Letters to the Princess

Cozy Glow wandered. She headed north, into Stalliongrad, into Yakyakistan. Stealing and terrorising, and killing — yes, killing, at long last — those who reminded her of the ponies she hated. Unicorn couples, rich and well-to-do. Lilac-furred mares with coloured streaks in their manes.

Cozy Glow killed, and with every death, with every speck of blood marring her fur, she was herself again; her real, true self.

It ought to have felt wonderful, to become again the pony she was always meant to be. To cease the endless struggle against the terrible urges she had fought for years. It ought to have been sublime.

Why, then, did she feel so…heartsick? So empty?

Cozy Glow tried to make herself feel better. She did it in the only way she knew how, her very earliest method.

The very thing she had done to her parents, after…after what they did to her.

She found a small village in the barren tundra beyond Yakyakistan. The Unknown, the Equestrian maps called it. Cozy Glow settled herself in that village, and she placed a crown of rusted wire onto her head, and proclaimed herself Empress. The title she had wanted since she was a foal was finally hers, and here in this wasteland, there was no one to take it from her.

There was only a crowd of frightened villagers, and Empress Cozy Glow did with her subjects what Empresses do. She slaughtered them. One at a time, a few all at once, what did it matter?One pony fell, then another, one two three, down like skittles. Even the foals. Oh, she was sure to make it fast for them. She wasn't a monster. But she did kill them. Why should they get the childhood she was denied? Why should they get to grow up safe and sound with mothers that loved them?

And Cozy knew, she knew, that Rarity would hate it. Would gasp and cry out with every thrust of the knife. Would volunteer to die herself than let even a single innocent pay the ultimate price.

Cozy saw her mother's reproachful eyes watching her through every step of every hellish day. Saw the horror on Rarity's face.

And she did it anyway.

She killed those she came across, mare and stallion and child alike, until she grew tired of killing. Until she had slaked her grief so thoroughly in blood that it washed away anything but the old empty numbness. Until there was nothing but the familiar void. And Cozy Glow floated there in her void, blood running over her hooves, irremovable evidence of her thousands of crimes. And voices echoed in her ears.

You're better than this, Cozy.

“I'm not, Mama.”

I wish you’d talk to me.

“Leave me alone, Flurry.”

If you would just apply yourself, you could make all the friends you wanted. Nopony has to be alone. You have to choose it.

That one didn’t even warrant a response. Twilight Sparkle was more of a monster than Cozy Glow would ever be.

And when she tired of killing ponies, she found that those left alive were more than willing to serve in exchange for their lives. For the lives of their children. The ice dragons that threatened them were a delightful little challenge, and their blood flowed just as red as any pony’s. If you slit their throats just right, their death throes would pump out a veritable shower of the stuff, and then her mane and her feathers and her fur would all be as red as her eyes were.

Red red red, slick and shiny, the Empress of Nowhere stood tall. She had no dead mother. She had no broken heart. Just enemies to kill, and blood to spill.