Amy yawned as she opened her eyes, feeling the comfortable warmth of the sheets over her, and the delightful weight of her boy... coltfriend against her back. One of his forelegs was draped over her, and she smiled as she idly stroked the soft brown coat. Pressing back against his barrel, she winced as something poked her head. She initially scowled in disgust, only to realize a second later that there was no way for that to be poking her that far up. Reaching back with a hand, she felt the smooth hair of his forehead, leading up to the crown of his- no, there was definitely a horn growing out of his forehead where there hadn’t been before.
“Um... Lariat?”
The stallion stirred, brushing his mane out of his eyes. “Hmmm, something wrong, Amy?”
Amy hesitated for a second. “Well... promise me you won’t panic, but... there’s a horn on your forehead.”
Predictably, he panicked.
*****
“How in God’s name could this have happened?” Lariat shouted for the fourth time. Fortunately, Jimmy and Suzy had accepted Amy’s explanation of Lariat being too tired to take them to the school bus. Once he was sure it was safe, he’d started in on his panic attack again.
Amy sighed in exasperation at his antics. Much as she loved him, he did have a flair for the dramatic that grated on the nerves. “Look, we both went a little overboard last night, alright? The last thing I remember you doing was downing shots with those unicorn Guards and shouting something about earth ponies being the best.”
“Dios Mio, how am I going to explain this to the Guard? They’re going to discharge me, I know it... how could this have happened?” Lariat moaned, staring at the floor despondently.
With another sigh, Amy reached over to flick the tip of his horn. The reaction was the same as it was with Jimmy, the stallion pitching over backwards with a yelp. She gave thanks again to her decision to attend that class on unicorn foalraising, it’d been a literal lifesaver on more than one occasion while Jimmy was coming into his magic.
“What’d ya do that for?” Lariat groaned as he awkwardly got to his hooves.
“Because you were being stupid,” Amy said as she helped him steady himself. “Look, I don’t know what happened either, but getting worked up isn’t going to fix it. Now go eat some breakfast, I’ll call the hospital and see if they can get you in for an examination.”
“Thanks, mi amor,” Lariat said with a seductive smile, only to wince as Amy flicked his horn again.
“Not now, let’s get you fixed first.” The couple settled down to their breakfast, their mutual worry fading to hope for a solution to their dilemma.
*****
Across town in the unicorn barracks, one of the ponies stretched as he opened his eyes.
“Hey Mike, where’s your horn?”
“What?”