Rosebud (Cozy Gets a Sled For Hearth's Warming)
Cozy Glow was happy to still have one friend...in the Canterlot Palace Garden of Petrified Villains.
Cozy was immortal, of course. Any alicorn is. As the sole possessor of all Equestria's alicorn magic, and all the other magic too, Cozy was immortal several times over.
Cozy walked into the Garden, along a path between the dead shrubs and trees. She sat on the ground next to Discord's petrified form.
The statue's quiet, disembodied voice echoed softly in Cozy's head. "If only I weren't stuck in this useless form, and I had my own magic back, I could give us some decent weather and re-create life. Wouldn't it be nice to eat a picnic of real food, underneath a real tree, on real grass? Instead of sitting on this dried-up dirt, and eating from old rusty cans that expired years ago?"
"Not so fast, Discord. I've won the entire game. I rule the whole world, all by myself. And now you want me to overturn my own victory, and compromise my rulership of Equestria? I don't think so."
"If you're the ruler of Equestria, why don't you give us a pretty sunrise. You can even line up the sun to shine its light directly in my eyes, if you want to. Wouldn't you like to do that?"
"I COULD do that. But I don't feel like giving you what you want."
"Likely story. You say you don't WANT to do it? I think that's because you CAN'T. Or you don't know how."
"I am the queen of every library and archive in this world. I can learn to do anything I choose to."
"I don't think you'll find instructions for making a pretty sunrise in books. Celestia never seemed to want the method written down." Discord pointedly didn't scratch himself, being unable to move. "I know how to raise the sun, of course. Celestia told me how to do it, centuries ago, back when she and I were still good friends."
"Hmmph!" Cozy said. "I think you're lying."
Discord replied, "One more thing. Rosebud."
Cozy's eyes flashed with anger. "How DARE you speak that word?"
An immaterial chuckle bounced back and forth between Cozy's ears. "So it means something to you, does it?"
"I'll never tell a jerk like you."
"You don't have to tell me. One morning back when I was free, I peeked in the School of Friendship's files to satisfy my curiosity." Although he couldn't breathe, Discord still made a snorting sound in Cozy's head.
Cozy said angrily, "Rosebud isn't anywhere in the School's files! When I was working in the School's office, I made sure of that."
"True," Discord agreed. "But the files DID mention that you used to live in Trottingham. So I checked there next. I made myself invisible to peep at old records, and I turned myself into dull, boring pony forms to trot around that town and ask questions. Finally, I found out the truth."
Cozy ran out of the garden crying.
Discord sighed to himself, or tried to. He WAS a chunk of stone, after all. "Well, so much for today's visit."
***
The next day, Discord said, "It's not your fault. It never was."
Cozy whacked him with a baseball bat. "I never asked you!"
"True. But somecreature should tell you anyway."
"Why should I care what you say?"
"It's not just about whatever I might say. It's more that after all we've been through, even after you turned on me and imprisoned me in this stone form, I'm still willing and able to listen to you."
He made a throat-clearing sound. "Cozy, we can talk about what happened, years ago in Trottingham."
"You want to talk? Fine! But if you say anything I don't like, I'll hit you with the bat again."
A deep, resonant voice seemed to say, "It's a deal."
***
One day in Trottingham, snow fell in large, soft flakes upon the city and its ponies.
Cozy looked up at the sky, and at the snow accumulating in the streets around her. "I wish I had a sled," she said.
Cozy's mother smiled down at the little filly holding her hoof. "Let's ask Crystal Kringhoof to bring you a sled, this Hearth's Warming Eve."
Cozy pouted. "I don't want to wait for Hearth's Warming. It's snowing NOW. Why should I have to wait for weeks?"
The older pony said, "Sometimes things are even better, if you have to wait for them."
"Horseapples!" Cozy grumbled.
"Language!" Cozy's mother scolded.
"But I'm just telling the truth!"
Cozy's mother shook her head. "You might believe that. But sometimes we have to watch what we say, to keep from making other ponies upset."
Cozy's eyes widened slightly. "So I should tell lies to make ponies feel the way I want them to feel?"
The mare laughed. "I'm not saying that either. You have to find a middle way, between upsetting ponies needlessly, or becoming a liar."
Cozy grimaced. "I think a lot of ponies tell a lot of lies. Some of the foals at school said even Crystal Kringhoof is a lie." She looked up at her mother. "Is that true?"
The mare sighed. "If you go around saying that to everypony, you could make a lot of ponies upset."
Cozy said, "Aha! So maybe it IS true."
"Sometimes the truth isn't the most important thing, Cozy. Sometimes it's more important to be kind." The mare smiled a little smile. "Let's not upset Crystal by telling him he doesn't exist."
Cozy shook her head. She muttered to herself, "So maybe it IS ok to lie, if it gets me something I want."
***
The next day while Cozy was walking home from school, she complained to one of her classmates, "With all this snow around, I don't think it's fair I have to wait until Hearth's Warming to MAYBE get a sled."
The pale blue pony walking beside Cozy said, "But don't we have to wait for Crystal Kringhoof and his reindeer to finish making the toys, before we can have them?"
"Ha!" Cozy said. "I don't think Crystal Kringhoof even exists. I think he's just an excuse for our parents to make us wait."
Leaning against a building, a teenage unicorn said, "So you're too smart to fall for that old guff. I knew there were some clever ponies in this town. Foals who really GET it."
Cozy asked the unicorn, "So Crystal Kringhoof really is a lie?"
"Shyeah," the unicorn said. He tossed his blonde mane. "PART of it is a lie. There's no reason you should wait for Hearth's Warming. I know how you can get your Hearth's Warming gift early."
Cozy asked with big, curious eyes, "How?"
The unicorn's forehooves lifted a delicate-looking glass sphere, about one hoofwidth wide. The unicorn's horn lit up, and its swirling aura of magical light touched the sphere. When the horn's own light dimmed again, a glimmer of greenish light still twinkled inside the glass.
The unicorn held out the sphere. "Now be CAREFUL not to break this, until it's time. Or it won't work at all, or something even worse than that will happen. What you do is, you take it home, and you throw it in the fireplace, just barely hard enough to break it there and then."
Cozy blinked. "Then what happens?"
The unicorn smiled. Cozy wasn't quite sure if it was truly a nice smile. "Then Crystal Kringhoof comes early, and brings you your sled. It'll be fun!"
The pale blue foal beside Cozy said, "Can I come too, when you do it? I've never seen Crystal Kringhoof."
Cozy nodded. "I've never seen him either." She reached out with one hoof to accept the glass globe. She narrowed her eyes slightly. "Are you sure this will really work?"
"Shyeah," the unicorn said. "As surely as your family loves you, you little squirt." The unicorn glanced up and down the street. "Now if you'll excuse me, I have some more advance work to do for Crystal Kringhoof, helping him visit other ponies early too, and beat the rush. Have a merry early Hearth's Warming, you two." The unicorn trotted down the sidewalk, turned a corner, and was lost to sight.
"Hmmph," the little blue filly said. "I don't trust him."
Cozy looked in the direction the unicorn had gone. "Well...it COULD work?"
"Everypony knows Crystal Kringhoof doesn't come early just because you break things."
"Ok, so maybe it's a prank. Maybe it'll just do something silly, like make little fireworks in the fireplace. But wouldn't that be cool, if it did?" Cozy sucked on her lower lip. "Or maybe it WILL work. Doesn't it make sense, Kringhoof might want to start some of his work early, to make Hearth's Warming easier?"
The blue filly wavered. "I guess that DOES make sense. Like how we shouldn't leave all our homework until the last minute."
Cozy grinned. "There! You see?"
***
Later that afternoon, Cozy arrived home with her schoolfriend. "Mama? Blue Skies wants to come inside, so we can try something fun together."
Cozy's mother narrowed her eyes slightly. "What is this 'something fun?'"
"Don't worry!" Blue Skies said. "It's no big thing."
While Blue Skies talked with Cozy's mother, Cozy sneaked around behind her mother into the main room, where the fireplace was. Cozy tossed the glass bauble into that fireproof space.
The bauble shattered, releasing a bright explosion colored sickly green. That was the last thing Cozy saw or heard for a while.
***
When Cozy awoke, her head ached. She looked around. The afternoon had changed to early evening, and the house was mostly dark, with no lights on.
Where Blue Skies had been chattering at Cozy's mother, an unfamiliar object sat on the floor: a pale blue box with a crank on it.
Cozy trotted over to the box, and walked around it slowly, examining it from every side. She picked the box up to look at the underside. She put it back down, and gently tapped the top, which seemed to be a hinged lid, but with a hidden latch keeping it shut.
Not knowing what else to try, Cozy slowly turned the crank. After several turns, the lid burst open. The pegasus filly leaped backward. A crude doll of a pony's head, forelimbs, and upper torso stuck up out of the box. The doll looked a lot like Blue Skies. The face was stretched into a wordless, soundless scream of terror.
Cozy pawed the floor. What kind of horrible prank had that unicorn played on Cozy's friend and family? Was this jack in the box Blue Skies? And where was Cozy's mother?
Cozy ran out the front door. "Mama!" she shouted. "Mama!"
In front of the house, the unicorn teen sat on a sled. "Hey, little brat." He patted the sled. "Climb on top of your mom with me. She's a real good ride."
Cozy shouted and screamed. She said words that her mother would have been shocked to learn she knew. She threatened to do things to the unicorn that would have killed any pony a dozen times over.
She ran at the unicorn, kicking and biting him, marking up his face with bruises and cuts and smears of blood. She knocked him over, bucking and stomping and ripping off most of his ear.
"Hay!" the unicorn finally found his voice. "Just let me--"
Cozy put her hooves partway through his throat again and again, until he stopped moving. But for a while, as she kept kicking and stomping, her consuming anger kept her from even perceiving that she'd won the fight. A moment after she noticed that he seemed unable to move, she saw something else too. The sled underneath him was now broken into pieces.
"Mama," Cozy whispered. "No."
She did her best to drag the unicorn off to the side, and pulled the sled's pieces out from under him. As she tried to fit them back together, failing again and again, one of the neighbors walked up.
The dark red earth pony stallion asked, "Were you...attacked? What happened?"
Cozy thought as quickly as she could. This unicorn was a very bad pony. Otherwise he wouldn't have done the terrible things that he did. If it wasn't for him, her mother wouldn't be a sled, and wouldn't be broken into pieces.
Cozy needed to get help to try to save her mother. But if ponies thought Cozy was a murderer, they might not want to help her.
It was just like lying about Crystal Kringhoof, really. It was for ponies' own good.
"He did terrible things to my mommy! He climbed on top of her, and...I don't even understand what he did. And he used magic to turn her into a sled! I guess he didn't want her to tell anypony. And he tortured my friend Blue Skies. If you go inside and look at her, you can still see how she was screaming!"
"I...I'll try to get help." The earth pony ran away.
***
A police team cordoned off the house and yard. While two police detectives looked for clues and took careful notes, and several patrolponies stood guard to keep other ponies out, a policemare hugged Cozy Glow close.
"I'm so sorry about your mother," the policemare said gently. "We'll call in the experts. We'll see what they have to say, and if they can find a way to help her."
Cozy Glow whispered, "There has to be a way. There just has to be."
"For tonight," the policemare asked, "do you have any other relatives in town, or good friends, who you can stay with?"
***
Over the next few days, the police refused to give Cozy a definite answer, about much of anything. When could her mother be turned back into a pony? COULD her mother be turned back into a pony, without killing her? Finally, the question in Cozy's mind became, was there even a tiny chance? Even a tiny tiny one? Or was it just impossible?
Another question in Cozy's mind, one she refused to ask aloud or even hint at, was, was Cozy a murderer? Or did the police understand that she was just trying to protect her family?
One question that Cozy didn't even like to silently ask herself was, had Cozy murdered one pony that horrible evening, or two?
Instead, Cozy just told herself again and again that it wasn't her fault. It was all that horrible unicorn. If she had the chance, she would kick him to death again. It was better than what he deserved.
***
Blue Skies' parents let Cozy Glow stay with them for several days. But Cozy could tell, as the attempts to turn their daughter back to a pony failed, they started to blame Cozy for what had happened to their daughter.
Cozy wanted to say, it wasn't my fault. It was all that nasty unicorn. And maybe your daugher a little bit, of course, because she helped distract my mother so the terrible thing could happen. But mostly it was that horrible, horrible, unicorn.
I'm so glad I killed him.
After a week and a half, two policeponies dropped in on Blue Skies' house. They told Cozy, there was a place she could live now. A home where foals like Cozy were properly cared for.
One of the policeponies casually said, "Just to keep you safe until your mother is back."
But Cozy knew a Crystal Kringhoof story when she heard one.
She knew. Her mother wasn't ever coming back.
It was all because of evil unicorns like that nasty one that took Cozy's mother away.
Unicorns shouldn't be allowed to have magic. Unicorns probably shouldn't be allowed to exist at all.
***
The care home wasn't all bad. There were all different kinds of ponies there, good ones, bad ones, and most of all, ponies on whom Cozy could practice telling Crystal Kringhoof stories, to make them believe and do the things Cozy wanted them to.
Cozy was very, very careful not to be caught lying. Her lies had to be just as sneaky as Crystal Kringhoof himself. As hard to catch as somepony who doesn't even really exist.
Cozy got better and better at persuading ponies that things which had never happened, had; and what had really happened, hadn't. It was a useful skill, for somepony with her ambitions.
***
One day a police psychologist visited the care home. The psychologist took a special interest in Cozy.
Cozy didn't mind the attention, really. It was an excuse to practice her Crystal Kringhoof stories on a more challenging audience.
"And then I tried to save my mommy," Cozy said. "I tried to rescue her from the bad pony." (Cozy never called him a unicorn, or tried not to. She didn't want anypony to suspect that she especially hated unicorns. Especially because the police psychologist was a unicorn himself.)
"Uh-huh," the psychologist said. "And how do you feel about that?"
Cozy tried to look as cute and distraught as she could. "I just want my mommy back! When is she coming back to me?"
The psychologist looked uncomfortable. He took a deep breath. "I suppose you know...we want so much to help her. But I don't know if she's ever coming back. That criminal really did a number on her."
(Cozy had already learned, the police had long ago decided the unicorn colt himself had broken the sled into pieces, or at least they blamed him for the breakage. She was glad they understood whose fault it was, even if she didn't like to talk about it.)
Cozy wailed and cried. It was safer than talking, and would get her a LOT more sympathy. She knew better than to express her true feelings too clearly, with anti-unicorn rants. The less she said against unicorns, the easier it would be for her to get away with killing them, and not get caught.
Someday, she hoped, instead of just dropping a rock on one unicorn's head at a time, or sneaking poison into their food or drink, she would find a way to take all the unicorn magic out of the world. Or maybe just kill them all. She wasn't fussy.
Thinking about it made Cozy feel all warm and snuggly inside, almost like her mother was hugging her. Cozy would think, "I'm doing this for you, mom. Because I love you."
***
"Mmm-hmm," Discord's disembodied voice said. "As one villain to another, I completely understand. Unicorns can be a real menace. But now that you have all the magic in the world, what are you going to do with it?"
Cozy blinked. "What do you mean, what will I do? I won. I won the whole world. Game over."
"Yes," Discord said. "But now that you have all the magic in the world, shouldn't you try saving your mother? I'm sure it's what she would want you to do."
"But I can't save her! Nopony can save her!" Cozy screamed. She buzzed her wings, and flew up to stand on one of Discord's arms. She grabbed Discord, wrapping her forelegs around him. She beat him with her hooves, and cried. Tears dripped on his cold, hard stone.
"I know," Discord said. "It isn't fair at all. But if you could save her, you would, right? Wouldn't you do anything at all? Whatever it took?"
"Of course I would, you stupid, stupid beast! But I can't! Nopony can!"
Discord's voice said very softly, "If I had my magic back, I could."
Cozy Glow hit him, hurting her hoof. "Ow," she said.
Discord snorted. Cozy felt his breath on her shoulder.
"There we go!" Discord said. "This is always easier from VERY close up." He chuckled dryly.
"Discord!" Cozy screamed. "You monster! You beast! You TRICKED me!"
"Please give me a moment," Discord said. "Let me try something." He snapped his fingers. One of Discord's horns transformed into a smaller, second Discord. The little Discord snapped his fingers. A hole in the air appeared, and the second Discord stepped into it. The hole vanished.
"Whew!" Discord said. "Now part of me is beyond your reach. I think."
"You lying monster," Cozy said. "You pretended to care about me, and made me cry. But it was all so you could trick me. Do you care about me at all?"
Discord shrugged first one shoulder, then the other. "I know I have a funny way of showing it. Twilight probably doesn't understand that all this was partly a practice run, to help her get ready for creatures that are even worse than you and I are." He reached up to stroke Cozy's mane. "Let's go look for that sled, so we can finally fix it. I don't just have amazing chaos magic, I know how to USE it. With you and me working together, we can do things that even Harmony wouldn't or couldn't ever do."
Cozy hit Discord. "How do I know this isn't just a trick?"
Discord did his one-shoulder-at-a-time shrug again. "Maybe you don't. But do you think I have anything better to do than show off my amazing chaotic power, by fixing what nocreature else could?"
Cozy sighed. "Maybe you're for real."
Discord grinned. "Come on. Let's give it a try. I'm sure your mother will be happy to see what an amazing evil overlord you've grown into." He wheedled, "MAYBE, somewhere along the way, we could even bring the rest of the world back to life. It's boring without anycreature else to play with. Don't you think?"
After a moment, Cozy said, "I'll think about it."
Discord gently clapped Cozy on the shoulder. "Come on, let's get ready to celebrate Mother's Day." He picked up the filly with both arms, set her gently on the ground, and nuzzled her, nudging her with his own muzzle to encourage her to start walking along with him. "We've got a lot to do...but it will be worth it.
"I look forward to meeting Rosebud. She must be quite a mare, to have raised somepony like you."
Author's Note
"up to three entries!"
But was it a good idea to really try for that many? Not sure yet. 
Seriously, I enjoyed getting to enter the same contest with two stories that took rather different approaches.
