My Final Confession: Relapse

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.