Memories With a Student

For a moment, Twilight almost did. She almost gave in to her darker side and give Cozy the same treatment she did to Tirek and Chrysalis. A side of her that she didn't think of much.

Her counterpart at Canterlot High had called her Midnight Sparkle. The darkest, and most violent, aspects, of their personality. A side the princess only knew she had after coming to the throne of Equestria.

Whether it was the same thing, she didn't know. But on days like today, Twilight almost gave in and let go of her normal self, and became her darkest side.

But it was the sight of Cozy's broken expression, the vacant look in her eyes, that stopped her in the end. She couldn't bring herself to do it. No matter how much the filly might have deserved it.

Cozy looked at her in surprise as she was lifted up by Twilight's magic. "No Cozy. I won't do it. As much as you might deserve it, I won't do that. I won't make the same mistake Celestia and Luna did."

Cozy gave her a look. "And what's that supposed to mean?"

Twilight frowned. "I was never happy with what the three of them did to you three. You were beyond trying to redeem, that I knew for a fact. But this wasn't the way to resolve it. Discord paid for his part in all of this in the end."

"And what Sunbutt and Moonbutt?" Cozy asked.

That got a giggle out of Twilight, as she smiled. "I need to remember to call them that the next time we meet. But I will not send you back to the School of Friendship. It doesn't exist anymore."

That surprised Cozy. "Why not?"

Twilight rolled her eyes. "Besides it was one of the stupidest ideas I have ever had? Starlight and her friends ran it into the ground. Maybe I and my friends set a bad example of nepotism, but it barely lasted fifty years before it closed."

Now Cozy was really shocked. "I didn't think Professor Starlight was that bad."

Twilight shook her head. "It wasn't Starlight in the end, but that is a story for another time. I am not making you my student Cozy. I am sending you to somepony else."

Cozy gulped. "Who?"

Twilight grinned. "Celestia and Luna. They complain all the time that they're bored on Neo Ponyville, so I'm going to help them with that problem."

"Neo what now?" Cozy asked.

Twilight chuckled. "Equus is no longer the only world we inhabit Cozy. We now live on a dozen planets, and that's counting Equus itself. Or Harmonia as it's now called."

"When did all this happen?" Cozy asked, still confused, but beginning to get some of it.

"Over the last thousand years," Twilight replied. "A lot has changed since you were last flesh and blood." Her smile softened. "But I am not sending you out into the unknown totally unprepared. I have several books that will help you to understand all that's changed. It's either this or join Tirek or Chrysalis. Your choice."

Cozy gulped. She didn't even want to think about what had happened to the two who she had thought were her friends. "Golly, when you put it that way... When do I leave?"

Twilight smiled. "A shuttle leaves for the Harmonia Aether Gate in one week. That should give you time to get a good start on reading. I will let Celestia and Luna know they will be expecting something on that shuttle. I just won't tell them what it is."

Cozy was lost again. "Why not?"

Twilight frowned. "Payback, for a lot of things. Let's just leave it at that."

***

"... Safe to say, Celestia and Luna were not happy when they met Cozy," Twilight finished with a smirk. "But I reminded them that they had asked for this. And that they still owed me for quite a bit."

Orchid gave her teacher a look. She felt there was more to it than that. "So what happened to Cozy Glow then?"

Twilight smiled. "Whatever Celestia and Luna did, it worked. I never heard a single bad report about her. The last I heard of her, Cozy had settled down and started a family of her own. I thin her descendants are still around as well."

Orchid let out an audible sigh of relief. She had never thought any of this could be possible, but the evidence was right in front of her. She did however notice one character missing from all of Twilight's stories. "What about Spike?"

Twilight's breath hitched, remembering her Number One Assistant. "Not even dragons live forever Orchid. Spike stayed as the Friendship Ambassador for a long time. But after Rarity died, he went to live among his own kind. I promised him that if he ever came back, he would always have a home to come to. He never did."

Orchid looked at her teacher with worry. "Did you two have a fight or something?"

Twilight shook her head. "No. He left with my blessing and a lot of tears. But I couldn't, or wouldn't, stop him. He still wrote to me all the time of course." She giggled. "He never really grew out of needing me in a way. He and Smolder eventually became mates and raised quite a few hatchlings. I was never more proud of him than at that time."

She sighed. "Eventually though, time caught up with them. From what their son Blaze told me, they just went to sleep one night, and never woke up. I think it was right they passed on together. Ember made sure all dragons remembered them."

Orchid looked at the massive blue female, the Bloodstone Scepter tiny in her massive hands. She almost looked like her dad, Torch. "Did he and Ember ever, you know, like each other like that?"

Twilight chuckled. "I asked Ember the same question once. She said she had found Spike nice to look at, and had thought about it, but had never acted on those feelings. Spike said pretty much the same for Ember, but neither ever did do anything about it. Smolder knew about it, but she didn't really care."

Orchid giggled. "Pretty mature of her."

Twilight giggled as well. "Hanging out with her friends from the School of Friendship did that to her. You just never could say it to her face. She would deny it all the time."