The Rise of Passion

Cozy Glow awoke in an unfamiliar bed, in an unfamiliar room of an unfamiliar house. She was sore, her head was throbbing and her memory was fuzzy. The bed was comfortable, at least, and rather large. It was big enough for four adult ponies of moderate size, or perhaps a dozen of her. A thick flannel comforter covered her, and all around her, the colours ranged from pink to red.

The sound of hoofsteps approached outside the door. Cozy had to act quickly, but how? She could pretend to cry and force a few tears out to make it more convincing, but she didn't have enough time to come up with what was wrong, nor did she have the time to start planting seeds into the mind of whoever it was.

In the end, she opted to close her eyes and lie still. Pretending to still be asleep would allow her to listen in on what they said, whoever it was. It could lead to more information being gathered, and that was what mattered most.

The door latch clicked open twice. That told her there was a lock on the door. There were dark red curtains on the wall; that likely meant windows, and a locked door would reasonably lead her to believe locked windows. The hoofsteps came closer. The steps had a sort of "klak-klak" sound, as opposed to a "clip-clop" sound. The pony walked with confidence and flat hooves, meaning they likely thought very highly of themselves and were careful in their gait. Their direction indicated that they were coming to the bed, meaning a higher degree of acting may be in order if she had to pretend to wake up.

In response, she measured her breathing. Sleeping ponies tended to not breathe as constantly as awake ponies. While awake ponies breathed in and out regularly, sleeping ponies tended more toward inhale, exhale, and pause. It wasn't as simple as holding her breath; she had to wait with her lungs empty. That made it harder to fake, especially over long periods of time. In addition, she had to constantly be moving her eyeballs under the lids, just in case whoever it was was searching for it.

The steps were right next to her when they stopped. The sound of metal knocking against wood told her that something had been moved on the nightstand next to the bed. There were other sounds that accompanied it, like the rumbling of unsteady ceramic. A tray of some sort?

The sound of the hooves retreating told Cozy that she was soon to be alone again. She hadn't taken in all of her surroundings, but they had already changed. She needed time to reorient herself with her surroundings and come up with a plan, and the sooner she could do that, the better off she'd be.

The door closed, and both latches clicked into place. Cozy waited, counting out fifteen seconds before popping one eye open.

"Hello, Cozy Glow," smiled Starlight, standing right over the top of her. "Sleep well?"

"I just woke up, Ms. Glimmer."

"You've been awake the entire time I was in here," corrected Starlight, pointing to the other side of the bed. A heart rate monitor was running in silent mode, and it showed an increase from forty-two beats per minute to sixty-seven two minutes ago. "Excellent bluff, by the way. It would have fooled me if I hadn't taken steps against it."

Cozy sat up, miffed. She opened her other eye and sighed. "What do you want?" she asked. "Did you just come in here to gloat? To remind me that I'm going right back to being frozen in stone? Are you here to tell me that it's time for my reformation? Because I can assure you, I've had a lot of time to think about what I've done, and I'm very sorry."

The monitor beeped, alerting them both to its presence, not that they needed it to know that Cozy was lying.

"Oh, fine," she huffed, crossing her front legs. "Just send in Twilight and her friends, already. I'd rather be stone than sit here and wait to be turned back to stone."

Starlight nodded. "As it so happens, I will be sending Twilight and her friends to you. However, it's not what you think."

"Oh, no?"

Starlight grabbed the heart rate monitor and secured it to herself. It took a moment for it to recalibrate, but it was soon displaying Starlight's heard rate at seventy-eight beats per minute.

"The reason I locked you in here is because I needed to talk to you before you ran off. In all honesty, both of us have suffered humiliation at her hooves. She took everything away from me. And then she took everything away from you."

Cozy looked to the monitor. Seventy-seven beats per minute. "What did she take from you? Be specific."

"I had a beautiful little town, filled to the brim with ponies who had been separated from their individuality in order to build a community where nopony is better than anypony else. A place where equality reigned. A place where nopony was bullied for being different. It was paradise. And she went and destroyed it. Everypony was happy, and smiles were bountiful, and then she stepped in and turned everypony back into pompous, sneering braggarts! "I can make better cookies than you!" "Oh, yeah? Well, I can ski down this mountain faster than you!" "Big deal! neither of you is capable of matching me in hoofball!" Such disfunction, and she calls herself the Princess of Friendship!"

Cozy watched the monitor as she listened, and while Starlight had become heated, her heart rate never rose above eighty-two. It was clear to see that she was telling the truth. With the speech over, she turned back to Starlight. "What is it you want with me?"

Starlight smiled. "You are truly an inspiration. That you even came close to taking over Equestria is proof enough that you are exceptionally gifted at pulling the strings from behind the curtains. That is what I want. I want you to remove Twilight from the throne."

"So you can take her place?"

"So you can take her place," Starlight corrected. "I don't want all of Equestria. What I want is a town, roughly the size of Ponyville, that I can have dominion over. If you can grant me that, I will happily be your second-in-command. I'll carry out your orders to the letter, just help me take Twilight off the throne and give me a place where nopony needs to come to blows."

Cozy leaned back. She seemed to be genuine in her plea, and it would be a lie if Cozy said she had never dreamed of ruling over all of Equestria. "You want to be my lieutenant?"

"I will serve you loyally and faithfully until the end of my days. I have come to love you since the time of your imprisonment, and will do anything you want, if you will bring Twilight Sparkle to heel."

Cozy had heard that line before. She tossed her comforter aside. "How about eating me out? If you can't do that, then you have no-oO-OH--!"

Starlight had dug right in with her tongue, much to Cozy's shock. She wasn't particularly good at it, but her technique wasn't so terrible that Cozy would need to correct her very much.

She gently stroked her former teacher's mane. "You might have something, there," she smirked. "I will consider your offer."