“Cozy Glow!” The squeaky voice chimed in the distance, as Cozy laid on her side underneath the dark purple covers in her bed with her head on the pillow. She clutches the shimmering gray stuffed dolphin to her chest with her forehooves and wrinkled her nose.

“Um!” Cozy says while she stirs and then, clutches the dolphin closer.

“Cozy Glow!” The same squeaky voice says from somewhere not in Cozy’s bed.

Cozy opens her auburn eyes and whispers, “Oh golly!” before saying at a louder volume, “Uh, yeah?” before looking at her door in the far corner of her room from her head.

The squeaky voice then says, “It’s me! Little Snack! They let me out of the hospital and I’m free now!”

“Yeah, hang on Little!” Cozy calls out before rolling to her belly, so the blanket falls off to the side, halfway off the bed, squats, and takes off with her little wings to flitter around her room and over to the door, where she flies into a vertical position to open the door with both her forehooves and then, hovers back to open the door to her left side before floating gently back to her hooves on the ground. She looks at the pigtailed freckled filly before her and smiles, “Hiya, filly friend!”

“Gosh!” Little Snack says while widening her green eyes, “You sure are cute when you open doors!”

Cozy wrinkles her nose, “Oh yeah, well you’re cute when you run and bound across the field with your pigtails streaking behind you!”

Little leans forward fiercely, “You’re cute cause you got freckles and dimples!”

Cozy leans back slightly, “Wait, didn’t we already have this conversation?” she corrects her posture. “Also, that doesn’t count because you also have freckles and dimples!”

Little blinks, “Actually,” she looks up, “I think we have had this talk before?” she looks back down to Cozy, “But Cozy?”

Cozy blinks, “Yeah, Little Snack?”

Little smiles and takes two paces so that she’s just inches from the pegasus, “You’re cute because you go ‘EEP’ when I hug you!”

Cozy blinks, “W-what?”

Before Cozy can say anything else, she’s immediately embraced tightly by the earth filly!

“EEP!”

“Ha ha! There it is!” Little happily chimes before nuzzling Cozy’s nose affectionately with her own. Her green eyes widen, and she lets Cozy go from her forehooves to go back to her hooves just outside the door, “I-I’m sorry Cozy! I didn’t mean to nuzzle you there!”

Cozy shakes her head slightly and blinks, “Uh, that’s okay Little!”

Little blinks while staring back, “So um, is nuzzling, okay?”

Cozy relaxes her body, so her shoulders fall, and her blueish-white wavy mane slides down her back, “Uh, yeah Little Snack! It’s alright to nuzzle me…”

Little has an exuberant smile on her face, “YAY!” as she trots forward and aggressively nuzzles Cozy’s nose with her own!

“Hey! What the?” Cozy exclaims as the orange nose rubs against her snout. “Cut it out already!” She squeals with her eyes squinted and nose scrunched up.

Little stops and smiles at Cozy, “Sorry! I like nuzzling you!”

Cozy widens her eyes as she says in a whimsical tone, “You don’t say?”

Little nods her head, “Oh, but I do say! I love you, Cozy Glow!”

Cozy smiles and chuckles, “Obviously! Uh, so what did you wanna do, Little Snack?”

Little widens her eyes, “How would I know? I just came down here to see you as soon as my parents saw me this morning! You sure slept a long time!”

Cozy looks down, “Well, it is Saturday?” she looks back up, “But uh, I didn’t really have any plans or anything like that…”

Little straightens her eyes, “Well uh, we can always play kick ball?”

Cozy leans forward slightly, “But, there’s only two of us?”

“Okay, you got a point there! Uh…” Little looks down, unsure of what to say.

Cozy picks up on this, “Well uh, you’re here now! Surely, we can think of something to do, right?”

“Sure, Cozy Glow! But uh, don’t call me Shirley!”*

<*****>

Both Cozy and Little sit on chairs on the front porch to Trixie’s cottage and they take in the view of the meadow as Little stammers out, “There’s uh, nothing to do…”

Cozy widens her eyes as she replies, “I-I know! Oh golly!”

“Well, I mean,” Little begins to say as her head turns to the left towards Cozy sitting on the wooden bucket, “why don’t we go to Starshine’s and see what she’s up to?”

Cozy narrows her eyes to the orange earth filly in the metal fold-out chair, “She’s at that astronomy retreat, remember?”

“Oh yeah!” Little exclaims while she narrows her eyes, “Well, what about breakfast?”

“Didn’t we just eat pancakes that my mom made for us?”

Little starts, “Oh yeah! We did, didn’t we?”

Cozy stares at Little intently, “You got a bottomless pit for a stomach, huh?”

Little blinks and nods, “Yeah, pretty much!”

“Oh golly!”

Little perks up her ears and widens her eyes, “Hey, I got an idea!”

<*****>

Cozy trots on the left of Little Snack as they walk into the woods together, south of Trixie’s cottage. She looks at Little, “So uh, we’re walking in the woods now!”

Little looks back and smiles, “Yup!”

Cozy narrows her eyes, “We don’t really have a destination here, do we?”

“Nope! Just exploring, Cozy!”

Cozy looks ahead as the fillies keep walking, “Didn’t do much of this earlier, either!”

Little looks over, “You never explored the Everfree Forest? If I lived up there, I couldn’t stay away!”

Cozy frowns, “That’s kinda dangerous, Little!”

“Well, yeah… So, like I was saying, there’s a difference between cuteness and adorableness!”

Cozy’s eyes widen, “Those are the same thing!”

Little nods, “A laypony might think so, but the truth is, adorableness is snuggly while cuteness is more AWW related…”

Cozy frowns again as they keep trotting, “What?”

Little nods as they trot, “Yeah, so whenever me or Starshine is holding you, that’s adorable! But whenever you smile and tilt your head with your curls, that’s just cute!”

“It’s the same thing though! Do I need to get a thesaurus?” Cozy barks out while leaning her neck towards the earth filly.

“No, it’s not!” Little says at a higher volume while widening her eyes.

Cozy sighs, recoils her head, and decides to let this one go too, as she stares forward and suddenly sees a streak of smoke coming out of the sky in the distance to the south. She widens her eyes, “Oh golly! What’s that?”

Little looks and sees the same streak a few seconds before it hits the ground, “I don’t know, but it landed out that way!”

Cozy says at a lower volume, “Yeah, maybe we’ll get lucky and it’s an alien invasion that’ll give us something to do!”

Little stares slightly to her left, “What was that Cozy?”

“Oh, nothing! Come on Little! Let’s go check it out!” Cozy says excitedly as she begins to pick up her pace.

Little reciprocates.

As the two fillies reach the edge of the forest, they stop to see smoke rising just beyond the lake in the meadow to the south of Trixie’s Woods. Cozy stares on and says, “Pretty sure it’s there!”

“I think you’re right!” Little exclaims from Cozy’s right.

<*****>

Both fillies see a smoking crater near some flowers in the meadow, with a treeline behind them and wide-open rolling hills every other direction.

The two fillies hurriedly gallop to around fifteen feet from the smoldering crater. Little says, “I think that’s it, right there?” while leaning towards it.

Cozy rolls her eyes from her left, “Obviously!”

Little frowns as she stares at it, “Well, I’m gonna go check it out!”

“Wait!” Cozy barely manages to stammer out before Little takes off at full running speed towards the roughly two foot wide hole.

Suddenly, a bolt of pink light shoots from the hole, 5 feet away, to strike Little Snack with a blinding flash and a loud zap that knocks the earth filly back several feet onto her back just as Cozy manages scamper to her sprawled out body on the ground with her little hooves.

Cozy is standing 3 feet from the dazed orange filly, who slowly gets back to her hooves and turns to face Cozy. The pink pegasus suddenly widens her auburn eyes and stutters, “Oh golly! Um, Little Snack?”

Little blinks her bright green eyes as she looks at the pegasus, “Yeah Cozy?”

“You have a little um, oh golly!” Cozy stammers out before contemplatively looking to the left.

“What?” Little says wide-eyed while leaning towards the pegasus. Suddenly, her green eyes begin to climb skyward as she notices the new orange horn, now jutting 4 inches from her forehead. “Well!” She exclaims with her eyes trained on the new protrusion, “That’s unusual!”

Cozy looks back at Little and frowns, “We need to get mom for this, don’t we?”

Little looks down and blinks again, “Probably?”

<*****>

Trixie sits on her beanbag couch in her foyer, with her back to the door and a cup of cocoa on the table and sitting just to the left, a magazine showing the routines of Hoofdini, when suddenly, there’s a knock on her door! Who in Equestria could that be? Trixie thinks to herself as she gets off the couch and trots around the left side as she shouts, “Hang on! I’ll be right there!” to the door.

The doorknob glows blue and it swings inside, to the left to reveal a smiling pink pegasus filly with neatly arranged bluish-white curls on her head. Cozy stammers out, “Uh, hiya mom!”

Trixie narrows her eyes down at the filly, “Cozy Glow! Uh, why did you knock? You live here! You can just come in?”

Cozy’s brown eyes widen, “Um, yes! Yes, I can! Of course! But uh, mom?”

Trixie narrows her mouth, “Yes, Cozy?”

“I uh, think you need to come with me!”

Trixie raises her right eyebrow and narrows her mouth, “Oh-kay?”

<*****>

Trixie trots to the left of Cozy as they both exit the forest into a clearing on the South end. They stop trotting and Cozy looks ahead to point with her right forehoof at the smoke in the distance and says, “Well, me and Little found a smoking crater out that way! Um…” and she turns her head to the left.

Trixie looks over to the pegasus, “That still doesn’t explain why I need to see it or why we need the cloak from my closet?”

Cozy calls out, “Hey Little! It’s okay! It’s just me and mom! You can come out now!”

Suddenly, a small pile of brush to Trixie’s left, 10 feet away, that she didn’t notice earlier begins to rise and leaves and grass fall to reveal an orange filly standing there… An orange filly with a horn…

Trixie blinks when she stares at the filly, “Um, Little Snack has a horn now…”

Cozy smiles nervously as both ponies stare at the new filly, “Uh, golly gee! About that!”

Trixie’s violet eyes take on a wide-open dazed look as her mouth tightens, “Why in Equestria does Little Snack have a horn?”

<*****>

Trixie leads the two fillies across the plains as she trots towards the South Exit to Ponyville. Little is on the back left and Cozy, to the right as all ponies soon see a brown dirt road in the distance. Trixie says, “Well, there’s the entryway to Ponyville! We just need to turn left there, to get to the outskirts region where Starlight lives! Uh, “she leans over her left shoulder, “you holding up okay, champ?”

Little stares at Trixie from underneath the dark blue shimmering magicians’ cloak that now forms a hood over her head (and her horn) to fall behind her shoulders as her pigtails bob on her back with each step. “Oh, I’m fine! Having this hood over my head with the horn is a little weird, but it’s not awful!”

Cozy turns her head left to face the earth filly, “You know, sometimes I think you’re a little too brave, Little Snack?”

Little smiles as she turns her head to the pegasus, “Oh, yeah! I’m always getting hurt because I’m so gung-ho about everything I do!”

“You should take it easy!” Cozy chimes back.

Little blinks, “Yeah, I know!”

As the ponies continue to trot across the grass, Trixie says, “Okay, the road is right there! Left coming up, girls!” as her white mane blows to the left of her face while staring down that direction, Cozy’s locks are immobile while Little’s pigtails are kept underneath the cloak along her back.

The ponies all trot onto the road from the grass and turn left in front of some brown houses sitting there. They all curve to go left and trot down the path as more brown cottages appear on the right as they trot south…

Cozy turns her head left again, “You know, when I had a horn like that, I shot magical bursts everywhere and couldn’t control it! You’re not doing that Little?”

Little blinks at the pegasus, “I don’t know why? I mean, shouldn’t there be Little bursts now, or whatever?”

Trixie says from the front, “Well, do you ever focus on things Little Snack?”

“Um, not usually, no? Focusing on things makes me sad!”

Trixie frowns, “I see… Well, here’s her cottage! I guess we need to explain to her what happened?”

Cozy chimes in from the back, “Isn’t that why we’re here?”

Trixie nods, “Right! Get help from my best friend Starlight to figure out why Little has a horn and how to fix her, so she doesn’t!”

“Can I even do magic?” Little asks from her side.

Cozy looks left again, “You know, I don’t think I’ve seen you do magic since you got that thing? You seriously never focus on anything?”

“Not if I can avoid it…” Little says before blinking.

“I uh, had no idea Little!”

“I try not to think too much because that only makes me sad. It’s better to just go with things, I find…”

Cozy leans towards her friend and pauses before asking, “Why do you get sad?”

“Um,” Little begins as her green eyes go to the heavens before back down at Cozy, “can we talk about something else, please?”

“You don’t have to!” Trixie exclaims from the front of the pack. “We’re here!”

All three ponies stare up at the little cottage with a worn wooden porch and landing. Cozy says, “Wait! So Starlight Glimmer just lived two doors down from Little Snack, this whole time?”

Trixie smiles, “Yeah, she doesn’t like living in town!”

Cozy starts and widens her eyes in surprise before shaking her head, “Well um, how do you wanna do this?”

Trixie looks back over her left, “You girls, just wait here! I’ll walk up and knock to see if she’s home!” before looking back to the house, taking a deep breath, in and then out, and trotting up the three steps to get to the landing and knocking on the door with her right forehoof.

All three ponies hear a feminine voice yell from a distance, “Hang on! I’m coming!” After another moment, the door swings open, out and to the left to narrowly miss Trixie, who knows exactly where the door will go and they all behold a magenta unicorn there, with blue eyes and a pale wavy violet mane featuring lavender streaks. Starlight frowns, “Trixie! You haven’t been here in a couple of weeks! What’s up?”

Trixie widens her eyes and smiles nervously as she stammers out, “Yeah, well, I’ve been busy with little Cozy Glow! Um, “she looks down to the left, “can we come in? We need to talk about Little Snack!”

Starlight’s eyes widen slightly, “Oh-kay?”

Trixie looks up at Starlight, “Actually, it’s probably better if we all three come in? I uh, have something I need to show you!”

(To be continued…)

Author's Note

*Yes, I admit that I “borrowed” this joke from Airplane. It’s a good comedy film featuring Leslie Neilson! But don’t go in expecting anything serious…