Armed with an old wooden brush, half of its bristles either bent or missing, a young man swept. He swept like a man possessed, large, thick tufts of lilac floof being liberated from the tiled floor with every pass. If by some turn of fate he were ever to be sent home, never again would he take for granted the invention of the vacuum cleaner. Oh, that sweet, blessed household appliance would be a godsend in Bridlewood.

A small pile of floof gathered, quickly growing to become a large pile. With continued effort, the large pile grew further still, until a whole-pony-sized lump had accumulated in one corner of the room.

The front door opened, revealing the floofy pony from which said floof had originated. “Ooh! Hey, roomie! I’m home!”

Seth—the guy with the brush—frowned, pausing his cleaning endeavours. Izzy Moonbow, village oddball, and the only pony that didn’t start making nineties modem sounds whenever he mentioned a certain condiment, hopped over the threshold into their little villa. Even more lilac fluff escaped her coat with each bounce, messing up the half-cleared floor.

“Yes, you’re home alright. You’re everywhere,” he said, motioning to the small mountains of moult clinging to just about everything in the room. “There,” the sofa, “there,” the coffee table, “over there as well,” the china cabinet. “You’re even on the lampshade,” he added, pointing to the furry light fixture hanging from the ceiling with an incredulous look. “How’d you even get up there?”

“Pfft—ha! You’re actually trying to clean during shedding season? Silly human!” She skidded to a halt, smiling up at him with large magenta eyes. Her lengthy cerulean mane looked even more wavy and beautiful than usual today.

“I’ve only swept half the floor, yet there’s enough floof here to make a whole other you!” he said, stepping aside to reveal the lifesize floof-pony. “All we need is a wig and a painted carrot and you’ve got yourself a twin.”

Izzy bounced on her hooves, purple and white sparks flying from the tip of her horn. “Yay! I always wanted a sister!”

Given certain incidents that had recently taken place, Seth had a little moment of foresight. “Wait-no!” he quickly said, taking a step back.

It hadn’t been very long ago that Izzy had disappeared for a few days, only to return with several unfamiliar unicorns. As it turned out, these “unicorns” turned out to be liars, with horns as genuine as the floof-pony’s carrot would perhaps be. Then, a whole bunch of other stuff involving crystals—one of his roommate's favourite things—happened, the end result of which being the unicorns of Bridlewood suddenly had magic again. All of them.

They could only really fire—thankfully harmless—sparks and beams of magic around, but it was still kinda weird. The analogy that came to mind was that of a bunch of monkeys with lasers strapped to their foreheads.

As if to prove his point, an involuntary laser beam erupted from the tip of Izzy’s horn, prompting the poor, innocent little floof-pony to explode quite spectacularly into a cloud of floof. Seth yeeted himself behind the couch out of reflex, but the magic bounced off the floor, a couple of walls, then dissipated harmlessly into a throw pillow. He slowly peeked over the back of the couch, eyebrows furrowed.

“Oops! Sorry, Sethy… heh,” Izzy chuckled, an awkward grimace on her face. What seemed like half of her entire coat slowly floated to the floor around her. “That’s going to take some getting used to.”

Seth raised a threatening finger, his features resolute. “Don’t make me deploy the shield again,” he mockingly growled, free hand slowly creeping toward a throw pillow.

“Nu-uh! That was an accident!” Izzy fired back, all four hooves snapping out to a planted stance. She lowered her horn, a decidedly mischievous grin on her face.

Pony and human squared off. One had power, but lacked experience. The other had keen aim, but limited ammunition. “You shall rue the day you challenged me, my little pony.”

Izzy didn’t miss a beat. Lasers and sparks flew from her horn in rapid succession, most of them wildly off target, but Seth was quick, his ammunition doubling as pouffy shields. The pillows absorbed the few beams of magic that held true, as well as many that ricocheted around the hard surfaces in the room.

A gap in fire finally presenting itself, Seth launched a frilly satin lump at his opponent, but being learned in the agile art of bouncing everywhere like a raving lunatic, Izzy leapt effortlessly from the path of the stylishly pleated mass of retribution like a practiced gymnastics filly.

“Ha! Missed!”

Seth had already sneakily swung another pillow behind his back before the mare even got the words out. It hit her squarely in the chest with a light “pomf.”

Izzy’s mouth flew open, mock indignation flooding her face. Her eyelids lowered. “How dare you!”

“You bet I dare, you fuzzy little mare!” Seth cried, launching several more pillows.

Izzy was quick to dodge, barreling around the side of the couch in a fit of giggles. Giggles, and sheer determination. “Gotcha!”

“Nope!” Seth rolled over the back of the couch before she could finish charging him down. He landed on his back, couch cushions breaking his fall, but Izzy had also leapt at the last second, and she landed on his front.

“Ha! I win!” Izzy cried triumphantly, pinning his shoulders with her forehooves, her hindlegs unapologetically straddling his waist. Apparently, she was quite unaware of her horn glowing.

Seth made to pick the mare up and yeet her into the armchair over the other side of the room—she was all but clueless to the effect she sometimes had on him, unintentionally, of course—but something was holding his arms in place either side of his head. His grin morphed into a look of confusion, which was quickly replaced by mild panic. “Izzy, what the-”

Glowing lilac restraints encompassed Seth’s wrists. He couldn’t move.

Izzy’s eyes widened, a wide open mouth grin splitting her muzzle. “Ooh! That’s new! I didn’t know I could do that!” she exclaimed, subconsciously bouncing with glee.

Seth’s eyes widened, a well concealed grimace on his face. He pointedly cleared his throat. “That’s cheating!”

A burgeoning, rock hard determination to free himself suddenly possessed every fibre of Seth’s being, and through sheer concentration of will, he pulled both arms free of Izzy’s magical grasp, one hand flying to the magical appendage protruding from her pretty mane.

Le grasp.

With a sharp intake of breath, Izzy’s grin faltered. Her ears fell flat to her mane, and she promptly stopped bouncing, a picture of wide-eyed enlightenment claiming her features.

This was not the first time Seth had grabbed her horn. In fact, he had done it many times before during their countless play-fights. This time, however, was different. It was warm. It had never been warm before.

Izzy’s pretty magenta eyes slowly travelled down from the hand grasping her horn to the human she was sitting atop, her cheeks gradually morphing in shade to match. “That… That’s new as well,” she softly whispered.

With a slight fizzle and a small wisp of smoke, her magical aura ceased. Seth quickly let go of her horn. “Um… I… “ he trailed off, the gift of verbal communication bizarrely abandoning him.

“Maybe I should-” Izzy began, part of her mane falling to obscure one of her eyes.

“-yeah, I mean, assuming you-” Seth unintentionally interrupted, before catching himself.

A long silence followed, broken only by the ticking of the clock on the wall, which seemed about five times louder than normal now he was being forced to listen to it. Izzy still hadn’t moved. Seth looked into her eyes, and found a little uncertainty, but mostly idle curiosity.

Her horn sparked to life again. “Seth… Could you… Would you… do that again?” she whispered, half-grinning, half biting her lower lip.

Seth blinked, his cheeks burning. “You want me to?”

Her grin widened, and she nodded. “Yeah… Yeah, do it again.”

Seth gave her an inquisitive look. “You’re messing with me, aren’t you?”

Instead of the grin he’d come to expect from her, Izzy paused, her face unreadable for a second. The next thing he knew, soft pony lips were pressed against his own, warm pony barrel suddenly pressed against his chest. Seth blanched, but only for a second. One hand instinctively flew to her back, fingers scraping through her coat, the other heeding her request and grabbing her horn. The magic seemed to flow into his hand, sending pleasant tingling sensations down his arm.

Months and months of tension between human and pony rapidly unwound in the span of a few seconds. Izzy put her everything into the kiss, broad equine tongue battling Seth’s smaller appendage for dominance, many words unspoken finally being conveyed with the action.

Seth held the mare close, as he had dreamt of doing for so long. She tasted like bubblegum, of all things, and the scent emanating from her glossy mane, so close to his face, left a pleasant haze in his mind.

After a perceived age, Izzy finally broke the kiss, her ears falling from half mast to flat again. “Well… that was fun.”

“Yeah,” Seth muttered, his brain already questioning if what had just taken place was in fact some sort of glorious hallucination.

Izzy gave him her warmest smile, and as always, Seth’s chest was filled with drunken butterflies that kept awkwardly bumping into one another and apologising profusely. “Hey, Seth?”

“Yeah?”

“I’m glad ponies have magic again.”

Seth smiled right back at her. “Me too.”

Author's Notes:

This is probably the floofiest story I will ever write.