A Foalish Mistake

As the sun set over Ponyville, four friends were trying to work out how best to deal with the aftermath of a truly confusing magical accident. So far, Rarity had been trying to relate everything she knew to Fluttershy and Applejack so that they could offer more constructive suggestions. This attempt was only slightly impeded by Twilight Sparkle’s nervous, wobbling exploration of her own bedroom. She looked the same as ever, her horn showing the faintest trace of a pink magical glow, but she seemed to have all the poise and balance of a foal only a few days old. To make things worse, she had all the curiosity of a child as well, and Fluttershy was darting off every few minutes to stop her friend from touching something fragile or dangerous.

“I have to wonder what Twilight was thinking,” she said, “This really is no place to raise a child, and the basement is even worse!”

“I don’t think she was expecting children,” Applejack put it as diplomatically as she could, “None of us were expecting it either, right?”

“I guess so. I just… I can’t stop thinking of her as my child, and I’m worrying so much that she might get hurt.”

“You’re taking it awful well, you know. Do you think that’s a part of the spell?”

“Maybe. I don’t know. It couldn’t be what I was thinking? I mean I want to start a family someday, it’s important to me. And someone said something that made me think about it, and if that was on my mind when Twilight cast that spell, could it have…” and her voice dropped so low there was no chance of anyone being able to hear more.

“I don’t think so,” Rarity had assumed herself the leader of this informal meeting, by virtue of being the first pony Twilight Sparkle had called on when everything started to go wrong. “It may well be that your deepest desires can affect the outcome of a dark enchantment, but I would expect it to be Twilight’s own feelings rather than yours that would be important in this case. And even if it is, do you think that’s a good thing? I don’t claim to speak for everyone, but I’d much rather be cursed to be a foal again than turned into a helpless slave, or the other changes we’ve read about in those books. Given the previous performances of this particular piece of magic, I would say that this… outcome is one of the more fortuitous.”

Fluttershy didn’t answer, but was looking more and more afraid as she turned the pages of the books that were on the table in front of her. The images in there were disturbing, if faded by age, and even more so if you’d just been the target of the same spell that had brought about such depraved scenes.

“So if it can do such horrible things,” Applejack couldn’t see the pictures, so wasn’t shocked by the sheer depth of the obscenity, but she could see enough to worry her, “Why were you even playing with that thing?”

“We weren’t,” Rarity sighed, “Look, I’ll tell you as much as you know. A long time ago, in a castle far away, a group of mad griffons planned to take over the world. They’d created these few spells that would let them control anyone who opposed them, force their subjects to love them as their empire of depravity spread further. Then, they all died.”

“Just like that? No big story?”

“Well, the books about them were in such a state, most of them in the mythology section or even in fiction, because nobody believed they were real. And after Twilight had been hunting through the books for a counterspell, they were all over the floor and I had to make sure everything was on the right shelves before I could start reading, so I haven’t read the details yet.”

“Sorry. So, these griffons were real?”

“Real, but a very long time ago. The Princess found their castle, and found out they–”

“Which Princess? I mean, I think that makes a big difference to how much we trust this story.”

“Ask her,” Rarity jerked an irritated hoof towards where Fluttershy was, once again, holding Twilight Sparkle on her lap like a foal, babbling nonsense to calm her down after some minor stumble, “I can only tell you when she told me. Can I continue?”

“Yeah, sorry,”

“These ancient griffons were amazingly talented at making machines that run on magic, as well as their notorious aptitude for dark mind-control spells. So the Princess collected up all the things that were left in the ruins, and divided them into dangerous dark magic, to be destroyed or locked away for eternity, and things that might actually have some use. And one of the things she thought might be useful was this. They called it a monitor, and used it for keeping track of slaves near the edge of their empire.” The monitor looked like some kind of long, curved horn, and until then Applejack hadn’t even realised it was magical. She picked it up tentatively, looking into the end of it, as Rarity continued her recap.

“The Princess gave this to Twilight Sparkle to study, presumably thinking that her obsession with book research would be the perfect approach. If you put it to your ear and think of somepony, as long as you know where they are, you can hear them. Twilight used it to call me in here when she realised she needed some help.”

“You can talk through it too?”

“Seems to be the case. She spent all morning with Spike running around town, trying to see how far it could reach, and stuff like that. But there was a spell stuck in it, so she didn’t want to try speaking through it right away. You know how sometimes, with powerful magic, once you’ve started you can’t stop and it just hangs around until you’ve finished?”

“Umm, not really.”

“Well, it happens. We guessed that one of those ancient griffons was trying to channel his magic through the monitoring device, when he was distracted or something. Twilight had read some books about similar problems with lingering spells, and thought she could pull the dark spell out, cast it on a rock, and then it would just go away. Didn’t count on dark magic, or very old magic, having different rules.”

“She couldn’t get it to work on a rock?”

“No. Nor on the sky, a bug, a cloud, the wall, or one of my mannequins. We tried everything we could think of, until it became clear that a mind-altering spell would only allow itself to be directed at somepony with a mind.”

“And that’s where we came in, right?”

“She tried it on herself first, at least. If someone has to take this, she thinks it should be a great act of self-sacrifice. She tried it a dozen times, using mirrors and everything she could think of, before she’d risk hurting a friend.”

“An’ that’s why it took so long to call us? That’s crazy if you ask me, if she cast it on herself, we lost the best bookworm for finding a cure!”

“And she got it in the end, in any case. It appears that Fluttershy’s stare reflected the spell instead of reversing it.”

“Least they're both enjoying it, I guess. Fluttershy always wanted to be a mom, I think, so maybe this’ll be fun for her. Maybe we should ask?”

“Hey Fluttershy!” Applejack yelled without waiting for a reply, “Looks like Twily’s back to being a little foal somehow. You’re handling it well enough, so hows about you be like her mom until we find the counterspell?”

“It’s kind of come naturally,” Fluttershy admitted, hooves busy stroking Twilight’s mane to keep her calm, “But won’t she be embarrassed about it when she’s back to normal?”

“Who knows?” Rarity responded airily, “I hear that some folks who have a lot of stress in their lives, like to dress up and act like a little filly again to get away from their worries. ‘Adult foal’, they call it. Who knows, Twilight might decide she enjoys a break from responsibility and decide to keep trying it. Have you heard, they even have a special shop selling adult size cribs, and pacifiers, and all those kind of things?”

“You’re kidding!” Applejack tried to conceal her laughter, “In Ponyville? Surely we’d have seen it!”

“Umm…” Fluttershy returned to mumbling almost inaudibly, “Other things too? Do you know where it is? If we can’t find a cure today, there’s a few things we might need.” She was blushing hotly, the pink making a distinct contrast with her golden coat, but it took a moment for the others to realise what might be causing her embarrassment. Twilight had her forehooves wrapped around her face in shame, as if covering her eyes might somehow hide her from her friends’ stares.

“Did Twilight just pee on you?” Applejack gasped in surprise when the ball finally dropped, but then her smile made it clear that she was only just managing to keep a laugh from overtaking her feelings of concern.

“I dint,” Twilight blustered, having even less success at controlling her voice now, “I didn’t mean to it just happened I’m sorry Mommy I’m so so sorry!” and the tears came back in a flood.

“Calm down, baby,” Fluttershy stroked Twilight’s mane calmly, keeping her voice as soothing as she could, “It seems you’re turning back into a foal, and these things happen to little ones. It isn’t your fault. Just keep calm and we’ll have this all sorted out. I’m sure AJ and Rarity will be able to find that store and get everything we need, while I get you all cleaned up. How about a bath with lots of bubbles, you’d like that, wouldn’t you?”

“Yeah!” Twilight’s eyes were open wide as the excitement of a new experience overwhelmed her previous shame. By the time the bath was run, it seemed she barely even remembered why she needed one. She batted at the floating soap bubbles with her hooves, and Fluttershy found she couldn’t help smiling at the sight. Caring for a foal – even if it was her full-grown foal – brought all the delight that she got from helping her animal friends a hundred times over.

“I know I said this was a weird idea,” she mused, not really caring how well her charge could understand her, “But everything came so naturally. Does that mean I’ll be a good mother?” Twilight’s answer was a splash of soapy water and a torrent of giggles, but she felt sure she could think of that as a ‘yes’. In a strange way this curse had dismissed one of Fluttershy’s biggest worries about her future, so it was a kind of happy accident after all.