A Long Shot

by Near Miss

Chapter 3

Somepony was being awfully rude.

Near Miss awoke to somepony's desperate and violent shaking. Opening her eyes, Near saw Long Shot above her, and Long Shot's eyes were frantically bouncing between eye contact with Near and something in the middle of the caravan. As Near looked closer, she saw Spleens collapsed next to the now cold space heater. In only a moment, Near realized what must have happened; Spleens had used almost all of her magic to try and heat up the space heater by herself so as not to bother Near or Long's sleep.

Launching herself out of bed, Near tackle-hugged her changeling friend, thinking nothing but warm and appreciative thoughts about Spleens. When Spleens did not immediately respond, Near redoubled her efforts, hugging tighter and thought about how Spleens had saved them all from the ancient spell at Wrens Anomaly.

Spleens, at long last, suddenly sucked in a lungful of cold air, before her entire body shuddered briefly. Spleens opened her eyes to see her two good friends above her. Before falling unconscious again, Spleens' only thought was, "Darn, I didn't want to wake them."

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After around a quarter hour of direct love infusement via platonic hugging, with a side order of fully justified admonishment, Spleens was finally back on her feet, although she was only released from Near's grasp after promising to both take it easy and never pull that kind of stunt again.

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Despite the early morning panic, the three mares made good progress that day, stopping for the night only a few kilotrots from Ponyville, which they expected to reach well before noon the next day.

Author's Note:

In interest of clarity, a 'trot' (unit of measure) is approximately equal to one meter, or around three feet. a kilotrot is one thousand trots, so around one kilometer, or 3000 ish feet.