Crack.

Cozy Glow fell to the ground with a thud. The pain in her rump let her know she was still alive. Considering the last thing she remembered was facing down two angry alicorns and Discord, staying alive wasn’t something she was taking for granted.

“Oh golly! Thanks for…” Cozy trailed off as she looked up and saw those same two alicorns looking slightly less angry than they had the last time she’d seen them… and Discord who looked just as smug as he had when he’d imprisoned her. “…releasing me.” She gulped. She had a hunch her newfound freedom wasn’t going to last long. “I’ve learned my lesson and I think I’m ready to give friendship a chance. For real this time!” The words tasted bitter on her tongue.

“Cozy Glow, you’ve used friendship as a weapon against ponykind on multiple occasions. Your friendship can’t and will never be trusted.” Princess Celestia glared down at the filly. “We aren’t here to rehabilitate you, but to banish you from Equestria forever.”

“Why not just leave me in the statue instead?”

“Because it was recently discovered that it isn’t as permanent as we suspected. There was a possibility for escape if you were to somehow put aside your differences with Tirek and Chrysalis and become friends with them. Although a slim chance, it’s a risk we aren’t willing to take. Alternative punishments have been devised for each of you.”

“Golly, you don’t have to go to all that trouble on my account.”

“Take a good look around you, Cozy Glow. This is the last you will ever see of Equestria.”

“Where… where are you sending me? Can I pick? How about Abyssinia? I like cats.”

“I’ll let Discord explain.”

“You’re going to live among the kindest, gentlest, nicest ponies of all time.”

She gagged at the thought. “I’d rather go to Klugetown.” I could amass an army in Klugetown…

“Hahaha, who wouldn’t?” Discord asked. “Such wonderful chaos in Klugetown! But alas, my little pony, not for you. So let it be written, so let it be done!” With a snap of his claws, the pink filly disappeared.

“She’ll be okay?”

Discord mock-gasped. “Such concern for your former subject, Luna. Why, one would almost think you cared about her well-being.”

“There are crueler fates than death, Discord, as you and I can both attest to. As clever and cunning as she is, her mind wouldn’t have endured for centuries in stone. She isn’t an alicorn or draconequus, she’s a pegasus, and still a filly at that. My primary concern is that she’s somewhere that she can’t cause harm to others. My secondary concern is that no harm befalls her.”

“Rest assured, where she’s going, nopony will harm her.”

“And of my primary concern, Discord?”

“Well, she can try to hurt them… but I don’t think she’ll be very successful.”

“Make sure of that. I’m less comfortable with dumping Equestria’s problems on unsuspecting worlds than Starswirl was. And still is.”

“Of course, my little horse.” Discord smirked. “One down, one to go, and one to leave in stone forever. As much as I’d rather leave Tirek to rot in stone…” He booped Chrysalis’ nose. “I think it’s for the best if Chryssie stays petrified. As for Tirek, I know this great castle he’d just love and somebody by the name of Tirac that he should definitely meet. I suspect he won’t be much of a problem after that.” Discord paused for dramatic effect. “What, no worrying about his eminent demise?”

Luna shrugged. “Tirek was never one of our subjects and hence never our responsibility. If not for the messes he’s caused, we would just deport him back to his homeland and be done with him.”

“I tried that many times while you were…away, sister. But he always kept coming back.”

Discord grinned. “He won’t this time. There’s always a bigger bad, and he’s about to meet one.”

With a popping sound, Cozy Glow materialized over a field filled with wildflowers. She started falling, but she spread her wings to slow her descent, eventually flapping them to take her higher in the sky to get a better view. A flowery field was certainly an upgrade over being petrified. At the very least, she had a source of food.

As she hovered, she was swarmed by giant insects. She started beating her wings at them and they squealed in surprise, moving away from her.

“Who are you?”

Cozy was surprised to hear the bugs speak Equestrian. Then she got a better look at them and realized they were breezies. That still didn’t make much sense, since the breezies were known for having their own language. “I’m Cozy Glow. Who are you?”

“I’m Zipzee, and this is Tra-La-La, Tiddleywink, Zippy Zinnia, Knick-Knack, Dancing Daffodil…” The breezie droned on, listing the names of the dozens of breezies surrounding them. “…Honeydew Hum, and Azalea Bloom.”

“There certainly are a lot of you.”

Zipzee giggled. “I guess that’s a lot of names all at once.”

Cozy nodded. She was good at memorizing names – friends liked you to remember their names, after all. “I’m a little lost. Where am I?”

“You’re in Breezie Blossom!”

Fluttershy had mentioned visiting the breezies once, so Cozy knew they had their own homeland. From her former professor’s description, she’d expected it to be protected, not an open meadow. These breezies certainly seemed capable of taking care of themselves, quite unlike Fluttershy’s description of them being more-or-less helpless.

“You probably want to go home to Butterfly Island, don’t you?”

Cozy paused. That was definitely geography she wasn’t familiar with. She’d made it a point to study global geography – once she’d secured Equestria under her iron hoof she’d need new territories to conquer. One goal at a time. “Sure. How’d you know I lived there?”

The breezie giggled again. “Everybody knows all the pegasus ponies are notoriously shy and live on Butterfly Island.”

That piqued her interest. The tribes are already separated. I can work with this.

She followed the breezies back to the last place she ever expected to see again: Ponyville. But this Ponyville was nothing at all like she remembered it being. No Carousel Boutique. No Sugarcube Corner. No eyesore crystalline castle ruining the quaint town’s rustic charm. It would, of course, be less of an eyesore if it was her crystalline castle.

But the town did have a castle. A pink one. This Ponyville was so sickeningly adorable she loved it. It would make an excellent capital city, and the pink castle would be her new base of operations. Nopony would ever take her seriously, and then wham! She’d overrun them before they knew what hit them. But first, she’d have to dispose of the current regime.

“I bet you’re hungry! Let’s stop at the Cotton Candy Café!” Zipzee led her towards a lakefront restaurant with a deck over the water.

Cozy Glow wasn’t about to turn down a free meal – and she’d make sure it was free, since the breezie had offered to get her food. It had been… she had no idea how long she’d been encased in stone, but she was positive it had been quite some time since her last meal.

The door chimed as she entered, and the proprietor shouted, “Welcome to the Cotton Candy Café!”

“This is Cozy Glow and she needs to get back to Butterfly Island.”

“Oh! New friend!” A mint green mare launched herself out of her chair and pounce-hugged her. “Are you related to Silver Glow?”

“Uh, I don’t think so?” Cozy made a mental note to destroy the green one first when she took over. The next thing she noted was that these ponies didn’t look all that much like equestrians. They were closer in appearance to ancestral horses than to modern ponies.

“I’m Minty, by the way! Oh, Christmas is coming! What do you like, Cozy?”

“What’s Christmas?”

“You’ve never heard of Christmas?!?” Minty gasped.

“No, no, no, this won’t stand,” Razzaroo agreed.

The gathered ponies explained the traditions of Christmas to her.

“So basically it’s Hearth’s Warming but with a different name.”

“What’s Hearth’s Warming?”

“That’s what we call Christmas where I’m from.”

“On Butterfly Island?”

“Uh…” Cozy Glow paused. There was a time for lying and she wasn’t sure this was it. Something was telling her some semblance of honesty would get her further in her current situation – she was a lost little filly, she could use that without needing to lie. “I’m not really from Butterfly Island, but the breezies told me that’s where all the pegasi live.”

“Pegasi? Do you mean the pegasus ponies?”

Cozy nodded. “‘Pegasi’ is the plural form of pegasus where I’m from. I’m not from anywhere around here. Have any of you ever heard of Equestria?”

Everypony shook their heads.

“That’s what I thought. I’ve really, really messed up and I don’t think I’ll ever get home.” Cozy inwardly smiled as she switched to her scared face – the best deceptions used honesty. Twisting the truth to serve her own nefarious purposes was what she was best at. If that failed, then she’d resort to lying.

“It’s okay, I mess up all the time too.” Minty was still hugging her tightly. “What did you do?”

“I made a chaos spirit angry and he sent me here.”

“What’s a chaos spirit and how did you make him angry?”

“His name is Discord and he’s a big meanie. He gets his jollies by making ponies miserable. I outsmarted him and that made him really, really angry. So he sent me away from home forever.” Cozy broke into tears for effect. “I’ll never see my parents or my friends ever again!” Not that she wanted to see the former, or had any of the latter left, but that was neither here nor there.

“We’ll get you home, little filly.” Minty started stroking Cozy’s curls. “I bet Spike or Kimono can figure out how to get you back to Equestria.”

“If not, we’ll make Ponyville your new home, Cozy. We’ll be your friends,” Razzaroo proclaimed. Her sentiment was echoed by everyone else in the café.

“Golly, you’d do that for me?”

“Of course!” Cotton Candy stepped out from behind the counter with an ice cream sundae. “Now eat up.”

“Okay.”

After the Cotton Candy Café, she was whisked away to Rainbow Dash’s boutique. At first, Cozy had been apprehensive upon hearing the mare’s name, but then she met her. Brash, boastful, athletic pegasus she wasn’t.

Rainbow Dash was an earth pony, like everypony else in Ponyville. That shouldn’t have surprised her, since she’d been told the pegasi lived on an island. Still, that name couldn’t be coincidental. The filly was immediately reminded of Rarity as she was measured by the fashionista.

She’d only been in Ponyville for a few hours, but she was already bored. “This place is worse than Tartarus.” At least there she’d had Tirek to annoy.

“Oh? Where’s Tartarus? It must be absolutely ravishing, darling, if it’s better than our lovely little Ponyville.”

Cozy gritted her teeth. “Of course, darling.” It pained her to use the fashionista’s word choice, but she’d studied under Rarity. She could outmaneuver and out-darling Rainbow Dash. “As a matter of fact,” she said as sweetly as possible, “I would just love to send you and all of your friends there, darling. Unfortunately, I can’t. Maybe if I had some sort of magical artifact?”

Rainbow Dash shook her head. “That would be absolutely darling of you! But I’m afraid we don’t have any magical artifacts, unless Spike has some in the castle. Maybe the unicorns of Unicornia have some? The unicorns know all about magic, darling. They even make the rainbows! It’s so darling of them!”

Unicorns make the rainbows, not pegasi? This place is weird.

Her time at the boutique was mercifully cut short by Razzaroo, who demanded to know her birthday and all the details of the things she liked and disliked. While they spoke Equestrian, the calendar had changed at some point in the Celestial Era. The best she could offer was that her birthday was near the end of summer.

Then Razzaroo pulled out her Birthday Book and paged through it, introducing Cozy to Ponyville’s residents one by one.

Razzaroo is the town’s depository of friendship information. She’s useful. Befriend her.

Razzaroo ended with Skywishes, leading the filly to the mare’s house. “Skywishes is our liaison with the pegasus ponies, yes, yes, yes.”

“I am? I mean I am! Oh you know what I mean.”

“I do,” Razzaroo said, giggling.

I don’t. Cozy didn’t voice her thought. Skywishes was apparently the next pony who could ‘help’ her so she needed to make a good impression. She dialed up her adorableness, bouncing her curls as she smiled. “Golly, Skywishes. It’s nice to meet you. I’m Cozy Glow.” The filly curtseyed.

“It’s nice to meet you too. I’m guessing you’d like to get home to Butterfly Island?”

Cozy dug a hoof into the dirt. “Yes and no. Yes, I want to go meet the other pegasus ponies, but no, I’m not originally from Butterfly Island. But if that’s where the others of my tribe are, I’d like to go there please.”

“Tribe?”

“The three main tribes: earth ponies, pegasus ponies, and unicorns.”

“I’ve never heard anybody call us tribes before. No, no, no.”

“Same here,” Minty agreed.

Cozy shrugged. “I’m honestly amazed we speak the same language. There are some differences, almost as if it’s two different dialects.”

“That would explain your accent, yes, yes, yes!”

Golly, at least having an accent is better than having a verbal tic like that, yes, yes, yes. Golly, that would be just awful.

Butterflies streamed through the windows and a tall pegasus trotted into Skywishes’ house. “Greetings, Cozy Glow. I’m Star Catcher.”

Cozy looked up at the majestic pony. Star Catcher reminded her of Celestia in a lot of ways, though her cutie mark was of a heart, not the sun. She quickly reined in her awe and curtseyed. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Star Catcher.”

“Star Catcher’s magic can grant wishes, so she may be able to help you get home.”

“You can do magic?” Cozy’s jaw dropped. “But you’re a pegasus.”

“Indeed, my little pony. My magic allows me to grant extra, extra special wishes, which by their definition are the wishes made to benefit a friend.”

Cozy Glow groaned. “So if I made a wish for myself…”

“I couldn’t grant it.”

“But I could make an extra, extra special wish for you,” added Skywishes. “I wish, I wish, I wish Cozy Glow could find her way…”

Cozy put a hoof against her snout to stop her from finishing that wish, visions of being greeted by Discord and the princesses dancing in her head – they probably wouldn’t be all that amused if she showed up in Equestria again. Conversely, the wish could decide her ‘home’ was Tartarus. Which, admittedly, was still better than being a statue. “Let’s not be hasty. I just got here, after all. Your world is so far away from mine that I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to get back if I want to visit. At the very least, I can’t go home until I see Butterfly Island and Unicornia.”

“If you desire to see Butterfly Island, consider it done.”

“Sounds great.” Finally! I can use this! The pegasi live by themselves; I can sow the seeds of discontent, then overthrow Star Catcher.

Cozy followed Star Catcher through a magic rainbow waterfall, which even she had to admit was the coolest front door ever. Behind the rainbow-colored water was a portal that led to Butterfly Island, home to the pegasus ponies.

Cozy’s smile shrank as she approached the island. It was pathetically small, hardly suitable for an empress. Oh well, everypony’s got to start somewhere. With such limited territory, it shouldn’t be hard to convince them all to invade Ponyville and Unicornia. I just have to play my cards right. Piece of cake.

Then she was introduced to her ~~would-be troops~~ new friends. All thirty of them. There was Star Catcher, of course, as well as Island Delight, Coconut Grove, and Bubble Balloon. She zoned out after being introduced to Thistle Whistle, all delusions of leading these pegasi to glory instantly forgotten. How could any self-respecting pegasus be terrified of clouds? It was unfathomable to her. Yet nopony ridiculed Thistle for her ridiculous phobia.

After introductions, the other pegasi helped build Cozy a little thatch hut on the beach to go with their own. Hers was next to the only other filly on the island: Honolu-loo.

Living in a hut on a tropical beach was a better fate than she could’ve hoped for a few days earlier. Cozy could appreciate that for the time being. She’d find a way to take charge, but for now, this would do.

The next day, Thistle Whistle and Bubble Balloon led her back to Ponyville to meet with Pinkie Pie. The trip was made longer by Thistle panicking every time she saw a cloud. Eventually Bubble sent Thistle back to Butterfly Island, and took the filly the rest of the way by herself.

There were still hundreds of introductions to be made, and Pinkie Pie was everypony’s friend. She’d taken it upon herself to show Cozy Glow around. Not just Ponyville, but everywhere. In that way, she reminded the filly of the Pinkie Pie she’d known in Equestria. They have to be long-lost relatives or something.

That meant a two-day hike to Unicornia. Despite having motorized conveyances known as scooters, Ponyville lacked a railroad. So they marched – Pinkie Pie, Minty, and Cozy Glow. Because of course Minty had volunteered to come along for the trip.

They broke camp for the night, a term which Minty took literally. Cozy sighed as Pinkie Pie cleaned up the clumsy mare’s mess. The filly took advantage of the confusion and started foraging around their campsite for dinner.

“What are you doing?”

“Making a daffodil and daisy sandwich.”

“Silly filly, flowers aren’t for eating, they’re for smelling. Wysteria would faint if she saw you trying to eat flowers. Just be glad the breezies aren’t here. They work so hard to bring us all these beautiful flowers.”

Cozy Glow paused. She hadn’t seen anypony here eat anything that wasn’t a dessert. “Did you pack food?”

Pinkie laughed. “Of course I packed food.” She opened a picnic basket to reveal doughnuts, cakes, and pies.

How are these ponies not morbidly obese?

Minty helped herself to a few doughnuts while Cozy decided on a razzleberry pie. She certainly wasn’t going to argue with eating dessert for every meal.

Unicornia was beautiful. Rainbows decorated the town, and Princess Rarity waved a magic wand around, creating more of them at her whim.

It was unsettling for Cozy to see a unicorn using a wand to access magic. Rarity had a horn, why wasn’t she using it? Why weren’t any of the unicorns using their horns? She’d been in town a few hours, but had yet to see a unicorn use their horn to light their way, levitate something, teleport, or do anything else.

Despite being a princess, Rarity was barely older than Cozy Glow. She was also very giggly, and about as opposite of the other Rarity as ponily possible. Not only could her wand make rainbows, but it could summon a carriage and teleport her depending on how she waved it. Rarity was happy to demonstrate her wand and take them all for a ride in the Crystal Carriage.

The more Cozy Glow learned of her new home, the less sense it made. Unicornia held no answers for her, and most frustratingly of all, she’d come away with even more questions.

Brights Brightly and Whistle Wishes waved goodbye to them as they started their two-day hike back to Ponyville. Cozy barely even noticed, lost in her thoughts.

The next stop was at a lake outside of Ponyville, well off the beaten path.

Pinkie introduced the next pony on her list. “This is Kimono, the wisest pony in the land.”

“What makes you so smart?”

“For starters, I live outside of town.”

“Okay, yeah, that’s legit. What else?”

“Mostly I dispense blatantly obvious advice to ponies who should honestly know better.”

“I’ve been here less than a week and I know what you mean.” Cozy was never going to be known for her empathy, but if ever her stony heart bled for somepony, it was this mare. She could relate all-too-well to being smarter than everypony around her. “So explain this to me. How is it that the unicorns, with horns to channel magic don’t use magic, but make rainbows? Meanwhile, the pegasus ponies, who have inherent weather magic, don’t make rainbows, but are somehow able to cast spells to grant wishes? This doesn’t make sense to me!”

“It’s only Star Catcher who has the magic to grant wishes. As for the rainbows, I’ve never heard of pegasus ponies having weather magic.”

Cozy rolled her eyes and flew up to the cloud level, returning with a cute little cumulonimbus. She stood on it and channeled her negative emotions into it, turning it into a stormcloud. Then she stomped it, creating a bolt of lightning that struck the ground below her. “Weather magic. Any pegasus can do this.”

Kimono oohed in appreciation. With that, Cozy earned the respect of the land’s wisest pony.

Wysteria was Ponyville’s most important pony. She was the organizer of most events, and she was technically their reluctant princess. Cozy had put off meeting her as long as possible, gathering intel from her new friends along the way.

“Cozy Glow, this is Wysteria.” Pinkie Pie didn’t bow to the purple earth pony, so Cozy didn’t either.

Cozy shuffled her hooves in the manner of an embarrassed foal. “Forgive me for asking, but I heard you’re the princess. Is that true?”

Wysteria groaned. “Yes, I’m the first princess Ponyville has had in a very long time.”

“Why don’t you wear a crown, and why isn’t anypony bowing to you?”

“Because I could never put myself above my friends like that. That’s why I promoted everypony to princess. Now I’m not the only one, so I’m no better or worse than anypony else.” Seeing Cozy’s shock, but misinterpreting the reason, she continued, “I don’t know what your plans are now that you’ve finished your tour, but if you remain here, then yes, you will also be a princess.”

“You hated being in charge?” Cozy sat down, overwhelmed by what she was hearing. This place just didn’t make sense. Not only did these ponies look funny, they acted funny too. Pegasi that were scared of clouds, princesses who didn’t want to rule – Cozy started thinking that Discord had just made the place up on a whim. Maybe I’m somewhere in his chaos dimension right now and he’s having a laugh at my expense. That would explain why there’s a Ponyville here that’s nothing at all like the one I remember…

“Oh yes, I absolutely despised being princess. All of my friends were tripping over themselves trying to please me, or galloping away if I approached so they wouldn’t have to interact with me at all. Because they were told that they had to treat me like royalty, because princesses don’t have friends. Or equals.”

“What’s wrong with all that? I wouldn’t mind at all. Golly, I’ll volunteer to be your princess if you want.”

Wysteria gasped. “You’d do that for us?”

“Of course!” Years of scheming, planning, and plotting… and all she had to do to become princess was just offer to take the position because nopony else wanted it. “As a newcomer to town, I don’t have the bonds you do to all of your subjects. I’ll be able to rule fairly and justly.” Not that she actually would, but theoretically she could if she really wanted to.

There were cheers from the rest of the gathered ponies.

“How darling of you!”

“Yes, yes, yes!”

“All heil Princess Cozy Glow!”

“A new princess? Oh, how marvelous! Your princess lessons start immediately!”

Cozy Glow groaned at the new voice. She did a doubletake as she realized it was the first male voice she’d heard. “Who are you?”

“I am Master Kenbroath Gilspotten Heathspike. The commoners call me Spike, but as royalty, you are expected to address me as Master Kenbroath Gilspotten Heathspike.” He whisked her away to Wysteria’s neglected throne room.

Cozy sat on the throne, making herself comfortable on the plush seat. After so many failed attempts... she finally had the power she craved. “So what lessons are we covering? Macroeconomics? That’s easy enough, just raise taxes. Foreign policy?” Cozy chuckled. “My thoughts on foreign policy is that if it isn’t mine, it will be soon.” She grinned, visions of conquest dancing in her eyes.

“My, my, my, what a sense of humor you have. Princesses aren’t supposed to be humorous, that’s what court jesters are for.”

“I have a court jester?”

“Well, no, not exactly. But you do have Minty as one of your subjects, and that’s pretty much the same thing.”

“I’ve met Minty. That…checks out, actually.”

“Lesson one: grace and poise. Walk across this room with these books balanced on your head.”

“Books? Who are you, Twilight Sparkle?”

“Who? Do you mean Twilight Twinkle?”

“Oh never mind.” Cozy trotted across the ballroom balancing the books with no problem whatsoever. She was a pegasus – grace came to her as naturally as clumsiness came to Minty.

“Lesson number two: what do your subjects call you?”

“Empress.”

“Oh dear, no, no, no. Your subjects should address you as ‘your highness’ or ‘princess’ but never, ever, as empress.”

“Where’s the fun in that?”

“Princesses aren’t supposed to have fun. Princesses are supposed to wave from parade floats.”

Cozy blinked. “Seriously, shouldn’t a princess have more important duties than that?”

“Some do. If you were the unicorn princess you’d be in charge of making rainbows.”

“Why does Rarity use a magic wand for that? Why doesn’t she use her horn instead?”

“Her horn? The only time unicorns use their horns for magic is in the first rainbow summoning ceremony of the season.”

“Then what are their horns for?”

Spike shrugged. “Decoration, mostly.”

Cozy had settled in as best she could. There was nothing else she could do. She had all the power in her limited world, not that it meant anything. The sun and moon rose and fell on their own – the unicorns looked at her like she was crazy when she asked who moved the heavenly bodies. They were quick to explain that the planet was orbiting the sun, and the moon was orbiting the planet. When explained to her, it made far more sense than an alicorn princess moving them.

Magic, for what little good it did her, was everywhere – she just couldn’t access any of it aside from the same mundane abilities she’d had back in Equestria: flight, cloudwalking, and weather manipulation. Just like any other boring old pegasus. To be fair, she’d been the only one who’d known she could do those last two at first, so at least she’d had the honor of teaching the others those tricks. Learning that she could control clouds had even made Thistle Whistle bolder and more confident. She was no longer terrified of them – Cozy was banking on that little favor paying huge dividends later.

There were no ancient magical artifacts to be found anywhere. The unicorns didn’t have any, nor did Spike. She couldn’t raise an army. It wouldn’t matter even if she could – the Ponyvillians would never invade their friends in Unicornia regardless of how badly Cozy wanted that mountaintop stronghold.

Master Kenbroath Gilspotten Heathspike was annoying, but useful. The same category that Cozy had lumped Tirek and Chrysalis into. A ‘can’t live with them, but can’t live without them’ situation. The dragon insisted on running all of the affairs of the realm for her, making her nothing but a figurehead. Nothing irritated her more than that – she was perfectly capable of making her own decisions. Like demanding a throne made of bones. Spike had refused that because it wasn’t befitting a princess.

On the other hoof, Spike was very good at reminding everypony else to bow to her and treat her like a princess, and most importantly, he knew a lot more about the land than any of the ponies. Cozy hated to admit it, but she needed him.

One day she found him looking over a map, and she took a good, long look at it over his shoulder before he noticed her and rolled it back up, admonishing her that princesses never looked at maps.

Maybe in Spike’s dream world princesses didn’t look at maps, but Princess Cozy did. More importantly, she recognized the geography. Unicornia was Canterlot. Ponyville was Everfree City, and the castle she was standing in was the Castle of the Two Sisters. Breezie Blossom was the Whitetail Woods, and Butterfly Island wasn’t on the map because it was accessed via a portal… but the rainbow waterfall containing the portal was no doubt Rainbow Falls. One of the other castles was in the Crystal Empire, but she didn’t recognize the remaining three.

With that, the pieces finally clicked together. The ancestral look of the ponies around her, the three tribes living separately, the Christmas holiday that was so similar to Hearth’s Warming that it was obvious that the one had appropriated the other’s traditions as its own. She was in the distant past, prior to the unification. Judging from how friendly the tribes were with each other, probably well before the unification, in ponykind’s first Golden Age.

What had confused her was the level of technology – it didn’t seem possible for the past to have so many modern amenities, including some that ponykind still hadn’t rediscovered. But there was no denying that map, and it was well known that a significant amount of knowledge had been lost to the ages – first during the migrations as the three tribes battled one another, and later in the era of Discord. She’d never realized just how much had truly been lost to history because of the windigos and the draconequus. She wouldn’t have believed it if she hadn’t seen it with her own eyes.

I’m in the past. Way in the past. Before the princesses. Before Discord’s reign. Before the windigos and the unification. Before Sombra. Before Hearth’s Warming. I can use this. Discord, you big dummy, you sent a pony who studied history extensively to a time before your own. I may not live to see it, but you’ve given me everything I need to rewrite history in my image. I’ll have the last laugh after all.

The sun and moon moving on their own? Her eyes went wide. Discord has to be responsible for whatever upset the natural balance of this solar system. It was logical. How could life ever develop on a planet with no sun? If the sun is controlled by ponies, that would mean that ponies had to have come first. Unless we originated somewhere else and colonized Equus, it wouldn’t make sense. No doubt the sun and moon from my own era are unnatural satellites.

Thus Cozy Glow finally made use of the friendship lessons she’d learned long ago and oh so very far away. What started as a malicious scheme for revenge blossomed into something more: a friendship with these naïve ponies. Once she realized it, her heart broke out of its frozen, stony confines once and for all. For the first time the meaning of ‘living well is the best revenge’ made sense to her, and so she ensured that she and her subjects alike would do just that.

The end had always justified the means to Cozy Glow. She’d never cared who she stepped on along the way, because they were naught but worthless pawns. And because it was fun. But… if being kind and benevolent was the path to achieving her goals, the ends would once more justify the means. She was still Ponyville's princess, and Spike made sure that the other ponies worshipped her as they should. Which meant none of them would blame her for that.

She’d just need to prove that a princess could do more for her subjects than wave from a parade float. She’d also need to learn to like the cutesy heart-adorned throne she’d been given. Truth be told, she didn’t hate it, it was just that nothing said ‘malevolent dictator’ like a throne made of the bones of vanquished heroes. It was the right aesthetic for an empress…

But not suitable for a princess. This new setting called for a new game, with new rules and objectives. She mentally wiped the board clear, resetting the pieces. No more would she fall victim to the impatience of youth, it was time to focus on the long game.

Thousands of years later, the skies started raining chocolate milk. It was one of the signs alluded to in the prophecies of Cozy Glow the Great, the princess who’d united the tribes and led ponykind into an age of peace and prosperity by defeating the necromancer Grogar and his army of monsters.

During her lengthy reign as princess, Cozy had published a series of prophecies that had slowly been coming true, one by one, as the years passed. The first had been Grogar, whom she handily defeated when he showed up a few years later. The next had been Tirac, the minotaur, who appeared brandishing the Rainbow of Darkness just as she’d predicted, even if Cozy hadn’t lived to see it.

This latest one was the prophecy of Discord, a chaos spirit bent on tormenting ponies and sewing disharmony.

The means to his end wasn’t hidden on top of Mount Everhoof or gathering dust in an out of the way museum. Grogar’s bell remained prominently on display in the Pink Castle of Ponyville, the ancient seat of Coziequestria’s power, ready and waiting to be used. Gusty picked it up in her magical field with the permission of the current princess, Majesty.

It was time to destroy the chaos demon. She repeated the ancient prophecy in her mind. Use the bell to take his power, and then melt the bell into tiny ingots and scatter them throughout the world. In the deepest trenches and the highest peaks. Never again to be seen by pony eyes. Then smite the beast once and for all. Show no mercy, for he has none. It was the only one of the prophecies to use such dramatic language – this was the enemy Cozy had considered the most dangerous of all.

If Discord was real, that meant that she’d have to be ever vigilant for the two false princesses – the ones who claimed to raise the sun and moon. Everypony knew the planet Equus orbited the sun, and the moon orbited Equus. Anypony who claimed differently was just plain ignorant of science. As decreed by Cozy Glow, the title of princess would never be hereditary, never be put to a popular vote, and would instead always pass to the wisest pony in the land.

“For Cozy Glow the Great!” Gusty thrust her sword in the air, vowing glory for Coziequestria’s namesake, hero, and savior. “Consider it done, yes, yes, yes!”

Author's Note

Story notes: https://www.fimfiction.net/blog/1052699/story-notes-golden-age