A Monster in the Attic

The search for the baby began early in the morning, and ended quite rapidly, a scream of terror echoing through the entire domain. The mother had found her foal, or rather what remained of him, in a black puddle of dry blood, staining the sheets he was wrapped in. She was soon joined by her husband, as she was carefully holding her infant with shaky legs, filled with incomprehension, tears flowing down her cheeks. And the questions she could only yell remained. Why? And who?

Standing at the top of the entrance stairs, their host looked at the scene with a confused frown, his wife by his side. The unicorn mare glanced at him, uncertain, fearing his reaction. They both knew who had done that.

"Take care of our guests," he said in a dark tone. "I'll go find her. Do not let them leave."

The mare nodded, walking towards the two broken parents, while her husband went back inside the mansion.

He didn't need to search for long. He went to her bedroom and there she was. But not in a way he had expected.

Cozy was sitting at her desk, sobbing, a bunch of small tools laying around, her mane messy and bloody. She hadn't even heard the door open, but she heard her father stepping inside.

She slowly turned around, still sobbing, and what her father saw froze him on the spot.

She had dried blood all over her face and dark rings under her teary eyes. But worst of all, she spotted a dangling blue horn on her forehead, pitifully attached with strings, sewed into her flesh yet still barely holding. He could make out traces of staples, of small pins, all planted in the horn and in her head, a sign of a succession of desperate self-mutilations.

"I can't make it stick..." she cried in the small pleading childish voice of a filly that couldn't understand her failure. "Father, I can't make it stay on my head..."

Her father stayed in the middle of the room, looking at her, his frown growing confused while still angry. Cozy broke into tears, hiding her face behind her hooves, the small appendage dangling even more after one of the strings loosened.

"I can't!" she yelled, sobbing uncontrollably.

She knew how much he hated to hear her cry, but she couldn't hold it inside. She was shaking, covering her face in shame.

Finally, her father muttered:

"We'll talk about this later. Go wash your face."

Before heading out of the room.

He sounded... less disappointed than usual...

Silence fell again in the office. A lot of things had just been put into perspective into Starlight's mind, as Cozy had continued her story. She was horrified, so much so she didn't know what to say. What could anyone say to this!?

"Father took care of the guests..." Cozy slowly followed, looking at the floor with regretful and absent eyes. "This time, he could not blame their disappearance on the creatures living in the woods near our mansion. That would have made too many of them in too little time. So, instead, he said that the baby had a magical mishap and burned down the bedroom with his parents."

Starlight waited a little bit, glancing at the pegasus near Cozy. He didn't intervene and simply nodded, inviting her to answer something.

"And you were punished for that as well, I suppose...?" Starlight tried, indirectly encouraging her to resume her story. "Seeing how your father was..."

"Not in a way I expected... He said..."

"You want a horn?"

Cozy looked up at her father with confusion. His eyes reflected the fire in front of them, with the three burning corps in it, behind the mansion. He slowly turned his gaze to her, awaiting an answer.

She nodded, fearfully. Her father's expression became thoughtful, before he turned around and went back to their house.

"Follow me," he said, after noticing she wasn't.

The filly trotted behind him, unsure, yet hopeful. He hadn't slapped her yet, for what she had done. Despite killing her future husband, and one of the only other unicorns around. She thought he would be mad, way, way too mad.

But instead, he led her through the mansion, to the windowless room behind the kitchen. Cozy knew it used to be the maid break room, back when there was one, during her father's childhood. Now, it was unused, not even for storage, since they already had a couple of rooms for that purpose already. The place was mostly empty, just a few pieces of furniture here and there.

Her father walked into the middle of the room, then turned towards her. Cozy went up to him, her frown a mix between naive curiosity and fear.

"You wanted to be a unicorn?" he patiently asked.

She carefully nodded.

"Do you know why I am doing all those experiments on other ponies?"

"... Because they're inferior and they deserve it?" the filly guessed, remembering what he had once told her.

"That too," her father nodded. "But also for one thing: To understand the anatomy of ponykind and, maybe, find a way to transform you into a unicorn."

Cozy's eyes filled with incomprehension, as something weird happened in her heart. Something that felt weird, pinching, yet... warm? He was doing that for her? He was trying to fix her? She didn't know what to reply but, for once, she had the impression her father was actually... caring for her.

That feeling didn't last...

"But, for that, I need a unicorn to study," her father followed, his tone progressively becoming more severe. "One whose magical abilities have grown enough. One that is not a baby. One alive."

The realization hit Cozy hard, under her father's reprimanding stare. What he had planned, what she had done. She gulped in terror, her breath suddenly becoming faster.

"I-I didn't know," she tried, taking a step back, knowing that her punishment was about to come.

"Yet, you acted," he replied, his horn beginning to glow.

Cozy laid down on the tiling and covered her head, wincing, expecting some atrocity to rain down on her. But nothing came. She opened one eye, only to see that the walls were starting to glow. Red runes plastered all over them, circles inscribed with magic formulas, slowly rotating.

"You will stay in here for the next twenty-four hours," her father explained with a cold anger. "The doors will be magically locked. Every ten minutes, one of the runes will cast down a spell at you. Either you manage to raise a magical shield to deflect them until the day has gone, or you find a way to teleport outside of the room. Or you die."

"B-But," Cozy panicked, looking at her father with pleading eyes, still folded on the floor. "But I can't do any of this! I don't have magic!"

Upon those words, her father teleported the little piece of horn she had snatched earlier and threw it at her hooves.

"You wanted to be a unicorn?" he said, despising her with every word he spoke. "Act like one."

Before he disappeared into a flash of blue light.

The magical lights in the room turned off, leaving the filly in the dark. Immediately, one of the runes on the wall brightened up and a magical bolt was cast right at her, sending her flying against the wall in a yelp of terror and pain.

He didn't really go easy on the spells... It's more of a case of casting so many of them over such a long period that forced him to make ones only strong enough to barely break a rib. Each had the strength of a good kick, I'd say... With some elemental effect...

She stood up, looking around, terrified but also lost. She could barely see, she felt a slight burn on her coat where the spell had struck, but worst of all, she didn't know what to do. She rushed to the door, but of course it was locked. She looked at the furniture, but they were too heavy for her to move, and none could offer any protection currently. Nothing to crawl under or to hide behind. She searched everywhere, her heart beating fast, as if it would make a difference. But it wouldn't. None of what she was doing would, and she knew it. Every second spent in there only reinforced that knowledge to an absurd degree.

"Please, Father!" she begged with all her heart, screaming into the room. "I'm sorry! Let me out! Please!"

No answer came. He was already gone. He had already forgotten about me and I was to be remembered only in twenty-four hours.

... Which was probably a relief for him...

Another rune glowed, and this time, a cold beam of magic hit Cozy right in the head, knocking her for a few minutes. She woke up with a frostbite on the entire left side of her face and the truth only became more apparent: Without a solution, she was going to die here.

Just as she had processed that, a wind spell was thrown at her from the ceiling, slamming her against the ground, the air scratching light cuts into her legs.

She spent the next hour running in circles, searching for a way out, for a means to dodge the spells. But they were targeted at her, they would correct course to hit. She was flung against the wall, burnt, had part of her coat slightly melted by acid. And she was already exhausted. Her last meal had been the day before, she hadn't slept all night. Tired, panicked, hurt and alone. She would not last the twenty-three hours left in here, yet she had no other hope than for it to stop. She was counting the spells, but it was so slow.

In the darkness, the only idea she had was to try and hide against the large sideboard. Maybe, depending on the angle they were coming from, it would protect her from the spells.

The next spell was thrown, and it hit the piece of furniture with a large metallic sound, causing it to wobble next to the filly. She let out a desperate sigh of relief, her legs feeling weak. That one would have knocked her out for a while, or worse.

Suddenly, the sideboard fell down, crashing on the floor and breaking into pieces, making the poor filly's heart jump, as she screamed in terror. But once that was passed, she realized how much of a chance this represented. She searched around the remains and found a large but slim piece of wood almost intact.

Hiding under it proved to be useful. For one spell. As soon as the fiery magical hammer landed on her improvised shield, it shattered into a thousand blazing shards spreading in the room, leaving the filly yapping in terror.

Her eyes went everywhere in the room, seeking a solution, something, just a slither of help. But nothing, the other fragments weren't big enough to protect her.

A weird smell attacked her nostrils. In the darkness, a light appeared, but it wasn't a ray of hope, rather the coming of hell. The shards had caught fire and it was spreading to the bits of the sideboard laying around and the other few furniture.

The filly stepped back in terror, her back hitting the nearest wall, watching the room slowly being set ablaze. She couldn't scream anymore, she was left panting, desperate, hugging the wall as much as possible, standing on her hind legs, flames dancing in her eyes and in front of her.

She was going to die here. By fire or by smoke. The room was getting filled by black clouds obscuring the newfound horrifying ambient light.

By the corner of her eyes, she caught it. The little reflection of a metal pan on the wall. The dumbwaiter panel, previously hidden behind the sideboard. An escape.

She immediately flew towards it, dodging the flames but not the smoke, losing her balance because of them, couching, weakened. She hit the foot of the wall, but quickly got back up, her heart beating faster than it had ever done before, adrenaline rushing in to help flap her little wings to that panel, to that escape.

The mechanism was jammed, but it didn't stop her. She pulled on the handle, as much as she could, the heat reaching her coat, curling her hairs, darkening her feathers, until the panel gave in and opened.

The platform to lay the plates on wasn't there, but she could still get inside the vertical tunnel, barely wide enough for her, slamming the panel shut behind her to prevent the smoke from getting in. But it still was, just slower.

There was no way to escape down, she was at the ground level, but she could fly up. Hitting the walls, so close around her, still disoriented, her eyes having lost their acquaintance to darkness, she rose up. It took her a bit of time, but she found the second floor's panel and managed to open it, storming out coughing into a room. She closed the panel behind her, getting away from it, taking a breath and collapsing on the floor, panting.

I didn't think about how my father would react to me escaping. I didn't think about where I was, or if I should warn anyone about the fire. All I thought, all I cared about, was that, in this moment, for once in my life, I felt safer now than during the previous hour.

As she was recovering her breath, lying on her back, looking at the roof, the filly coughed again. Not from the smoke this time, but from dust. Little gray sparkles were flying around her, in this dimly lit room. And it's when she noticed that she didn't recognize it.

She stood up, looking around. It was a bedroom, but neither was it his parent's, hers, or the guest rooms. Light was filtering through light blue curtains and barely opened shutters, the rays hitting countless small particles of dust flying around. That place hadn't been used in years.

The bed was simple, which was unseen in this mansion, even Cozy's bed was a large one. She walked around a bit, looking at the chests of drawers and the walls. Everything looked plain, simple, outside of the portraits.

All of them were of ponies she didn't know. And almost all of them wore valets or maid outfits. She could walk down whole generations of servants by simply following the wall, until she arrived at the last maid, the one that was serving under her grandfather. A beige pegasus with a kind smile. She wasn't sure it was her, but that was Cozy's best guess.

So, that was her room. Opening a wardrobe, only to see an assortment of chores-related outfits, confirmed that. That explained why the dumbwaiter led here. But why was this room unused now?

She looked at the door. It was sealed, physically and magically, but she wondered where that door led. She was above the kitchen, drawing the map of the house in her head, Cozy realized this was right next to her father's desk. But there was no door in the hallway there, just... a large tapestry. So large it covered the whole wall.

But why? Why would her father go to such length to hide this place? She looked around again, searching in the drawers, her curiosity piqued. She had nothing else to do anyway, her father had probably fireproofed the room below too.

She found what she was looking for in the bottom drawer next to the bed. A pile of photos. Some old, really, really old, taken in front of the manor with ponies so ancient on it she wasn't even sure they were family members. And she had learned about her family tree. A lot.

There was a photo of her grandfather, a tall unicorn with the same coat as her father, but with a much kinder look to his face. But he wasn't the heir of the family, her grandmother was, standing right by his side. She was the "pure blood" Dim, and he was just a stallion found somewhere else, to preserve the line.

They were standing in front of the mansion, with Cozy's great great parents by their sides, and the maid on the side, barely in the frame. Just the five of them, compared to the older photos where ponies were plenty, even with commoners on them. Or, at least, non-unicorns.

The most recent photo was a much closer shot, inside the mansion, with just the maid in the middle, holding a probably four years old foal in her hooves. Cozy's father.

For a moment, the filly didn't even notice half of the picture was missing, having been ripped apart. She was too shocked, too lost by what she was looking at.

He was smiling...

An honest, innocent and happy smile. Her father, that horrible, cold and cruel colt, had once been a young and naive smiling foal.

She couldn't grasp what this all meant. Why was all of this stored here?Why was the room sealed away?Why was half of the photo missing? Why hadn't her father taken a new servant, as it seemed to be an old tradition in the family?

Something wasn't right, but I was too young to really understand it. For me, for the scared little filly that had barely avoided death a moment ago, it was just another confusing piece of lore in that obscure family and mansion.

She looked outside by the window. She could just fly off the room and act like she had just regularly escaped. But her father would be furious and find out. She wasn't going back in that room until the twenty-four hours were past, though.

She decided on a half-lie. She opened the window, sneaking in between the shutters and flew outside. As long as she didn't get caught, things would be alright.

She spent the best part of the day outside, having fun on her own, as she always did. When the sun set, she even got the luxury to snatch a few leftovers from her parent's diner after her mother had left the kitchen, and got to sleep in her own bed.

When the sun rose again, she waited in the old maid's bedroom, having stolen a book from the library to keep herself busy. Then, as the hour dawned, she went back down the dumbwaiter shaft, heading for the room she had supposedly been locked in a day prior. The smoke was gone, the fire had died out. She carefully opened the panel, checking inside.

The room wasn't in a great state, burned spots on the floor and on the walls, all the furniture were gone, there was some water and rocks on the tiling and, as well as a puddle of what she guessed to be acid, in the darkness.

She waited a bit, in the frame, just to see if the spells had truly stopped. When ten minutes had passed, she walked in, closed the panel, and waited in the middle of the room. She didn't expect to make it out without being scolded and beaten. Her father would understand what she had done.

Minutes passed and, for a moment, she imagined he had forgotten about her or just supposed she had obviously died. But it took less than half an hour for the door to magically open, casting some light into the room. The shape of her father appeared, walking in, turning on the magical lights.

She stood, straight and firm, staring at him with a strange determination, a confidence that should have been absent, crushed. She tried to look proud, for him. But he didn't seem impressed, nor disappointed. Just, his regular anger, stopping right in front of her.

He looked down at her, seeing her suspiciously decent state.

"You cheated," he deduced without even looking at the dumbwaiter.

"Yes," she replied, still trying to appear proud. "Because I would have died otherwise."

"You dodged your punishment."

The tone was as icy as ever. His horn glowed, ready to strike. But Cozy held strong:

"Killing your only child would end the line, father. Even if I made the mistake of being born a pegasus, I still thought you might want to preserve your legacy."

As far as I can remember, this is the first time I argued with dishonesty without being beaten prior to it. And, to my surprise, it worked. To some extent.

The stallion frowned, considering her words. He looked around, his eyes falling on the dumbwaiter and becoming angrier.

"You hid in it?" he growled.

"I did. I stayed in it the whole time, at the bottom."

She knew saying she had flown up would only bring trouble. That room had been sealed for a reason.

The stallion judged her, up and down. His face softened in the sense that his anger became bitter, slowly returning to its passive state.

I think... I think he recognized my ability to find workarounds despite not having magic. I wouldn't call it respect, more like... the same low fascination you would feel for a fly that manages to get out of a spider web.

"Very well. If you wish so much to stay alive, then so be it. Clean the room, that'll be your chore for cheating on your punishment."

Way better than anything I had expected. But I tried to not look affected by it.

The filly nodded, waiting for her father to turn around and leave the room. Once he was out, her legs began to shake and she sniffed loudly, her muscles relaxing, her mind at ease, knowing she had avoided a heavy physical retribution. Barely.

It took her a few minutes to start putting things back in order, mopping the floor up, removing the debris and the dirt. In the midst of the ashes, she found something. A deep blue little nob, partially melted.

Cozy picked up the horn, looking at it with a mix of surprise and curiosity. It was now unusable,but it had never been to begin with. At least, not for her. And now, she didn't care,she didn't need it anymore, she didn't want it. She had survived this room, it hadn't. She would go on in her life, while this thing, after burning in a fire, would never Glow.