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// A Plentiful Feast 
// Story: A Hearth's Warming Tail 
// by BirdsBooksBrownies 
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With a loud snort, Collection Notice found himself awake in his chamber, it was quite dark and chilly on account that the fire had long since burned itself out. Rolling to his side in a bid to get more comfortable, his mind gnawed on what he had witnessed with the First Spirit. He hadn't thought of his past in a very long time. 

As he lay there in silent contemplation the city bells rang the hour  

He winced in fearful anticipation, a few seconds passed and he dared to open one eye and saw...nothing. His chamber was exactly the same as it had always been. He let out a feeble chuckle It was then that he smelled something coming from the adjoining sitting room, it was the smell of...pudding? 

Creeping to his door which was lit underneath by a warm flickering glow, he opened the door and fearfully peered into the room beyond. It was the same sitting room as it had been the day? night? before, except that it was not. For the room before him had undergone a transformation of a most remarkable nature. The room was alight with a great blaze that crackled and roared in the stone fireplace, and the walls were bedecked with every sort of winter greenery known to ponykind from sharp-edged holly to fragrant pine and many others that he couldn't immediately identify. Letting his eyes trace the walls of this veritable grove he came to the corner which sat a massive cornucopia that gave off the luxurious scent that had beckoned him in the first place. 

It was stupendous in every sense of the word, pies, puddings, and cakes galore; tall gallant bushels of winter wheat and imperious stalks crowned with plump ears of corn, and a smorgasbord of dishes both familiar and exotic. enormous barrels of what could only be wines and spirits of every conceivable variety completed the bounteous scene. And speaking of Spirits, astride the enormous horn was a glorious figure whose size would have made the very Princess herself look like a mere foal. His coat was a brilliant living green contrasting with a mane and tail of red and brown that brought to mind one of those holly cakes he saw in the bakeshop window. Astride his brow was a crown bedecked in candles and flowers and icicles. Laughing merrily he looked down on Collection Notice and said in a voice as warm as the sun and as powerful as a gale "HA HA HA HA, I SEE YOU THERE, DO NOT HIDE" as that is exactly what Collection Notice had been trying to do "LOOK AT ME, I DOUBT YOU'VE SEEN ANYTHING LIKE ME BEFORE? HA HA HA HA HA" In a voice that did NOT tremble Collection Notice replied "No, no, I can't say that I have"