The Spy Who Hugged Me

by GaPJaxie


That's the Tooth

A request by Boneywings:

Unicorn Horns: Unicorns don't technically have horns. Like narwhals, they have a tooth that grows out of their heads.

Maybe unicorns can actually channel magic through all of their teeth, but don't because casting magic with your mouth wide open makes you look silly. Maybe unicorns go to the dentist for "horn" care, have to brush their horn, etc. Maybe this could be a sort of secret to non-unicorns, not because unicorns are trying to keep it a secret, but because unicorns assume it is common knowledge..

One day, Rarity slipped and fell down the stairs of her boutique, and landed on her horn. She stumbled outside, called for help, and her neighbors whisked her to the Ponyville Hospital, where she was diagnosed with a linear horn fracture.

When the news got out among her friends, panic set in. “What do you mean, Rarity’s horn is cracked?” Fluttershy asked, her hoof flying to cover her mouth. “Will she ever cast spells again? Is she crippled?” Applejack took off her hat when she got the news, her expression grave, saying only, “Tell it like it is, doc.” Rainbow and Pinkie Pie both cried, then later denied it.

Rarity, for her part, laughed. “Oh, you poor dears, I’m touched, but I don’t know where you got this notion that a unicorn cracking their horn was serious, or even life threatening. With modern medicine, it’s no more severe than a broken leg. I’ll have my horn in a cast for a few weeks and be right as rain.”

“But…” Pinkie Pie asked. “With your horn covered, how will you, you know. Open doors? Sew dresses? Pour tea into your overly fancy teacups?”

“You all seem to manage,” Rarity said, a light mirth to her words to disperse her friends' gloom. “Oh, don’t make a fuss. I’ll use my teeth, I’ll be fine.”

Despite her insistances, her friends did make a fuss, and insisted on one of them walking her home from the hospital. Rarity immediately selected Fluttershy as the party in question, and only a few hours after the news broke, the two were walking side by side, with Rarity’s horn in a large and vaguely cylindrical cast.

“Oh, but it really isn’t very flattering,” Rarity said, pointing at the frankly enormous thing on her forehead. “I suppose I shall simply have to live with it in the meanwhile.”

“It seems like it might get in the way,” Fluttershy replied, and when they reached the Boutique, she was quick to hold open the door for Rarity. “If you tried to use your teeth the earth pony way, I mean.”

“I suppose it would,” Rarity only reluctantly agreed. “So inelegant.”

The inside of the Boutique was chilly and damp, and undisturbed from the way Rarity left it when she rushed outside that morning. “Oof!” Fluttershy said. “The autumn air is really getting in. Would you like to start a fire?”

“That would be lovely,” Rarity said, moving towards the fireplace in the back of the shop.

Only when Fluttershy saw the logs stacked in the fireplace did it occur to her that Rarity, being a unicorn, might not have a mechanical lighter, or matches, or any other sort of firestarter that a pegasus could use. She would be used to having her horn, and so might have no way to warm her house. “Oh,” she said. “Do you want me to run to town for some matches, or-”

Rarity craned open her mouth like a snake, her teeth glowed, and with a deep rumbling sound, she belched a stream of red-hot fire directly onto the hearth, setting the logs ablaze.

Fluttershy blinked once, then again, and into the stillness that had come over the room, she asked: “What the f-”