The rook. A piece once known by feudal ponies as the tower or the rector, this was one of the most powerful pieces on any standard chess board. Second to the queen, the rook’s versatility and range made it a kingpin in any defensive strategy and a heavy hitter in many an offense. The rook symbolized the fortress with which royalty shielded themselves from horrendous onslaughts. The rook was a spire representing strategy, power and authority. As the old were knocked down, the new would rise to the occasion.
The Tower. Not only was this the former name of the rook, but it was the sixteenth major arcana in a standard tarot deck. Some considered it the seventeenth, depending on whether they considered the Fool to be the zeroth arcana or the first. Upright, the Tower represented the proverbial pride before the fall. Regardless of the position, the Tower was an omen about the height of hubris and the long fall from the top. It also symbolized ambition, innovation, and the destruction of the old and flawed setting the foundation for newer and better.
This was the story of an unassuming filly from an unassuming village. An unassuming filly who was let down and led astray by the height of hubris. With a coat of a light pink, a curly mane of grayish blue and eyes of burning scarlet, the unassuming filly was once just as innocent as any other foal. It all started with an unassuming day that was the same for the unassuming filly as any other day save for one key difference. Somepony wanted to play with her.
The unassuming filly rested a cheek in one of her hooves as the other flipped through an advanced strategy guide on chess, her curls swaying to one side as her mind worked to absorb the information. She had already memorized the basics and hungered for more. She had never actually played a game of chess before. She had nopony to play with. Her daddy was much too busy as a patrol pony for the little village and a key correspondent with the regional sheriff, who was based in New Horseleans an hour’s trot to the south. On the other hoof, her mother barely understood the difference between chess and checkers. She was a tender and caring mother, but rather unplayful and disengaged on the best of days.
The unassuming filly spent her recesses with her rounded muzzle in a book, finding the slides and swings that the other fillies and colts all but cherished simple, derivative, benign. The unassuming filly’s palette for play far exceeded her years, leaving her craving what never seemed to be in reach. The schoolhouse even had a chess board. All the unassuming filly lacked was a partner with whom she could exercise her knowledge. The other foals seemed uninterested in indulging her. Maybe they disliked her, or maybe they saw some difference between her and them and saw it better to keep their distance.
The unassuming pink filly had tried numerous times to get her teacher to play, but her teacher needed to monitor recess at the behest of parents who presumably breathed the word “liability” down the back of her neck. The unassuming filly was largely left alone, but she felt no sense of discontent. This had been normal up until…
“Umm…hey. Do you wanna play?” a soft, docile voice asked, breaking the unassuming filly’s focus. She saw the voice belonged to a tan Earth pony filly with crimson red eyes, a wild and unkempt mane and tail of a golden blonde color and, like herself, no Cutie Mark. A large red scarf was wrapped loosely around the filly’s small neck. Cozy Glow only recognized her as the other quiet filly in the class. “My name’s Sandy Mallow.”
“Cozy Glow,” the pink filly replied. She tore a strip of paper from her notepad and placed it over the open page before closing the book. With a small breath, she returned her attention to the classmate that had approached her. “You wouldn’t happen to know how to play chess, would you? Or maybe a card game?”
“Chess is fine. My mommy’s been teaching me how to play,” Sandy Mallow replied.
“Golly, I envy you. My mom won’t even try to learn the game,” Cozy Glow replied as she went to retrieve the chess set. “I learned by reading some books on the basics over and over.” She balanced the board on her back and held the bag of pieces in her mouth. She turned around one hundred eighty degrees and sat herself down, letting the board slide gently down her back and off her tail. “Do you want to be black or white?”
“I’ll be white.”
The fillies set up their pieces on their respective sides of the board. Cozy Glow’s heart was pounding in her chest. Finally, somepony wanted to play with her. Somepony was there to help her build her skills and fully embrace her passion. As was the tradition, Sandy Mallow went first. Cozy Glow’s mind raced through all the basic strategy she had learned from the books as Sandy Mallow was trying to decide which pawn to use. Sandy Mallow made her move, and Cozy Glow swiftly mirrored it with one of her own pawns.
Their pieces shuffled about the board with every move. At face value, one would think they were roughly even. They had taken about the same number of pieces from each other. What they hadn’t seen was the inner machination of Cozy Glow’s mind. Her bishops were poised to strike Sandy Mallow’s remaining knight and pawns, and ready to cut down the territory on the board controlled by her opponent. Sandy Mallow had taken evasion actions with her king and queen, but Cozy Glow managed to use that to her advantage as well. Her rooks boxed the key pieces in from afar, with her queen set up on a diagonal.
With the setup of the board, Sandy Mallow looked like she was struggling to execute her next move. The two young foals locked eyes. Cozy Glow maintained an unassuming expression, but the tan filly’s face was one of absolute shock.
“What’s the matter?” Cozy Glow asked, curious about the delay in her opponent’s next move.
“I…I don’t know what to do. You’ve got me cornered! Are you sure it’s your first game?” Sandy Mallow asked, raising an eyebrow as she studied the board.
“A hundred percent sure! I’ve always wanted to play chess,” Cozy Glow confirmed.
“I don’t think there’s anything I can do to get out of this, Cozy Glow. You’re a natural!” Sandy Mallow exclaimed. Cozy Glow felt her lips curve up into a broad grin as though they had a will of their own. Her scarlet eyes sparkled gleefully. This was the first time her analytical and strategic abilities were praised so intimately. It was more than just being told ‘good job’ or ‘way to go’ or getting a sticker on a high mark on one of her tests. It was an appreciation for her devotion to her passion and for the way her mind worked. It was the recognition of talent.
Suddenly, a veil of brilliant amaranth light swirled around Cozy Glow and enveloped her. When it dissipated, Cozy Glow stumbled a bit. She had been seeing spots from the personal aurora. She muttered, “Goodness… What was that about?”
Sandy Mallows gasped. “Cozy! Your flank! Look!”
Cozy Glow shook her head looked back at one of her flanks, seeing a red rook insignia emblazoned on her right one, then her left. She beamed at them, then at Sandy Mallow. “I got my Cutie Mark!”
Most expectedly, the excitement the normally quiet and reserved fillies shared attracted the attention of their classmates and their teacher, who experienced varying levels of curiosity over the fuss. The other students were wide eyed at the revelation of Cozy Glow’s new Cutie Mark, and the teacher, a pale red Earth Pony named Ms. Rouge, looked overjoyed.
“That’s wonderful, Cozy Glow! You got your Cutie Mark in…chess?” Ms. Rouge began, trailing off as the meaning behind a pony’s Cutie Mark ranged from simple, straightforward symbolism to complex with mixed messages. A rook was unlike any other kind of Cutie Mark Ms. Rouge had seen before.
“Something like that,” Cozy Glow replied, lifting herself into the air with her wings and glancing back at her flanks to admire her new Cutie Mark. To her, it was a window into her mind and to her ability to recognize the behavior of the pieces on the board, how they would move and how she could use that to her advantage.
“This is so cool!” Sandy Mallow exclaimed, utterly dazzled by the turn of events.
It was the start of a new chapter for the unassuming filly. She was now more driven than ever to sharpen her skills and make the most of her talent. As hours turned to days and days to weeks, Cozy Glow played games upon games with Sandy Mallow. They had even managed to rope in and teach some of their other classmates to play chess. Their games always involved strategy or other forms of mental exercise, but they expanded beyond chess. Other board games, card games, puzzles, ciphers; Cozy Glow had been the spark that revolutionized their sense of wonder, and she had guided the spread of the spark to a roaring flame of the mind.
Ms. Rouge had even approved the school foals’ new strategy game club. The unassuming filly and her first chess opponent were still known as the quiet fillies, but not the ones to be avoided. Cozy Glow had even started to see parallels between the chess board and the realm she lifted in. Her examples were usually close to heart. The sheriff was akin to a bishop, a powerful presence with a limited range. Her own daddy was like a holy knight who heeded the bishop’s call.
Three weeks since the fateful revelation of her Cutie Mark, Cozy Glow marveled at the expanse of the school’s stock of games. From the beginnings of the humble chess board, the school’s collection of games and toys encompassed several decks of playing cards, sudoku and crossword pads, and even boardgames where the concept of taking territory were much more prominent and stylized.
“I feel like we started the next big trend,” Sandy Mallow voiced her thoughts aloud as she strolled up to Cozy Glow’s side. Cozy Glow nodded wistfully, her scarlet eyes burning with determination. How far could they go? Cozy Glow thought they could go very far with a game and puzzle club if she made all the right moves. Her thoughts were intruded upon with Sandy Mallow’s next proposal, “Care for another match?”
“Sure,” Cozy Glow replied, near automatically. “You’re getting better all the time.”
“Still not good enough to beat you,” Sandy Mallow giggled as Cozy Glow snagged the chess board and held it gingerly in her forelegs. None of their other classmates had managed to beat Cozy Glow at any of the games on the shelf, and her speed and prowess with the puzzles was unmatched by her peers. The measures made her feel mighty, as though she were the pinnacle of strategy. If she had only been born a unicorn. She would have surely been enrolled in Celestia’s School for Gifted Unicorns instead of being at home in proximity to New Horseleans and the Hayseed Swamps.
Ms. Rogue poured over a newspaper while the fillies and colts played. Her face was scrunched into an expression of concern, then loosened into relief. The silent ordeal caught Cozy Glow’s attention when, out the corner of her eye, she saw confetti burst from the newspaper into Ms. Rouge’s face. Ms. Rouge shook her head, but still had some of the pastel paper scraps in her mane. Cozy Glow had heard that the vessel for the Element of Laughter had some strange powers and loved parties, but had never even met the mare, let alone see something as strange as confetti explode from an ordinary newspaper. Come to think of it, all of the mares associated with the Elements of Harmony had extraordinary abilities. Princess Twilight herself wielded one of the most potent reserves of magical power in the entire world and had repeatedly claimed it was friendship that made her powerful.
Sandy Mallow followed Cozy Glow’s gaze, eyes gaping at the aftermath of what could only be described as a blizzard of confetti. She exclaimed, “What happened?!”
“Oh, nothing. I was just reading about a situation Princess Twilight and her friends recently handled,” Ms. Rouge replied with a chuckle.
“Was it the scary centaur?” Sandy Mallow asked, a shiver rocking her little body as the memories of Tirek’s attempted takeover rattled her mind. Cozy Glow recalled Tirek’s absorption of Equestria’s magic. Surely, he had become one of the most powerful living beings in the entire world. Had it not been for the supposed magic of friendship, the last bit of magical power in Equestria’s borders, their land would have had a new, bulking ruler.
“No, dear,” Ms. Rouge claimed in assurance, showing them the newspaper. Cozy Glow and Sandy Mallow perused the article, finding that Queen Chrysalis had attempted to usurp the most powerful and influential ponies in all of Equestria, only to be stopped by a small, willful, ragtag taskforce led by Princess Twilight’s sole student, Starlight Glimmer.
Cozy Glow gave a faint scowl. How could so many powerful ponies have been incapacitated so easily? It was as though their abilities were wasted on them if they were utterly helpless against such sneaky maneuvers. Changelings were masters of infiltration, and yet none of the princesses nor their closest confidants crafted any safeguards or special plans in the event one of them should be captured or go missing? She had heard from her parents that both Princess Celestia and Princess Twilight were meticulous planners, so Cozy Glow could only conclude that she had not gotten the full story. For all she knew, her parents hadn’t gotten the full story, either. Had Cozy Glow been a princess, Chrysalis would have been caught almost immediately and made to answer for the hive’s war crime. Had the Changeling queen not incurred the wrath of the gods? Her only punishment was the loss of her hive, which, though noticeable, was no fool-proof deterrent from acting against Equestria once more.
“Princess Twilight’s student was so brave! And pretty!” Sandy Mallow exclaimed as Cozy Glow stood silently, eyes glued to the paper, yet absent of all focus. Twilight’s now-alumnus was a powerful unicorn made even more so by the friends that were at her side. Twilight Sparkle herself was a powerful unicorn-turned-alicorn because of friendship and the colorful lasers it produced.
Was friendship the key to maximizing her own potential? Cozy Glow glanced at the tan pony beside her. Interacting with another pony catalyzed the emergence of her Cutie Mark. What more could friendship do? Was friendship another piece on the board, or was it the behavior between them? It had the behavior of a heavy piece, the potential of a wild card and the splendor of the victor who seemed to endlessly attain the spoils.
That was what Cozy Glow wanted.
Friendship is power!
Sandy Mallow was the first step. The next was the club. Cozy Glow knew she needed to be in touch with somepony powerful. No, not a pony. A centaur.
Ideas stormed and spiraled in the young, unassuming filly’s mind. If any mare or stallion knew what was brewing in her mind, they would have tried to stop her immediately. Nopony knew. They would never even think to associate the cute, quiet and bubbly Cozy Glow with words like ‘ambitious’ or ‘nefarious’.
As soon as she got home, before her father got home and when her mother wasn’t looking, she made sure to place her saddle bags by her father’s desk. Her parents would never approve of reaching out to a defunct warlord, regardless of motives. Her mother called out from the kitchen, “Cozy? Is that you?”
Cozy Glow slipped out of the office with her homework tucked under one wing and replied, “I’m home!”
Up until dinner, she made absolutely sure to do nothing out of the ordinary. Even her mother, bless her heart, would ask questions if the filly stowed herself in the tiny office instead of doing her homework at the table and then going to read in her room like always. That night, after an especially quiet dinner, she went to her father’s desk with a lit candle. As she set the candle down on the desk, she pulled a special address book her father kept from one of the draws under the desktop.
Due to the nature of his work, her father had to keep a list of key contacts in the event he needed to reach out to the sheriff or, in hypothetical cases, the crown should he ever need or be called to provide additional support. Patrols, disaster management, finances… her father took painstaking measures to make sure he was organized so he could be quick when he needed to be. It took little time for Cozy Glow to find the category she was looking for: corrections. At the bottom of the first page, in her father’s scrawly print, were the words ‘GATES OF TARTARUS’, complete with the mailing address and postal code.
She took up a pencil and her notepad from one of her saddle bags and quickly copied the address into the back of the very last page of the pad. With that done, she wouldn’t need to refer to the address book anymore, thusly not needing to put it somewhere out of place. She managed to finish up and plop the pencil and pad back into the bag when her father stepped in. He inquired, “Cozy? What are you doing in here?”
Cozy Glow blinked innocently, and she sweetly replied, “Just getting my bags, Daddy!” She ducked and hefted the saddlebags onto her back, then ran into the Pegasus stallion and gave him a big hug. “I love you, Daddy.”
With a chuckle and one of his strong forelegs, he held her close and replied, “I love you, too, Cozy. Now, why don’t you go onto bed?” He smiled endearingly when his daughter pulled away and nodded before trotting to her room. If he had only caught the distortion in her grin when she trotted away.
Cozy Glow’s dreams came in the form of her having an army of friends and becoming an effective princess, one that Equestria could count on. In her dreams, she was praised for her intellect and her tactile thinking in much the same way Sandy Mallow had when Cozy Glow got her Cutie Mark. She had become the apex of what it meant to be a pony and proved to be everything Equestria needed. In a word: almighty.
When the few sunbeams of the breaking dawn cut through the gaps between the tree branches and shone through her window, Cozy Glow’s eyes shot open. She tore a sheet of paper from the notepad in her saddle bag, held her pencil in her mouth and began to write with the sunlight as her guide.
Dear Mr. Lord Tirek,
Golly, I’m sorry if that was too many honorifics. I’ve never written a letter to a being like you before. My name’s Cozy Glow. I’m a Pegasus filly from southeastern Equestria, and I just got my Cutie Mark! It’s been making me wonder about you, sir. You see, I’m not so sure the princesses really know what they’re doing or that they even think things through, but you did. Surely, you did! How else would you have siphoned all that magic? All that power surely wouldn’t have gone to waste under your command.
How did you do it? Was it something you can naturally do with your own magic, or did you use a special ritual? I’m super curious! Is there any reason you targeted unicorns first? Right before a national emergency was declared, there were reports of so many unicorns falling ill and not being able to use magic.
Gosh, is Tartarus lonely? I hope we can be pen pals. It must have been a while since you last talked to somepony. Mother and Daddy tell me not to talk to strangers, but surely writing letters is okay!
Hope to hear from you soon.
-Cozy Glow
P.S. I’ve supplied you with some stamps in this envelope. Please don’t put the return address on the envelope if you reply.
When she finished the letter, she quickly read it over once, then again. Satisfied, she took to the air and fluttered into the living room. The house was silent, save for the soft flapping of her young wings. Landing gently, she was on high alert. Her daddy would be up soon to get ready to make his rounds around the village. Cozy Glow thought, as much as the landscape required it due to the proximity of Hayseed Swamps and the Forbidden Jungle, that there had to be better ways for law and order to be maintained than the decentralized call-me-if-you-need-me system they currently had.
Her mother had always kept a stack of envelopes and booklets of stamps in a small woven basket on a side table in the living room. She gingerly snatched up a booklet and envelope before flying back to her room. Her door closed with the softest thud, and a moment later, she heard her daddy emerge from his and her mother’s room. With a sigh, Cozy Glow found herself relieved. She had no idea that she had just gotten away with taking the postage by the skin of her teeth. She dove under her covers, folded the letter and addressed the envelope. In a swift motion, she peeled a stamp from the booklet and placed it in the upper right corner of the envelope.
The rest of the stamps and the folded message made their way into the envelope, one that Cozy Glow would mail on her way to the schoolhouse. Hopefully, within a couple of weeks, she would have her answer.
It was much to her chagrin that Cozy Glow had gone the next month without an answer. Day by day, week by week, she had waited and watched out the window for a letter addressed to her, all to no avail nor satisfaction. Four long weeks of pretending nothing was out of the ordinary whilst awaiting the answers to some of the most important questions in Equestrian history.
Finally, one day, a letter with no return address arrived for Cozy Glow, much to the confusion of her mother. “Goodness… Cozy? There’s a letter here for you, but…who is it from?”
“Oh, goodie! That must be from my new pen pal!” Cozy Glow announced, her wings buzzing happily.
“Oh, a pen pal? I’m glad the school has started a pen pal program,” her mother sighed happily. “Foals really should get into the practice of writing letters.” Naturally, since it worked to her advantage, Cozy Glow saw no need to correct her mother.
Cozy Glow took and opened the letter, reading it to herself.
Cozy Glow,
You certainly are a preceptive filly, not to mention articulate. I hope the delay wasn’t an issue. I had to fool the guards into believing there was some new pen pal program they hadn’t heard about. If I can answer your questions a bit out of order, starting with unicorns wasn’t entirely necessary, but it was easiest for me. As you may be aware, all ponies wield magic of some kind, but the unicorns have the most conscious, controlled and complex interactions with magic, and are thus able to call upon their magic easily and for a wide array of tasks. Their easy access to their magic made it for me to access their magic, something I needed since I had to quickly and stealthily gather magical power.
As for my siphoning abilities, it can be done ritualistically, but I learned energy absorption magic back in my early days of magic practice when a wise old hermit gave me the tutelage I realized I needed. It was he who taught me the potency of pony magic, which nicely leads into your point about how fit the alicorn princesses are for their roles. In totality, they are a tetrarchy that maintains the peace of your land, though Luna and Celestia are the primary diarchy. With how meticulous they were with planning around my return, I, too, am shocked that all of them were so easily trounced by a sneak attack by Queen Chrysalis. I’ve also heard about the metamorphosis of the hive, and it leaves me curious about the future of the Changeling race.
I suppose you want to know more about magical siphoning, though I can’t say I fully understand why. The key thing to note is that when magic is drawn out of somepony, it doesn’t just disappear. It needs somewhere to go. It needs a vessel. In my case, it went from the ponies and Discord to me. On a more macro level, I had heard fairy tales in my youth about magic power being drained from one world and sent to another through a large portal. There are artifacts and magic tools in the world that would create such a portal, but they would need to be gathered and used in a very precise way.
I’m running out of room on my page, but I must thank you for the postage. It gives me something to do other than solitaire. Have you ever played it? It’s much more entertaining than it looks at face value.
Tirek
Cozy Glow beamed happily at the paper as the revelations on it cascaded her mind. It was as though she learned more about the world, its magic and how it all worked from one scrap of paper than from an entire week at school. Buck it, maybe more than she ever learned from school at all. Not only had she learned how Tirek siphoned magic, but she learned how anypony could, in a general sense.
“What did your pen pal say, dear?” her mother asked curiously. Cozy Glow mentally cursed herself and the mare. Of all the times for her to take an interest, it was then and there that she had to start asking questions.
“Just about some of the games he likes. He likes card games,” Cozy Glow replied, folding up the letter. Her mind raced with the innumerable possibilities enshrined in the written words held tenderly in her hooves.
Months passed, but Cozy Glow’s correspondence with Tirek did not. He was keen on the idea of attempting to drain Equestria of its magic once more. Instead of just the magic of living beings, he thought it fit that everything be taken so that his pony nemeses had nothing to latch onto at the end of everything. Cozy Glow saw no fault in that, as an alicorn deprived of the magic of the three tribes was nothing more than an empty shell. Power would be squandered no longer. Time marched on as it did, and even as the seasons fell to their successors, her thoughts about what she would do if she was the most powerful pony in Equestria.
More powerful ponies, the Pillars who were once thought to be nothing more than fables, were recently brought out of limbo and used the magic of friendship to exorcise a manifestation of corruption from a spell pony named Stygian with the help of the Elements of Harmony and Princess Twilight’s alumnus, Starlight Glimmer. Once again, she had had world-saving influence on the fate of Equestria and its citizens.
Princess Twilight Sparkle was even opening a new boarding school to teach about friendship in ways the Friendship Journal could not. She was even opening it up to any non-ponies who were interested in learning, something Cozy Glow had mixed feelings about. She didn’t hate other races, no, but she did feel that they would be less receptive to such things than ponies. The school had to be the next step, so Cozy Glow had asked her parents and applied. Her acceptance letter coming was almost as sweet to her as when Tirek first replied to her inquiry. Now, their discussions would bear fruit.
Recess came. Taken from her daydreaming, Cozy Glow heard another filly snarl, “You’ve got a crush on Cozy Glow. Just admit it.”
Children were cruel to one another. When Cozy Glow heard her name, she craned her head and bore witness to an act of such cruelty. Three fillies, popular in their class, though Cozy hadn’t bothered to learn their names, were confronting Sandy Mallow. One of them was holding the chess board away from her, and Sandy Mallow’s face adorned rosy cheeks and watery eyes.
Cozy Glow found herself unabashedly stomping over to Sandy Mallow and got in the other fillies’ faces. Her scarlet eyes burned, but not with anger nor mercy. Coarsely, Cozy Glow said, “I’d advise you to surrender the chess board. You clearly aren’t going to use it for its intended purpose. Heck, you probably don’t even know what color the queen goes on.”
“H-hey, back off! We just wanna know if Sandy has a crush,” the middle classmate huffed, startled by Cozy Glow’s sudden, ominous display.
“What’s it to ya?” Cozy Glow asked ominously. “You know, in chess, sometimes sacrifices have to be made.”
“S-stop it! You’re being weird!” one of the fillies whined.
“C’mon, let’s go play on the swings,” another suggested. They dropped the chess board and trotted out of the schoolhouse. Much to Cozy Glow and Sandy Mallow’s chagrin, the board cracked when it hit the floor so haphazardly.
“Sandy…” Cozy Glow began hollowly, “you know I wouldn’t mind if you liked me that way, right?”
“Of course! I just… I don’t know if I do. We’re kinda young to be thinking about that stuff, but I do like playin’ with you a lot,” Sandy Mallow mumbled, crestfallen by the ordeal that resulted in the damage of one of their favorite games. Her breathing seemed forced and uneven.
“It’s salvageable, thankfully,” Cozy Glow replied, an icy edge hanging on her words like a guillotine suspended and waiting for the tension in the rope to release and gravity to do the rest. Those fillies positioned themselves to strike at one of her key pieces. Royalty would not let such an act stand, so why should she? “I just need wood glue and a cotton swab. The crack doesn’t run that deep; the board will be fine, I think. We can still play.”
“Cozy? Listen, I know you’re upset about those girls and the chess board, but—” Sandy Mallow started, reaching a hoof out to rest on Cozy Glow’s haunches. She was cut short.
“Gee, Sandy, no need to get worked up. I’m fine. The board is fine. They just act that way because they don’t know what real power looks like,” Cozy Glow abruptly said, beaming when she faced her companion.
“Okay…” Sandy Mallow responded slowly, finding herself at a loss for words otherwise. “You were so sullen just a minute ago. Talking about sacrifice and…”
“Golly, I didn’t mean to scare you. I just wanted to make the meanies go away. I guess I maybe overdid it, huh?” Cozy Glow laughed sheepishly, as though her actions had been clumsy and silly rather than vague and ominous. “Besides, it’s true. I mean, think about it. Every time you and I have a match, each of us make sacrifices of our pawns and even our knight pieces to protect our heavy hitters. You sure do put up a good fight every match!”
“I guess that’s true. I still don’t really know why you said it, but as long as you’re okay, everything is fine,” Sandy Mallow finally said, offering a sense of contentment.
As usual, the fillies spent their recess playing a game of chess. The crack in the board split one of the corners, causing one of Cozy Glow’s rooks to sit unsteadily in its starting position. Internally, she mused about how unsteady foundations quash the potential of towers and castles to serve as pillars of strength. As the match went on, Cozy Glow’s mind wandered to the Pillars of Equestria, the Elements of Harmony… the school. That’s right! She had to tell Sandy Mallow.
“Hey, I’ve been thinking…” Cozy Glow began, trailing off. Even she couldn’t process what was happening all at once. Right in the middle of her thought, Sandy Mallow collapsed. “Sandy…?” She rushed to Sandy Mallow’s side and put her hoof right in front of her snout. Good. She was breathing. Cozy Glow then brushed her fetlock along her companion’s forehead. Feverishly hot.
Not even thinking about it, Cozy Glow rushed outside to get Ms. Rogue.
Recess had been cut short. Questions lingered. There was no focusing on lessons after watched Sandy Mallow’s father, the village doctor and the local herbalist take her away. Cozy Glow was silent as her classmates speculated and murmured. She was in a daze. Was she sad? Angry? The shock of what happened made her numb to everything, even her own heart. At the very least, she was able to think of a couple of things she wanted to do before she went away.
When the fateful day rolled around, Cozy Glow had slipped one letter into the post box and another into Sandy Mallow’s window before she had to go with her mother and daddy to the train station in New Horseleans. With her saddle bags on her back and a suitcase in tow, she was ready to move into the dorms. It was just before the crack of dawn, and the foals who had helped her found the game and puzzle club came to see her off, along with Ms. Rouge and some of her parents’ friends. Hoof-made banners that said, “Good luck, Cozy Glow” and “Study hard” were raised high and spread far. The three fillies who had taunted Sandy Mallow were notably absent, as was Sandy Mallow herself.
“We’ll work hard, Cozy! When you get back after the semester, I want a chess match with you,” declared one of the colts from the club.
“Me, too!” a filly exclaimed.
“Golly! I’d better not get rusty then,” Cozy Glow replied amiably. “Thanks, you guys. I’ll come back with everything I’ve learned so we can make Equestria a better place!”
Several of her classmates crowded around her and wished her good luck, told her that they were glad to get to know her and promised her they would do their best. Suddenly, an impossibly loud cry carried itself through the air. “Wait!” Cozy Glow could never forget nor mistake that voice.
It was Sandy Mallow. The other foals parted as she ran to Cozy Glow, giving her a tight hug. Cozy Glow gasped, “Sandy? You should be resting!”
“I wanted to see you off for real. Cozy Glow, I…thank you,” Sandy Mallow affectionately said. “My fever broke finally. I got your letter and I loved it, but I…I didn’t want that to be how we said goodbye. Well, not goodbye. So long.”
The two shared a long hug before Cozy Glow pulled away. “I’ve got to go so I can catch my train. Take care, okay?”
“Yeah!”
Cozy Glow and her parents parted from the crowd. She waved goodbye to the ponies one more time before she turned away, facing forward towards a destiny she and Tirek found more befitting of Equestria and their futures. Each step was a step closer to an ideal world.
A week later, a letter arrived for Tirek. Naturally, he knew who it was from. He didn’t have any other sentient beings who’d give him the time of day. The real mystery was what was inside. Ripping the envelope open, he found folded parchment and the very striking words “Dear Tirek” in the top margin of the first folded segment. He unfolded the parchment fervently and began to read.
Dear Tirek,
I’m off to the School of Friendship! If this works out, I’ll be able to get everypony on my side and the princesses won’t know what hit them! I’m sure I’ll have a lot to tell you about once I get there. For now, let me tell you about what I did before I left. You’ll be so proud of me! I encountered some problem foals, and I took care of them. You see, they were taunting and probing my chess buddy about whether or not she liked me—you know, the lovey-dovey kind—and it turns out my buddy was ill all the while. Those meanies were so careless with the chess board in our schoolhouse that I’d sure be hard pressed to trust them with anything important.
I stayed up all night knowing I could nap on the train and got to work. I figured out who the ringleader was pretty quickly, and I even tailed her last week to see where she lived. It gets hot where we live, so she left her window wide open before going to bed. Kidnapping her was really easy, but she woke up by the time I dragged her all the way out to the swamp.
It wasn’t graceful, but I had to gag her with the ribbon I normally wear in my mane. She tried talking through it, but I’m glad I didn’t understand it all. It must have been so benign it wouldn’t have been worth my time. She must have thought I was looking to avenge my chess buddy. That would have been really romantic, like out of a nice storybook, but that wasn’t the reason at all. I had to take care of her and her friends because they were too willful and inquisitive. Not fit for the Equestria I envisioned. Speaking of, are you sure Princess Sparkle has all the artifacts for the magic funnel? She is the most qualified to keep them as a magic scholar, but it almost feels too easy to have everything I need in one place.
Anyway, she started trying to scream through the gag again, which got super annoying. It was so rude! Golly gee willikers, I didn’t know I was so strong! I hefted a big rock and threw it down onto her head. It bled a lot, and the rock was absolutely soaked. You know, it wasn’t as gross as I thought it would be. In some ways, it was grosser, but it sure was nice of her to have such a soft head. I just wanted to knock her out, but this made everything even easier. It gave me plenty of time to hide the body and get the other two. I used a sturdy log as a lever to get her and the rock into the bog. The other two were even easier. They were still pretty heavy, but I got such an adrenaline boost from the first kill that I hardly noticed! Of course, I did it one at a time. Together, they would have been too troublesome, even if they were incompetent.
One at a time, I brought them to the swamp. One at a time, I pulled the bag off their head. You should have seen the shock and confusion! What was even better was how those expressions turned to horror when I asked them if they wanted to join their friend and be one of the cool girls. The one who was careless enough to break my chess board looked like she was going to soil herself! I forced her to swallow some rocks and swamp water before tying her up with some vines and throwing her into the bog. The other one died much quicker. I think. I just put the sack back over her head and bucked her into whatever part of the rock from the first kill was sticking out.
Golly, it was a lot of trouble, but if that’s what it takes to make our world a reality, then so be it. They’ll be half eaten by some swamp beast by the time you get this, so I don’t see this coming up again. Long live the Queen.
Love,
Cozy Glow
Not even Tirek was fully prepared to take in the written words. Perhaps Cozy Glow had an even greater sense of initiative than he was looking for in a colleague. Equestria’s alicorn tetrarchy wouldn’t know what hit them.
Author's Note
This is the first time I've gotten this dark with a pony story, but I do feel like there was some level of neglect that caused Cozy Glow to seek out and become pen pals with Tirek. For all we know, her parents may not have given her the attention she needed and her education may not have been able to challenge her. Whatever the case, her youth and the magnitude of her crimes show that a lot of authority figures in her life failed to give her what she needed. Her talent is more than it seems and I think her Cutie Mark is loaded with symbolism. She's manipulative, but she also carefully devised and executed her plan to drain Equestria of its magic.
At face value, she may be underwhelming and controversial, but Cozy Glow is definitely a ripe topic of speculation, fan theory and head canon. Given her young age, being well before the age range listed on the age-crime curve, combined with the severity of her crimes, she's a fascinating criminological phenomenon.
I hope you enjoyed.
