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// Heart is Where the Hearth is (Amethyst Star) 
// Story: Equestrian Side Stories 
// by LOL3evee 
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	The air was fairly warm in the Hooves' household as a passionate blaze sizzled in the brick fireplace. Thin wisps of smoke rose up the chimney and out into the cold air, joining the relentless storm blowing restlessly in the outside world. The violently swirling snow gathered upon the windows and covered the edges of clear glass closest to the framing of the panes, leaving tiny patterned flakes stubbornly sticking the frozen glass.

All was quiet in the quaint Ponyville residence, save for the vicious howling of the blustery wind outside the safety of the warm walls. Upstairs, a small unicorn foal lay in the comfort of her bed curled up with a book. Within the kitchen was a gentle grey pegasus, who waited patiently beside the oven as her blueberry muffins began to rise. The irresistible scent of fresh, gooey, solidifying pastries wove throughout the house as the cold, heartless wrath of the mid-winter blizzard thrashed about in the outside world.

As the wind howled, a silent pink mare sat before the hearth, levitating a plush scarf into the air with her magic. She sighed as the fluffy material wrapped around her neck, filling her cold neck with a warm, tingling sensation that spread throughout her body as the fibers from the fabric brushed against her skin. The feeling didn't last though, and what little warmth the scarf had provided for her was immediately sapped from every orifice, save for her neck.

The fireplace may have provided the house with a fair amount of warm air, but that warmth was reserved strictly to those in front of the fireplace due to the cruel nature of the freezing storm outside, whose relentlessly invasive tendrils of wicked air seeped in through every crack in the walls.  Although the rest of her body was still left in the cold, the pink pony didn't seem to mind. The unicorn mare looked over towards the kitchen; gazing lovingly at her sweet mother sitting silently by the oven. She may have been cold on the outside, but her love for her family was what kept her heart the warmest, even without a scarf.