Letters to the Princess

“She is not yours to take,” Twilight Sparkle said, firmly.

“She isn't yours to keep!”

“She is my best friend,” Twilight Sparkle answered. “And she’s too young to go. I will find a cure for her, and the six of us will live out the last years of our lives like we were always supposed to. Together.”

“Who do you think she loved more?” asked Cozy, the words calculated to wound. “The friend she left behind, or the daughter she chose?”

The Princess’ face was impassive. “I know exactly who she loved more. It’s irrelevant.”

It wasn’t worth trying to detangle that answer. “She was ready to die, Princess. She wanted rest.”

“Equestria isn’t ready to lose her,” answered Twilight Sparkle, and Cozy knew that by Equestria she meant I. Selfish as only an alicorn could be. “There’s so much more we need her for.”

“Hasn’t she blasted enough of your enemies into rainbows?” Cozy asked, extending a feather again to sizzle and fry in the shield that separated her from the stone form of her mother. “How much more can you ask of her?”

The Princess hesitated, and Cozy almost wished that she had slipped into the treasury when she’d passed it and taken one of the magical gewgaws she’d spurned. I don’t need magic, she’d thought. But then the Princess’ tracking spells found her, and oh, how sweet it would have been to blast the smug superiority off her face with the power of the alicorn amulet.

“Cozy!” The door flew open, and then there was Flurry, flanked by the doddering old fools who pretended to be citizens instead of royalty.

“Cozy Glow, you must stop this madness,” said the one that pretended to be everypony’s Auntie, but Cozy knew better and when she bared her teeth the white alicorn flinched, and her mask of strength crumbled away. All that was left underneath was a worm. Pale and disgusting and ready to be crushed.

“Four alicorns to stop a single unarmed pegasus,” Cozy commented drily. “You must be losing your touch, Twilight.”

“Listen to us,” Auntie Tia tried again, her voice even once more. “Twilight only wants to help Rarity. This is not the way forward.”

Cozy Glow snorted, doing her best not to look at the smallest alicorn, half-hidden by her gargantuan relations. “What do you know about the way forward? You’re stuck five thousand years in the past.”

A shake of Celestia’s head. “This is what Rarity wanted. We spoke about it. She told us she wanted to be there for you.” A significant look at Flurry. “For your wedding.”

“Liar,” snapped Cozy Glow.

I’m ready, Cozy. I’m ready to sleep.

“Breaking into Twilight’s palace isn’t necessary,” Celestia soothed. “All you had to do was ask to see her.”

Ask. Ask her worst enemy if she could visit the parent she held hostage. Cozy Glow laughed, and it was the first time she’d found anything really, honestly funny since Rarity was kidnapped.

“Stand down, child,” Luna cautioned. “Ready thyself for a peaceful, reasoned discussion, or we shall take measures.”

“Auntie Luna, don’t,” said Flurry desperately.

Cozy Glow laughed louder. “Oh yes. I know all about the measures alicorns take. Tartarus. Statues. Obliteration. No, thank you, Luna. I don’t think I will stand down.”

“Cozy, let me just—”

Cozy Glow didn’t wait to see what the youngest princess was about to say. She flared her wings, dropping the smoke bombs held beneath the feathers. They coughed and started slashing about with their magic, great clumsy sweeps of it, as likely to take down a palace wall as to fan away the smoke. Cozy Glow laughed as she smashed the stained glass out of a window that showed Twilight Sparkle ascending to godhood. She didn’t need alicorn magic to get away. She didn’t need magic, and she didn’t need anyone to help.

Getting her mother back from those monsters was a question of power, and power was one thing Cozy Glow knew all about.