Cycles

Cozy glow needed a pair of scissors.

She rooted around inside a drawer, her good wing's primaries and a hoof shoving around the various craft instruments and materials haphazardly dropped inside. Quietly, she cursed Flurry's tendency to be so darn disorganised. Perhaps, when she had the time, Cozy ought to go through all of Flurry's things and properly label them.

Cool light from the low lying Northern sun warmed Cozy's back as she shifted from one drawer to the next. It bounced off the faded pink walls and icy-looking floor, removing any shadows from the space. Years, Cozy had been there, and she still hadn't adjusted to the lack of shadows. It was downright uncanny, like she was in another space to the left of reality.

While chilly, she'd still worked up a sweat, small beads of it moving through the short hairs over her face, cutting routes down her snout like climbers up a mountain.

She needed those scissors.

The third drawer didn't give her any scissors, but there was a surprisingly springy roll of fabric. A narrow band of soft pink mesh she could hardly see through.

She took it, slipping it under her good wing.

A faint echo of Flurry's perfume filled the room, cardamom and sandalwood. It was a constant smell in Cozy's life, so persistent that it faded into the background as if the air should always carry the scent. A few places absorbed it most, though. The places Flurry spent most of her time in, and her little hobby room was second only to their bed.

Just as Cozy reached for the last drawer, having picked out a pair of tweezers from the last one, she breathed in deep. The scent washed over her tongue, though it was ever so slightly different. A touch spicier, a touch stronger.

She looked back over her shoulder and under her wing, catching Flurry Heart's gaze.

The young mare stared back, one eyebrow raised and her head tilted just a hair to the side. Her long, fuchsia mane dangled and curled back up, framing her face with curled fingers.

She got cuter every day, and just a little more terrifying.

Cozy straightened herself up, folding her wing down to trap her other prizes beneath it. With a deep breath she forced herself to calm down. She knew how she looked when she got obsessive; wide-eyed, jaw clenched, her hair carelessly falling over her eyes and back.

She adjusted her tight curls with one hoof, a gentle brush of the tips so they consistently fell in one direction. "I need some scissors," she answered, a surprising calm in her voice.

A thin smile crossed Flurry's lips as approached. Wariness, but amusement to. "What are you up to?" she asked with a hint of a laugh.

Crap. Cozy didn't want to have to lie to Flurry. Lies came too easily to her lips, little falsehoods that built up into epic, sweeping tales if she wasn't careful. She really didn't want to embroil Flurry in a stupid conspiracy.

Not that she really liked the alternative.

Cozy smiled. "I'm just working on a little project!" She layered on the sweetness, as false as saccharine but hopefully good enough Flurry didn't think too hard about it. "I wanted to keep it secret, but you know how hard that is here. I wanted it to be a surprise for you."

Most of that was true. All except the surprise. Now she had to come up with a surprise with the things she took, but that was for her to worry about later.

Flurry stared into Cozy's eyes for a moment. They'd built a lot of trust together, over the years, but every now and then her parents' and aunt's uncertainty bled through.

Cozy hated it, but she always appreciated what came next.

With a wing only a little less stubby that Cozy's, Flurry reached for the pot atop the desk and pulled out a pair of scissors with a bubblegum pink handle. "Be careful, hon," she said with a smile, and offered them to Cozy.

As Cozy took the scissors with her wing, Flurry took the opportunity to pull the two of them together and plant a kiss on Cozy's cheek. The forced smile across Cozy's face relaxed into something more genuine, a giggle bubbling up in her throat.

It bugged Cozy that her partner—her fiancé, something she was still reeling over half a year later—let doubts enter her mind. It stung less, though, whenever Flurry pushed them aside and trusted Cozy anyway.

Cozy turned and shuffled away, shooting a quick smile over her shoulder. She took advantage, sometimes, but she tried her best not to push her luck.

The Crystal Empire's palace wasn't as big as the castle in Canterlot, or the ruins she had only a brief chance to explore back in the Everfree, but it had space enough the two of them had the equivalent of an entire house to themselves.

That meant Cozy could do as she pleased without being watched by guards, though occasionally housekeeping made their way through. Additionally Cozy had been scarred by the few times flight patrols had invaded her privacy, sticking their snouts in through the windows, though they hadn't done that in a few years.

It simply meant Cozy didn't truly have a space just to herself. She liked the solitude, which Cozy understood the irony of. It had just become a close friend over her many years locked away.

The other thing about the palace was the oversized closets. Cozy entered the one in their bedroom, closing the door behind her and blindly feeling her way through the rows of dresses and garments on hangers. Eventually she came to a solid wall of silky-soft fabrics that she barged through, only to stumble into an empty space behind them. She dropped her supplies on the floor when she threw out a wing, feeling around.

She found the little armature and unscrewed the cap on it to let in the sterile, white-blue light of a small crystal.

It illuminated the space. The soft wall of multi-coloured clothing on one side and the cramped ceiling above. So small, so tight, it had been made tighter by the addition of books and a single crystal dining chair, plus the shelf Cozy had hastily bolted onto one wall for her things.

A sanctum. An office. Cozy's private little space no one, not even Flurry knew about.

Cozy collected her supplies and placed them onto the low shelf, beside a book and a little bundle of faint, lilac wool. That had been Flurry's favourite scarf, repurposed by need.

She breathed in deep before unfurling the scarf. A lump of red feathers rolled out before she reached the core of it, and she quickly jerked the scarf back to keep the little thing from falling too quickly to one side.

It was tiny. Young, maybe, or just small. Its ruby red feathers jut out at strange angles from one wing, which had one more bend in it than it should. Its small chest beat, making the whole thing look like a dried, hairy heart.

Cozy checked through her supplies with her wing while opening the book with her hoof. She'd earmarked a page on the anatomy of flying creatures, with a stylised x-ray of a robin spread across the two pages.

Ever so gently, she pinched the primaries of the broken wing in her teeth and plied it away from the creature's body. It writhed, flapping the other wing and squawking away.

"Shut up, shut up!" Cozy shout-whispered. She placed her left hoof on the bird's fiery chest, and while it continued to flutter uselessly on the table, it shifted its beak from screaming you biting and pecking at the edge of the hoof.

The scissors slipped behind several of the feathers. After one more sideways glance at the book, she snipped.