Part I. ("Well it wasn't about you but it could've been, well no it couldn't have.")
Over the course of 3 days, 20 odd years ago, a single filly nearly drained all of the magic out of Equestria. This filly's name was Cozy Glow, but she will forever be known as the only threat to this country left to tell the tale of her power.
Cozy Glow was a student at Princess Twilight Sparkle's school of friendship, one of the best students in fact, she had a pastel pink coat and a pastel blue mane with the hair curled on the top. Cozy Glow was one of if not the most popular student in the school, she would always help students out with their homework or assignments, help creatures find things that they lost, and other assorted good deeds. Cozy Glow was such a great help that she eventually became the right hoof mare of Twilight Sparkle herself. Cozy Glow was the embodiment of friendship, second to the Princess of course, or at least that's what everycreature thought.
One fateful day, all unicorn magic in Equestria suddenly vanished. Without explanation, barriers fell, various items crashed to the floor, and some creatures even fell out of the sky. The Princess at the time, Princess Celestia, said that if the magic was not restored within 3, now 2, days, all magic would vanish from Equestria premanently. Nocreature knew why this was happening, but a certain group of six ponies had some sort of idea. Twilight Sparkle and her friends, the same six ponies that had save Equestria so many times, had to quickly travel across the country in search of Tartarus to get to the bottom of this. Little did everycreature know, the real master behind the plot was sitting in the exact same room as them.
In Twilight Sparkle's absence, Chancellor Neighsay had forcefully taken charge of the school. Starlight Glimmer, the current headmare, was put in temporary charge until the six had returned, but she was nowhere to be seen. Cozy Glow didn't like this however, so the young filly took matters into her own hands. She used her knowledge about friendship and what the students wanted out of a headmare to put together a coup d'état and overthrow Chancellor Neighsay, electing herself as the acting headmare, putting her in charge of everycreature in the school.
This is exactly what Cozy Glow had wanted, control. Cozy Glow has a skewed definition of friendship, she had believed that friendship was only to benefit yourself. Cozy Glow had thought that friendship was only to be used for power, a power that she had used to overthrow leaders, and almost get away with wiping all the magic from Equestria. Almost.
Six young students had managed to unravel Cozy Glow's plan, they had managed to figure out Cozy Glow's true intentions before anycreature else. They had managed to save all of the magic in Equestria from vanishing just before the dawn of the fourth day. They had managed to stop Cozy Glow. After all of this Cozy Glow was set to be locked away in Tartarus for an unknown amount of time, but just when the royal guards had shown up to take her away to Tartarus, she was gone, nowhere to be found. Nocreature had seen her leave, she seemed to have vanished.
To this day nocreature has managed to find her.
"Yes Auntie Twilight," a young adult mare said, "I'm well aware as to why security is so tight in Equestria, but that doesn't answer the question of why I can't leave."
"Well Flurry Heart," Twilight began, "you're of extremely high importance, you're next in line for the throne of the crystal empire, if you were to randomly vanish that would send Equestria, the Crystal Empire, and my brother into a panicked frenzy to search for you."
"Yeah," Flurry started, "but like you said, I'm next in line for the throne, I should be able to come and go as I please, but obviously I wouldn't be alone, I'd have a guard or something following me around."
"Yes that is true, but it is simply too important of a night for you to be wandering around until Celestia knows when."
"I promise I'll come back before dark, please Auntie Twilight!"
"The final answer is no Flurry."
"Fine!" Flurry exclaimed, "I didn't want to leave anyways!"
With that final untruthful proclamation, Flurry Heart stormed off to her temporary personal quarters in the castle in Canterlot. Flurry was frustrated with how much she's had to do these past few months is Canterlot, and on her one day where she gets a break she can't even leave the castle. It was for a good reason, Flurry knew that, it was unsafe for the pony who would be crowned the Princess of an empire to go out dilly-dallying on the day before her coronation, but all the stress that the preparation had caused her over the past eight months give or take had really just needed to be relieved that night, and being able to do the one thing the truly wanted to in that moment was absolutely infuriating, but Flurry knew it was for the best.
Even with her knowledge of why she couldn't leave, and knowing the reason she couldn't leave made sense, Flurry was still longing to be back home with her family, back before things were so professional. Flurry wanted to go back to the times when she was a foal, where her and her mother, Princess Cadance, would take long walks, and just talk about whatever crossed their minds. One memory in particular sat in Flurry's mind at that moment.
It was only a few weeks after the Winter Wrap-up in Equestria, and Flurry and her mother had gone there to oversee the festivites, just for the fun of it. Flurry and her mother were walking down a beach, well it wasn't really a beach, it was a sandy lakeside, but with how large the lake was it might as well have been a beach. As Flurry and her mother were taking this walk, the tide began to come in, every wake that crashed against the shore came higher and higher up, until at its highest point, it was up to Flurry's knees. Flurry loved walking along the waves, both then and now, something about the water against her light pink coat made her feel at peace.
Flurry wanted to return to that beach more than anything, it was her mother's favorite spot to take her whenever they'd visit Equestria, but now that she's finally in Equestria, and has been for the past few months, she's been completely unable to visit it a single time, she had to learn all the duties and formalities of being the Princess.
If she were to be honest, Flurry would say that she didn't want to be the Princess, she'd never wanted to be the princess, not even as a filly. Flurry had always thought of her life as a member of a royal family to be a burden, it came with its perks, sure, having guards and servants is nice, but Flurry didn't like how unauthentic everything felt. Everywhere Flurry would go, people would be constantly looking at her because she was the child of the Princess. All of her classmates through all of her years in school had wanted to be her 'friend' because of her royal status, she was sick of it at this point, and for her to only get more royal is the last thing she wanted. Flurry couldn't back out of being the princess however, she was the only child of Princess Cadance and Shining Armor, the only way she wouldn't be Princess is if she... didn't exist at all.
As Flurry thought, she stared out the window of her room, and just for a moment, thought about flying away to that beach, and disappearing completely. She almost went through with this decision, even hesitantly placing her hoof of the latch to the window, before there was a knock on the door.
"Come in!" Flurry exclaimed, before quickly removing her hoof from the window and turning towards her door. When the door opened, Flurry was greeted by a rather lanky dragon, the same height as her, if not a little taller. The dragon was covered in purple scaled, with tough, green skin poking through, "Oh, hi Spike!" Flurry welcomed him inside.
Spike stood in the doorway unmoving, "Hey Flurry, I just came up to tell you that breakfast is waiting for you."
"Thanks Spike," Flurry replied, "I'll be down in a minute."
Spike replied with a simple nod before leaving, closing the door behind him. Flurry walked up to the door and grasped the handle with her magic, but before leaving she looked back at the window for a moment, before she turned back around and headed downstairs for something to eat.
As the day continued, Flurry heart kept wondering back to the window in her room, how at the right time, when everypony else was asleep, how easy it would be to slip out of the castle and not come back. Flurry didn't really want to disappear, she loved her family and her friends, but she knew she would rather disappear instead of being the Princess.
At this time, around midnight, Flurry lied alone in her bed, completely awake. Flurry dreaded what was coming tomorrow, her coronation, everypony would be looking at her, watching her seal her life away so she could do exactly the opposite of what she wanted to do, stay locked away in a castle ruling an empire she didn't want to rule. It was then that Flurry had made up her mind.
Flurry pulled herself out of bed, not bothering to remake it, walked up towards the window, and unlatched it, letting the window open itself, as the castle was on a slight slant. Flurry stood there for a moment, letting the cool night air hit her face, the faint glow of the moon making her coat appear more blue in color. After her moment of pondering ended, Flurry stood up on the edge of the window, and looked down towards the bustling city of Canterlot below.
The sight below her was something to behold, this usually bustling city was now, for the most part, completely empty. The streets were illuminated by nothing but a select few lights in candles and the moonlight. This sight amazed Flurry, it made her feel calm, it made her feel determined, and once she finally looked back forwards, that was the most confident she had been all day. With this newfound confidence, Flurry spread her wings, took a step forward, and flew.
The sights below Flurry Heart were absolutely stunning, everything looked so different from above, she had never flown this high before, or this fast, it was amazing. The fresh, cool air hitting Flurry's face felt amazing, everypony that was out at this time for whatever reason looked like ants from up there, it was truly like nothing she had ever experienced up to this point. Flurry couldn't just glide forward forever though, she needed to go back to the beach, her beach.
Flurry stood on the shore for a good few minutes, just staring out into the vast waters, the calm breeze flowing through her mane, the water dampening her hooves and lower coat, and for the first time in months, she felt at peace. She found time to think about her foalhood again, think about the few times her father had come here with her, one particular moment that she remembered fondly.
The tide was coming in again, she was preparing to get her legs absolutely soaked again, when the tide hit she was hit with the same wave of euphoria as always, when suddenly she had heard a splash behind her. When she turned around, she found her father laying on the ground absolutely soaking wet. Flurry couldn't help but begin to laugh at this memory, as she was giggling like a filly, she heard hoofsteps approaching her.
"You don't have to sneak up on me," Flurry said, "I'm ready to go back now."
Flurry turned her head to see exactly which royal guard had thought to look outside of the Equestrian walls, but who she saw wasn't a member of the royal guard. She was met by a mare, this mare looked around the same age as Flurry, maybe a few years older, around 5 years give or take. Her coat was a light pink, pastel almost, Flurry couldn't tell exactly because of the moonlight. Her mane was a light blue, with three extremely well kempt curls on top. Flurry knew who this was.
Flurry tried to say something, but she couldn't find any words to say, she was face to face with the one who got away, the Cozy Glow was standing right in front of her. Flurry wanted to run, she wanted to run back to Canterlot and apologize to her Auntie Twilight for running away and trying to disappear, even if she was completely unaware at that moment, but she couldn't, she felt like she didn't need to. Flurry and Cozy sat there, staring at each other for a moment, before Cozy finally spoke up.
"Um.." Cozy barely manage to start, "Hi... why are you here..?"
Flurry stayed silent.
"It's nice to finally have company, but... I really hope you weren't looking for me."
Flurry turned back to the water before saying anything, "I'm here for a similar reason as you, Cozy Glow."
This shocked Cozy, nopony who's come across her before has known her name before, let alone tried to sympathize with her, "...You are?"
"Yes, I am," Flurry answered, "I'm also running away from something I don't want."
"Oh," Cozy replied before slowly walking towards Flurry Heart and sitting beside her, "What are you running from?"
"I have a coronation tomorrow, I'm the heir to the throne of the Crystal Empire, and if I'm being completely honest I hate it."
Cozy scoffed, "Now why would you hate being a Princess? You'd have all the power in the world right in your hoofs!"
"Yeah, sure, the power would be nice, but ever since I was a foal I've had eyes on me at all times, having more eyes on me is the last thing I want."
"That's a lot like why I ran too, you probably know why I ran though, didn't want to get sent to Tartarus, nopony does."
Flurry giggled, "You know the stories made you seem like some sort of evil monster, but I wouldn't mind staying here with someone like you."
Cozy just smiled in response, happy that she finally had somepony who would listen. Flurry and Cozy just sat there talking until the sun rose, it was nice for both ponies to finally have someone who wouldn't judge them for being what they once were. After a long night of talking, Cozy lead Flurry to her current shelter, where she slept until the later morning.
