Author's Note

EDIT: Can't believe I forgot to add this stuff, but regardless, there was supposed to be a total of five runes, yet I originally posted this with four. That has been fixed. Other than that, the edits are very minor.

This chapter was voted for by FTR2017. Hope you like it, my dear friend. And now, an ominous message...

She's growing.

24 - The Dancers And The Crashers: A New Glow (Edited)

[A woman takes the first step up the stairs.

Her subjects watch on with pride in their hearts.

Her children follow behind her, smiles on their faces.

Royal Lightning flashes time and time again outside.

Reaching the top of the steps, she turns, and grins.

The Queen of Storms takes her throne.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X6_722bLF-I)

The chatter of Tartarus had grown, of late. It's newest inmate had been busy. As she'd wanted, now nigh every creature, every fiend, every demon, was a friend of sorts to her. She knew their names. Some simple, some wicked, some that should never be spoken aloud.

And with all this, grew her influence. Her power. Cozy now had some of the strongest of fiends and devils at her beck and call. They had taught her much, as well. Some had taught her blood magic. Her old pen pal had taught her how to manipulate and steal magic, even without a horn. Others had taught her ancient ritual magic, as well as rune magic.

Her power had grown.

And Cerberus was none the wiser. He took no special note of the chatter, of the new markings upon Cozy's cell walls. He thought all was well. He thought only of when next his own friends would visit. The yellow one had been particularly nice, he mused, panting.

Night soon fell in the wicked realm, and Cerberus soon slept. Cozy Glow was trying out a new set of runes, ones her 'friends' had warned against. She rolled her eyes at the thought, and kept drawing with her bloody feather.

The first was one of the strangest, yet simplest. A strange rune that supposedly meant, 'door'. The next, and just as simple, if not more so, meant, 'dead person'. She'd not heard the term 'person' before, and it garnered a quirk of an eyebrow from her when she first read it's meaning. The third rune, she'd learned, meant 'Archon'. Another word she'd never heard before. Yet another rune apparently meant 'Matron'.

'These runes are really weird,' she mused to herself, then shook her head and shrugged.

Seeing the first rune glow green, the second orange, the third blue, and the last a dull brown, she smiled to herself, and then went with the final step. Dipping the quill of her feather back into the small, weeping cut on her foreleg, she wrote the one phrase in a language she'd been told not even her new friends would ever write. 'Summon.' It glowed an eerie reddish gold, before suddenly, throughout the realm of Tartarus, a new chatter formed. One that silenced all others.

Whipping her head around, Cozy became both confused and slightly worried. Her friends had never been silenced so easily before. Looking to her neighbor and old pen pal, she saw him staring at her in utter horror.

"What have you done?!" he whisper-yelled.

Cozy Glow tilted her head. "What's the big deal? They're just magic runes."

Tirek simply sat there and shook as the chattering grew louder. Cozy rolled her eyes, before she felt an unnatural chill down her spine, making her shiver. Then, all light in the realm was gone. Not even the magical torches burned. All was black. Cozy took a step back, the sound of her hoof meeting the metal of her cage echoing.

She gulped. "H-Hello?"

A solitary, blood red light appeared in the new abyss. She heard bone meet stone, the chattering increasing in volume again.

"H-Hello? Who's there?" She tried again.

The light went out, and she was in the dark again. Alone. She whipped her head around, ears perked and alert. Nothing.

Then, she felt hard and cold claws run through her mane, and she went stock still. "Hello...friend..."