Chapter 2
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Flutter of a Foal

Chapter 2

Chapter 2

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“Fluttershy!” Rainbow Dash knocked her hooves on the door to her fillyhood friend's cottage, an eager grin in her face. “Hey, you still sleeping? Get up, lazy bones. We've got those tickets to the Wonderbolts air show today, remember? We don't wanna be late.”

There was no response from inside.

The cyan mare raised an eyebrow. That was odd. Fluttershy was normally up by now. What could be keeping her?

She pushed the door open, a little curious that it wasn't locked. Fluttershy always locked her door, even when she wasn't out.

As she walked in, something caught the rainbow-maned pony's attention. A lot of Fluttershy's animals were digging around in her pantry, something she knew they wouldn't normally do, one, out of respect for the butter-yellow Pegasus, and two, because she always kept them well-fed.

As she walked passed them, wondering why they were going against the norm, she heard the sound of soft pounding from upstairs. Flying up, she found Angel Bunny pounding on Fluttershy's bedroom door.

“Yo! She's sleeping, rabbit,” she said firmly, annoyed that he was being so impatient that he'd be willing to just wake Fluttershy from her sleep by banging on her door, most likely scaring her out of her wits, thinking she was being robbed or something. “Why can't... you... wait...?”

Angel had turned around at her voice and the look in his eyes had made her uneasy. He didn't look impatient, he looked worried, really worried.

Instincts kicking in, Rainbow turned around, getting onto her forehooves (Angel ran out of the way, quickly) and bucked at the door. After two times, the door buckled, and fell down, revealing the room.

Dash went in, Angel right behind her. The mare scanned the room. Nothing seemed out of place, so nopony had come in during the night while Shy had been asleep.

She couldn't see her friend lying in the bed, causing her to glance at Angel with an expression that asked, “If she's not in here, why were you banging on the door?”, but that was as far as she went. For, at that moment, a small sound came from the bed. A familiar squeak the Pegasus had come to know, though at a much higher pitch than she was used to.

It was then that Rainbow noticed a small lump in the bed, close to the pillow. It was shaking. Cautiously, she walked over, leaned forward, putting a hoof to the covers and pulled them back.

At first, Dash didn't know what she was seeing. All that was in the bed was a small yellow ball with some pink markings at one end and...
Wait. Balls don't have pink hair. She leaned forward, her muzzle a few inches from the ball of what she now saw was fur.

“F-Fluttershy?”

The ball stopped shivering, as if frozen in fear at the sound of the voice.

Dash waited for several seconds before, slowly, the ball started to unroll, revealing a long pink mane and tail, tiny feathered wings and bright blue eyes. The mare was now looking, not at a ball of yellow fur, but at a small foal, probably a week old at the most.

“Da-D-D-D-D-D-Dashie?!” the infant squeaked, looking up at her with teary eyes.

Dash reacted at once, pulling the foal into a hug, which the foal returned and started bawling.

Rainbow's mind was in shock. This had to be Fluttershy, but, at the same time, how could it be Fluttershy? She was the oldest of their group of six. Now, she was now the youngest by years. How was that even possible?

As she looked to the bed, Dash noticed the spot where Fluttershy, if this even was Fluttershy, had been lying was very damp. Her initial thought was it had become that way because of the crying from before she'd arrived, before she realized this foal wasn't wearing a diaper and took note of the unpleasant smell coming from the sheets.

There was a frantic squeaking from the ground, causing the mare to look down. Angel was jumping and pointing to the door that now sat on the floor, before he shot out and stopped at the doorway, as if waiting for her.

Frowning, Dash flew out after the bunny, still holding the crying foal as she wept onto the cyan shoulder given to her.

When they reached the lower floor, Angel hopped into the kitchen, stopping once to beckon Dash to follow. The Pegasus did just that, arriving to find Angel sitting on the table, holding what looked like a few flower petals in his paws.

She raised an eyebrow.

Angel put the petals down, mined making a sandwich, pointing to the petals before closing said pretend sandwich, mined eating it, gave a yawn and a stretch, then put his hands to his head, closing his eyes and pretending to sleep. He followed this by pretending to stretch as he woke up, then sucked on what would have been a thumb if he weren't a rabbit, and pointed to Fluttershy.

For a second, Dash thought he was making fun of Shy at that moment, before it dawned on her.

“Shy put petals like those into a sandwich, ate it and when she woke up she had turned into a foal?”

Angel nodded frantically.

Dash cocked an eyebrow. “You really believe a flower did this?”

Angel nodded, then shrugged, to which the cyan mare interpreted as saying he was just guessing and didn't really know and was going on that as it was all he had.

Dash frowned at the petals, then looked down at the yellow foal crying into her. Her crying had lessened a tiny bit, but she was still crying. “Right,” the older Pegasus said, grabbing the petals with a hoof. “We’ve got to see Twi about this. Maybe she’ll know what’s going on.”

Angel nodded, hopping from the table onto her back.

Dash cocked an eyebrow at him. “You plan on coming too?”

He nodded, his expression firm.

Rainbow sighed. She wasn’t going to bother arguing the matter with the rabbit right now. Something weird had happened to Fluttershy and she needed to help her friend more than she needed to stand her ground against a stubborn bunny.

Flapping her wings to get airborne and making she her grip on Fluttershy was strong so she wouldn’t drop her, Dash flew out the open door, heading towards the castle on the edge of town.

___________________________________________________________

Twilight smiled as she walked towards her castle’s library. She was glad her friends had helped her make it feel like home. If not, she never would have gotten that relaxing sleep she’d needed after the Gala.

All the trouble Discord created when he’d invited The Smooze, yet hadn’t bothered to hang around with the blob and ensure nothing bad had happened (which, of course, since Discord was involved, it did), then the shocked she’d had to deal with at learning Celestia had half-planned something crazy like that happening when she invited Discord to the Gala in the first place, it had all exhausted her by the night’s end and she really had been glad to just return to the castle and get some sleep.

“So, what crazy event will happen in Ponyville today, I wonder?” she murmured, giving a wry smile as she entered her large library, filled with not only what had been salvaged from the Golden Oaks Library, but also what she’d had brought over from The Castle of the Two Pony Sisters.

“Your Highness?”

Twilight stopped and glanced back to see one of her guards standing just outside the door. “Yes?”

The princesses had asked Twilight to have at least a few guards hang around her castle, to at least give it a chance. Frankly, it wasn't turning out too bad. She'd made sure to at least get guards who weren't as strict as others she'd dealt with in her life. AKA, ones who let their personalities shine through, whilst also remaining as alert when meant to be.

“Lady Rainbow Dash is here to see you,” she replied, saluting. “She says it’s a matter of great importance.”

Twilight raised an eyebrow. “Rainbow Dash said it’s a matter of great importance?”

The guard hesitated, then shook her head. “Well, her actual words were, “Get me Twi. I need her help with something big, NOW!”, but I chose to word it more eloquently.”

Twilight smiled and nodded. “Alright, I’ll see her. Where is she?”

“Waiting in the Map Room, Your Highness,” the guard replied, stepping back to allow her princess pass.

Twilight thanked the guard and headed in that direction. As she walked, she wondered what Rainbow needed her help with this time. Knowing Dash, it was probably something she thought was really important that actually wasn’t that big a deal.

Making mountains out of mole hills was one of Dash’s things. Then again, who was she to talk?

She chuckled uncertainly to herself as she remembered the incident back when she was a unicorn involving the Want It, Need It she’d cast on Smartypants.

She frowned. Come to think of it, she hadn’t gotten Smartypants back yet. She’d deal with that in due time, for now she had a cyan Pegasus to deal with.

What big problem could Dash have this time—?

“What took you so long?!”

Twilight was taken aback when Rainbow’s face suddenly appeared inches from her own. However, it was not the sudden closeness that had shocked her; it was the look in the cyan mare’s eyes.

While Twilight had expected to see the kind of worry Dash normally had for something that was really small, yet she saw as big, she saw genuine panic in those magenta eyes. Rainbow was really worried about something big.

Before the Alicorn could do more than acknowledge this, her Pegasus friend had stepped back and was holding something in her forehooves, saying, “Look what’s happened?”

It took Twilight a moment to register just what it was Rainbow was holding in front of her. It looked like a Pegasus foal, with a very familiar colour scheme.

Twilight blinked, then frowned. “Dash, what are you doing with a foal? Where’d you even find it?”

Dash gave Twilight a look as if the Alicorn had just sprouted a second head, before her eyes narrowed in anger. “Twilight, “look” at her! Look at the Cutie Mark!”

Twilight almost rolled her eyes. Cutie Mark? Foals that young didn’t get Cutie Marks. Nopony in history had ever gotten a Cutie Mark at that age.

However, her rebuttal was halted before it even started when she noticed a dash of pink near the foal’s flank. Looking closely, her gut dropped as realization hit her harder than that anvil that fell on her when she’d been trying to understand Pinkie’s Pinkie Sense, in several ways.

Dash was right. This foal did have a Cutie Mark. That alone would’ve been enough to stun the Princess of Friendship, but it wasn’t just the foal’s possession of a Cutie Mark that locked her mind in place, it was the mark itself. A trio of pink butterflies. A trio of pink butterflies she knew very well.

Twilight eyes slowly looked over the foal, truly taking in her appearance for the first time. She was butter-yellow, with long pink hair both for mane and tail. Her eyes were a near-cyan blue.

She knew this foal, but not as a foal.

“F-F... Fluttershy?” she stuttered out in a whisper.

The little foal nodded, before she started crying, to which dash reacted by pulling her back and holding her close.

Twilight paid no mind to this, however, her brain locked in confusion and confounded logic-lock.

Fluttershy was a foal? How was that possible? She’d been a near full-grown Pegasus just the other day when they’d all visited her. How was she now a foal?

Her mind went round and round in circles for several minutes, before a tapping on her hooves snapped her out of it and caused her to look down.

Angel Bunny was standing there, one paw on his hip, his face a frown on impatience. He was holding up his other paw, which had something like white petals in his grasp.

Twilight blinked, her confusion only growing.

“That’s what Fluttershy ate.”

Twilight looked to her cyan friend and gave an understandable, “Huh?”

Dash continued to calm the foal Fluttershy, holding her in one foreleg and rubbing her back. “He says Fluttershy ate some petals like those in a sandwich last night, then this morning she woke up like this.”

Twilight’s frown was skeptical. “You mean he told you this and you understood him? I thought only Fluttershy could do that.”

Rainbow shrugged. “He mined it to me. It wasn’t hard to figure out. Anyway, what’re we gonna do, Twi? Fluttershy’s a foal.”

Twilight sighed, shaking her head as it cleared and she could think clearly. Strange as this situation was, it was, once again, another case of Dash making a mountain out of a mole hill.

“I’ll just cast and Age Spell and turn her back to normal,” Twilight shrugged.

Dash blinked at her, as did Fluttershy and Angel. “You can do that?” the mare asked.

Twilight shrugged. “I’m an Alicorn now, Dash. An Age Spell isn’t that hard. Princess Celestia and Princess Luna use them all the time.”

Dash’s face went blank. “What?”

Twilight giggled. “They don’t know I know, but, back when they weren’t princesses, they’d play house by literally turning one or the other into a foal. And I know for a fact they still do it sometimes; sort of life stress relief.”

Dash’s face became hard to read as she was clearly trying to imagine the two Alicorn, pre-Discord and then now, doing such a thing.

“Now,” Twilight said loudly to bring the Pegasus’ attention back to her, “just put Fluttershy on the floor and I’ll cast the spell.”

Fluttershy glanced at Dash from her stomach-down position in her foreleg, fear in her eyes. “D-Dashie?”

“It’s gonna be okay, Flutters,” Dash assured the scared foal as she lifted her up properly, then lowered her onto the floor. “This is Twi we’re talking about. We’ve nothing to fear.”

Fluttershy gave a tiny nod, then looked down at the floor as Twilight’s horn lit with the spell.

Just before she cast the spell, Twilight could’ve sworn she saw some kind of sadness pass over Rainbow’s face and that her eyes had moistened a little.

She blinked and Dash seemed totally normal. She passed it off as her imagining things and foucsed on Fluttershy, who’d shut her eyes tight in fright.

As she cast the spell, Twilight couldn’t deny that, when her eyes closed tight like that, Fluttershy had unintentionally scrunched up her nose. It looked very cute.

However, that thought was forgotten as the spell was fully cast, bathing the room in lavender light.

When it faded a few moments later, Twilight expected to see Fluttershy sitting on the floor in front of her, back to her normal age. However, she wasn’t. She was still a foal!

“Huh?” all three ponies said. Even Angel made a sound that sounded like “Huh?” in bunny.

Dash frowned, looking to the Alicorn. “Twi, I thought you said you could change her back with and Age Spell. You said you could do those!”

“But... but I can!” Twilight said, not sure what was going on. That spell should’ve turned Fluttershy back to her proper age.

“Well, clearly you can’t,” Dash said, stomping a hoof. “If you could, Fluttershy wouldn’t still be a foal!”

“I can so cast Age Spells,” Twilight defended, glaring at Dash. “I’ve practiced the spell countless times.” She looked away. “Well, okay, not countless. I still kept track. Nine hundred and eighty-two times. Spike was an accident on that last one.”

“What?” Dash blinked, her face blanking for a second, before her expression hardened again. “Prove it, Twi! Prove you can cast—”

Dash’s sentence was cut off as Twilight’s horn lit up and bathed the room once again in lavender light. When it faded, Dash was a foal. The cyan pony’s eyes widened in panic, before lavender light enveloped the room for a third time and she was back to her older self.

Dash shivered as she looked to Twilight, who kept her glare from before. “Believe me now?”

Dash nodded, still looking shaken. She clearly hadn’t expected Twilight to demonstrate her skill with that spell on her, though that was what she got for riling up the princess so much when she’d only been trying to help.

“So, how come it worked on me, but not Flutters?” the cyan mare asked once she’d recovered from the sudden regression and re-aging.

Twilight frowned, putting a hoof to her chin. She glanced at the petals Angel had left by her hooves after going over to his foalified master when he saw she was still a foal and was trying to comfort her.

“I think whatever these petals are have something to do with it,” the Alicorn said, levitating them up in her magic. “Maybe they’ve some magical property that’s interfering with the magical cortex of the spell, nullifying the re-aging process when working the spell in the opposite—”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” Dash said, holding up a hoof to stop her friend, before put said hoof to her forehead. “Too eggheady talk for me, Twi. You lost me after you said the petals had something to do with it.”

Twilight’s frown turned to that of annoyance, before she sighed and shook her head. “I don’t recognize these petals specifically. Do you know what type of flower it was that they came from?”

Dash looked to Angel, who looked back to her and shook his head. Twilight noted that was unusual behavior, as Angel rarely responded to anypony aside from Fluttershy, no matter the circumstance.

Dash sighed. “Angel’s the only one who actually saw the flower aside from Shy and he didn’t know and, I’m pretty sure Fluttershy didn’t either, did you, Shy?” she directed that last bit to the foal holding the bunny.

She shook her head. “No. I-I didn’. I-I just picked it cos it wooked and smewed nice.”

Twilight frowned. “While my Age Spell didn’t change you back, Fluttershy, it did give me an idea of your age. You’re about one week old. How can you talk already, if that’s the case?”

The foal just shook her head. “I dunno, Twiwigh. I jus’ can.”

Twilight looked up at the ceiling, pondering that, then sighed. “Okay. Since none of us know what the flower was, I’ll bring these petals to Zecora and see if she can help while I run some tests. Til then, I guess Fluttershy will need somepony to look after her until we can figure out how to reverse whatever this is that caused her regression. The most logical choice would be her parents.”

Both pegasi glanced at each other. “That... could be a problem,” Dash said, giving a sheepish smile.

Twilight gave her a confused look.

“They'we... on vacation wight now,” Fluttershy mumbled.

“And they won't be back for, like, two months,” Rainbow nodded. “So, what do we do?”

Twilight frowned, thinking for a moment, before she got an idea. “I have an idea. Though it might be a bit awkward for you, Dash.”

“What, Twi?” the rainbow-maned pegasus asked, looking to the Alicorn. “I'll do whatever I can t' help Fluttershy.”

Twilight grinned uneasly. "Well, until I can find a way to reverse whatever did this to Fluttershy, or at least until her parents get back from their vacation, would you be willing to look after Fluttershy?"

Rainbow opened her mouth to respond, before she blinked. “Wait. Come again?”

Twilight indicated to the little foal. “Until I can figure out how to change Fluttershy back to normal, she'll need to be cared for as she currently is. With her parents not available right now and you being the one who knows her the most, having known each other for so long. Unless you know another of Fluttershy's family members who could be responsible for her.”

Twilight blinked, before frowning. Now that she thought about it, she’d never really learned about the yellow Pegasus' family before. She knew Pinkie’s, Rarity’s and Applejack’s family relations, but never once had either pegasi mentioned anything about their own families aside from Dash mentioning her father back when they’d asked about Cloudsdale and the Equestria Games. He’d been at the games too and she’d spoken with him briefly about his job as a Weather Pony in Fillydelphia.

A snort from Rainbow Dash caused her to snap from her thoughts to see both pegasi with deadpan frowns. “Zephyr Breeze? Responsible enough to look after his sister as a foal?” She snorted again. “Yeah. I'll believe that when I see it.”

Twilight opened her mouth, then frowned at that last part. “Is Fluttershy's brother not that responsible?”

Dash rolled her eyes, before sighing. “Not the point, I guess. So, you want me to look after Shy til either you've fixed this or her parents come back. Can do,” she finished with a salute.

Twilight looked uncertainly at the cyan mare. “You do realize you'll have to make preparations for whilst she's staying, right?”

Dash gave a snort of laughter. “Twilight, please. I live in a cloud house. It's pretty foal-proof already.”

Twilight gave a frown between uncertain and annoyed. “That's not what I was referring to, Dash.”

Rainbow cocked an eyebrow. “Then what is?”

Twilight's expression became sheepish. “Well... Fluttershy's not older enough to ingest normal foods right now.”

Dash cocked her head to the side. “So?”

Twilight laughed nervously. “Well... you see... the only thing she'll be able to ingest right now is... well... breast milk.”

There was silence for several minutes as Dash just looked at Twilight in confusion, before her eyes slowly widened and she lifted a hoof to point at herself. “You mean I'll have to...?”

Twilight nodded, giving a sheepish grin. “You'll have to nurse her yourself? Yes.”

Rainbow stared at the Alicorn for several more minutes, before her eyes rolled into the back of her head and she dropped to the floor, unconscious.

Author's Note

:yay: It's back!

Wasn't going to update this for a while before, but after finishing the latest chapter of an original story i'm writing, i felt a bit in the foal writing mood.

So, Twilight's Age Spell couldn't change Fluttershy back. Can anything, or is she stuck as a foal?

Not sure if i'll update this again soon, but i will try.

Hope you all enjoyed this and, til next time, later everypony

Edit 5/6/2016: Changed this to match the changes in the last chapter. Next chapter will now, instead of being the hard to think of backstory i was gonna give shy for having abusive parents, will now be fuzzy times between her and dash :rainbowkiss: :twilightsmile: