A god breezed down to the cracked transom of a lone ship, parting the fog on his descent.
The decrepit deck dusted with lacquer flakes bore the bite of brine and the trace of gone seagulls. Not a soul to bear; only a small pegasus who sat sullen by a tipped-over bucket, her eyes cast low behind a sodden, ice-blue mane.
A discarded sponge sat nearby, soaking up a pungent puddle—as much as it could handle—leaving the rest to pool and claw at the filly’s hinds and the tips of her wings.
Undisturbed, she observed her bleached hooves with poise, if not in a fugue. With the pink of her coat long gone and dark rings painting the contours of her eyes, she was but a shadow of a foal. And to Discord, a ghastly sight.
“Hello,” the tiny pegasus said without a glance, “lackey.”
“Hello, Cozy,” Discord replied. He swallowed the knot in his throat as he hopped off the stern and landed without a thud on the shoddy wooden floor. “How... have you been doing lately?”
“Golly, like a kid trapped in a stone, really,” she said, playing with the tip of her hoof against the sponge wobbling at her whims. “You know: fine. As you may see… Now, why are you here?”
“I–” A sigh. Discord looked up past the sailless, wind-starved mast. Noon’s silvery sun shone in the middle of the alabaster sky. It granted no warmth, yet its cruel rays gnawed at the boat, the jet-black ocean extending to the blurred horizon, and Cozy Glow in the middle of it all. “I’ve come to keep you company.”
“Ah!” She laughed and slumped in the puddle of bleach. She lifted her head, glanced at Discord, and fell back again to roll with manic glee. “What a goat you are. How's life...? Don’t you have a pony friend to smooch? Or am I more interesting? What’s her name anyways, Flutter-something? I’d come up with a pun but that’d be too gentle.”
Like a bedcover tucked too short, her thirsty, cracked lips couldn’t mouth a smile, pout, or scowl, instead only baring yellowed teeth.
Discord kept silent, and Cozy pulled herself back to her haunches. She hammered her forehooves between her legs and snarled. She earned that same silence again.
Discord stood still, sometimes breaking immobility with a lick of his lonely canine. He hated them, those stand-offs where words grazed and stabbed like bullets. He’d promised Fluttershy that he would not draw first, once upon a time.
"I appreciate your resolve, Cozy,” Discord said, walking away to sit on the starboard rail. “When I was hitting this milestone in my imprisonment, I pretty much gave up."
Cozy stopped growling. She stood rigid as he turned around and met her fiery gaze.
“Are they gloating at me?” she seethed, suckling erratic breaths. “Did you let me rot in the gardens, hidden far away where I wouldn’t be seen? I’m sure my only visitors are pigeons these days.”
“What are you doing all alone?” he asked, never breaking away from her reddened, glassy eyes.
“What do you mean, alone?” she said, her words ending in a raspy breath. She rolled over and stood on her shaky legs, head facing away and wings snapped shut. “You and those two stupid alicorns trapped me here...
“You made me alone,” she continued, her voice strained and her breath heavy. “I was so close to winning over Equestria and wielding the power of friendship. You even helped us, me, to do that... if for a moment.” Her face snapped towards him with pinprick pupils and wrinkles creasing the sides of her eyes. “Why even pull that Grogar stunt? Did you want to see us fail that much?
Her expression softened, her irises grew thin, and her voice mellowed after a short, restful sigh. “Cruel Discord. A shameless monster who robbed a kid’s life, a traitor who jailed a filly looking to make some friends. And he dares to call himself a ponies’ friend.”
Discord crooked over, wings and fur shuddering under an absent wind. Cozy’s childish tone tugged at his soul, but he’d learned to know better. It took time.
“I wanted for this story to have a happy ending, Cozy.” Discord lifted his arm to his chest, as if for protection, when she took a first step towards him. He knew the pegasus’ words hid daggers that left festering wounds that hardly scarred. “You made it… You’re making it so hard.”
“Well, seems that you got what you wanted,” Cozy spat, then winced as she stretched a rigid wing to retrieve the sponge. “If you’re not happy, tough luck, you big ugly. You got your ending. All your little pony gang did. Every stupid pony did. Except me.”
“Happier… ending. I mea–”
“I’m not locked in here just so I can listen to your ramblings, Discord.” She pulled the bucket upright and kneeled, and her voice cracked and wound down to a whisper. “Leave me alone.”
She dropped the sponge in the puddle below her and squashed it under her dirty hoof. As she lifted it, the sponge gorged itself on the bleach. She quickly lowered her head and bit.
She coughed, rasped and spat, battling against the burning taste. Transferring the acrid liquid was a long and messy process, but she kept going. Discord’s throat tightened at each of Cozy's back and forth. After a moment, she returned the sponge under her wing and sniffled, burnt cheeks puffed with tears.
“I’m sure you’ve become worse than the two sisters—mellow, weak, complacent,” she said in a near muffled snarl. “I hope they’re doing well, by the way.”
Discord chuckled, but it wasn’t laughter that rumbled in his chest, only pain—the daughter of past mistakes. “You know, it’s funny. Twilight once told me she ‘entertained’ the idea you were a dwarf who tried to pass as a foal, just to get into the Academy of Friendship.”
“Academy?”
“It’s much bigger now.”
Cozy stood rooted, eyes wide, and Discord snapped his shut for a moment. His expression only turned into a frown at Cozy’s lack of answers, or invectives rather.
She’d turned away and walked to the ship’s opposite side, and now focused on dumping the contents of the bucket into the sea. When she set the bucket back onto the deck, it was still filled.
Discord’s frown creased further and he stood up to get a view of the bucket. Soapy water had replaced the bleach.
Cozy kicked the bucket and splattered its bubbling water onto the deck. Reeking soap seeped through the many wooden cracks, carrying away with it much of the grim that encrusted the floor. She lowered to her knees and, with the sponge firmly held in her teeth, traced long scrubbing lines.
“How many times have you cleaned this boat, Cozy?” Discord asked, taking a tentative few steps forward.
“I don’t know,” Cozy said, scraping at a few resisting patches of salt rooted in the wooden layers.
“Why do you have to?” He stepped on a couple of large bubbles that hugged his cloven hoof, before popping like balloons.
“I don’t know.” Cozy flicked the sponge in his direction, splattering him with brackish droplets. “Stop messing with my work!”
Discord took a step back and drew ina quick breath that tasted like sea and lather. “Is it the smell?” He looked around at the shredded ropes still tied to the cord holders. “This boat is old and rotten.”
“It stinks, but it’s not that.”
“This boat needs to find its way to a drydock.”
She lobbed the sponge at him.
“You really think I’m that stupid!” Cozy called. She sniffled, the sponge already and magically back at her side. She wiped her cheek, shoving away the few prickling tears tracing paths down her salt-matted fur. “You can’t teach me lessons with stupid metaphors. I know this place is a punishment, and trying to sound like a princess… that doesn’t work for you.”
“I’m not making this dream up.” Discord motioned around at the boat, the mast, the sky, and her. “You are.”
She jerked upright and slammed her hoof against the sponge, squishing out its goopy, grey water.
“I just… have to do it, okay!?” She shook from head to hooves. Her eyes darted in all directions for a moment, then dwelled on the few disheveled locks of mane glued to her forehead. “Stop trying.”
She dropped to her haunches and pressed the longest clump of her mane between her hooves. She pulled and ripped it away.
Discord gasped and flew to put his claw on her shoulder. She was cold, smelled, and her fur, thin and sparse, revealed a mangy skin. “Cozy.”
“This place feels wrong,” she said. A garbled hiccup wracked her and she coughed heavily for a few long seconds. “if I don’t do something, do the work, something bad is going to happen. I don’t… I need to clean the deck upstairs before going to the lower levels.”
Discord looked around for an access to those underdecks. “I don’t see stairs.”
“I know, right.” She chuckled and wiped the sliver of saliva rolling down her split lips. “This place works off stereotypes. And I hate it. Magic punishments aren’t that original. I shouldn’t have expected any less, really. I’m just the tiny filly who hurts ponies real bad—” she tapped her hoof against the ship’s wood “—and has no soul or depth.”
“Do you feel like you’ve hurt ponies?”
Cozy huffed and sat down. “Of course, I did. Wha– who do you think I am? I’m not blind.”
“So why did yo–”
“Because you always have to hurt something to get ahead.” She heaved, and shouted the same words again. Closing her eyes, she hunched over and Discord could only see her back rise and fall with each of her difficult breaths. “You can’t please everypony.”
“Ponies are not… some things.” Discord scratched the scruff of his neck and kneeled to meet her at eye-level. “Did you try to satisfy anypony else than you?”
“I wanted to be... loved?” Cozy said, glancing away to hide the glimmering in her eyes. “If I’m big and strong and show I did it all by myself… not by some gifts given to me by other ponies. Ponies could only love me, right?”
Discord’s sigh broke into a smile. His old self would’ve been sarcastic to the point of jest.
“The stone isn’t designed for ponies,” Discord said, looking up at the silver sun slowly lowering in its afternoon stride. “They’re not strong enough.”
“Are you saying I’m weak,” Cozy spat, baring teeth.
“No, no,” Discord quickly corrected, waving a paw. “Ponies can’t handle the isolation. It doesn’t matter who you are Cozy. You’re still a pony.”
“That sounds like an insult.”
“Until I met a very special pony, I’d have agreed.” Discord chortled. “I know better now.”
Gods didn’t age. That’s why he could handle loneliness. Cozy didn’t have that privilege.
“Why aren’t you flying off?” Cozy asked, grabbing the sponge and resuming her work. “Or throwing confettis or making stupid things happen.”
“I... can’t,” Discord said, scratching his pointy chin. “Not in here, at least. This is your dream. I’m just a visitor and I’m no Luna.”
“Why isn’t she coming?” She swallowed. “Why you and not her?”
“She can’t come here.”
“If this is a dream, does it mean I can do whatever I want?” Her head turned to him. Shadows cast over her eyes behind the remaining icy curls that caught the cold sunlight. “Even... hurt you?”
Discord retreated to the starboard. His heart wrenched and his guts grew cold and hollow the whole way to the railing. His back hit the wood and he closed his eyes. Taking a deep breath, he smelled the sea spray and the stink of the old wood, listening to the short-lived silence broken only by slow, steady hoofsteps.
“I’ve got so many things on my mind,” she said, puffing out a shaky stream of air. “So many ways to make you pay.”
Discord opened an eye. She was staring, so small and yet scary. She took a step forward and Discord grimaced. He would have jumped overboard if it had been real water.
“But no,” Cozy said. She took in her empty hooves and glanced back at the sponge behind her. She let out a single chuckle and her lips curled further up her sick, white gums. “I’m tired.”
“Cozy, I–”
She slammed her hoof against the deck.
“Why aren’t you telling me about the outside!?” she screamed. “You mentioned Twilight, Luna, some… Academy? You got your carrot. Dangle it now. Come on, do it, mock me. Stop being so evasive!” She fell to her haunches and convulsed into a fetal position. “What is there for you to hide anyway? Am I forgotten? Thrown away. You came here to torment me, didn’t you?”
“No, I–”
“Get out!” she bellowed, tucking her head between her quivering legs. “I’m alone. Alone! Alone!!! Leave me be. I don’t need someone like you.”
“You need somepony,” Discord said. “And right now, it can only be me.”
“Go back to your little pegasus!” she wailed, shaking violently from her snout to the tip of her bristling wings. “Why would you waste your time with little ol’, poor me!”
Her eyes welled up and tears ran over her cheeks, dotting the deck with dark spots that soaked salt or mixed with the patches of bleach-mixed soap.
“You never learn, Cozy.”
“You’ve never been a teacher.”
Discord plopped down and laid back against the starboard’s railing. His claws rummaged behind his back, pulling out a long bone pipe that lit up with a choking smell. He threw a burnt match over his shoulder and took a few puffs.
“You’re a piece of work, Cozy,” Discord said. “I hope you know that. I’d have dropped out long ago but I…” He shook his head. “I guess even gods can change.”
“We’re not in my dream to listen to your soul-searching,” she said with eyes clenched shut.
Cozy suckled air in, wiped her brow, and opened her eyes. They glared fire, but not at Discord. They only stared at the empty space in front of her. Slowly, her shaking stopped, her breathing evened, and silence took hold of the ship.
“How long has it been?” Cozy asked, half a gargle, half a cough, as if a rope tightened around her neck. “Two weeks, six months? A couple of years…?”
Discord didn’t utter a word and she jumped, tumbling towards him, only turning back to snatch the sponge from the ground and tuck under her wing. She squinted her tears away and punched Discord’s cloven leg.
“How long have I been here?” she demanded. “Answer me! P–please.”
Discord held his breath for a time and made contact with Cozy’s jittery eyes, before finally caving.
“Three hundred years,” he said. “I’ve been by your side for that long as well. But you’re the same stupid, brash, angry, spiteful, venomous brat. You never remember any of my visits. You’ve never learned. You’re just the same filly, on that boat, alone, wasting away.”
“No, that’s not–”
“Hear me out,” Discord growled, cutting her off.
“No! You’re telling me it’s been hundreds of years! All the ponies I know are gone! My parents are gone! Everything I’ve worked for is gone! And I am still here!” Sobs left cracks in her voice and heavy tears tumbled down her cheeks. “And I’m still here… Why?”
“Because guilt doesn’t go away with time. You can’t outlive your misdeeds.”
“I want to go home, Discord.” She looked up and her teary eyes, red with salt and the sea spray, bore at him. She buried her face against his leg. “Bring me home, please. Bring me home.”
“I can’t.” Discord took a deep breath, readying himself for another explosion of hers. But it never came. Cozy simply looked down at her hooves as she scraped at the wood beneath her. “Not right now.” He crooked his claw, lifting her chin with it, and smiled. “But there’s hope.”
“There is?”
“Even gods can change, I told you.”
She chuckled and shook her head, smirking. “I’m not a goddess.”
“Maybe not,” he said. “But today’s different. And maybe even you can change.”
“How so?”
“This was the first time you didn’t attack me when you had the opportunity.”
