> After Glow
>  by TheDriderPony
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

> Pre Burn
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

There is never a happy reason to have to clean out the belongings from someone else's bedroom. It’s an act that goes hoof in hoof with tragedy and loss. 

A missing child. A deceased grandparent. A friend sentenced to prison.

It is the latter that can often cause the fiercest of heartache. When it wasn’t chance or bad luck or any other outside force that whisked a pony away, leaving their friends to box up the remainder of the life they left behind, but their own actions that shut the bars and turned the key.

It was with much such a heavy heart that Twilight Sparkle, Headmare of the School of Friendship, cleaned out the dorm room of the filly she'd once thought of as her most promising friendship student. No, even that felt insufficient for how she’d felt about the filly. Cozy Glow had been a model student. A shining example of everything that friendship stood for. A guide for the students, an aid for the teachers.

Stars above, she’d practically been a second Spike.

And then… she’d shown her true colors and the façade had shattered like stained glass.

Twilight folded a collection of mane and tail ribbons into a small box. There really wasn’t much to pack. If she’d thought to check the filly’s dorm room sooner, she wondered if she might have caught on to Cozy’s deception before it all.

The room was practically bare. No posters on the wall of inspiring ponies or places. No photos stuck around the rim of the vanity mirror of her friends and family. No mementos or keepsakes on the shelves. The only signs at all that a pony had even lived there was a rack of ribbons in the closet, a few neat piles of completed and half-finished homework on the desk, and a battered suitcase under the bed. Twilight had seen royal guard barracks with more personality.

It was good that she’d turned down her friends’ offer to help clean out the room; there wouldn’t have been much for them to do. She’d almost hoped it’d been a mess so it would take longer and give her a chance to… reflect? Maybe? She didn’t know exactly what she wanted, only that it’d felt right and important to gather up the bits and pieces of the filly she’d once had such pride in. Maybe she’d hoped to glean something from her possessions. Find an explanation in her choice of personal books. An answer in the color of her curtains.

But the spartan room offered no insight beyond the harsh truth that Cozy Glow had never thought of the School of Friendship as a home. She’d never even unpacked.

With the leaden weight in her heart no less lightened, Twilight gathered the pages of homework, tapped them together until the edges were square, and carefully placed them atop the ribbons.

Her hoof hesitated, leaving the pages hovering an inch above the box. “What am I even doing?” The words fell from her lips amidst a tired sigh. Why save her unfinished homework? Why save any of it? Did she think Cozy was planning on continuing her Friendship studies via correspondence course? She didn’t even have the address of Cozy’s parents to ship her effects to. Somehow that bit of paperwork seemed to be missing from their records. More of Cozy’s deceptions.

Still, even if it was pointless, Twilight was never one to leave a job half finished. This needed to be done. To put some final chapter on the story that was the rise and fall of Cozy Glow. The ribbons accepted the weight of a dozen essays on the nature of friendship and the shiny gold stars on the top of each page.

All that remained was the suitcase. It was a beat-up old thing, the kind made cheaply and sold cheaper at train stations for travelers who need to fit just a few more things. It was wedged under the bed, as far back as it could go. She'd have missed it entirely if she hadn't cast a spell specifically to search for loose objects.

A sharp tug with her magic pulled it free, but the force of it snapped the flimsy clasp and let its contents spill out onto the floor.

Twilight sighed again as she recognized the last possession of Cozy Glow. Even gone, the filly found new ways to betray her. "All that and she doesn't even take care of her books."

Of all the many copies of the Friendship Journal that Twilight had seen, sold, and signed since deciding to publish her and her friends' collection of life lessons and experiences, none was in worse condition than this one. The cover was scuffed and faded, half the pages warped from poor drying, and there was a very distinct smell about it.

But it had also clearly been read. Read over and over if the dog-eared pages and half a dozen bookmarks and carefully taped-together repairs meant anything.

Yet another paradox from the filly who seemed to embrace friendship wholeheartedly yet couldn't grasp the most fundamental essence of it.

She set the journal on the desk, only for it to slip from her grip and fall open to one of the bookmarked pages. Was it intrusive to peek? Maybe, but Twilight felt compelled to look anyway. As if she could hope to glean some insight from whichever lesson Cozy had thought was the most important.

It had opened near the middle of the beginning, on a page more water-damaged than not. The top half was completely illegible, but the bottom was just intact enough to read.



—and even though the fountain was destroyed and we lost the last clue, we still had a great time trying to figure out all the riddles up till then. We may not have found the Treasure of Rusty Shovel, but that doesn't mean it doesn't exist. And I guess it just goes to show that even if things don't go exactly to plan (or even a little to plan) you can still have fun so long as your best friends in the world are there with you.

-Cozy Glow



Beneath it was a drawing. The colors had run and bled together into muddled shades of rainbow brown, but the amateur pen strokes still conveyed the idea of five or six ponies clustered in a grassy field.

Understanding came easily.

"She made her own Friendship Journal," Twilight marveled, allowing, for just a brief moment, a spark of pride to swell in her chest. The feeling didn't last long before reality settled back in and brought with it a new question. "But if she did have friends, how did she still end up so twisted?"

More importantly, what had happened to Cozy’s friends? Did they have something to do with it all? And if she tracked them down, could they tell her?

She flipped forward a few pages to a more legible page.




Dear Diary,

I gotta admit, Griffonstone was a dump. Like, major trashville. When Screwy and I got there I thought we were just in the slums outside the city or something, but nope. That’s their capital. Whole bunch of half wrecked buildings and a bunch of griffons grumbling and yelling at each other. Screwy split off right away, like she always does, so I got down to business figuring out what we were supposed to be doing there. Found an old geezer who said that everything went downhill since they lost some Idol of theirs, so I figured I find the thing, give it back to them, bing bang boom problem solved.

Not so easy as I thought.

To make a long story short, I got stuck halfway down a pit and Screwy had to do her weirdo magic to get me back out. Didn’t even see the Idol down there. Turns out though I wasted my time. While I was lost in the weeds, Screwy was talking to some of the less grumpy locals and somehow convinced them to put on a talent competition (I think the cash prize probably helped grease the wheels) and got some of them to actually start working together in teams to play to their strengths. Which, I guess, is something I should have kept in mind. We went there to work as a team but I just went off to do my own thing right away. We’d have gotten done a lot faster if I’d just realized it was better to work with my friends then assume I knew best. But hey, you live and learn, right?

-Kickflip



"That's not right," Twilight muttered as the details of the story clashed with her memory.

She remembered that particular adventure. But it had been Rainbow Dash and Pinkie Pie who’d gone to Griffonstone. Kickflip? Screwy? She didn't know either of them.

Beyond that, she wasn’t sure if that particular lesson had even been included in the published Friendship Journal. Hadn’t it happened after they finished filling the pages? Did this Kickflip hear about it somehow and want to take credit, or was it some strange coincidence?

She turned back a few pages to a different entry.




Dear Diary, 

Today was a most educational experience in urban survival skills. While Manehattan was a simply grand place to visit, I learned the hard way that there are ponies willing to take advantage of a generous spirit. Looking back, I can’t help but be embarrassed at how easily I fell for that obvious conpony. Even after he made off with our tickets to Hinny of the Hills I refused to believe him a cad even as all my friends insisted. I ignored their advice and lost not only our tickets to the show, but my bits, my favorite hat, and even our hotel suite.

I can only thank my lucky stars that my friends refused to abandon me despite how cross I became and the harsh words I said to them. Not to mention that Applebloom had family in the city who were able to accommodate us at a moment’s notice, and that Cozy had a friend working backstage at the show.

-Primrose



Applebloom? Now Twilight was more confused than ever. As far as she knew, Applebloom and Cozy had never been particularly close. No closer than Cozy was to anyone else, at least. Definitely not close enough to take a trip to Manehatten together with another pony Twilight had never heard of. The hoofwriting and narrative voice were different enough between the entries that Twilight couldn’t imagine Cozy having written them all herself, baring some severe mental dissociation. But that seemed unlikely. Cozy was misguided and maybe sociopathic, but she'd never shown any signs of being delusional.

Something didn’t add up, and the ache of betrayal and loss in Twilight’s stomach had turned to fuel her investigative curiosity. She flickered through the pages, gleaning snippets and fragments from the many friendship lessons that skirted the edge of the familiar.



...the importance of not holding on to grudges, otherwise Applebloom's Grandpear might never have gotten a chance to know his grandfoals.





…when Wayfarer had the brilliant idea to trap the Tantabus in a recursive dream loop until we could talk to Princess Luna…





..and after that Cozy got to officiate the wedding between Ransack McColt and I-forget-her-name-but-she-had-a-really-cute-mane Hooffield and it was so adorable and they had a cake and everything even though it was a veggie cake which was kinda weird but I guess that’s how they do it or whatever…





…Although I'm ashamed to admit it, I'm a little glad Applebloom doesn't have her cutie mark. Otherwise Starlight Glimmer's spell would have left her as grey and weak as the rest of us. I guess it goes to show that it's not having a special talent that makes you special, it's what you do with the skills you have.



Mixed in amongst the stories were small mementos of the adventures. A crimson feather with a luster that still caught the light. A pressed flower, bone-dry but whole. A half dozen ticket stubs for the Grand Galloping Gala.

Twilight slowed her frenetic gleaning as her eye caught a particular line that stood out.



…but in the end we were able to intercept the delivery and get Miss Pinkie's persimmon cake back before it ended up on the princess's plate. Celestia was practically beside herself thanking me for saving her from that embarrassment. She wasn’t too happy that I had to tell Wayfarer and Primrose about her allergy, but she understood that sometimes it’s okay to share a secret when it’s for somepony’s own good.

-Cozy Glow



That one detail lent the Journal more credibility than anything else she'd read. Celestia's allergy wasn't a secret in any official sense, but Twilight was solidly certain that the only ponies who knew about the mortifyingly embarrassing side effects Celestia suffered from persimmons were the ones also wearing crowns.

It was private. Something Cozy shouldn't have known, couldn't have known. Unless she heard it from the source.

The remaining entries looked different from the preceding book. The pages were in much better condition, with none of the wear and tear and water damage she saw on the earlier ones. A quick flick through the pages showed them all to be written by the same hoof. Twilight turned back to the first of the last entries and began to read.



Dear Diary

I wouldn't normally write my thoughts in here before concluding an adventure, but I'm afraid that this time I might need to leave some kind of record just in case the worst happens.

Starlight Glimmer is back.

She was in my house when I got back from Canterlot. I don't know how she got in, but she was waiting for me, lounging in my favorite chair like she owned the place.

She didn’t say much, just that she’d finally found a way to get me out of the picture, and then she cast a spell I didn’t recognize and vanished into a portal. I thought it was just some kind of intimidation thing at first— “I know where you live and can get at you any time. Be very afraid. Blah blah blah.” —but then I accidentally reactivated the spell and piggy-backed along.

I still don’t know how she did it, but somehow she both found and upgraded Starswirl’s time travel spell. I thought I’d just been teleported to Canterlot at first, but seeing myself a few years younger running down the road was pretty convincing. I recognized the day we’d traveled to. It was the day I met all my friends. 

But I got distracted watching old memories play out and didn’t pay attention like I should have, so I missed Starlight overturning a market stand and sending an avalanche of fruit rolling down the hill. Younger me got trapped in the landslide, and while she helped check everypony for injuries, Kickflip dashed out of an alley, across the street, and into another with a pair of guards hot on her heels. She didn't crash into me like he was supposed to and young me didn't send the guards off in the wrong direction. Starlight changed things so I never met her.

Before I could do anything about it the spell activated again and slingshot me back to the present. But the present was all wrong. It was night, and half of Ponyville was a crater.

Because Starlight changed the past, my friends and I never met. Because we never met, we never found the Elements of Harmony together. And because of that, Nightmare Moon returned and took over almost unopposed. Starlight Glimmer changed the whole world by upsetting an apple cart.

Some… stuff happened. The kind of things I don’t want to write down. But after a lot of work I was able to recast Starlight’s spell and go back in time to when she started changing things.

When I got back to the past a second time, I managed to hold up the fruit cart before it could topple, but while I was busy with that Starlight went and shot an ice spell at the street. She froze a score of ponies solid, young me and Kickflip included.

The spell pulled me back to a present that was worse than the one before. Equestria was at war with the Crystal Empire.

I got out of there as fast as I could.

We've been through the dance a few times now. I go back, fix whatever Starlight changed, and while I do she messes up something else and I get pulled back to a new and terrible present.

As I write this I'm in the sixth different version of the present. Maybe the seventh. It's hard to keep track. Some of them have been similar, but all have been bad. It's clear that there's no good version of Equestria where me and my friends don't meet.

Once the patrol of yeti guards pass by, I'm going to make a break for the Map and head back again. In case something goes wrong and one of these dark timelines gets the better of me, at least this journal will be left as a record of what happened. And hopefully, somehow, one of my friends will find it and know I tried my best.

-Cozy Glow



Twilight felt for the poor filly. She remembered well her own experience with Starlight’s timeline alterations. The fear she’d felt with every dark future. The growing sense of hopelessness as Starlight always seemed to be one step ahead of her. The grim memories lurked in her mind, twisting into a ball of uneasy that she couldn’t shake as she turned the page.

The next few pages were filled with nothing but indecipherable scrawl, half of it crossed out so roughly the pages were ripped. Then, from one line to the next, the writing changed to an almost mechanical precision.

She read on.



Is it working? Aha! Test one two three. Sassafras sassypants sans fracas. Goody.

Okay so. Uh... how to start.

I think I might really be in trouble this time. I don't know what Starlight Glimmer did differently, but this time when I went back to the day she keeps messing up and changing, I couldn't find her. When the timer ran out and the spell pulled me back to the present, I thought everything was normal until... until...

...until I realized my horn was gone.

Maybe she went back even… even farther and… and… Hiih. Ahi. Ach.

No. Stop that. You're okay, you're okay. You're a big filly who can suck it up and move past this. Oh it's still writing.

Obviously, without my horn I can't just find the Map and cast the spell again like I've been doing. But that doesn't mean I can't cast it at all. Runes were never my strong suit, but Celestia taught me enough that I was able to cobble together a rudimentary dictation spell. It's really inefficient magic-wise, but it'll have to do till I can learn to write with my wings. Heh, I guess Wayfarer was right after all. I should have practiced it more when I had the chance.

It’s going to take time, though. Both to research the runes I need, to do the math to convert a horn-spell into runeform, ugh, and to gather enough magic to cast it. Good thing time travel means I’ll still return to the same point whether I need five hours or five weeks to prepare.

On the bright side, this seems like a safe enough timeline to get my bearings in before I go back and fix whatever she changed. No eternal night, no changeling war, no global flooding. If it weren't for a few small things, I'd think I was back home and everything was normal again. But it can't be that simple. Hopefully I can wrap this up soon, defeat her, and get back home. It’s been… I don’t know how I’m supposed to measure time when I keep jumping back and forth, but I think it’s been at least a few days since I last saw my friends.

I miss them already.

-Cozy Glow



Twilight turned the page, rivetted, only to find that the next page only had three lines written on it. What they said made her blood run cold.



Starlight Glimmer is a monster

I found what she changed

In this timeline, Twilight Sparkle never died



She couldn’t breathe. The air felt like a solid block in her lungs. She’d died? Or rather, hadn’t died. Been saved. By Starlight? But when? She couldn’t remember ever skirting close to death to need saving. It was all she could do to read on as the next page continued.



Since Twilight Sparkle never suffered that accident, Celestia never went looking for a new student. She never visited the orphanage. Never met me and took me home.

And then everything unraveled from there.

What kind of pony even thinks of something like this? Starlight Glimmer is a demon. A monster of the worst kind. She finally found a way to tie my hooves with an impossible choice. If I want to restore the world I know, all I have to do is let an innocent ten-year-old filly die.

I… I don’t know if I can make that choice. But there has to be a solution. Some third answer that will get me home and keep the blood off my hooves. 

But I don’t even have anyone to talk about this with.

I miss my friends. 

-Cozy



The next few pages weren’t entries so much as they were notes. Book titles and copied passages. Fragments of arcane calculations and spell diagrams. Half of it crossed out in frustration. The next proper entry she found was written by wing instead of spell, in a legible if shaky grip.



It was a mistake to go looking for my friends. I just thought... I don't know what I was thinking. That if they saw me, they'd recognize me? Stupid. It's not like they have amnesia or something. They wouldn't know me because here, they never knew me.

But I had to try. After months of libraries and research and hiding from the local authorities, I’d give anything to see a familiar friendly face. 

Applebloom seems about the same as ever. Still upbeat, still working with her family on the farm. She made new friends as well to fill the me-and-Kickflip-shaped holes in her life. I bought an apple from her stall at the market, but seeing her look me in the eyes without a trace of recognition was...

Wayfarer's about the same as well, though he never moved out of Fillydelphia. Makes sense, I guess, without ever meeting Primrose to follow after like a lovesick puppy.

Prim… I don't think was born in I can't find her. As far as the public records say, Ornate Garden and Tea Time only had one daughter, not two. I knew she was younger than the rest of us but even then I never

No one at the Ponyville joke shop could remember a filly fitting Screwball's description ever working there (and the manager didn't look like one of Discord's sonas) but at least she's listed on the Ponyville census.

Kickflip's in juvie. Apparently we were a better influence on her than I realized.

Can I even call this a friendship journal now if there’s just me as the author? Me, with no friends?

I can't— If my friends don't even— 

I have to get back. No matter what.



The ink was smeared and ran in little circular patches. It didn’t take a genius to guess they were dried tears.



I looked up what happened to the me of this timeline too. There’s not much, but apparently she stayed in the orphanage until she was twelve, then was adopted by a pair of unicorns. Everything else is sealed outside the public record. I barely even remember the orphanage, so I can’t even imagine staying there for that long. No mentions of any friends or accomplishments. She’s a nobody.

For her sake and mine, I have to fix this.  





I’ve run the numbers. It’s possible. 

It’s taken over a year just to prove it and countless thefts from the Canterlot Library restricted section (thank the stars this world’s Celestia uses the same passcodes mine taught me) but I’ve finally recreated Starlight Glimmer’s time spell from Starswirl’s original notes in a form that can be cast through runes. The only problem is it’s so inefficient it’s not even funny. The amount of magic this needs to work is absurd. Just-shy-of-all-the-magic-in-Equestria kind of absurd. I can’t imagine the kind of devastation that would be left behind if I pulled it off. A world without magic… it’s unthinkable.

But maybe a more realistic option than I first thought.

Cause I've been doing some thinking. Starlight Glimmer is a very powerful unicorn, there’s no argument there. But there’s no way in Tartarus she has the kind of magic you’d need to create a whole new branch of reality. That’s magic on a cosmic scale. You could turn everypony in Equestria into an alicorn and still not be able to create a reality.

So if she’s not forking reality, she has to be overwriting it. Every time she went back and changed something, she rewrote the future. Like erasing the words from a chalkboard and writing a new story in the blank space. Same universe, different content. The timeline where Nightmare Moon won, the Changeling war, the Equestria where Trixie fused with the Alicorn Amulet, each of them ceased to exist when I left them behind. None of them are really real because everything that happens in them gets erased. They’re just bad copies of the true timeline. Shadows and dark reflections of the world I know.

So when I finally go back and stop Starlight from changing the past for good, it'll retroactively stop this timeline from ever existing. Nothing I do here matters because it'll all get uncreated in the end.

There are no consequences to my actions. Even if I drain this world dry of magic, it doesn’t matter. Not my problem. I'll be home, with my friends, in the true timeline. What do the fake ponies of this one matter? They're not real, not like my friends were. Are.

Even if I do go through with this, there’s still the teensy problem of actually gathering all the magic in Equestria together. I’ll need some kind of high-density magical nexus point to start with, and weeks to spend there setting up the spell. Not to mention, most creatures tend to resist having their innate magic drained away, naturally. 

It's monstrous to even consider it as an option, but when it comes to forcibly draining magic, there's only one expert to consult. And I know exactly where to find him.



"Tirek," Twilight gasped as the pieces of Cozy’s true master plan all came together. What seemed like a mere ego-trip to become the Queen of Friendship was cast in a new light. The explanation that Cozy had just been draining magic away had never really satisfied Twilight, but gathering a massive amount for a powerful spell made perfect sense. Worse though, was her reasoning. In a world without consequences, ethics become nothing more than an inconvenience blocking the path to success. She could all too easily picture herself making the same decisions, had her fight with Starlight forced her into such a situation.

Except for one critical detail. Cozy was wrong. 

The effects of Starlight’s time travel spell did make branching timelines and they definitely continued to exist after she (or Cozy) left. It didn’t need a cosmic amount of magic, it was practically a side effect of enacting changes in the timestream. Starlight herself had walked her through the proofs after becoming Twilight’s friendship student.

Well, in theory, at least. It was groundbreaking research without many ways to conclusively test it. And the ramifications if they were wrong...

No, Starlight had to be correct. Multiversal theory afforded less paradoxes that single timeline overwriting. 

No matter what justifications Cozy told herself, she would have left a crippled and dying world behind.

Twilight was nearing the end of the journal, with only a few pages left to go, but if anything the weight on her soul felt heavier than when she'd started. 



I can’t believe I used to feel guilty about weighing Twilight Sparkle’s life against me getting home.

She published a book today. A journal. My journal. This journal. But also not. It's wrong. Wrong ponies, wrong places. And it's not even complete. Her version just stops after they defeat Tirek, missing months of adventures and friendship lessons that came after. It's a cheap knockoff of the real thing.

So I made a point to research her, and guess what I found? The Adventures of Cozy Glow, starring an unexpected understudy. All the adventures I’ve had, all the ponies I’ve helped, except it’s her instead of me. There’s a few obvious differences since she and her friends are so old, but that’s just a cheap coat of paint. She stole my life. All the things I should have done, she did them first while other me was stuck wasting time in the orphanage. 

It's not really her fault, I know. She's just a miscast character in this poorly written adaptation of my life. But it’s impossible not to look at her and see an imposter who’s taken everything that’s supposed to be mine. Her and her friends. Some Element Bearers they are. None of them could hold a candle to the real ones. 

I still had a few reservations about my plan, but this has put them to bed. I refuse to give up everything to save some random pony’s life if she’s just going to use it to steal mine. 



The very last entry was actually loose. The page teased free of its binding but nestled back where it should have been attached. The penmanship was immaculate.



Dear Princess Celestia,

It feels strange to start a letter like this again after so long, but if this is going to be my final message then I want to do it properly. If you’re reading this (and I do hope it’s you reading it, my Princess Celestia and not the one from this fake timeline who never knew me) then you’ve probably read my entries up until now and you know my plan. I can practically hear you now, softly advising me against it. Citing the danger and the risks. How it’s unethical and practically omnicidal. But that’s only true if it fails. If it works—and it will work—I’ll return to the past, stop Starlight for good, and come back to my castle in Ponyville with my friends waiting for me and everything I’ve done having no more consequence than a bad dream. When that happens, this letter will be little more than tinder.

I’ve found the perfect nexus point to set up the spell. It’s on a leyline with a direct connection to the Tree of Harmony, has almost no authority oversight, and there’s a school built on the spot. It should be a piece of cake to enroll as a student so I can coast by while taking all the time I need to carve the runes in some out-of-the-way location. The only problem is that the place is run by Twilight Destiny-Stealer Sparkle. 

Anypony else I could stand, but I don’t think I’ll be able to stomach having to go to classes and listen to her of all ponies try to give me lessons on friendship. I’d blow my cover the first day.

But I’ve come too far to stop now, which is why I’m taking a drastic measure that I know you’d object to if you were here. It’s a forbidden spell, after all.

I’m going to cast a spell to seal away my memories. It’s the only solution I can think of so my composure doesn’t crack whenever one of Twilight Sparkle’s friends recounts one of my own adventures to me and takes the wrong lesson away from it. Or if I ever meet Applebloom or Screwball or one of my other friends. It’ll be easier to pretend I don’t know them if I don’t remember either.

I’ll leave out everything important. Knowledge and information. Everything I know about friendship. The plan, of course, and all the driving determination and passion to see it through to the end no matter what. 

I’ve added a few rune lines to the time travel spell that will break the geas and set me free once it activates. But just in case something goes wrong or gets left locked away, I’ve set it so you can unlock it as well. You know how. Same way we helped Blueblood after the Changeling invasion.

Once I seal my memories, I won’t be writing in this journal again. Even reading it might be enough to unblock something and I can’t risk that. Not when there’s everything at stake.

Wish me luck. I love you and I’ll see you soon.

-Cozy Glow Solaris, Princess of Friendship



Twilight closed the book. The remaining pages were blank.

Her hoof slipped as she stepped back and fell onto her haunches. She’d read the journal hoping to find answers, but the truth she’d found carried a weight that could crush the world.

On one hoof, it could all be nonsense. Nothing but the deluded fantasy of a filly so obsessed with friendship that she couldn’t accept a world where she wasn’t the very embodiment of it and subsequently created her own. An easy-to-believe explanation if the book’s contents ever became public knowledge.

But that didn’t explain all the little details that Cozy couldn’t possibly have known.

The other option was that this journal spoke the truth. That this world, everything in it that Twilight loved and cherished, was one of the many alternate timelines created by Starlight’s actions. Not her Starlight, really, but a precursing one. That Cozy Glow was supposed to be a princess, an alicorn, and an Element of Harmony.

That Twilight Sparkle was supposed to be dead.

The sun was setting through the window behind her, casting the barren room in orange-soaked shades of evening. The hours had just slipped away as she’d read. No doubt somepony would come looking for her soon enough.

Then they would see the journal.

And then they would know the truth as well.

But for the moment, Twilight was the only pony who knew and she found herself faced with a choice.

And she wondered if the life of a villainous filly was worth her own, and what her answer would say about her.