More of what no-one wanted or needed, delivered at random and out of nowhere.

Four young ponies were watching one old human on a stepladder struggle with bunting.

He was attempting to get it slung over the branch of a tree, and in trying to do this he was having very limited success. The old man had just the one of his original legs with the other being a replacement, a lot of brass framework strapped about his lower portions and about his waist and appeared to be swearing in a low voice and in a language only one of the ponies watching could understand.

The old human thought he was being quiet enough that she wouldn't hear. He was not. She could. It was one of the reasons why she was smirking.

"Are you sure you don't need help Mr Paul?" One of the watching ponies asked, cocking her head and setting the bow she wore waggling.

"Just Paul, children. And no. I am fine," the old human grunted through gritted teeth, straining for reach and cursing himself for only having brought the small stepladder.

"Are you suuure, Mr Paul?" Asked another of the watching ponies, this one with a horn and the perfect tone of voice for drawing out a word. None of the others could have pulled it off even half as perfectly.

Well, maybe one of the others, but she was too busy smirking.

Paul paused, his concentration fraying. He gritted his teeth harder, having been poised to just again attempt to loop the end of the bunting over the branch.

"Very sure. And just Paul, children. I have told you."

"If you say so, Mr Paul,” said the one of the ones with wings, the orangey one, and said quite deliberately, too.

"Just Paul. Bloody kids have been round the house often enough to know my bloody name by now I swear to God. Least it’s not ‘Mr Cozy’ anymore. _{Just trying to rile me. Cozy's putting them up to it, I know she is...}"

"Dad doesn't want help, just leave him to it," said the smallest of the watching ponies, the one with the curly hair, the one who'd been smirking silently the whole time.

"Do not call me that, Cozy," Paul said without turning around, preparing himself as he was for another bunting-toss. Cozy stuck her tongue out at him. "And do not stick your tongue out," Paul said.

"But- how!" Cozy sputtered.

Paul tossed the bunting and this time nailed it. Nailed it so perfectly in fact that Cozy could have sworn he'd wasted all his time up until this point just so he could do it and make her look bad.

He then turned, grinning, and tapped his nose.

"I know you, child."

She gaped at him in annoyance for a moment before snapping her mouth shut.

“Urgh, thinks he’s funny. Come on.”

They wandered off and left him to his bunting and his hypocrisy of being annoyed at them failing to remember his name while he’d spent years merrily forgetting all of theirs. They moved to navigate the edge of the park the party was being set up in, for a party was being set up.

It was one of Canterlot’s many, many (many) parks - place was riddled with the damn things, always just tucked around a corner in any space there was available. Big fan of green public areas the city planners, apparently - and it had been the spot that Paul had chosen for the event for reasons that he’d not revealed and likely weren’t that compelling.

Cozy doubted he’d asked anyone if he could have a party here, but she also doubted anyone would have been able to talk him out of it either. And it was too late now regardless. He was dug in like a party tick. The bunting was only the latest part of it, balloons had already been pinned up. He was going all-out, by his standards.

She and the others had pitched in to help with the balloons, as Paul lacked the lung capacity to do them himself. He’d tried because of course he’d never actually admit to not being able to do it, and Cozy had been content to let him try at first, but it had stopped being funny about a quarter of the way into the first balloon and she’d found she simply couldn’t let it continue.

Despite his protests she had taken over, and her and the others had done the rest. There hadn’t been a lot he could have done about it. He’d been too out of breath.

"This is better than your last birthday party,” Scootaloo said, and she wasn’t wrong but she didn’t know the half of it, either.

“You should have seen the first one,” Cozy said dolefully, the mere memory unfortunate.

“What did you do?”

“Nothing! I wasn’t allowed to leave the house. It was just me and dad, and he doesn’t - he didn’t really get birthdays.”

“How do you not get birthdays?”

“I don’t know, he didn’t have them where he came from or something,”

Not true, incidentally. It had just been a long, long time since they’d come up for Paul and he’d rather forgotten the procedure. He had got better after the first one, thankfully, and now had more-or-less got the proper hang of things. In his own way.

Took him a few years.

"He did buy the cake this time, right? And not make it himself? I just want to be sure,” Sweetie Belle said, deathly serious, her face grave. As someone with some level of experience when it came to rendering the edible inedible she had discovered in Paul a level of culinary failure she could only ever have aspired to.

Briefly, the four of them remembered the cake he’d made. All four of them shuddered.

Even now, years later, the flavour lingered somehow.

“Yes, he did,” Cozy said.

A collective sigh of relief was released.

In all honesty Cozy was kind of floored by dad’s efforts. For a grumpy bastard with a (repeatedly, loudly, yearly) professed disdain for birthdays it really looked like he’d tried to make a proper go of hers this time.

Then again, he always had, in his own way. Even the first year. He’d failed miserably, sure, but he’d obviously tried. He’d just got better at trying, his trying hadn’t ever stopped being a given.

This year though really was a step up. Not at home in the dead garden with Paul’s ditch of cigarette butts that he’d refused to do anything with despite ostensibly having given up smoking, more guests (hopefully), more balloons, the introduction of bunting, outside catering meaning that the food was being done by someone other than Paul - all sorts of things. It was the culmination of bitter experience all coming together, brought to fruition by Paul’s determined efforts and the money he saved by being austere and frugal in his personal life.

No guards this time, either, which, while not new generally, was still a nice change from the last party.

Even when Cozy had first been allowed to go beyond the walls (supervised, as said, under the watchful eye of some trusted individual or other, sometimes Paul, sometimes someone else) there’d always been guards mysteriously close to wherever she happened to be going. They’d started out quite brazen, though later more towards plainclothes guards lurking conspicuously in crowds.

A plainclothes guard was quite easy to spot, Cozy had learnt. They all wore the same trenchcoat over their armour and the same hat perched at the same jaunty angle. They were also commonly issued the same newspaper with eyeholes cut out, for peepin’.

Made them stick out a bit.

It was oddly comforting, in a way, that in a world that seemed always to be changing the ineptitude of the guards remained stubbornly consistent. Something to cling to. She was fairly sure it was the exact same trenchcoat, too, and they had to share it. Some of the stains had looked familiar.

Kind of odd to think how that sort of thing might have, not all that long ago, made her angry. Now she saw the funny side of it. She wasn’t wholly sure why this might be, but there it was.

Also helped that, at the last party, the guards had actually been alright. Hogged the bouncy castle but then they’d been the ones to bring it (it was their bouncy castle). They were certainly better at cutting loose and enjoying themselves at a child’s birthday party than they were at their actual jobs.

Or so dad had said. Repeatedly.

“Did you invite Twilight, in the end?” Sweetie Belle asked, bringing Cozy back to the moment.

The question had been asked because, as they saw, some guests were starting to arrive. Cozy had been quite liberal with the invitations mainly because she could and so had been, distributing them to just about anyone in Canterlot she was on even vaguely friendly terms with. Paul had inexplicably encouraged her in this as well. The first couple knots of ponies she kind of recognised. They were nice enough.

As for Twilight? There’d been some discussion among her and her friends in their meetings and correspondence prior to the party about whether Cozy should or not. Her friends had been all for it, Cozy had been more hesitant. In the end she’d gone with it and extended an invitation.

"I did. I don't expect her to actually come, she's probably got better things to - oh, no, wait, there she is. And she brought all her friends too,” Cozy said, pointing.

The other girls, with their history and familial connections, were elated and dashed over at once. Cozy was more reserved and did not dash anywhere, instead lingering, undecided.

It wasn’t that she didn’t like Twilight, it was that the thought and sight of her reminded Cozy very strongly of that time she’d betrayed Twilight’s trust as part of a greater scheme to seize control and perhaps, inadvertently maybe, bring about semi-apocalyptic consequences, and being reminded of this made her guts twist.

Was that guilt? It probably was. She wasn’t a fan. And having Twilight right there made it more difficult to shove into the back of her head where she normally kept it.

The rest of them, Twilight’s friends, she could take or leave. Her contact had been limited and her opinions had been equally limited, mostly to how best to get them to do what she might have needed them to do, had she needed them to do anything. Though subsequently realising that this was the extent of her feelings about them had left her feeling…

...not great. So she did her best not to think about it.

Paul chose this moment to wander over for some reason or other but quickly forgot that reason when he followed where Cozy was looking and spotted Twilight.

“Oh God. It’s the small one. With other ones. Are they also princesses?” He asked, wincing. Cozy looked up at him sideways in mild despair.

He knew at least one of them, he’d met Rainbow Dash before! Twice, at least! Cozy would worry about his memory but she knew it was less a case of forgetting things and more a case of not having paid attention to them in the first place. And also forgetting them anyway.

“No, they’re not,” she said, deciding not to go any further into it. Paul nodded.

“Hmph. That’s something, at least. Oh God, the pink one is coming this way.”

Indeed she was. At a hop, no less, complete with springing sound. Best not to think too much about that. Both Paul and Cozy stayed rooted to the spot - escape was impossible.

“Hello Cozy! Happy birthday!” Pinkie said.

“Hello Pinkie. Thank you,” Cozy said.

“Hello Paul!” Pinkie said, bouncing up to be at face-level when she said it.

“...hello pink horse.”

“I like your bunting!”

“Hmph.”

“Are those balloons?” Pinkie asked, pointing to a nearby bunch of balloons. Paul very slowly turned to look at them before very slowly turning back around to Pinkie again. She was waiting expectantly for an answer. Paul licked his lips.

“...no,” he said.

Pinkie looked genuinely taken aback.

“Oh. What are they then?” She asked.

Paul stared at her for a moment and then just walked off without saying anything, muttering to himself and shaking his head.

“What are they?!” She called after him, now desperately curious.

“They’re balloons. It’s uh, a language thing, don’t worry about it,” Cozy said quickly before buzzing off after Paul.

“Oh. I thought they were balloons! Still got it, hah!” Pinkie said to herself, happy that particular mystery had been resolved and that her ability to identify balloons was still intact and hopping back into the mix of things.

Cozy caught up with Paul in seconds.

“That was pretty rude, dad,” she said, hovering along beside him.

Paul could not have given less of a shit. So much so he didn’t even tell her not to call him dad, that’s how much of a not shit he gave.

“Yeah yeah yeah, I’m sure she’s devastated. Oh God there’s so many horses here. Why did you have to be such a popular child?” Paul asked as he witnessed another gaggle of guests arriving, happily joining those already present. The rather modest park he’d picked was already started to get a bit crowded.

“It’s not my fault I’m adorable,” Cozy said, giving a bobbing mid-air pirouette, a perfect landing with forehooves raised, a bounce of the curls and one of the wider, brighter smiles she could muster. Paul was unmoved.

“Hah.”

She landed standing and stuck her tongue out again and he barked out a laugh, grunting as he bent to pat her on the head and a pinch of the cheek.

“Maybe just a little bit adorable,” he said.

“Eurgh, it doesn’t work if you say it,” she said, fighting him off. The red on her cheeks was from the pinching. Both of them, somehow, despite him only having pinched one.

“Exactly why I said it. Now off you go, do whatever it is you’re meant to do at these things. Have fun or whatever. I’m going to go and have a sit down, my leg is hurting,” he said, gripping the leg in question (his remaining leg) and wincing briefly. A ripple of concern passed over Cozy like a breeze worrying the surface of a modest puddle or small pond.

“Are you okay?” She asked. Should she bring the chair to him?

He waved her aside.

“Fine, fine, fine. Just been upright too long. Prod me if you need anything,” he said, and with that wobbled off. Cozy watched him, concern continuing to ripple, albeit less so.

“Alright…”

As she sometimes did (but tried not to make too much of a habit of) Cozy did what Paul had said. Once she’d seen that he had found a place to settle down she hovered off to go and get some nibbles, and while acquiring nibbles (and squash, in tiny paper cups) she bumped into Twilight who was doing the same.

Was this a coincidence? Had it been planned? Did it matter?

Practically speaking, not really.

“Oh! Hello Cozy,” Twilight said, genuinely not having noticed bumping into the birthday girl for a good second or two. She seemed in buoyant spirits. Cozy was less buoyant.

“Princess,” she said, doing a teeny bow.

“This is your party, Cozy! You don’t need to do that,” Twilight said. Not an especially big fan of the formality, especially not at someone’s party!

Cozy had mostly been doing it just to stall for time and try to think of a topic of conversation to avoid an uncomfortable silence. Hanging around dad too much kind of made bowing uncomfortable, at least in theory, as a concept. If he had been capable of bowing he wouldn’t do it, and he would tell you at length as to why he wouldn’t. Cozy had been subjected to this, and despite her precautions some of it might have been absorbed.

But he wasn’t watching. So it was fine.

Rising from the bow and still not really having anything she felt she could talk about Cozy went with a great standby option:

“Glad you could make it.”

Twilight beamed.

“Happy to be invited! Didn’t expect it. You know, sometimes I think you go out of your way to avoid me, Cozy!” She said in exuberant, jocular fashion, meaning this as a harmless joke, a light waft of humour.

Hit a bit too close to home though.

As previously mentioned, Cozy did indeed not really feel all that happy whenever Twilight was around, for reasons already elucidated upon. She didn’t go out of way to avoid Twilight, as the joke had said, but, on those uncommon occasions where their schedules lined up to put them in roughly the same place at roughly the same time, Cozy always seemed to slip away before actually bumping into Twilight.

It was the gut twisting. The unavoidable attraction of dark thoughts relating to how this pony had trusted her and how she’d used that trust, used it, like it was just another component in a scheme, like a screwdriver, like a tool. Like it had no worth of value beyond what she could have used it to achieve.

All that stuff. Cozy didn’t like it. And looking at Twilight just brought her mind to the simmer with it all. Grabbed her by the scruff of the neck and shoved her face into what it was she’d done, more so than anyone else somehow. Cozy tried to smile, but it was weak. She wasn’t as good at cracking them out on cue as she used to be. Out of practise. Not so much call anymore.

“Ahah, hah, hah...yeah…”

Twilight’s beam dimmed.

“Have you...been avoiding me?” She asked, balanced on the knife edge between concern and being wounded. That she was so balanced was not secret, it was plain. Cozy winced.

“No, no. Well, not on purpose. I…”

This was pretty much the exact reason why she’d been reluctant to invite Twilight, this exact conversation. This had been the worst-case scenario and it was happening, right next to the cups of squash and beneath the bunting. What a nightmare.

Oh well. Started now. Started so she’ll finish.

“I feel bad about what I did to you and every time I see you I think about what I did to you and it makes me feel bad and so I’ve been avoiding thinking about it and trying to avoid you so I can avoid thinking about it,” she said, not pausing for breath once and ending the sentence panting. Twilight blinked.

“Oh,” she said.

Cozy continued, still not having fully finished:

“And I know I shouldn’t be avoiding that sort of thing - or you, you’ve done nothing wrong _{and I kind of like you, actually} - but that’s what I’ve been doing, sometimes intentionally, sometimes not, but mostly sort of intentionally because it makes me feel bad and, uh, yeah. Something like that,” she said, shrugging helplessly and examining a patch of scrubbed grass by Twilight’s left forehoof.

This forehoof then raised and placed itself (presumably at Twilight’s command, though who’s to say?) on Cozy’s shoulder, forcing her attention up again and getting her to actually look Twilight in the face. She was no-longer balanced on anything. She was now smiling comfortingly.

“It’s okay. You don’t need to be sorry for the Tartarus thing anymore. I’ve forgiven you,” she said.

Cozy grimaced. Eurgh. Details. Where one came a flood followed.

“Wasn’t just that though, was it…”

Her guilt was broader. It spread wide, like a shit blanket, smothering her whole world at times. At times no aspect of her life seemed free from it, all parts lying beneath the blanket, tainted. At times.

This was one of those times.

Twilight’s expression got more serious, a real talk expression.

“Cozy, don’t - look, I’m not going to lie and say what you tried to do was fine because it wasn’t and we can’t pretend it was, but it failed. It failed and we can’t ignore it but we can’t let it be the only thing in your whole life or such a big thing in ours we have to stop everything every time we think about it. It’d only be bad now if you hadn’t learnt from it and hadn’t moved on. I’d say you’d learnt from it and I’d say you’d certainly moved on! Look at where you are now! Look at you!”

Cozy didn’t wholly buy this line and felt it could perhaps have been delivered better, but could at least see where Twilight was coming from and had to be forgiving as it had plainly been given off the cuff. She managed most of a smile.

“I guess,” she said.

“We’ve all forgiven you, you just need to do it yourself now. It’s just a part of life now, just a part of you and not all of you. And it’s the past. You might be remembered for it, sure, but I know it won’t be the only thing you’re remembered for. Whole life ahead of you, Cozy! We’re all heading forward now. Together! Friendship, see? It’s magic!”

Twilight’s grin was broad. Cozy bit back a wince.

“Had to work that in there, huh?” She asked.

Twilight’s blush was sudden and deep.

“Well…”

Hokey and goofy as it might have been, it had also been sincerely meant. Somehow though this only served to make it hokier and goofier still, which led to giggles. Who was to say who broke first? Twilight’s seemed the quicker to bubble up but Cozy’s proper giggles always had to work their way up through her via a winding route (possibly due to years of forced giggling, possibly not), so maybe they both really started at the same time?

It hardly mattered, really. They both giggled. That was what mattered. They shared a good giggle over some goofy lines and some cups of squash.

Neither could have hoped for a better way to both puncture the tension of the moment or end the conversation so comfortably. It really took the edge off. Cozy was able to relax a bit around Twilight after having vented her spleen and the world not having come crashing down, and Twilight was able to see Cozy relax a bit. They both felt the winner.

“I’ll leave you to it,” Twilight said once the giggles had petered out. “But if you ever want to come talk to me about anything - anything! - don’t think twice, okay? You’re still you, Cozy, but you’re not who you were. You’ve grown.”

More bromide, but well meant. Cozy squirmed at it all.

“Bit taller I guess…” she muttered.

Ignoring this, Twilight gave Cozy a friendly pat on the shoulder before, as she said she would, leaving her to it, wandering off to her own friends and leaving Cozy with the squash. Cozy had two cups to steady her nerves.

Well that had been emotionally draining, if ultimately somewhat positive. And at her birthday party, too! Over thankfully. Could only get better from here, she was sure.

An outbreak of bowing caught Cozy’s attention and she turned, eyes widening slightly when she saw, towering over the genuflecting crowd, Celestia. Cozy’s guts sank. A lot of her feelings were centered in her guts, she realised. They reacted strongly. Here, they reacted with the dread of another exhausting conversation incoming.

One talk with one princess had been quite enough for one birthday as far as Cozy was concerned, but this did not stop Celestia from immediately homing in on Cozy the instant she made eye-contact She came over so suddenly and was just so tall that Cozy all at once had the overwhelming, terrifying sense that she must have done something wrong and found herself rooted to the spot, looking over to dad for help but finding him, unhelpfully, pretending to be asleep in his seat.

Or actually asleep. It was hard to tell the difference sometimes.

“Happy birthday, Cozy Glow,” Celestia said once within greeting range. That snapped Cozy out of it.

“Thank you, Princess,” she said, giving another small bow.

It was as said the done thing and felt more appropriate here than with Twilight somehow, even if dad would have scowled at her for doing it. She checked midway through that he was still pretending to be asleep and was silently glad to see that he was.

“Oh, no need for that, Cozy! This is your party!” Celestia said.

Bit late, but still.

Celestia then produced a present from wherever it had been lurking and hovered it across to Cozy, who took it, surprised. Well-wrapped, the present had a kind of heft that suggested ‘book’ to Cozy who was therefore not wholly shocked when, on unwrapping, she found book.

A cookery book, no less. That one did surprise her.

“A...cookbook?” She asked, staring at the cover, at a loss. Celestia was still smiling though with the clear edge of one who is worried their gesture might not be landing the way it had been intended to land.

“Well, I don’t know if it’s still true but I remember you saying that Paul’s efforts at dinner - while valiant - left something to be desired and so I felt that this might benefit you in an indirect sort of a way,” she said.

Cozy looked at the cookbook again.

“Oh. Right. I get it. Dad’s, uh, he’s still not great at cooking so you might be onto something there.”

Cozy hadn’t starved to death yet, which was something, but dinner was still luck of the draw most nights. More hits than misses these days, true, but those misses…

Blech.

“I’m rather out of practise with buying presents, I’m afraid,” Celestia said, more quietly.

“No, no, it’s good. Thank you.”

A pause.

This was not the first conversation that Cozy and Celestia had had since that time in that podunk town hall those few years back.

They’d met a few more times since, during what Celestia would have been loathe to have labelled ‘check ins’ but which had been exactly that - quaint little meetings with tea and biscuits to gauge Cozy’s development, progress, attitude towards reform and also maybe just possibly keeping an eye out for signs of recidivism.

Cozy had detested them at first, finding them by turns insulting, demeaning, condescending and intrusive but eventually coming to realise that Celestia had had to do something and at least this way it was on fairly neutral terms. Wasn’t like having someone hanging over her every day, scrutinizing everything she did. Cozy did enough of that to herself.

Because if there was one thing that getting stuck with Paul had done it was give Cozy ample time, distance and context to fully appreciate the breadth of what it was she’d done and, in hindsight, she didn’t think her plan was as flawless as she once had. So, really, the occasional slightly awkward session with a princess was probably the least worst thing that could have happened.

And, like everything else, they’d tailed off by now, Celestia (and, presumably, Luna and Twilight as well, though this was assumed more than known, given she only rarely saw the latter and never saw the former) apparently feeling sufficiently convinced that Cozy had improved beyond needing the checkups. Which was curiously uplifting to realise, Cozy felt.

External validation isn’t necessary, but it can be quite nice sometimes.

Paul continued to detest the meetings even now they’d stopped, obviously, and complained about them from time to time despite them not having happened for a good while, but this did not surprise Cozy. His dislike of authority wasn’t especially nuanced or complex. It was instead a constant, like the tides.

“You didn’t need to come to this, Princess…” Cozy mumbled as the pause drew on and on. She was forever the one breaking silences, she felt. Everyone else just lacked the capacity to seize the initiative, it seemed.

“Oh, well, no, I didn’t have to but I did want to! Once I heard it was happening, of course,” Celestia said, back to a full-warmth grade smile.

“How did you hear about it?” Cozy asked. Really, she imagined not a lot went on - especially in Canterlot - without Celestia being at least vaguely aware, but the idea that she kept an alert eye on all the birthday parties seemed to be pushing it a bit.

“Twilight told me,” Celestia said, pointing to Twilight who noticed being pointed at and waved, so Celestia waved back.

That explained that.

Celestia’s attention then returned to Cozy, who had the sudden impression she was being appraised from top to bottom.

“To think that, only a few years ago, this,” Celestia said, gesturing to the party in a general sense. “Would have been completely unimaginable. When I see how much you’ve changed, and I think about what we nearly did…”

That brought things to a screeching halt. What were you meant to say to something like that?

Really, it wasn’t something Cozy liked to think about too much. She’d gone through a period when she’d kind of wanted to yell about it - at anyone who happened to be in yelling range, she hadn’t been fussy - but that had passed pretty quickly. She’d had enough quiet time on her own and with Paul to realise that dwelling on it wasn’t going to help anyone, and keeping herself facing forward was probably the best thing she could do.

Honestly, Cozy was more surprised that Paul hadn’t yelled at Celestia more about it, given his performance back in that hall that one time. When he’d seen her in that cage and tried to fight every guard present. It had kind of set the bar for her. Suggested it was something he felt strongly about.

So really, Cozy had expected the ranting to continue in their meetup sessions, but it hadn’t, he’d just been as laconic as he usually was with anyone who wasn’t Cozy. She kind of got the impression that he would just prefer to forget the princess existed and not waste time talking to her, even when she was right there.

Which might explain why he was asleep...

“Yeah, well. You didn’t. So, uh, thanks for that too. I guess,” Cozy said at length, stiffly.

Cozy wasn’t entirely sure why she was thanking someone for not throwing her into a hole, but it was probably the polite thing to do and, well, everyone has a complicated time of life and no-one likes being shouted at and what good would that do anyway?

Celestia seemed to appreciate the gesture, if nothing else, smiling.

“How is Paul?” She asked, by way of switching onto a lighter subject. Cozy turned to look at him again. The only signs of life was that one arm that had previously been sitting in his lap was now dangling limply by his side, and he was snoring.

“Asleep,” she said, turning back to Celestia. Who was now grinning just a little.

“So I see. Do you still enjoy living with him?”

“ ‘Enjoy’ is a strong word…”

Celestia smiled. The day seemed to get just a touch warmer.

“He cares about you a great deal. In his own way.”

Cozy knew this already of course, but having it brought up by someone else felt oddly intrusive. Anyone outside of her and dad contemplating the nature of their relationship (and dad didn’t contemplate anything as far as she knew, so anyone outside of her, really) seemed wrong. Like no-one else should notice, or should be allowed to notice.

But Celestia had Cozy in a box here. Couldn’t deny it, and couldn’t change the subject without drawing more attention to it. Bracketed, stuck. Forced into a reply. Cozy shifted uncomfortably.

“...I know,” she said.

To Cozy’s immense relief Celestia did not press this point and seemed happy enough with this answer.

“I did ask if Luna wanted to come to your party as well. She declined, but I did ask,” she said, by way of moving on and keeping things flowing. It was so out of nowhere it did a pretty good job at this.

“Oh,” said Cozy, utterly at a loss for how this was in any way a good idea on Celestia’s part. Celestia seemed to pick up on this and smiled.

“You may find this difficult to believe, Cozy, but Luna has been taking a close interest in your wellbeing these last few years.”

“Really?” She asked, genuinely surprised and wondering how worried she should be about that. “Close interest?” She repeated, sounding the words out and finding they really could come across quite a few different ways.

Cozy was thinking the way they were meant here was in the ‘Looking for backsliding and an excuse to chuck out Paul and go with plan Tartarus again’ way. Again, Celestia seemed to pick up on this. It really was uncanny. A thousand years of practise will really sharpen you up, it looked like.

“I will admit at first she was, ah, sceptical about the idea, but believe me when I say she was as genuinely happy as all of us to hear how you’ve been thriving in your, ah, unique environment. Doubly so since the removal of some of the...initial measures...”

Those last two words made Celestia frown, as though they sat awkwardly on her tongue.

Cozy was still having some trouble wrapping her heard around the idea of Princess ‘Put Cozy In The Hole At Once’ Luna having such an about-face. You’d have thought if that was the case she might have shown up sometime to say so, maybe say sorry? Apparently not. Maybe she was shy.

“That’s a change,” Cozy said.

“Yes, well, we all make mistakes, even princesses, and sometimes we realise that,” she said, adding quietly: “_{Sometimes more vividly than others.}”

There was a story there, but Cozy doubted there’d be time to get into it.

“She says happy birthday,” Celestia then said, which derailed Cozy’s thinking anyway.

“Huh. I say thanks?” Cozy said. Celestia nodded.

“I’ll relay that to her.”

There wasn’t a whole lot more of note following this. They had some idle, winding-down small talk on the subject of cake and bunting and then reached a mutual, friendly end to the conversation and both of them drifted away and back into the party. Cozy took the book over to a table to set it down so she wouldn’t have to lug it around with her. Scootaloo, Applebloom and Sweetie Belle just-so happened to be sat at this table.

They were equally baffled by the choice of a cookbook as a present, though they did have to admit that - having experienced it themselves - any efforts to improve Paul’s cooking were to be seized with both hooves.

How Celestia expected him to actually read the thing was an open question.

The party continued.