As Dulagria awakened, she prepared herself for the day. As always, she started with a quick wash. From there, she got out a clean shirt, a pair of working overalls, and a pair of worn denim jeans. As she set up a small mirror on the ground and started brushing her mane, she made the parts in her crest and lower mane. As she finished and put down her hairbrush, she hazily smiled in the mirror… but has her vision cleared up, she noticed something off. Her horn. Not wanting to wake the others, she stifled her scream into a squeak as she gazed in horror at her horn.

“Something is <ins>very</ins> wrong here.” she thought to herself as she looked at the marking on her horn. Starting from the tip and fading out to what was a normally black horn was a shade of yellow that was shared with many parts of her. A lot of possibilities entered and left her mind. Maybe it was an infection of some sort? Or maybe something got on her horn while she was a sleep. Or even that Elegy colt. He was always a keen prankster, and even with his painfully ‘subtle’ hints that he has crush on her Dulagria wasn’t immune from his pranks. It was probably some paint or something. She lit up her horn to she if it would melt away, but as minutes passed, she stopped once it began to get painful for her. As she leaned in closer to inspect it. If it were painted on, it must have been a damn good job because in the separations of each curve in her horn had that color seep into them as well. Soon after she went to a near by lake, and carefully rubbed her horn to see if the gradiation would wash off. After several minutes, she dried her horn and looked back into the lake. Staring back was a bewildered mare as she panicked at the sight. The brought yellow gradiation was <ins>still</ins> there. As she stumbled and kicked herself back, she tried regaining her balance on the ground. “N-No! T-T-This can’t be happenin’! It can’t, it can’t! “ she fearfully said to herself as she began to hyperventilate and clutch her chest. As if it were her final dying moment all over again, she couldn’t think, couldn’t breath, couldn’t do anything. It was obvious this thing was a much bigger problem than what had originally met the eye. As he mind was at a standstill, something snapped in her mind… she just remembered that some of the leaders of the Flame-Lights have been around for a long time already. Maybe.. just maybe they had a clue to this problem! Maybe even a cure! “That’s it! That have to know right? Yeah! They just about everything with us! She spoke to herself as she began to regain control of herself again. She was confident that at least one would have a clue, for the love of Celestia two of them had a child together. How could they possibly not have an explanation for this? They must have one… right?
After a little bit of time, she got back on her hooves and was about to make her way to the leaders… but before she left she already knew by now most Flame-Lights would be awake are waking up. She couldn’t go out there like this! Ohnononono, most certainly not. As she stood there and thought to herself, she remembered she had somewhere in her clothes bin a stetson that had always been a bit too big and covered up her horn. Getting it would be far from difficult. Her three friends, Darwina, Elegy, and Nightlight Charm would be busy making breakfast and discussing their mornings nearby, but far enough where they couldn’t see her. However, she knew they would be looking for her eventually, so she hurried back to her grounds. Once she got there and found her clothes bin, she flung it open and carelessly threw everything out. Shirts, overalls, jeans, shorts, sweaters, you name it. What ever was in there, she tossed it aside when finally at the very bottom was a flattened stetson. She squeed in delight as she grabbed it and gave it a quick shook to pop it back into shape. As she propped it on her head, she looked into the mirror once more. No horn in sight, excellent… plus, it didn’t look too bad either. As her mind drifted away from the main reason to maybe that she should put on her bandanna as well, she was snapped back into reality when a familiar voice called her from behind. “Woah there, cowgirl! What’s with the whole getup?” As Dulagira turned around startled, there standing was another Flame-Light mare. With the snark in her voice, and her arms crossed as she laid back on a tree in the smuggest way possible, there behind Dulagria was her best friend, Darwina Northcutt. “D-D-DARWINA?! What are ya doin’ here?” Dulagria stuttered and asked in shock. “What am I doing here? Where were you this morning for breakfast? I was really looking forwards to that Honey-Lemon-Daisy pancakes you’ve been bragging about.” Darwina said as she pouted a bit before her curiosity took over again as she strutted over to her friend. “Ah shucks, Ah’m sorry sweetpea! I just ahh,had a lil’ bit of a rough mornin’- why are ya laughing,” Dulagria was caught off guard by her friend’s sudden laughter, why was she laughing? Was it the hat? “What is this on your head, filly?” Darwina managed to get out in between the laughter. Yep.. it was the hat. Before she had a chance to say a thing, Darwina was already going for the stetson. As if it were instinct, Dulagria swung her arm with great force and a swift but loud “NO!” as she punched her friend’s arm out of the way. As Darwina stumbled out, she mumbled a whole variety of swears before she diverted her attention back to her surprisingly violent friend. It wasn’t even near a new moon yet! “What the hell was that for?!” the mare snapped at her aggressive friend. Dulagria quickly snapped back, “YOU DON’T JUST TAKE TRY TO SNEAK THINGS AWAY FROM PEOPLE DARWINA. ESPECIALLY FROM ME.” As Darwina massaged her sore arm, she replied back again with her angry variation of snark. “Well damn, should have warned me earlier. I know neither one of us know’s your past life well, but I wouldn’t be surprised if you were an actual farm girl with that strength, geez!” As they both regained their calm, Dulagria apologized to her friend for nearing snapping her arm into two. “It’s alright I guess.. Dulagria. I’m legitimately curious now.. Is something wrong? You never act like except when the New Moon is nearing, and I’m pretty sure it ended a while ago..” Oh god, how was she supposed to respond… with some quick thinking, Dulagria thought of a diversion. “I… Uh… I wanted to try to try something new! I was a tad bit offended by your comments.” Darwina looked awkwardly as it hit her that she upset her friend pretty badly, she was one of her closest friends and she should have been a bit more supportive of her choices for today. As was trying to find the right words, she couldn’t help but to look around at all the clothes thrown astrewn on the ground. As she finally did get her thoughts together, Dulagria quickly interrupted with a gasp as she realized she had a large mess to clean up. Darwina noticed her panicking and saying things like “I’ll never make it on time” and that she would be late to something with the leaders apparently… she had no idea what was going on or where she was going, but she wanted to make it up to her friend. “Hey hey hey, easy there girl. How about I clean this up for you while you go to wherever you have to before it gets any later?” In that moment, Dulagria gasped again for much longer before tightly embracing her friend and an onslaught of ‘thank you’‘s and compliments.
“Darwina you are a lifesaver! Thank you so so so SOOOOOOOOO MUCH! Imma make this up to you later with some of those Honey-Lemon-Daisy pancakes y’all been beggin’ me for for dessert!” Dulagria squealed as she hugged her tighter. Darwina was sure she heard an audible crack. And as quick as she talked, Dulagria made ran quicker than anypony has seen her run. It was all or nothing now, she had to make a meeting with the leaders and quick. It was all or nothing to solve this problem for once and for all.
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OH BOY THAT WAS A DOOZY TO WRITE DOWN. So yeah, here is the first official art of horn gradient. And I didn’t just want her to have it change and not notice. Decided to add something a little interesting to add onto it. Plus it feels nice to add more to some of my characters personalities and add a bit of the Flame-Light community into it as well! And compared to most drawing stories I’ve written, this is one of the better ones I’ve done! And I’m pretty damn proud of it!

Dulagria and art belongs to Binkyt11

Flame-Light Ponies belong to

The-Sheamus-MLP, xHalesx, Wolf427, RazorSketches, blissfoxx, and sSugarHigh