Deja Vu With Royalty

A unicorn couple crowded closely around a plain looking basket. Up from the basket, staring back at them, was a little pink foal. The filly looked at the two other ponies with the widest eyes, innocent and unfocused.

She had the prettiest lavender eyes and had her pink and lavender mane tied up in the frilliest of bows in a set of pigtails. Peeking out from the filly’s mane was a tiny, underdeveloped horn that still had a few more months left before it could possibly cast any magic. Her body was tiny, frail, and stubby, a typical thing to expect for a pony her age.

The two unicorns who looked down back at the small filly were a young couple who had yet to have children of their own. They were deeply in love with each other, but parenthood would have been a big step for the two. Both of them had their reservations with taking such a big step, however it was mostly nerves at this point.

“And you just found the poor dear out on the doorstep by her lonesome?” the mare unicorn looked down at the tiny filly who idly drooled on a suckling hoof.

“‘Fraid so!” the unicorn stallion replied, “little thing must be scared to death!”

The mare nodded, looking down at the foal with warm and understanding eyes. “You didn’t see anypony? Hear anything?”

The stallion just shook his head, “nu-uh, alls I could find was this note.” He held up a plain sheet of paper that was once folded and attached to the outside of the basket. On its face was a few lines of writing, written in elegant calligraphy.

“'This little filly is in dire need of a good home and good parents. I cannot provide these for her, but I just know in my heart that you two would be able to.'” the stallion paused to give his wife a passing and affectionate glance. They smiled at each other lovingly before he finished up the note. ”'She’s very young, but she cannot go back to her old life. Please take good care of little Dayglow.’”

“Dayglow,” the mare repeated to herself, “you really think we’re ready?”

The unicorn couple looked at the note, then at each other, and then at the foal. The pink foal just stared at them with wide, blank eyes, occasionally blinking with a puzzled tilt of her head.

“I think we can do it,” the stallion replied with a confident smile.

“Yeah, I think so too,” the mare answered with an equally confident smile. Her horn began to glow as she lifted the little, pink filly out of the basket and into her arms. “Welcome to the family, Dayglow.”

The little foal smiled and cuddled into the loving arms of her new parents. Years from now the young pony would have the faintest of memories cropping up in her head that she would know for sure didn't belong to her. Memories of a white pony who panicked and hastily used her magic to regress a purple pony to the age of a foal. This white pony would even go as far as to changing the purple pony's mane and eye color to further cover up her mistakes. Dayglow would never really make any connections to these rogue memories and pass them off as something she read in a book or dreamed about. She hardly needed to trouble herself with silly things that may or may not have happened.

Years from now she would even catch the interest of Princess Celestia as her skills with magic earns her the alicorn's mentorship. The Princess would show a deep devotion to her new student and likely commit even more time and energy into this one out of some unknown guilt for the young unicorn. Despite having a new pupil, Celestia would find it difficult to separate the present from that fateful night when a panicked regression spell lost her a star pupil.

As Dayglow grew older she would care less and less about the fragmented dreams and half remembered memories that floated in the dark recesses of her mind. None of that mattered anyway. What did matter was that she had parents who loved her and she had her whole life ahead of her.