//------------------------------//
// Short Cut 
// Story: Short Bits and Withers 
// by Andrew Joshua Talon 
//------------------------------//





Luna blinked and yawned. She blinked the sleep from her eyes and slowly her head rose. She shook her head and emerged from her bed, trotting across her chambers to the bathroom.

She entered it, picked up her toothbrush, and looked into the mirror. Her toothbrush fell.

“GYAH!” She cried.

“Mm? Something wrong, dear Sister?” Celestia asked, poking her head inside. Her eyebrows rose, and she raised a hoof to cover her mouth. “Mmph...”

“Sister! Laugh, and I will end you!” Luna snarled from underneath what looked like a scale, fuzzy model of the universe. It took a moment for Celestia to realize it was her mane, glowing brightly.

“Mmmph... Hehehehe...!” She giggled. “Sorry Luna, but you really do look a fright! How did it happen?”

“I don’t know!” Luna said, frustrated. “All I remember is examining the Elements of Harmony last night for my studies, and when I woke up I was... Was... POOFY!”

“Hmmm,” Celestia said. “It’s possible you just got exposed to a bit of residual magical energy from them. And given your hair is magical in nature...”

“Oh lovely, I’ve become a magiron absorber,” Luna grumbled as she fished out her abacus and began doing calculations. “I can’t go out like THIS! I’d need a thaumaturgy purge equal to five hundred ganondorfs!”

“Well, perhaps you could offset the radiation somewhat?” Celestia suggested. “That might make it dissipate faster.”

“Yes, but it would require others who are linked to the Elements of Harmony, and the only ones who are... Are...” Luna stared at Celestia. “Sister, why are you grinning?”





“Ahhhh! My hair!” Twilight cried, her mane now arranged in so many different directions it could qualify as a bird’s nest. “No, what’s causing this, get down!”

“AH! Behave, behave!” Rainbow Dash cried, flying around as her mane and tail stood on end and crackled with lightning. “Rarity, I need your girly hair products NOW!”

“YOU’RE ON YOUR OWN, DARLING!” Rarity screamed, literally fighting off her coiffure with a pair of scissors and a curling iron. “Back, back! I am your mistress, OBEY!”

Applejack looked at herself in a mirror in dread. “Ah... Ah’m... Curlier than the hair on a sheep!” She groaned.

“THAT’S where they went!” Pinkie Pie cried, her hair perfectly flat and smooth. She pounced on the Apple farmer. “Give them back NOW!”

“AH! PINKIE, WHAT IN TARNATION-?!”

Fluttershy, for her part, was now a big, pink, puffy cottonball of a pony unable to move.

“Help,” Fluttershy whimpered. “If you please...?”

Luna stared down at Ponyville, using her sight beyond sight to observe the chaos, and then turned to look over at the hysterically laughing Celestia.

“You’re absolutely horrible, do you know that?” Luna growled.

"It fixed your hair didn't it?"

"Yes, but you ruined theirs!"

“HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! Well, you know what they say, heeheehee... Hair today, shorn tomorrow, ahahahahahaha!”