcast, Pinkamena pleads with her majesty. The lack of violence from the elder pink mare is surprising.

“I can’t let you live, Pinkie. I … I want to but how can I? You’ve terrorized the ponies of Equestria! You’ve killed dozens of our people, our friends.” The lavender alicorn sighs, duty and compassion struggling for control. 

“Then why did you send the inquisitors to bring me back alive?” Pinkamena asks. Twilight appears taken back by the comment and casts her eyes doubtfully to the wall.

“I … I know you asked me for help before and … I didn’t listen. I’ve always felt guilty for that. As if the things you have done were a result of turning a deaf ear to my friend. That, maybe if I had listened, things would have been better.” Guilt and melancholy take root in the princess’ lavender eyes. She watches the pink mare closely and shakes her head as if trying to clear the thought. It obviously disturbs her to some extent.  “But, how was I to know when you were serious? You were always so weird and hard to understand. Still, I should have given you the benefit of the doubt and that’s a guilt I have had on my conscience for a very long time.”

“Will you let us start a new life, Twilight? Give us a chance to be happy?” Pinkamena asks, Cozy rolls her eyes. 

“I developed a new spell in case we ever met again. And you are right. I sent the inquisitors to find you and bring you back alive because I wanted to give you a chance to redeem yourself. I can’t let you stay in this world but maybe in a new one you would be able to change.” The alicorn’s horn burns with magic and she quickly bolts her horn forward. The horn shimmers with energy and a purple beam of light sears a spot of open space. The magic rolls and swallows a chunk of nothing the size of a pony as it rips time and space into a swirling, translucent vortex. 

“This is all I can do, Pinkie. I’ve studied the boundaries between worlds and time extensively for this moment. It’s a portal through time. Enter it and you should find yourself in your body from years ago. From before you started killing our friends.”

“What about Cozy?” 

Twilight scoffs once more and she casts a look of hatred to the pegasus. “No. Not her. This is your second chance, Pinkie. She’s already had hers. The best place for her is in the garden with all the other statues.”

Pinkamena looks blankly at the vortex and shakes her head. Cozy’s mouth is hanging open as she looks between Pinkamena and the portal as understanding dawns across her features. 

“How many times are we going to do this, Twilight?” Pinkamena asks dryly. Sorrow fills her eyes and she sighs gently. “It’s never going to be different, is it? No matter what I do, it will always be the same.”

Confusion breaks the alicorn’s smile to pieces and she stares questioningly to the earth pony. “What?”

“I’ve lost track of the times, Twilight. Why does it always come to this? My inability to change Cozy’s nature. Your inability to allow her to come with me. Are we doomed to this cycle forever?” Pinkamena’s head tilts to the side and suddenly cranks to the opposite side with a loud crack. The mournful frown begins to twist into a crooked, worm-eaten grin. 

“Are you saying that you have entered the time portal …”

“Many times already. Yes. It NEVER works, Twilight. I’ve tried finding Cozy but I have never found her before she attempted to take over and you petrified her. I’ve tried reasoning with you. I’ve tried remaining with the elements of harmony and pleading to Celestia for leniency for her. In the end, it always ends up the same. I always have to kill the ones I love to set into motion the events that lead to this moment. I’ve been here numerous times now. More than I care to remember.” Pinkamena’s body shudders and she breathes rapidly. “I’ve tried … I’ve tried ...when will this hell end?”

“Miss Pinkamena …” Cozy stammers and watches powerlessly. “That’s how you knew what was going to happen?”

Pinkamena nods and turns to Cozy. “Time for honesty, Cozy. I’ve almost given up on changing you. You’re lust for control and power has never been quieted through every attempt I’ve made to ease it. I love you, my Cozy. I’d do anything to save you from your fate. I’ve tried so many times. It’s making me crazy, honey. The things I do in each of these lives leaves their scars, just like I tried to explain to you.”

“So what you said about being injured? About what caused you to turn mean and into a serial killer, was it true?” The pegasus questions her with a quivering, small voice.

“The first time, yes. Once I was truly insane and did horrible thing. But … each subsequent life I’ve lived I slaughtered my friends to get back to you. The blood on my hooves was my choice because … because I love you so much and can’t stand the thought of you being unhappy. I hate killing my friends but there’s no other way to get back here with you. I’ve tried and tried. Some things would change but this was always the end: I kill innocent ponies to have another chance at saving you. There’s enough blood on my hooves to fill an ocean … and the one who lies asleep in that sea of blood. I’ve come to realize I have evil inside of me and I fight to keep it in … but the monster wasn’t really caused by the head trauma. I was her all along. We all have evil within us, and when we are pushed too far, it comes out.”

Twilight is horrified. She falls back a few steps in disbelief. “You, you chose to kill all those ponies when there was nothing wrong with you? You did it to … to help her?”


“I told you before, Twilight; I had something I had to do. Someone I had to save and there was only one way to get back to the moment I always fail.” Pinkamena’s teeth completely unzip and she cackles like a witch.

“Her? You killed our friends for that worthless villain?” Twilight growls, her horn flaring to life with waves of heat pulsing around the magical instrument. Twilight’s anger fuels the magic of her horn and she breath is bated, struggling to contain the rage inside.

“Cozy. This is your choice. I’ll hold her off as you run through the portal. Or we can fight her here and now.” Pinkamena steps towards Twilight, glowering up at the alicorn.

Cozy looks from the flickering, after-image portal and back to Pinkamena and Twilight. Her decision was made long ago. “This is the end, Twilight. Give me your crown or else.”

“Just when I thought you couldn’t disappoint me anymore, Pinkie Pie. I guess violence really is the only way to deal with the two of you. So be it. In a way, I’m happy. It wasn’t me who failed to be a friend. You failed to heed my good nature. You are a crime against ponykind. I can’t wait to open you like you’ve done to so many others!” Her majesty is lost to passion, her words steeped in hatred. It is a side of the princess we have never seen and it is frightening. 

Twilight’s horn explodes a hot, sizzling beam of pure energy towards Cozy who slips it at the last second, the heat still hot enough to cause the fur of her shoulder to burst into wisps of smoke.

Pinkamena leaps at the alicorn’s lowered throat, her triangular teeth slashing for the jugular vein. Twilight snaps a foreleg up and connects with Pinkamena’s chin, forcing the earth pony’s jaws together with a loud snap. Twilight hops back a step and swipes with her horn, catching Pinkamena’s ribs and drawing a shallow cut across them.

“Is this what you want, Pinkie? Pain and suffering? I’ll give you plenty.” Twilight chides, her body taking a combat pose and awaiting the response from Pinkamena. On the other side of the room, Cozy Glow tugs one of the larger kitchen knives free from its magnetic shelf.

“Pain? You think this hurts?” Pinkamena’s ribs darken with crimson blood. Though the damage is superficial, it bleeds badly and begins to spill onto the floor. “You have no idea what pain is! What I’ve lived through!”

“Pinkamena!” Cozy can barely heft the large cleaver and uses her wings to spin, the centrifugal force adding enough leverage to send the blade whirling across the tiles of the floor and into the waiting teeth of Pinkamena.

“I was trying to give you another shot, Pinkie. You chose poorly. Now, I’m going to rid Equestria of two villains tonight.” Twilight feints a lunge with her horn, drawing Pinkamena to counter with a swipe of the shining blade. The cleaver pauses part of the way through the swipe and Twilight grins knowingly to herself. 

“Stab me, Twilight! I’ll take your horn away in one hard hack. It’s a dense bone, but a bone none-the-less. This knife specializes in cutting through them.” Pinkamena snarls through the blade in her mouth.

Another feint comes from the alicorn and when Pinkamena reacts, Twilight laughs and brings her left hoof to curl forward and land on the earth pony’s right shoulder. The mass and strength behind the blow knocks Pinkamena a few inches to the side and the hoof retracts before the cleaver can come down upon it, striking only the tile. “Predictable, Pinkie. Is that what you’ve become?”

Pinkamena recognizes the difference in speed with the big knife and charges forward, a slight stagger in her shoulder from the previous strike. She twists and brings the butcher knife over and down in a chopping action. The attack is slow but Twilight’s larger body is slower and the blade opens a nasty gash in the princess’ lead leg. Carmine liquid streams from the wound as she cries out. Pinkamena attempts a follow-up strike but the blade is heavy enough that Twilight retreats out of distance before it even gets started. “Didn’t see that coming, did you?”

Cozy Glow is a sudden blur across the room, her wings beating with furious intensity. The pegasus is a bullet aimed for the crown on Twilight’s head. “It’s MINE!” the filly yells, but is batted aside by Twilight’s horn and sent careening into a nearby wall.

The cleaver swipes in a wide arc, aiming just above the hooves of the princess while she is preoccupied high with Cozy. It misses the mark but connects with the hard keratin hoof and bites deeply with a sickening crack. The weight of the blade would have removed Twilight’s hoof at the ankle had it landed cleanly, instead it’s only a painful splintering of keratin that oozes blood. “Damn!” Pinkamena grumbles and yanks the blade to free it of the bony hoof.

Twilight stomps with her good foreleg and narrowly misses the earth pony as she rolls back, the tile shattering from the pressure of her majesty’s hoof. “Do you like hurting me, Pinkie?” Twilight winces and tests her weight on the damaged hoof. A few drops of blood run from the cut but it holds steady.

“Not particularly. I didn’t want this! I just want my Cozy to be happy!” Pinkamena snarls, waiting and watching the alicorn. 

Twilight narrows her eyes and regards the dazed pegasus. Her lips curl into a wry grin as she alters her target.

“If she’s the cause of this, maybe I’ll eliminate her first.” The alicorn’s horn heats up again with magic and she points it to the dazed pegasus sitting at the base of the wall and struggling to get her bearings, head circling lightly with unsteady eyes.

“NO!” Pinkamena darts forward and her majesty grins at the success of her ploy, rearing up on her back legs to avoid the slicing cleaver and bringing both her forelegs down onto the back of Pinkamena. Ribs crack loudly like splintering wood. Pinkamena screams and the cleaver flies from her mouth to rest against the distant wall. Her breathing is bubbly and labored, indicating at least one lung has collapsed from fragments of broken rib ripping through it. Twilight’s smile is horrid as she twists her good hoof into the mare’s damaged side, a glinting of wet bone stabbing through Pinkamena’s skin. 

“Oh, Pinkie. Is this what you’ve been doing to others? It is kind of intoxicating in a disgusting kind of way, isn’t it? I can feel your shattered bones under my hoof tearing at your meat. It makes me feel a little … well, you understand I can’t actually say how it makes me feel but I will remember this sensation for years to come.” Twilight chuckles to herself as Pinkamena howls in agony. She savors the vibrations of Pinkamena’s painful cries and the continued crackling of ruined bone.

Cozy strikes, her eyes full of tears, against her majesty’s head and neck. The attacks are weak but the pegasus’ speed is astonishing. “Leave her alone! Stop hurting her!” Dozens of strikes land in only a moment, all of her legs kicking furiously but dealing no actual damage. Still, it is enough to step the princess back and away from the squirming body of Pinkamena.

Twilight’s charged horn discharges and blackens a spot on the marble wall while she bats her head back and forth, attempting to free herself from Cozy Glow’s tirade. Finally, the princess recoils her head like a spring and brings it forward quickly, her skull connecting with Cozy’s small body sends the pegasus spinning to the floor a few feet away. Cozy hops back to her hooves quickly. Twilight’s face is marked with swatches of irritation from the hooves raking against it and she spits out a small glob of blood. 

Pinkamena drags herself away, coughing and sputtering for breath that sounds like an asthmatic in deep water. Her muzzle and lips drip thick, dark blood from internal bleeding. She edges towards the cleaver one hoof at a time. Cozy prepares for another attack.

“What? What are you going to do, Cozy?” Twilight mocks the youth. “You can’t possibly hurt me and your protector is crushed like your friend Chrysalis. Of the two of them, I’m uncertain which was the bigger insect.”

“I don’t care about Chrysalis! She was untrustworthy and stupid! But you leave Pinkamena alone! She … she cares about me. She’s the only one who has ever cared about me.” Cozy shudders and wipes at her eyes. 

“Poor Pinkamena. She’s dying you know. I felt one of her lungs pop like a balloon. And maybe a kidney as well.” A sick smirk opens her majesty’s lips. “She’ll drown in her own blood at this rate.”

“Shut up! She’s not going to die! I won’t let her.” Cozy looks back and forth between her friend and the princess. The portal in the middle of the room phases between worlds in a dim blue light. 

“Oh?” Twilight saunters over to the struggling earth pony and stands above her, eyeing Cozy playfully. “Then you better stop me.” Twilight gouges with her horn, it dives into Pinkamena’s back and through her abdomen, narrowly missing her spinal column. A loud clacking sound of horn on tile echoes as the horn shreds Pinkamena’s belly open. Pinkamena squalls loudly and her body jerks. Blood the color of dark wine drips down the horn as it retracts.

Cozy cries as Twilight sends her horn into Pinkamena’s body a second, third, and fourth time. With each jab of the horn Pinkamena’s reaction is weaker. “Please! Please, stop! Don’t kill her!”

“Why?” Twilight pauses, Pinkamena’s blood now running down between her eyes and dotting her cheeks. The earth pony below is a mess and has grown still on the floor. Her legs twitch erratically and the ghosts of groans sound from her bleeding mouth. Her breathing sound like a bicycle pump submerged in a foot of water.

“I … I give up. Just, please, please help her. I’ll go back to the stone garden.” Cozy frowns, her shoulders drooping. The fight has left the pegasus completely and she stands broken before her majesty.

“I don’t think there’s a doctor in Equestria who could help her now, Cozy. But, if you want to avoid the same fate as her, I’ll gladly turn you back into a statue.” Pleased with herself, her majesty grins smugly. She blatantly enjoys Cozy’s sorrow and teases the child.

“Put her through the portal, Twilight. You said she’d go back to an earlier time, to a younger version of herself. That would save her, right?” Cozy watches the floor, head down defeatedly. 

“I’m sure it would. She would wake up in her young body some time long ago.” Twilight takes a few steps towards the pegasus, blood, unknown to whom it belongs, trails with each step.

“Then help me get her inside. I … I’d rather be a statue than watch her die. I … I love her.” Cozy’s cheeks are streaming with tears as she watches Twilight approach. “It’s my turn to not be selfish. It’s my fault. She didn’t want to come here. I made her.”

“How noble, Cozy Glow. Maybe there is something more to you than I thought.” Twilight stops before the filly and leans down, one brow lifting. “I kind of like seeing you vulnerable. I think I want to look at it every day. I’ll turn you to stone but only after you watch Pinkie Pie expire. That way I can see the pain frozen on your cute little face for eternity.” Twilight cackles and jabs Cozy with her horn, sending the child back to bump against the brick oven. Hellish light spills out of the open door from the still burning fire.

“No! That’s not fair! Don’t let her die! PLEASE!” Cozy wails, Twilight pushing her horn into the filly’s chest as she pins Cozy against the oven. The light reflects in twilight’s eyes, orange and bright, like a creature from the depths of Tartarus.

Behind Twilight, Pinkamena begins to shake and twitch. Her broken body rolls to one hoof, pink patches barely showing between the dark stains. Shakily, the hoof holds and Pinkamena makes another. Struggling to all four hooves, her head splits with a wide, toothy grin. Her head snaps back and forth uncontrollably and she laughs loudly despite the damaged lung. It fills the room, harrowing and demented. “Hi, Twilight. How I’ve missed you.”

Her majesty pauses, turning to look at what was the crumpled, defeated form of Pinkamena now smiling voraciously and sickeningly. “Impossible. You should be dead.”

“Oh, Twily. You don’t know me very well. Pinkie Pie, despite her strange abilities, is just a pony. She’s as easily dispatched as any other, including yourself. But, me, I’m a different beast.” her voice becomes rough like jagged stone. “You won’t kill me so easily. And yet, I will kill you just as easily as all the others.” She is like an apparition from the past, the legend our nightmares are made of. Pinkamena stands defiantly and giggles incessantly like hooves on a chalkboard that tear at your very soul.

Pinkamena not only walks but skips to the cleaver. Retrieving it, she notices some of her intestines are hanging from a terrible tear in her abdomen. Whether it was from a broken rib or Twilight’s horn is unknown but the skin hangs in a flap, revealing much of her inner workings. Pinkamena only bursts out in a hideous fit of laughter about it. “My balloons are showing! Isn’t that wonderful? It’s a party after all! Now … let’s see what your balloons look like, Twilight.”

Twilight’s mouth hangs open, stupor on her features. Her breathing becomes quick and spontaneous. Her victory is less certain and the display before her is unnerving. Disbelief marks her majesty and she stutters, “There’s no way. You stay back, Pinkie!”

Pinkamena turns her head to the side and grins somehow wider. Her pupils dilate to pin-pricks and her eyes burn with blue madness. She takes a step from the far side of the room towards the princess. “Just a little stabby stab, Twilight. Just a little bitey bite. I bet alicorns are sweet like ice cream.”

“No!” Twilight’s horn begins to charge another spell.

“I can smell your blood dribbling, Twilight. It makes me so hungry that I don’t think I can contain myself!” Pinkamena steps closer, still many steps from the princess. Her bloated intestine spills from the hole in her gut, now trailing behind her a few feet like a great, gray snake.

Cozy Glow, seeing the monstrous rise of her friend is both elated and frightened. She breathes hard from behind Twilight, still pressed to the open brick oven.

Twilight feels Cozy against her back leg as she attempts to put more space between herself and the supernatural Pinkamena. Her horn flares brightly and she turns enough to aim her horn at the pegasus while keeping Pinkamena in her sight. “I’ll kill her right now, Pinkie! I’ll leave only a smoldering stump where her pretty little head used to be!”

Pinkie pauses, head rolling to the other side. She laughs again, ear-piercingly high. “Hit me with it, Twilight. Because if you hurt her, we’ll find out all the wonderful party games we can play with an alicorn.”

Twilight, eyes full of fear, turns and releases the charge of her horn directly at Pinkamena. It sears the space between them and the earth pony ducks just enough to escape the crackling beam. The blast leaves a crater in the distant wall.

“NOW, COZY! HIT HER BACK LEGS!” Pinkamena screams, bolting into a full run. Cozy ducks and hammers her shoulders as hard as she can into the crooks of Twilight’s rear legs.

Twilight tries to rear, putting all of her weight onto her back legs, enough that Cozy is able to destabilize the alicorn. Twilight falls back, her hips catch the open mouth of the brick oven just as Pinkamena slams into her midsection, forcing her large body back and into the mouth of the oven. Twilight howls with pain as the fire surges across her easily burnable coat and mane.

“Shut the door, Cozy! Hurry!” Pinkamena grabs the iron door to the oven and tugs at it, bringing it around slowly while Twilight kicks and screams from inside. Cozy flies up and presses with all of her might, tiny body straining as she and Pinkamena slam the door closed and bring it down into a locked position. Pinkamena presses against it with her back, bracing the door with what strength her body has left. Her gray entrails swing like organic chains to the floor from the heinous wound in her tummy. Cozy flies against the door as hard as she can.

A massive kick shakes the brick oven from inside.The fire is far brighter now that it has begun feasting upon her majesty’s large body and black puffs of smoke seep from the cracks forming in the mortar holding the oven together. Many of the bricks shake and the crumbling mortar holding them together spills to the floor. The camera falls from the strength of the alicorn’s struggle and crashes to the floor. A crack splits the lens in half but the frame still holds the action.

Twilight’s screaming continues and another tremor rocks the iron door. One of the heavy black hinges breaks free, sending the bolts that used to hold it soaring across the room. Pinkamena grits her teeth and struggles from her many, seeping wounds to stay upright. Her coat is doused in blood and her hips wobble in their sockets from the stress.

The door crashes from its hinges, sending Pinkamena and Cozy sprawling from the power of the blow. Twilight, nearly hairless and flaming crawls from the oven. Her skin is melted, seared, and smoking as she collapses onto the floor below the oven. She is damaged beyond recognition and raw, glistening muscles congeal with scoured flesh. The crown on her head falls to the floor, skittering out towards the center of the room. It comes to rest at Cozy’s hooves. Twilight lay still below the oven: a heap of ruined, charred flesh.

Cozy sits in shock for a second and attempts to catch her breath. Her incarnadine eyes fix on the crown and back to what is left of the princess. It takes a moment to dawn on her but she suddenly smiles and gives a loud cheer. ‘PINKAMENA! WE DID IT! WE WON!” She scoops the crown up in her hooves and hugs it like a child hugging a doll. She turns towards Pinkamena and her mirth evaporates.

Pinkamena lies very still except for the rising and falling of arrhythmic breathing. Blood pools below her and her fractured ribs heave quickly and are labored. Her lungs wheeze weakly and bubble like a perforated plunger. The hole in her belly has opened further and much of her insides are heaped before her. Dark liquid from deep within the mare mixes with the bright blood from other injuries into a collage of pain and suffering.

Cozy moves to her slowly, tears form in her eyes and she drags the crown behind her. She sits next to Pinkamena and shivers at the mess that is her friend. “Pinkamena … Pinkamena?”

A blue eye half-opens slowly and Pinkamena smiles weakly. “My Cozy … we did it, honey. We finally won. You … get to be the empress you’ve always wanted to be.”

“Yeah, but … but what about you? You’re going to be okay, right?” Looking Pinkamena over, Cozy seems to know the answer.

“I’m done, honey. I don’t have a lot of time left. I just want to spend it with you. I’m so proud of you.” Her voice is weak and breaks. She meagerly reaches out and touches Cozy’s shoulder with one hoof before it falls to the floor.

“No, you … you were supposed to rule with me. I still need you, Pinkie.” Cozy drops the crown to take Pinkamena’s hoof in her own. The crown rolls a few feet away and lays in a puddle of blood.

Pinkie has to concentrate on breathing now but she still smiles softly. “This is … the best I can do for you, my love. Rule. Rule fairly. Don’t terrorize Equestria. Make them love you for all the good you have inside you … not the evil.”

“I … I don’t have any good without you, Pinkamena.” Cozy nuzzles the cracked hoof and bloody pink leg with her cheek.

“We’re all capable of good and evil, honey. It’s up to you to choose what you want to be. Twilight and I … killed each other. Equestria will need a strong leader. You have to believe in yourself and do what’s right. Even if …” Pinkamena struggles, her eyes rolling in her head. She fights to stay conscious. “ even if they hate you at first, love them. Like I love you and they will eventually come to embrace you.”

Cozy cries, tiny tears dripping down her cheeks. She notices the portal, much smaller now and getting smaller by the second as the magic holding it open wanes. “You have to go through the time portal, Pinkamena. It’s the only way to save your life. Come on, let’s get you through.” Cozy takes the hoof and struggles to lift the mare. She drags her a few inches before she is stopped by Pinkamena.

“No. I … I don’t want to do this again. This is the happiest ending we’ve ever had. You are the empress now. Let my last moments be here, with you. This is what I’ve struggled to accomplish for so long. I can die happy, Cozy. Truly happy.” Her time grows short and each word is a struggle.

“But … but …” Cozy stammers.

“I’ll always love you, Cozy. I’ll be here for you … in some way … always.” Pinkamena expends everything she has left in those last words and her eyes close. Her breathing no longer rises and falls; it is as still as the night. Cozy Glow presses into Pinkamena’s breast and sobs. She cries loudly, wails of loss tear her vocal cords. She squeezes Pinkamena’s body tightly against hers. She nuzzles her blue locks into what is left of her friend as she cries.

She suddenly pops up, a strange look on her face and then a small smile, “Your heart … it’s so quiet but it’s still beating.” The pegasus bites her lip, face wet with fresh tears mixed with Pinkamena’s blood. Her glistening, puffy eyes turn to the failing portal. 

“I won’t let you die, Pinkie. Not here. Not like this.” She takes Pinkamena’s leg again and wraps her narrow shoulders with it, struggling to drag the body towards the swirling vortex. She breathes hard and uses all of her strength, pulling Pinkamena closer with each step.

It takes time for Cozy to haul Pinkamena’s body to the portal and by the time she reaches it, the winding, flickering vortex is only a foot wide. “I’m sorry, Pinkamena. I’m sorry I have to send you back but this isn’t how your journey ends. Please forgive me when you wake up.” 

Cozy gets one foreleg into the portal, then the other. Lifting Pinkamena’s head and chest are the most difficult but Cozy somehow finds the strength to get them inside as the portal nears its end. The rest of the mare is pulled inside by the dying portal and Cozy watches as it closes and shimmers out of existence. 

The room is a wreck, cracked tiles, smears of blood and other liquids. There are several black burns decorating the walls. Cozy sits silently for a long time in the cracked lens of the camera. Processing her future alone, the pegasus finally looks to the crown. Her eyes are vacant and hazed with the pain that is paired with wisdom. Alone now, she seems to come to a decision and steps slowly  as if laden with heavy burdens as she makes her way to the crown laying in a pool of blood. The low battery light appears and blinks in the corner of the frame. Cozy takes the crown in her hooves and stares blankly at it. It's worth to her seemingly gone. She drops it to the floor and walks to Twilight’s body.

“Twilight! Wake up! Your empress orders you to wake up! I know you’re not dead, yet.” Twilight moans painfully and the battery light holds its warning for only a moment before the video dies.





That’s the end of the transcription. Our teams are currently still working on a recreation of the video comprised of the salvaged footage. 

We here at Perfect News ask you, our loyal viewers to decide for yourselves the fate of our beloved princess, Twilight Sparkle. We hope that … what was that? Set? Type Setter? Hey! What’s going on?

What do you mean the royal guard have breached the containment door? This is supposed to be a HIDDEN location! How did they find us? Set?

Ahem … loyal viewers, the royal guard have infiltrated the underground safehouse we have been broadcasting from. I hope this shows the extremes the government is willing to go to protect themselves. Shining Armor, the tyrant, has seized power for himself after his late sister’s demise and we here at … they’re coming in? Set! The citizenry know! They wouldn’t dare harm us on live broadcast in front of so many ponies! 

Viewers, we prepare to give up even our lives to bring you the truth that Shining Armor and his band of brigands deny you! Here they come! I see inquisitors and royal guardsmen. Someone’s in the back, yelling orders. Here they come … Oh my, it’s … it can’t be!  … Princess!
> End of the Road: Part 3
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Pinkamena laid still in her bed above Sugar Cube Corner. She had been back for nearly a week and the fog of confusion tied to time travel was finally lifting. It always took a few days for Pinkamena’s memories to collect and she would stagger around in a stupor, blindly following her routine until the memories of her previous lives cohered. Outside was a bright, brilliant day and she could hear the cheerful voices of her numerous friends enjoying the sweet spring heat. The sun had streamed into her room through the pink framed window, beckoning her to come outside and play with her friends. She had drawn the shades and returned to bed. She lay above the covers with her vivacious pink mane laying flat against her cheek. 

Her eyes had shed so many tears that they had nothing left. They felt swollen and twice their normal size, bulging and scratchy inside their sockets. Her face hurt in radiating, spider webbing patterns around her cheeks and forehead. Her eyes were bloodshot pools of wisdom beyond the age of her body. Only they revealed the haunting miseries of the many lives she had lived. 

She felt awful. That wasn’t quite right. Physically, she felt better than she had in the last forty years. She was young again, back in a body in the prime of its life. Her hips still moved smoothly in their joints and she could pack as many cakes as she wanted into her stomach without gaining a single pound. She never felt tired, not even after a full day of gallivanting with her friends. Mentally and emotionally, however; she was shattered. 

She wasn’t sure what had happened in those last moments with Cozy and Twilight. She remembered being in a great amount of pain and Twilight telling Cozy something … something terrible, but she couldn’t recall what. The haze still left her somewhat disjointed and confused. She remembered Cozy’s tears and the defeat in her voice. Twilight was hurting Cozy somehow and Pinkamena couldn’t allow that. She remembered doing something, some last ditch effort to help her friend. 

Whatever it was, it must not have been enough. 

There were pieces of other things after that but not enough to put together the puzzle. She thought she had called Cozy Glow an empress but that couldn’t have been right or she wouldn’t be back here in her young body. She wouldn’t have to make the decisions laboring upon her.

She pushed the dark thoughts away and focused on the vivid colors of her room. Her flat, unfiled teeth felt awkward in her mouth like they took up too much room. She kept biting her tongue accidentally. Wishing she could enjoy those beautiful colors as she once used to, Pinkamena sighed and shook her head slowly. 

“It’s never going to end, is it? I died sometime long ago and don’t remember it. This has been my punishment all along: to let Cozy down, to kill my friends, to see Twilight’s hatred for me,” she speaks to no one but herself, watching nothing but her thoughts parade before her eyes.

The dark thoughts returned from the brief reverie of lesser misery. She had choices to make and none of them felt correct. She could wait a month or two before taking a life, she knew. This would be the 38th …  39th ... time she had entered the time portal? It didn’t matter; it all ran together like mixed paint into a long, brown, indistinguishable streak of misery and guilt. She would have to start with Rainbow Dash if she was going to try again. Having tried with others, it only added to the number of ponies she would have to slaughter in order to gain enough infamy. For some reason, Dash was always the one that brought the attention she needed to get the wheels of her plan turning, to captivate a nation with her misdeeds.

Dash was always the most difficult. Not because of her physicality, she trusted Pinkie Pie and would come willingly to the gruesome death awaiting her, but because she was such a dear friend. Killing her was always the biggest hurdle, the one that hurt the most. Pinkamena’s eyes ached as they tried to sport fresh tears that would not come. She didn’t want to hear Rainbow begging for her life again. She didn’t want to see her blood or feel her heart stop.

Maybe she didn’t have to. She could give up on saving Cozy. Her heart clenched in her chest and Pinkamena moaned softly at the thought. No, she couldn’t just abandon the pegasus like that. Cozy had been the one that brought her back from the darkness swelling within her that first time. 

Back when her friends were shadows and Pinkamena felt alone in the world. If it hadn’t been for Cozy Glow coming into her life, she would have killed herself in her little confection cottage in the Everfree forest. Cozy Glow, true to her name, had been the light in the abyss of solitude and loneliness that freed Pinkamena’s emotions. Without her, Pinkamena had no empathy, and made herself a true monster. Pinkamena’s bond with Cozy was deeper than that of friendship. She loved the filly more than anything, more than herself, more than any of her other friends. They were parts of the same soul.

She had made plans to kill Twilight Sparkle in the castle as her farewell to Equestria. It would have been her finest work and then she would retire to her home, sip some tea and braid a noose. Finally, she would choke her own life away from one of the supporting beams of the basement. She had been so thoroughly convinced that she was the only authentic life that she no longer wanted to be part of it. She was more than happy for her inner light to fade into the great blackness consuming her. But as she snuck through the statue garden, she felt a presence, a real one coming from one of the statues. It had been Cozy. 

When Pinkamena had returned home it had not been with Twilight’s blood on her hooves and it had not been alone. She had felt alive for the first time in forever. 

And that feeling still thrived deep within her.

Depression weighed down upon the mare and her chest hurt as if her ribs were broken. She absently wondered if her fragmented memories were somehow manifesting in ways she didn’t understand. It didn’t matter. Nothing did right now.

Getting a rope wouldn’t be difficult. There were plenty in the basement. If she couldn’t save Cozy, maybe she should save herself from the pain and heartache … the beams in the basement would easily support her weight. It couldn’t possibly hurt as much as her heart did right now. 

And if it did, she deserved it. It would be over shortly, not drawn out through another 40 years of murder and isolation. 

But Cozy would remain a statue for eternity. Pinkamena had spent years searching for the pegasus before she had come to Ponyville.She had hoped that taking her in would alter the future. But it was like the filly didn’t exist until the day she appeared in town. It was always too late by then. Nothing Pinkamena said or did reached her before her petrification. Nothing reached her afterwards, either. But, at least she would have a little time to be happy. Pinkamena was sure of one thing: despite her lust for power, Cozy was happy when they were together.

Mrs. Cake made noise deep in the bowels of the house and Pinkamena sighed again, heavy and full of dread. She would have to ruin their lives again. Destroy the lives of all her friends. Turn Sugar Cube Corner into a haunted house. Unless she killed herself. Killing herself would be what was best for everyone but she didn’t know if that was the same as choosing not to help her dear friend or not. It wasn’t for her own sake that she debated removing herself from the equation. 

She rolled to face the wall, closing her eyes and wishing she could just fall asleep. Nightmares may come, but those that haunted her waking hours were more frightening. Dark thoughts rolled through her head and scratched at her sanity. She felt sick and exhausted at what the future held in store for her. She was a failure. Completely. Utterly. And she knew deep down that her choice would not be the rope. She would continue to fail for all eternity until she became worse than the depraved maniac she had once been. Piece by piece, life by life, Pinkie Pie was dying and seceding to the darkness deep within her. At some point, in some future life, the hope inside of her would finally shatter and only a demon would walk in her place. 

In some ways she welcomed it. To be free of the curse of remorse and guilt, even at the cost of her soul, was tempting compared to the hell she lived one life at a time.

Hooves on the second floor. Mrs. Cake was probably coming to check on her for the seventh time today. She loved the older pony but her face hurt and she didn’t feel like facing any of the ponies she would soon hurt.

Someone knocked gently at the door and, sure enough, Mrs. Cake called to her as the door gingerly opened. “Pinkie? Honey, are you feeling any better?”

“No, Mrs. Cake. I’m sorry. I just … I just need to be alone for a little while longer,” her voice was empty, emotionless, as hollow as she felt.

“I’m sorry you aren’t feeling well, Pinkie. This may be a bad time but I need to introduce someone to you,” Mrs. Cake was soothing but prompt and business-like. Pinkamena knew Mrs. Cake loved her but she was taking time away from her business to check on her. Time made more important since she was short staffed without Pinkamena’s aid. 

Pinkamena bit her lip and sat up on her bed, resigned to the momentary aside from wallowing in self-pity to appease Mrs. Cake. 

“Pinkie, this filly is an orphan with nowhere to go. She came in this morning and, well, Mr. Cake and I … we just can’t send her away. She wants to learn how to bake and we simply have to keep her here to study with us.” Mrs. Cake, soft and doughy, explained as a cutie-markless filly stepped into the room.

Pinkamena finally slipped from the bed, only half-listening to what Mrs. Cake had said. She flipped her curtain of magenta mane aside and her eyes suddenly went wide at who stood before her.

“Her name is Cozy Glow. We’ll get another bed in a few days, but we’d like you to share your room with her, Pinkie,” Mrs. Cake finished. Cozy smiled happily, her blue, curled locks of hair bouncing lightly as her big, incarnadine eyes stared at Pinkamena.

Wh … what ... what?” Pinkamena stammered, confusion filling her like a bowl and sloshing from the sides. She felt numb and couldn’t process her thoughts.

Mrs. Cake gently patted Cozy’s head and concern turned her brow into a w. “I know you aren’t feeling well and this is an … unexpected surprise, but she needs our help. I’m sure you understand.”

Shock rooted Pinkamena in placed as she answered something she didn’t recognize to Mrs. Cake who smiled sweetly and faced Cozy. “This is Pinkie Pie. I’m sure you two will get along well. If you get hungry again, come downstairs and we’ll whip something nice up for you, okay?”

“Yes, ma’am,” Cozy answered pleasantly and continued to beam a smile at the stupefied Pinkamena.

“Such a good filly,” Mrs. Cake said as she turned and began down the stairs, leaving the two to stare at one another. They stood, unmoving until the sounds of Mrs. Cake died away.

“You … you look so pretty, Pinkamena. There’s no gray and you’re … umm, more filled out and less wrinkly. Oh! Your cutie marks are balloons! How neat!”

Cozy’s words unpetrified Pinkamena and she shivered from anxiety and disbelief. “Cozy? How?” she begins shaking her head. “No. You can’t be here.”

Cozy pouted, her lip jutting forward cutely. “You don’t want me here?”

“Of course I want you here,” Pinkamena snapped, her words laced with confusion, trepidation, and anger. “Just … oh, Cozy are you real? I’m not losing my mind am I?” Softening, Pinkamena took a step towards Cozy. She shook in fear of mental delusion but Cozy ran to her, meeting her halfway between them in a big, tight hug that wrapped Pinkamena’s neck completely. 

“I missed you! I missed you so much, Pinkamena.” A warm wetness soaked into the earth pony’s neck and she swallowed the pegasus in deep embrace, her own eyes finding more tears to shed in the moment as she pressed Cozy into her. 

Both ponies sobbed gently into the other and shared the heat of their rapidly beating hearts. Pinkamena nuzzled into Cozy’s curls, taking in her sweet scent and allowing herself to break. She didn’t trust her eyes but her swelling heart was hard to deny. 

They lingered in silence, reunited and emotional until Pinkamena whispered gently to Cozy, “Why are you here? It’s still fuzzy but we won, right? You had the crown … you were the Empress of Friendship.”

Cozy nodded gingerly and wiped at her eyes as their embrace broke. “I was. I … I think I finally learned what you kept trying to teach me.”

“What do you mean, honey?” Pinkamena’s hoof stroked Cozy’s neck softly as if she were afraid Cozy would disappear if their touch broke. Her smile fumbled fretfully, unsure if what she was seeing was real.

“I just … you were dying. I had to push you into the portal or you would be gone forever. I realized something then, once I was sure you were safe. I was alone. I had the crown but that didn’t change the fact that I was alone,” she sniffled and wiped her eyes clear of the fresh tears while her lips trembled. “I had been alone my whole life. Nobody … nobody ever wanted me. Nobody ever cared about me until you. I could put the crown on but that wouldn’t change anything; I’d still be alone. So … so I made a decision. My first and only decision as Empress of Friendship. Twilight wasn’t dead yet so I made a deal with her: I’d give her back the crown if she opened another time portal for me.” Cozy pressed her forehead against Pinkamena’s and nuzzled gently.

“And she did?” Pinkamena asked.

“I may have added ‘or I’ll kill you’ to it and she really didn’t have much of a choice. She was in really bad shape. I’m not completely sure she lived but she did as I asked and I threw the crown at her as I jumped through.” They both chuckled softly.

Pinkamena paused before asking her next question. “Have you given up on becoming the Empress of Friendship? I don’t see your rook cutie mark.” 

“I guess I haven’t earned my mark yet. I just want to be with you. Forever.” Cozy tenderly said, her voice frail in the admittance.

Pinkamena wrapped the filly in her forelegs again, finally allowing herself to believe in what her senses told her. “I’m so happy, Cozy. All I’ve ever wanted was to give you what you wanted. I never thought you’d join me on this side of the portal. It wasn’t even an option.”

“I love you, Pink … err … Miss Pinkamena.” Cozy snuggled into the earth pony with all of her body.

“I love you too, Cozy. And … you can call me Pinkie if you want.” Pinkie Pie’s heart felt as if it would explode. All of the pain that burdened it fell like thawing ice and the black tendrils of guilt dried into husks and collapsed. All of the things she had done didn’t matter anymore. She had succeeded somehow and her only dream was becoming real before her. Her heart poured love throughout her body and she felt better than she had in many, many lifetimes.

“There’s something I’d rather call you, if that’s okay?” Cozy looked up at Pinkie with wide, wet eyes shimmering.

“What’s that?” Pinkamena’s smile was huge and real, full of genuine happiness. Cozy bit her lip softly, a mimicry of Pinkie’s habit. 

“Mom?”

Pinkie’s breath caught in her chest, joined by her breaking heart. She didn’t speak an answer, only hugged the child, her child, to her and sobbed softly in a deep, loving embrace.
> Epilogue
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Empress Baked Goods sat at the corner of 5th and Delemare, the joining of two bustling, busy streets in Manehattan. It had been the first shop Cozy Glow had opened after her decade of internship under Mr. and Mrs. Cake and the business had grown over the past 20 years. It was from this corner that Cozy had staged her elaborate takeover which had spread to every major city in Equestria and was rapidly encroaching upon the mom and pop confectionaries of smaller towns. The business boomed and though some ponies protested the baking chain, even more were eager for their towns to open their own Empress Enterprise venue. 

The two-story building of 5th and Delemare was too small for Empress Enterprise’s corporate headquarters but served several other roles. The first floor was the storefront and bakery modeled after small-town confectionaries but with premium products designed by Cozy herself. The basement was a highly stylized and impeccably clean studio for Cozy’s syndicated television show, “Cozy’s Cooking Corner.” But, most importantly, the second floor was Cozy Glow and Pinkie Pie’s private residence. 

Night had fallen over the storefront and it beamed bright aqua and pink neon lights, illuminating passersby and teasing them with facsimile representations of assorted sweets of all varieties. A pony wandered close to the glass door with a wide, happy smile that dampened as he tried the door to find it locked and ogled the hours of business and the sign that read ‘Closed’. He’d have to try again tomorrow.

Inside, Pinkie Pie looked up from her chores at the pony and mouthed the words “sorry” as he nodded, waved and disappeared into the city night. She returned to her task and popped the register open.

“Vocative, have you finished prepping the dough for tomorrow?” Pinkie asked from the register, deep in the closing routine of the business. She counted the bits from the day with practiced ease, replaced the starting funds for tomorrow morning, and began entering the safe combination as the door to the kitchen swung open to reveal a young, corn-yellow unicorn.

“Yes, Ms. Pie. I’ll get busy vacuuming.” The bright new-hire answered chipperly.

“Nonsense, my dear,” Pinkie responded as she shut the safe after having placed the bundle of bits safely inside. “A young mare like yourself surely has more important things to do than run a vacuum.”

“Yes, but … as an employee of Empress Baked Goods, I’m happy to stay after close and help, Ms. Pie.” Vocative smiled happily though her eyes wandered to the dark wooden and glass door.

“You followed the instructions on the dough? Placed it in the cooler?” Pinkie Pie asked without turning to look at the mare, sliding a rag across the counter.

“Yes, ma’am! To the letter, I promise you.” Her tone was upbeat with only the tiniest twinge of tiredness.

“Then I think it’s time for you to go home. You were a big help today, and I’m not too old to do some manual labor.” Pinkie’s coat had grayed in places and streaks of gray dwelled in her magenta curtain of mane. Wisdom lines had formed beneath her eyelids but the cool pools of glacial ice that resided within still remained clear and perceptive.

“Ms. Pie, I know you took me on as a favor for my father, but I really want to be a good employee and …”

“Good employees do as they are asked, Vocative. You’ve done a wonderful job today and now I’m asking you to enjoy the rest of your night.” Pinkie chuckled to herself, she loved the enthusiasm of new employees. 

Vocative Perfect’s smile was sweet and she hastily removed her white apron and hung it on a  rack just inside the kitchen door. “Thank you, Ms. Pie.”

Pinkie’s ears followed the mare as she gathered her belongings and prepared to leave. “Vocative.”

“Yes, Ms. Pie?” Vocative stuck her head through the door, eyebrows lifting questioningly.

“Don’t call me Ms. Pie. My name is Pinkie. I’m your boss but that doesn’t mean you have to be so formal all the time.” The older mare finished wiping down the glass showcase, straightened a basket that held several dvd volumes of ‘Cozy’s Cooking Corner’, and produced a hefty brown paper bag.

“Yes … but, but my father said he wanted …” the mare stuttered.

“Future asked me to hire you while you attended university here in Manehattan as a favor. He’s been so good to Cozy and I in our cooking segments for Equestria Today, I feel like I owe him something so I was happy to bring you on.” Pinkie did feel like she owed the news pony something but it was from long ago, in another life. “But, that doesn’t mean he can tell you how to act while you are under my employ. Call me Pinkie and continue to work as you did today and you will be a valuable asset to this company.” Pinkie placed the bag on the counter next to the unicorn and grinned. “Take these as well. You said you are meeting your father tomorrow, right?”

Vocative nodded and looked at the bag that read ‘To Future Perfect’ on the side.

“Those are for him. They’re brownies. It’s kind of an inside joke. He won’t get it but trust me, it’s pretty funny.” Pinkie smirked to herself. “Have a good night, Vocative.” 

“Goodnight Mis….err, Pinkie. I’ll see you tomorrow afternoon.” The yellow unicorn snatched the bag up and headed for the door. She paused to wave a hoof at the older mare before exiting to the Manehattan streets. Pinkie chuckled to herself and went about the rest of the closing routine.

After vacuuming, checking Vocative’s dough, and a few other chores, Pinkie took a moment to look over her bakery. Warmth grew in her chest and she couldn’t help but smile. Sugar Cube Corner had always felt like her home but she had come to realize that this bakery was where she was meant to be. This was her true home, the place for which she had searched, had suffered to find for what seemed an eternity. 

Ponyville had been different for her since Cozy’s arrival and the deeds of her past lives had tickled the back of her mind. She was no longer able to carry out the duties of the element of laughter for she was too changed. Her friendships continued to this day but there was always that creeping feeling deep down in the dark edges of her heart that she could never repair the things she had done, even if she hadn’t committed them in this timeline. Moving away from Ponyville had been necessary for her and Cozy understood completely. Cozy’s plans to build her cooking empire had needed it as well. As cut-throat as Cozy could be in matters of business, neither she nor Pinkie had wanted to threaten the sanctity of Sugar Cube Corner or the Cakes. They had agreed Empress Baked Goods would never have a Ponvyille branch.

Pinkie loved her bakery and was elated to work it. Especially on the days Cozy could leave her corporate drones and work with her. They had spent a decade working together for the Cakes and it had been the purest joy Pinkie had known. Teaching Cozy, watching her skills grow and surpass her own, then surpass those of Mr. and Mrs. Cake had been her finest pleasure in life. She had been a natural and Pinkie’s proudest moment was when Cozy’s blank flank suddenly glowed with her calling: a blue frosted, elaborate cupcake topped with a rook. She and Cozy were meant to be together and that moment had proved it for the pink mare.

Checking the clock, Pinkie knew Cozy would be home soon and headed upstairs to their residence. She wasn’t very hungry but put together something quickly for Cozy before finding the easy chair in which she found the most comfort and relaxed with a cup of cat's claw tea. She had done her best to support the hip she knew would have issues later in her life but the arthritis had come anyway. Cozy wanted her to get surgery but she wasn’t ready for that; she didn’t want to see something as sharp as a scalpel ever again.

She chuckled to herself again about Vocative and Future Perfect. Whatever deity, she was certain it wasn’t Celestia, that reigned from the unknown beyond sure had a sense of humor. She had a few choice words for it when her time to meet it came, but she also had some words of thanks. Not that she wanted that meeting to come anytime soon. She planned to live a long time with her adopted daughter and watch her enjoy life to the fullest, something she had never been able to do before.

The lock turned with a loud clicking sound and Pinkie smiled to herself as Cozy entered. “Have a good day at the office, honey?”

“Ugh … I don’t know why I keep those fools who pretend to run parts of my company,” Cozy complained and sat a briefcase down near the door. Her mane no longer sported childish curls and was pulled back into a tight bun of lapis blue. She was of smaller size, even as an adult and was half a head shorter than Pinkie. She untied the bun and her mane fell loose, curling a little but not into the twisted locks of her childhood.

“It can’t really be that bad,” Pinkie chuckled as Cozy joined her in repose on a green and pink, rose-themed couch across from Pinkie’s chair. The pegasus collapsed and let out a long, needed sigh.

“It’s not. They just keep coming up with bad ideas and then I have to explain to them why they are such idiots. Still, I put out enough stupidity fires today that I can work here tomorrow. Sorry I’ve been away so much lately, Mom.” 

Pinkie’s heart thrummed as it always did when Cozy called her mom and she sipped her tea and took in the mare her little filly had become. She was a master manipulator, Pinkie knew, and used it to make all of her employees love her. Even when she was calling them idiots, she did it in a way that was positively reinforcing. Not only did her employees love her, so did the public. She was the hostess of their cooking show and an idol to aspiring bakers everywhere. She received fan mail daily. 

Cozy was the face of the company and Pinkie knew she loved the attention, but she also knew how taxing it was to always wear a smile. She was the only one to see Cozy’s real demeanor, her true self. “It’s fine. I know you’re very busy and you can’t be here as much as you want. There are still many towns that don’t know the gooey, delicious cakes and desserts of my Empress.”

Cozy smirked for a moment and faded as she noticed the mug of tea. “Your hip bothering you, Mom?”

“Oh, it’s nothing the tea can’t handle,” Pinkie said matter-of-factly and quickly changed the subject. “Vocative will be a good worker, I think. Her father’s in town tomorrow. We’ll probably see him. I wonder if he’ll ask us to come on one of his programs again.”

“He has stock in the company, so it’s in his best interests to bring us on,” Cozy answered. “I’m happy his daughter isn’t going to be an issue. Are you okay working with her? It wouldn’t be a problem to transfer her to one of the other stores in town.”

“No, no. I think she’s fine. She’s bright, sweet, and driven. She’ll be leaving soon enough when you promote her.” Pinkie sipped at her tea, her icy blue eyes shimmering pointedly at Cozy.

“Oh, so that’s how it is, is it? You’re telling me how to run my business?” Cozy grinned challengingly to Pinkie.

“She works tomorrow. She has a lot of potential that I’m sure you will recognize and approve of,” Pinkie answered curtly. “Don’t forget that I allow you to work with me at this location.”

Cozy laughed to herself and stood up, stretching her wings. “Alright, alright. We’ll see about her tomorrow. I’m very much looking forward to being in the kitchen instead of a boardroom.”

“I made you dinner. I covered it and left it on the table. It should still be warm, if you’re hungry.”

Cozy disappeared into the kitchen and was finished eating by the time Pinkie sat the empty mug down onto the coffee table between the chairs. Cozy yawned, her eyes weighed down from the long day and she looked as though she might fall asleep on the couch.

“Why don’t you go ahead and shower and go to bed, honey. I can see you’re exhausted,” Pinkie observed after fetching another steaming cup of tea.

“I’d like to sit up with you for a while but I think you’re right. We’ll have all day tomorrow to spend together. I have a couple new ideas to try out. If they’re good we can make another episode of the Cooking Corner this weekend.” Cozy stood and stretched again, her small body crackling and popping from the exertion followed by a relieved moan.

“I’d like that. You’re such a good baker, honey. I’m proud of you.” Pinkie dug in a basket and produced a ball of yarn and knitting needle. She pushed a pair of glasses onto her muzzle and began working the yarn.

Cozy watched for a moment before walking towards the bathroom. She paused next to Pinkie and kissed the older mare on top of her head. “Thanks for never giving up on me, Mom. I love you.”

Pinkie grinned to herself and worked the yarn back and forth. Cozy continued on her way and the water began to run. Her crochet work paused and Pinkie sat back in the chair, looking up to the ceiling as a tear rolled down her cheek. She closed her eyes and smiled wanly. “Thank you … whatever you are. Thank you so much.”

Her dreams were sometimes haunted from the terrible things she had done. She was not the same Pinkie Pie from long ago but neither was she the devil of the Everfree. Permanently changed by the horrors she had enacted and scarred from centuries of guilt, sometimes she woke up in a panic and had to walk the streets of Manehattan to clear the foggy haze of confusion from her mind in order to prove this life wasn’t an illusion. The image reflected in her assorted knives occasionally flashed painful memories of demented smiles and bloodstains that set her mind aflame and caused her to struggle with her identity in those moments. Was she Pinkie Pie or Pinkamena? Deep down she knew they were both her. The pain and joy caused by both of them coalesced to form who she had become. Maybe she didn't deserve to be happy but she wasn't going to let anyone take it from her; she had worked far too long and hard to lose it now.

Her ears lifted and she listened as Cozy began singing in the shower.  She realized all of those failed attempts to change Cozy, to save her from the fate she had built for herself had finally paid off. All of her suffering had been worth it. No, Pinkie didn't deserve happiness but she had found it, and that was all that mattered to the mare.