Time will make Monsters of us All
Cozy carefully examined the placement of the six artifacts. She had spent far too long planning for this to risk something going wrong now. No, this was it. After all this time, she would finally be free. She looked up to see Starlight screaming from within her bubble of silence. After a few moments, she pulled a golden medallion from her saddle bags. She held it up and suddenly Starlight's scream's were blazing in her ears.
Cozy quickly cut the link and took a moment to let her ears stop ringing before looking back at the unicorn. "If you stop screaming, I'll let you talk. Deal?" Starlight closed her mouth and nodded. Cozy held the amulet back up and gave Starlight the go ahead to start talking.
"Cozy...why are you doing this? Where...when did you learn how to do this?! I've been studying magic my entire life and I have never even seen a ritual like this before!" Cozy spent a moment processing Starlight's questions before smirking.
"It's amazing what you can learn...given enough time." Starlight looked at her with confusion.
"Cozy, I just said that I've been studying magic for years. There's no possible way a child like you is more studied than I am." At this, Cozy immediately burst out laughing.
After taking a moment to regain her composure, Cozy turned back to Starlight and said, "Hate to break it to you...but I'm not a child."
Starlight snidely replied, "Yeah...all children say that." Cozy adopted a serious expression.
"Well I mean it." She looked to the artifacts. "You see these items? I'm old enough to have known their original owners personally." Starlight blanched at this statement.
"That's...that's impossible! You'd be over 5000 years old!"
"Somewhere around 5300. I can't be more exact since, to be perfectly honest, I stopped keeping track a long time ago." Starlight just stared at this "filly" with complete astonishment. All logic screamed that what she was saying couldn't be true. And yet...her skill at reading ponies, fine-tuned from her time as the leader of Our Town, told her that Cozy was telling the truth.
"How have you survived for so long?" Cozy turned to Starlight and gave her a genuine smile.
"I don't mind telling you my story. It will explain why I'm doing all of this and I think you deserve that much." Cozy found a comfortable spot to sit down and began, "It all started about fifty years into the Eternal Winter..."
Cozy stood shivering next to her fellow cadets as their instructor glared menacingly down at them. "You twelve are a disgrace to the glory of Pegasopolis! Your performance up until this point is completely and utterly pathetic! Not one of you deserves to call yourself a warrior!" Cozy flinched at his words. It was true. Since her recruitment into the Agoge, she had come in dead last in almost every trial. She shivered in terror, knowing that weakness was not tolerated among the pegasi. Those who did not become warriors would be...discarded.
Cozy was shaken from her self-pity by the sound of wings. A mare with a coat almost exactly the same color as hers touched down next to their instructor. Cozy desperately held back a whimper at the sight of her mother. The filly's parents had made it abundantly clear what would happen if she brought shame on their house. "Indeed. Every one of you deserves to be cast out. But, let it be never said that we are without mercy. You will be given one last chance to prove that you have a place among us." Cozy's heart lifted slightly at these words. Had her mother pulled strings for her? "Now...prove yourself." The mare lifted her hoof and brought it down hard, causing the clouds beneath the foals to break apart.
Cozy and the others instinctively took flight. A few began making their way towards the still existing clouds only to be intercepted by guards wielding spears. "You will hover there until your wings give out! The last pegasus flying shall be welcomed back into our ranks! The rest of you...,"She glared directly into Cozy's eyes and spoke in a low voice dripping with disgust,"...will not be missed." With that, Cozy's mother took flight...and flew out of her life forever. Cozy turned to look at the others. Most seemed to be holding up okay. But it was only a matter of time. And as the hours dragged on, Cozy felt her wings begin to burn until the effort of keeping herself aloft became almost unbearable. She heard a filly start screaming, her voice moving downward. The first had fallen.
Cozy fought back tears as more of her fellow students fell to their deaths. If she couldn't live like a warrior, she could at least die like one. She chanced a glance down the line at the others. One seemed to be holding up much better than the others. Cozy had no doubt that he would be the one to complete this trial. As for her... No! She would survive! There had to be a way! As Cozy racked her brain for a way to get out of this, a plan slowly formed. It was dangerous. Suicidal even. But it was her only chance. Cozy deliberately stopped flapping and let herself fall. As she fell towards the ground, she summoned all the strength she had left to bring herself into a glide. The frigid winds cut into her body and tossed her about as she desperately tried to achieve a controlled crash. Finally, she impacted the frozen ground, her body rolling along as pain and disorientation became her world.
As Cozy regained her senses, she looked around. The surrounding landscape was frozen over. Only a few sparse trees served as landmarks. She looked up to see Pegasopolis far in the distance. The winds had carried her farther than she'd thought. She knew she could never go home. It would be a death sentence. So, she shakily got to her hooves and started walking.
Cozy didn't know how far she had traveled. Her weather magic had been pushed to its limits fighting back the cold. Exhaustion and frostbite were beginning to take their tole. She looked behind her to see that she was leaving bloody hoof prints. If she didn't find shelter soon, she'd be dead by morning. Calling on all of her remaining strength, she trudged on. A bitter part of here began thinking, 'Look at me, Mother. See how I refuse to give in. Determination worthy of a champion of Pegasopolis. Are you proud of your daughter now?! ARE YOU?!!!!' Cozy could feel her tears turning to ice on her face. 'Who am I kidding? This is it. This is where I die.' Just as her strength was about to give out, Cozy caught a strange scent. It smelled like water and...sulfur? Curiosity and desperation driving her, Cozy dragged herself in the direction of the strange smell.
After a few minutes, Cozy came across a large cave. The smell was coming from inside. Well...regardless of whatever was causing that smell, shelter was shelter. Moving inside, Cozy felt a slight tingle of relief as she came out of the harsh wind. She made her way further inside and realized that it was getting warmer. Eventually she came to a large chamber, in the center of which was a large pool of water with steam rising out of it. Cozy could only stare in utter amazement at her good fortune. A hot spring. An honest to Hurricane hot spring! With a sudden burst of energy, Cozy moved as quickly as she could towards the pool before jumping in.
Cozy sighed in relief as the warm waters soothed her aching muscles. As the warmth filled her body, she brought her hoof up to inspect the damage from her long trek only to discover to her shock that her wounds were beginning to disappear. Cozy actually squealed in delight. The pool was magical! She couldn't believe it. Cozy silently thanked whatever deity had taken pity on her as she let the healing waters flow over her body, completely ignorant of the extent of its effects.
"From that day forward, my body completely stopped aging. And any wounds I sustain heal almost immediately." Cozy looked Starlight square in the eye before continuing. "I can't die. Do you understand now why I'm doing this?" Starlight just looked at the immortal being before her before shaking her head. Cozy sighed before speaking. "Of course you don't. No one can understand this pain until they've experienced what it is to be crushed beneath the weight of centuries." She looked up at the counselor and let her carefully crafted mask fall away, revealing the impossibly old mare trapped in a filly's body.
"I'm tired, Starlight. All of those old stories warning about how immortality is a curse...I wrote most of them. And I can tell you with complete honesty that it is the truth. I can't go on anymore. I refuse to go on anymore!" She looked down at the assembled artifacts. "All magic in Equestria...including whatever magic is keeping me alive! This is where it finally ends!" She began laughing. "This is where I finally die!" Starlight could only watch in horror as the mad mare continued to laugh maniacally. She knew that any attempt to reason with this creature was an exercise in futility. Time had turned her into a monster.