Dream Cycle - Twilight

by Arbanis

Rating: mature
Tags: Twilight Sparkle, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Nightmare Moon, Mystery, Fetish, Comedy
Length: 24439

Twilight Sparkle's not sure what's going on, and she's especially not sure about the diapers.

Twilight Sparkle has a class to teach!
Or is it a filly to take care of?
Or perhaps it's a fun - and blushy - night with Princess Luna?
Or is it taking care of a library?

Whatever it is, it seems like it always involves diapers for some reason...

This is something a little different. It's a story I've done with Mintycandy, and is part of a series - but each part is focused on a different character (or characters) and will be posted as a separate story.

The cover art is by https://www.furaffinity.net/user/randommutationromances/

It features diapers, odd logic, and things like that.

Published 2019-12-25 15:20:01 UTC
Last updated 2019-12-25 15:20:01 UTC

Chapter 1

“All right, class, let's go over the material,” Twilight Sparkle said.

She looked out over the class, sort of vaguely paying attention to the ponies attending it – such as a pegasus with a shock of multicoloured mane, or a mostly-pink earth pony, or a slit-eyed filly alicorn with a night-dark coat – then down at her notes.

“First we have to discuss gathers,” she said, reading off from the bullet points and filling in the gaps. “Gathers are what make sure that diapers don't leak, by making sure that there's a seal between your legs and the material of the diaper…?”

She moved forwards a slide, then frowned slightly – wondering exactly why she was talking about this sort of thing. It didn't really seem like the sort of topic for her to be lecturing on.

“Miss?” asked a unicorn filly with a starry cape and a blue coat. “Is something wrong?”

“Oh!” Twilight said, shaking her head and blinking a little. “No, nothing's wrong, or I don't think anything is. Sorry….”

The name should have been right there on the tip of her tongue, but she couldn't remember it. Blushing slightly, Twilight moved on to the next topic in her notes.

“The landing area is the name for the place on the front of the diaper which the tapes are stuck to,” she lectured, looking up at the image on the slide. “They're often decorated, and so are the tapes, which tends to be one of the main ways in which diapers are themed…”

This really did sound like an odd thing to be lecturing about… and she couldn't really remember coming into the lecture hall, either. In fact, she wasn't sure what class this was, or who was attending it, or when she'd learned the material herself.

And there was something familiar about the filly alicorn...

“That's not to say the rest of the padding can't be decorated, of course. It's quite common for patterns to either fade or appear as wetness indicators.” She clicked to the next slide, which had images of diapers and bottles of water, with the after picture's padding showing faded stars along its surface, not to mention showing off the sheer amount of water it seemed to have soaked up.

“...which should segue us nicely into absorbance! Diapers are able to soak up so much because of the clouds stuffed into them. This leads to thin diapers being able to swell deceptively big, and-”

Her spiel was suddenly cut off as she felt something smack against the back of her head. It wasn't painful by any means, but the sudden whap did make her jump a little as she turned around. A diaper had been tossed her way and now lay at her hooves, a few of the fillies in the class gigging. Twilight put on her best serious face, which was quite difficult given how confused she was at where any of the students would have gotten a diaper, and, again, why she was lecturing on them in the first place. Her horn alight as she lifted up the padding, looking around at the students. “Alright, who threw this? If you come forward I promise I'll be lenient.” She continued to look around, but nopony seemed to come forward. Though as she scanned the ponies, it wasn't hard to pick out a culprit. The black filly alicorn was wearing a smug smile and leaning back in her chair. A few more diapers could be seen poking out of her school bag.

Twilight did her best to give the alicorn filly a stern look, trotting slowly over to her desk. “What's that you've got in there, missy?”

“Nothing unusual,” the filly replied. “Nothing's wrong with having diapers in a diaper class, is there?”

There probably wasn't, but Twilight still looked stern. “There is something wrong with throwing a diaper at your teacher, miss…”

The name wouldn't come, but Twilight felt like she should know it. And she felt like if she did know the name she'd have a much better idea of what was going on.

...but she had no idea where that conviction came from, either.

The class giggled a bit at her pause, and the filly replied. “I was just giving you a diaper because you don't have one. And you need one to teach the class, don't you?”

Twilight had to admit, she didn't have a diaper. And as she inspected it, she wondered how quickly she could put it on and incorporate it into the lesson…

Then she saw the filly smirk, her eyes glittering, and suddenly something was really clear.

“Nightmare?” she asked.

“That's me,” the filly replied. “You did say Nightwear, right?”

Twilight blinked. Yes, of course she had – and that's what was going on! This was Nightwear Moon, who had all kinds of powers about dreams.

“I know what you're doing,” she said firmly. “This is a dream, isn't it?”

“And what if it is?” Nightwear replied, smirking again. “If it's not a dream, you're not doing the lesson… and if it is a dream, you're stuck in a dream with me, and I can make you do whatever I want.”

“Not everything you want,” Twilight replied firmly. “And – and I can get out of a dream!”

Nightwear simply laughed, while the rest of the class seemed rather confused. “If this is a dream, why in Equestria am ah still here?” A colt from the back asked. Nightwear waved her hoof dismissively and a pacifier popped into his mouth.

Twilight grew more confident as her horn started to glow and magic swirled around her. Nightwear looked just a tad worried as her magic grew brighter, but before she could do anything, Twilight suddenly vanished with a pop!

She opened her eyes, finding herself lying in bed. She let out a soft sigh, happy to have escaped the dream with Nightwear. She yawned, looking out the window to see the sun was only just rising above the horizon. Well, an early start to the day was always a good one, she supposed, so she tossed the covers of her back and slid out of bed.

As she made her way downstairs, however, she heard a bit of scuffling coming from the kitchen. “Spike? Are you up already?” She asked, walking into the kitchen only to gasp.

“Nightwear? What are you doing?!”

A little filly Nightwear was sitting up on the counter, several cookies already stuffed into her mouth, and she was still reaching into the jar to pull out more. Nightwear glared at Twilight, letting out a huge gulp as she swallowed all the cookies at once before sticking her tongue out at her. “I wanted cookies, so I'm getting cookies!” She declared.

Twilight hurried over, her magic trying to pull the jar from Nightwear. Nightwear did her best to keep her grip on the jar, but was easily shaken free as Twilight levitated the jar up to the highest shelf in the kitchen. “I told you before, if you have cookies so early you're going to spoil your appetite! You're not getting any pancakes now.”

Nightwear huffed, crossing her forelegs. “I want pancakes too!”

Twilight did her best not to groan, wondering just how much trouble Nightwear was going to insist on being. She knew she was supposed to be foalsitting the little alicorn, but did Nightwear have to be such a brat?

“Then you'll just have to learn to get on without them, won't you?” she asked. “Maybe you'll learn something.”

Nightwear pouted.

“Now, we're going to be going out today,” Twilight added. “Doesn't that sound nice?”

“Where?” Nightwear demanded.

“Manners,” Twilight warned. “We're going to go to the lake.”

She turned. “Now, come on, let's make sure you're properly dressed… we need to put you in a swim diaper so you don't end up trying to soak up half the lake.”

“The lake sounds boring,” Nightwear said. “I want to go to the play area!”

“No, we're going to the lake,” Twilight replied, then grabbed magically for Nightwear as the alicorn filly darted off upstairs. “Young filly, you get back here!”

Nightwear didn't listen, and Twilight found herself running up and down and around the castle trying to catch her charge.

Nightwear rushed into her room with Twilight close behind her, but not close enough – the filly was able to slam the door to momentarily impede her progress. Twilight grumbled as she opened the door, with Nightwear nowhere in sight.

Her brow furrowed as she stepped inside and locked the door behind her to prevent any further escape attempts, Twilight wandered over to Nightwear's crib and bent down to peer beneath it. As expected, Nightwear had chosen a better hiding spot, forcing Twilight to search the room further. The curtains hid no filly, and her closet seemed devoid of her as well, though it required digging through several oversized Wonderbutt plushies to make sure.

“Nightwear, if you don't come out here right now, we won't be going anywhere and you'll be grounded!” She called out. Given the subsequent silence, Nightwear was unfazed by the threat.

Twilight wandered over to Nightwear's wardrobe. It seemed unlikely that she could squeeze her way into one of the drawers and shut it behind her, but Twilight had found her in stranger places. Pulling open the drawers however only revealed the usual bottles of foal powder, wipes, and bulging thick diapers.

Twilight tried to remember why such a small filly needed such thick padding, but for the life of her she couldn't recall. Now that she thought about it, who was she foalsitting Nightwear for in the first place?

Before her mind could wander any further, she heard a clatter behind her and spotted Nightwear laying beside a now tipped over hamper, fluffy blankets strewn about and tangled around her.

“There you are!” Twilight said. “Now stop causing trouble and come over here so I can get you ready for the trip!”

Nightwear flailed about, trying to escape but only getting tangled in the blankets further, and Twilight chuckled before trotting forwards. She tried to pull some of the blankets aside but they all seemed to be joined together, so she headed into the mass to try and find Nightwear and get her untied.

There seemed to be an awful lot of the blankets, and she sort of got lost in them – covered in all sorts of fluffed-up duvets and comforters and multi-layered blankies, seeing only by the light of her horn and completely unable to locate Nightwear.

Then she noticed that her own hooves were getting mixed-up and tied up in knots, and a few seconds later she tripped over – ending up in a heap as some of the blankets slid around.

“Hmph!” she heard. “You're not meant to foalsit me, you're just a foal yourself!”

“What?” Twilight demanded. “I'm not – erf – you're the one who came in here first, young filly!”

Wondering how many blankets there'd been, because it seemed like an entire roomful of them, Twilight got back to her hooves and forced her way out of the pile.

“There you are,” she said, trying to look stern, but Nightwear just giggled.

“There's nothing funny about it, young filly,” she said, trotting forwards and sending the rest of the blankets sliding off to free her wings. “I can assure you...”

Twilight paused, flicking her backside back and forth a little to try and dislodge one last warm blanket. It didn't move, and Nightwear giggled more, until Twilight looked back to try and get it off with her horn.

It wasn't a blanket at all. Somehow, when she'd been trying to find Nightwear in all the blankets, she'd ended up with a thick, plushy diaper wrapped around her rear.

Twilight was taken aback for a moment, wondering where the plush diaper had come from, let alone how she had managed to get it wrapped around her flanks. But, then again, she was foalsitting, it was probably just one of Nightwear's spare diapers that had gotten lost in the blankets.

That did make sense, after all.

Regardless, she wasn't going to allow the offending garment to remain in place. As her horn lit up to remove the diaper, however, Nightwear suddenly pouted, drawing Twilight's attention back to her. “Hey, no fair! If I have to wear my diaper, you do too!” Nightwear whined.

Twilight looked a bit incredulous. “Don't be ridiculous, I'm not a foal, so I don't need a diaper. You on the other hoof, need to get into your swim diaper already!”

Nightwear crossed her forehooves and sat down, glaring up at Twilight. “Nu-uh! You were crawling around in all those blankets too! You're a foal too! And you said foals need diapers!”

Twilight let out a bit of a sigh. She wondered if this hill was one that was really worth dying on. After all, if Nightwear was willing to cooperate if she wore this plush padding, maybe it would make the rest of the day go better. She could probably hide it until Nightwear was distracted enough splashing around that she could remove it without the filly noticing. And, while she was hesitant to admit it, the plushie diaper was rather comfortable.

“...alright, Nightwear, but I mean it, we're going to miss out on all the sun if we stay here any longer! Now hurry up and get into your swim pampers.”

Nightwear cheered, dutifully waddling over to the drawers to pull out a set of padding with a rubbery, almost pooltoy like covering. Twilight waddled over, but Nightwear shooed her away, attempting to put on the odd swim diaper on her own. Twilight shrugged, figuring if it kept Nightwear happy and she did a good enough job, she could put on her own diapers if she wanted.

It took another ten or fifteen minutes to actually get to the point where they could actually go out the door, with Nightwear complaining about everything from the taste of the snacks they were taking (which she insisted that Twilight sample first) to the bonnet that Twilight said she should wear to protect her from too much sun. Nightwear got Twilight to show her how that would work as well, then tied it on her, and after that told her that because they only had one and that was too tightly tied then Nightwear would have to go without.

It was all very frustrating, but finally Twilight was ready to take her charge to the beach. So she opened the door, Nightwear suddenly eager to get there, and as they stepped out onto the street somepony looked at Twilight in surprise.

“Why on Equestria are you wearing a diaper?” she asked.

Twilight was about to reply, trying to explain, but suddenly realized how strange the whole situation was. How she'd ended up in a diaper which she hadn't removed, wearing a bonnet, and having eaten little crackers and cheese squares as if she'd only just moved onto solid food.

It was so embarrassing, and at first she couldn't think of something to say.

“This is like a bad dream,” she groaned, and Nightwear laughed.

Not giggling, but laughing – and when Twilight looked at her, the filly's eyes were bright and alive with triumph.

“That's right,” the little alicorn said. “And what do you do to dream? You sleep...”

The word echoed in Twilight's mind, and she closed her eyes…

Twilight was standing at the front of her class again, this time with several pieces of fabric, cotton, and sewing needles spread out on a table in front of her. She was stitching the tail onto a small plushie purple and green dragon, threading the needle carefully before pulling it taut, knotting it, and placing the limp toy down.

“...and that finishes the shape of our plushie. How is everyone doing so far? No pricked hooves?” Her gaze wandered the classroom as she watched her students busy at work. Most of them were finishing stitching up their own little plush ponies, such as one of her students, a stubby legged dragon who seemed oddly familiar, stitching button eyes onto a posh white unicorn. There were a few others, though, such as a rainbow pony admiring her gryphon plush, and her shyest student squeezing a plush bear.

“Alright, onto the most important part, the stuffing!” Twilight said, proceeding to pull the bucket of stuffing closer to her. “You want your plush to be able to hold as much as possible so they have an even bigger belly to cuddle, after all!” She began to demonstrate, stuffing the cotton down into the plush dragon's unzipped belly, filling his tail outwards, his head, limbs, and finally belly following suit. She continued to stuff as she looked around the room again, each student doing their best to match her technique.

As Twilight absentmindedly stuffed her plushie, she wondered if her dragon student had always been that pudgy. He didn't look bad with more belly to squeeze, but she was sure it hadn't been that big earlier today. Perhaps he just had a big lunch.

Continuing to look around the room, she spotted Nightwear in her seat, not paying much attention and instead focused on stitching something up around her own plush princess's rump.

“What's that you're doing?” Twilight asked her, trotting over. “That looks interesting!”

“I'm putting a diaper on it,” Nightwear told her. “That's because that's what princesses have.”

Twilight smiled, pleased that Nightwear was getting so involved with the class.

Something seemed a little odd, but she shook it off – watching as Nightwear's needle went in and out, in and out… then she started putting the stuffing in, putting more and more at once until the cotton-diaper was big and plump and obvious.

Twilight blinked a few times, realizing that it looked like it had a diaper almost as big for it as her big crinkly one was for her. That sounded a bit odd as well, as she wondered why she was wearing such a big diaper when she was teaching class, but before she could think much about it Nightwear finished and gave it to her.

“Here you go!” she said. “You can snuggle it when it's nap time!”

“Nap time?” Twilight repeated. “We don't have nap time.”

“Yes you do,” Nightwear replied. “It's next, remember?”

Twilight didn't remember that, but maybe she'd forgotten. She frowned, and Nightwear nodded – a motion she found herself repeating, nodding a little as if she wasn't sure whether to agree or just be tired.

“It's nap time,” Nightwear repeated, and Twilight yawned and closed her eyes-

Twilight awoke with a bit of a start, sitting up in bed as she tried to remember what her dream had been about... something about class... had she been dreaming about magic kindergarten again? She shook her head and tried to roll out of bed, only to realize there were large bars running around her mattress preventing her from doing so. She blinked as her bleary eyes came into focus to find herself sitting in a large crib. She was about to stand up and try to hoist herself out of the crib when she heard hooves on the other side of the door before it opened up and the lights turned on, temporarily blinding her.

“Oh, Twily, I didn't know you'd be awake already!”

Twilight blinked rapidly, trying to force her eyes to adjust as she felt magic surrounding her and lifting her up out of the bed. She heard a faint crinkle and looked downwards as a blush crossed her face. She was wearing a particularly puffy diaper, one which reached her knees and swallowed just a bit of her tail to make wagging it difficult. Once her vision had returned, she looked over to see it was Luna who was carrying her out of the crib. “L-Luna? What's going on? I...I'm not in another dream am I?” She shook her head, utterly confused and trying to make heads and tails of what was going on.

Luna simply gave a small chuckle as magic poked and prodded at Twilight's diaper, which only made the smaller alicorn blush brighter. “Perhaps you are, but it's not a nightmare, is it? I had hoped you would have liked it when you asked me to do this with you.”

“I – um – well-” Twilight began, spluttering a bit as she tried to marshal her scattered thoughts.

She was trying something with Luna? Why did it involve diapers?

“Um...” she tried, and Luna put her down on a table with a soft top. “H-hey!”

“Ssh,” Luna told her, putting a pacifier with a big heavy bulb in her mouth – effectively silencing her, at least for the moment. “Let's see if you've been a soggy filly during your nap...”

The implications of that made Twilight try not to squirm. If she'd been trying something with Luna and it was like this… did that mean…

“All dry,” Luna pronounced. “Who's a clever little filly?”

Twilight tried to turn away, embarrassed by Luna's comments, and the elder alicorn chuckled. “Now now, you know that mommy knows best in these situations – you don't want to get punished, after all. Or maybe you do?”

Twilight's ears went flat, and Luna picked her up again before putting her down on the floor. “Now, what do you want to do first?”

As Luna described several options, each one more embarrassing than the last, Twilight did have to squirm back and forth a little as she wondered how she'd got herself into this situation. She'd agreed with Luna to have a dream to experiment with this sort of thing? Really?

Luna listed off a few more, only to stop as she realized Twilight's reluctance to answer. She gave a soft giggle, patting Twilight's head gently. “Ah, of course, how silly of me. If I gave you a choice it'd ruin the illusion just a bit, wouldn't it? I must apologize, I'm getting a little used to the scenario myself, Twilight.” Her horn started to glow as she pulled a book from a nearby shelf and floated it over to Twilight. “How about we play out one of your favorite stories. I believe I remember you quite enjoying the very hungry manticore, about a greedy manticore that kept stealing everypony's food until he couldn't budge from all his pudge! We'll have to get you into your costume first!” Luna placed the book in Twilight's lap as she went to retrieve Twilight's costume.

Twilight flipped through the book, not remembering any story of the sort. As Luna had said, the story was quite simple, a manticore awoke one day and was very hungry, so he ate his way through a pony's bakery before stumbling down the street to drink the town's fountain dry, then decided he needed more, so he started to gobble up all the apples in the town's orchard! Each page was accompanied by a picture of the ever fattening manticore, and Twilight was wondering if she had really asked to be put in a situation like that. By Luna of all ponies. Surely she was remembering wrong, why would she have agreed to this?

“Oh, Twilight!” Luna sing-songed behind her. Twilight turned around and her face burned brightly as she saw Luna holding up a sleeper with lion paws and a big ruffled mane, equipped with a plush scorpion stinger over a flap meant for ease of access to the wearer's diaper.

“D-do we really-” Twilight begun, only for Luna to put a hoof over her muzzle.

“Now now, Twily,” Luna said, sounding amused. “You know that little ones are always eager to play dress-up, don't you?”

Twilight mumbled, trying to protest, but Luna just opened up the sleeper with a quick zrrrip sound. “Let's have that left forehoof! Can you show me which one that is?”

Twilight somewhat reluctantly proffered her left forehoof, and Luna helped the sleeper over that leg. The same thing happened with the other three legs, so that Twilight was wearing a big soft manticore sleeper that was just the right colour.

“That's better!” Luna chuckled. “And let's just check that stinger… yep, nice and soft! No danger of my little filly accidentally hurting herself!”

Luna really seemed enthusiastic about this, smirking slightly as she assured Twilight that she'd be just fine – as if Twilight was a real foal who needed to be carefully kept away from danger because she'd hurt herself if she wasn't.

Twilight found it a very embarrassing concept, and it didn't help when Luna retrieved the book.

“Now, remember, Twily,” Luna added. “The Manticore's job is to do what the book says! Do you think you can do that?”

Twilight mumbled something about the difference between being able to do something and wanting to do it, which Luna more or less ignored – going straight on to opening the book.

“Once there was a Manticore, whose tummy was rumbling all day...” Luna began, Twilight sitting on the floor in her suit, unmoving. Of course, even if the Manticore in the story wasn't doing anything except sitting like Twilight was, Luna wasn't going to let Twilight get out of acting the part. “Come on, Twilight make your tummy growl!”

Twilight whined, mumbling softly to try and imitate a softly growling stomach. Luna continued, talking about how his tummy grumbled louder, and she paused for Twilight's response, whose face burned brighter with each growl.

“So the Manticore decided that to stop his rumbling, he needed to fill his tummy! So he started to march, march, march through the forest to sniff out some snacks to gobble!” Luna continued. Twilight bit her lip, trying to only halfheartedly walk around, but Luna still waited.

“Come on, Luna, can't we just... skip the bedtime story?” She asked, the scorpion tail of her suit waving back and forth.

“Of course not, Twily, foals always get a bedtime story before bed! Now come on, march around so you'll get all tuckered out for beddy bye!” She teased.

Twilight's face burned brightly as she forced herself into a wider march, her hooves stomping on the ground. Despite the book describing the Manticore's marching as an intimidating sight to behold, Twilight's waddle was anything but. Her padded suit spread her legs and forced her rump to sway from side to side with each step, and her powerful stomping was reduced to soft trotting by the thick fluff of the paws. She was at least thankful it was a short book, and hoped that the Manticore's marching wouldn't go on for much longer…

“The Manticore prowled through the forest,” Luna continued, reading the book slowly and clearly. “Do you know what it means to prowl, Twily?”

“Of course I know what it means,” Twilight grumbled, trying to sound offended instead of embarrassed. “I read dictionaries.”

“It's a big word that a foal might not know,” Luna said, seriously, though there was a smirk occasionally showing through on her muzzle. “Can you show me how the manticore prowls, then?”

Twilight did her best to try and prowl, and realized as soon as she started that that way of moving meant being more hunched down – so the costume rump of her diaper was wiggling in the air a bit more, and that meant she had to try a bit harder to move.

It was making it so she was feeling at least a bit tired, just from how much work it was to move the big padded rump around, and that in itself was really embarrassing.

“And the Manticore prowled right into town,” Luna read. “He sniffed around, trying to find something to eat, and then he saw a pony with a treat!”

Luna looked at Twilight expectantly, and Twilight blushed before sniffing a bit.

That seemed to satisfy Luna, and she turned the page.

“The pony had the treat, but the Manticore wanted the treat! So he snuck up behind the pony, and took a deeeep breath.” Luna smirked. “And then he let out a great big roar, and the pony ran away and dropped his treat!”

“A roar?” Twilight repeated. “What – you mean you want me to make a roar noise? That's really – well, this whole situation is really embarrassing, but that's even more embarrassing!”

“Come on, Twily,” Luna said, giggling a little. “It's the Manticore's job to do what the book says!”

Twilight covered her face with a plush-suited paw for a long moment, then took a deep breath. She crouched down, wiggling her diaper a little without thinking about it, and roared.

It was more like saying “roar” than an actual roar, but as half-hearted as it was Luna applauded.

“That's right!” she said happily. “And you scared away the pony, so you get the treat he dropped!”

Luna put a big plushy apple in front of Twilight, who looked at it with confusion.

“But… this is an apple,” she said. “Manticores don't eat apples.”

“Story book ones do!” Luna told her.

Twilight rolled her eyes, figuring she should have known. She eyed the plush apple as Luna continued, “The Manticore greedily gobbled up the pony's treat, his belly grew as he began to eat!” Twilight's muzzle scrunched a little, but she bit into the apple, figuring she could just make believe she was eating it. After all, Luna wouldn't expect her to really eat a plushie, would she? The plushie tasted almost like the real thing, though its cottony surface seemed to mute the taste just a tad. As she chewed on the fluff, her eyes widened as she could feel her belly growing fuller. With every chew it was like she had swallowed a whole apple, and she couldn't seem to stop herself from chewing further. Her belly felt full, and it pressed against the inside of her suit.

“He ate up the treats, but he was still hungry, and so he prowled as his tummy growled again!” Luna continued. Twilight finally came to her sense and was able to spit out the apple, which puffed out of existence as it bounced off the floor.

Twilight started prowling again, getting a little more into the story. She wasn't entirely sure why as she did so. Perhaps she was thinking the more she got into it the sooner it would be over. Despite her hopes, the storybook continued in its repetitive manner, describing the Manticore sneaking up on another pony, this one carrying a cart of watermelon, and letting out another roar!

As Twilight roared, a few plush watermelons fell down in front of her, which she pounced upon to start to gobble up. She chewed on the plush material, her belly growing full, but she was still so hungry, she wasn't sure how she could be so hungry after eating so much!

The Manticore in the story roared again and again, sneaking up on ponies throughout the town, and Twilight earned herself a pile of plush carrots – then a big puffy pumpkin – then some pastries, too, and every time it happened it just felt easier for her to prowl about, wiggle her suited-up butt as she waited to pounce, then slip into the mindset of... not exactly of the big Manticore, but of a filly trying her best to imitate the big Manticore.

She giggled after a roar at one point, then blushed about it, but Luna smirked at her and Twilight sort of just went along with it.

Finally, at the end of the book, Luna related how the Manticore had eaten so much and was so plump now that he couldn't move!

Twilight found that really funny, somehow, and she giggled about it – then blushed, realizing she was really plump as well.

“There you go,” Luna said, closing the book. “A nice big snuggly Manticore, ready for a nice warm nap~”

Twilight smiled, feeling snug, and Luna gave her a bottle of warm milk before levitating her into the bed – which was a crib – and pulling a blanket over her.

In a sort of vague way, Twilight remembered how this was actually some sort of play session – or, something like that? - and that she wasn't really a filly, they'd just been…

...it was hard to focus, and she yawned.

“W-wait,” she said, squirming a little. “Isn't it, um...”

“Sssh,” Luna said, smirking again. “It's nap time.”

Twilight blinked a few times, wondering why she felt a little tired.

She looked around, then down. Everything seemed in place – the library stacks were just as they should be, the door was closed but not locked, none of the windows were broken, and her desk had the usual stamps and glue and other things a librarian needed.

Maybe she'd just had a long work day. She couldn't even remember what time she'd come into the Twibrary and started work for the day…

Twilight adjusted the items on her desk, making sure they were properly straightened out, until she heard the click of the door open. She looked up to see a pitch black mare trot in, her starry mane flowing around as she eyed the myriad of books. “Good morning! Or... afternoon? I'm sorry, I'm normally more collected than this,” Twilight said, trying to be as collected as she could be given her confusion. The mare simply pulled a book off a shelf and rifled through it before putting it back. “Anyway, sorry, is there something in particular you're looking for?” Twilight asked.

The mare trotted past her, and Twilight was sure she crinkled as she did so, and she looked a bit thicker than most ponies would, but she wasn't entirely sure why.

“Nothing in particular, just browsing at the moment,” she replied. She pulled down another book from the shelf, this time the science fiction setting, before flipping through it. Twilight looked down at her desk, figuring she could at least do her own reading while the mare went about her business. It would be more interesting than watching her wander around anyway, and most ponies didn't like her suggestions whenever she tried to offer them. So she went back to her own book, only to hear a bit of shuffling which made her look back up. The pony, which Twilight now noticed was an alicorn, was just putting a book back on the shelves, but Twilight was sure she had heard the scratching of quills before. Her eyes narrowed, and she was hoping whoever this pony was she wasn't vandalizing her books.

Twilight watched her intently now, following her as she wandered from the “Dislike” section, holding a few stacks of books, over to the “Like” section, putting them up in empty spaces there. Twilight wasn't entirely sure, but she could have sworn she caught something like the word 'diaper' along the spine of one of the books.

The mare now took books from her current section and wandered back over to the “Dislike” section.

“Hey, I organized those myself!” Twilight interjected, pushing herself away from the desk.

“Don't mind me, please. I just noticed a few pieces were in the wrong place. I'm sure somepony came through here and mixed them up accidentally, it happens,” the mare responded.

Twilight felt there was something wrong with that excuse, but she couldn't quite think of what. Perhaps someone had come through earlier and she forgot? It seems odd they would mix up books in completely the wrong section though, usually it was only a shelf or two over.

There were a couple of new books that Twilight had to process into the system, neatly writing down the book's title and author on the reference cards as well as pasting in the library name and the paper to stamp the due date on, but it was very hard for her to focus on sorting out An Odd Classroom Experience and Some Kind Of Play Session With Luna to properly file them.

The alicorn mare kept trotting back and forth, seeming to be moving things around the Twibrary, and it certainly seemed like she kept going over to a book on the shelf, opening it to have a quick look through and then trotting over to another shelf to put it back there.

Surely Twilight hadn't left the place that disorganized… she frowned, and left the books half-processed on her desk to come out and have a look.

The oddly puffy mare was holding a book called The Toilet, and Twilight followed her as she trotted over towards the Disgust section over by the window.

Then, to Twilight's shock, the mare calmly dropped the book out the window.

“Hey!” the twibrarian protested. “What was that for?”

“Oh, you don't need that anyway,” the mare said, smirking.

“But it's a book!” Twilight protested. “A book about… about...”

For some reason, she couldn't remember. She didn't have the first clue.

She couldn't even remember the title, even though she remembered seeing it, and a minute ago she was sure she could have told you about what was in the book!

“What's going on?” she asked. “Wait… this isn't right...”

The mare smirked, and Twilight sort of remembered that that mare smirking was bad news – she couldn't remember how, though, and it was all kind of fuzzy…

She blinked a few times, then realized – this was a dream! So that meant she needed to wake up!

Twilight lit her horn, and flared it – casting a spell to take her out of the dream-

Twilight shook her head, wondering why she felt a little dizzy, and took stock of the situation.

She was floating in space, wearing her spacesuit. This was part of the first Equestrian spacewalk mission, that was right.

“Huh...” she mumbled, wondering why she felt like she'd almost forgotten that.

“Ground control to Twilight Sparkle,” Luna's voice said. “Everything okay up there?”

“I'm fine, Luna,” Twilight replied. “That is, uh… I'm fine, ground control?”

“Just call me Luna or Princess,” Luna assured her over the radio.

“Yes, Princess,” Twilight replied. “So, um... I'm floating around... what was I doing again?” She asked sheepishly, wondering why it seemed so hard to recall.

“I hope you're not floating without your tether! You were going out to double check the solar panels for the station. Make sure there's no debris and they're all oriented properly,” Luna instructed Twilight. Twilight nodded, then gave an audible confirmation upon remembering she couldn't be seen. She looked down to see that there was as tether fastened securely to her suit, which looked just a bit bulbous around the rump for a spacesuit. But that could be focused on later, she had a job to do! Her eyes followed the tether to see a small space station floating around the sky with her, one that looked just a bit cramped all things considered. But then Twilight remembered she was the only one on this mission, so it only made sense for things to be built with one pony in mind. Her horn lit up as she started to pull herself along the tether towards one of the large solar panels sticking out beside the main body.

She tumbled around just a bit as she pulled herself along, spinning head over rump as her tether twisted around her hooves and bound her for a moment before she spun outwards and became untangled. “Everything alright up there, Twilight?” Luna called in.

“Y-yes, I'm fine!” Twilight wondered how she had managed to make it onto this expedition when she had so much difficulty navigating through space, but her thoughts were knocked out of her head by the force of her bouncing off the hull of the ship.

Thankfully, her padded rump had taken the brunt of the force and left her and the ship none the worse for wear, but it did force her to reorient herself once again. Her magic flashed as she pulled the tether taut before flying back to the ship and gripping a handle on the side. She let out a sight of relief as she was finally halted in her wild bouncing, and, as luck would have it, was now right beside the panels. She peered around them, spotting a small panel near them which showed a variety of numbers and bars, all of which were green. Twilight assumed that was reassuring.

“Looks like the first panel's good, I'll go check out the other one, Princess.”

“You already did that, Twilight! It's time to go back inside the ship. We need to make sure your personal equipment is good.”

“Of course.” Twilight blushed as she tried her best to swim through the sky towards the door, her legs wriggling around in her well padded suit. It was awfully comfortable, she wondered if she really had to take it off when she got inside. It wouldn't hurt to keep it on for a little longer, after all.

It turned out that trying to swim through the sky wasn't actually how you were meant to move around in space.

Twilight had wiggled around a lot before working that out, her blush gradually growing because she was sure she was supposed to know how to do this.

She must have had some kind of training… right?

It was a mystery, and Twilight was quite embarrassed by the time she finally worked out she had to just use her tether to pull herself closer to the ship before using hoof-holds to move over to the airlock.

That at least was a simple design. She had to spin the wheel until the colours lined up, then press the button in the middle.

“Well done, Twilight!” Luna told her, and Twilight wondered why Luna was so enthusiastic about her success before awkwardly squeezing through the door and closing it.

There was a hiss as the airlock pressurized, and after about thirty seconds Luna told Twilight that she could take off her helmet if she wanted. Twilight promptly did so, and had to squeeze all over again as she got from the airlock to one of the rooms in the spaceship.

Chapter 2

It was a big room, with all the walls covered in soft padding, and Twilight floated through the air a bit after she'd managed to squeeze through the door. That left her without anywhere to get a grip on, and she had to wait until she floated close enough to the wall to push off from it.

She started to float towards another door, only to float right past it and land on one of the walls. The padded material at least softened the blow compared to smacking into the hard exterior of the ship, though Twilight still let out a grunt of frustration as she had failed once again to navigate her ship. Clearly she was doing something wrong, it couldn't be that hard, could it? As she landed on another wall, she realized that the puffy material was compressing slightly beneath the force of her impact before rebounding to send her sailing off in another direction. If she could just hit the wall in the right way...

Twilight wiggled her rump as it approached the wall, and she landed with a flump! She sank into the fluff of her suit's rear along with the padded wall, only to go flying up to the door with ease! She giggled as she happily pushed herself through, floating up into the cockpit. Her hooves managed to grab onto the seat, although the silky material of her suit made it just a bit harder than she would be bare. But one had to wear a space suit in space, it just made sense! So she climbed around and into the chair, which had a few more buckles than she thought was completely necessary before calling back to Luna.

“Oh, you're such a big princess getting to the controls all by yourself!” Luna praised her, making Twilight blush just a bit and mutter a thanks.

“So, what's my next task?” Twilight asked as she settled herself in.

“You'll need to run diagnostics on your suit! Make sure everything is functioning properly, after all!”

Twilight wondered why she wouldn't have already done this before going out into space, but shrugged, and figured that it was better to be safe than sorry. She looked down at the various buttons on the front of her suit, with wires and tubes running along the surprisingly puffy material, wondering which one she needed to press first.

After thinking about it a bit, Twilight chose a knob and turned it.

Almost immediately there was a hissing noise, and the suit began to expand outwards. The sleeves got bigger, filling up with air, and the body barrel expanded as well – but it seemed like almost all of the air went into the area around her rump, and she yelped in surprise.

“Um… Luna?” she asked, trying to turn the knob back the other way. “I think I did something wrong...”

“What's that?” Luna replied. “Well, it looks like your air supply is working fine!”

“How is this working fine?” Twilight asked. “I can't – my sleeve's swelled up so much I can't turn the knob back!”

“Well, obviously it wouldn't help if your air supply only went to your head, would it?” Luna asked. “It has to go to your whole body!”

Twilight wasn't sure why that was obvious, but she didn't really want to argue.

“So how do I stop it?” she asked, as her suit swelled up more and more – making it harder and harder to even see how she could use the controls.

“That's simple!” Luna replied. “It's the button on the right with a sheep on it! Do you know what a sheep looks like?”

“Of course I do,” Twilight said, blushing a little. “I just… never mind...”

She hunted for the button for a moment, trying to see it before the puffiness of her suit got too great for her to push a button – then finally found it.

The speakers on her suit went baah, and the hissing finally stopped.

“Okay, um… what else do we need to test?” she asked. “And – and how do I deflate this again?”

“And waste air?” Luna asked, sounding shocked. “You're in space, Twilight! Air has to be brought up there, it's very expensive!”

“Oh, right...” Twilight said. “I guess...”

While she wiggled her legs to try and get used to her new swollen suit, Luna continued, “You'll need to make sure the bathroom is working properly. You might be wearing a diaper, but you'll still need to shower!”

Twilight paused in her struggling upon hearing this. “A diaper? Why would I need that?” She looked down at her ballooned rump, realizing the extra padding must have been from... padding.

Luna laughed before tutting softly. “Twilight, really, what else would you need in space? You wouldn't want to get something wet while floating around, would you?”

Twilight blushed “I s-suppose not, just...” She wanted to protest, but couldn't think of anything before her thoughts were interrupted again by Luna. “Now, hurry over there, you'll need to check the water pump and the vacuum! You might as well get a bubble bath going while you're there, I know how much you like those.”

Twilight pushed herself out of the chair, floating once again towards the main room. This time her newly puffed suit became wedged a bit tighter, forcing her to wriggle it back and forth while her legs kicked helplessly to squeeze her way through. With a puffy pop, she slipped through, bouncing off the walls a few times before redirecting herself to the door marked with a tub and rubber duck.

Her suit creaked as it bounced off the walls, Twilight tumbling head over hooves before she squished her way inside. The bathroom was quite cramped, most of it taken up by a large cylindrical glass tube. She fiddled with the lock, which had a few blocks of various shapes dangling from strings that she needed to push through the appropriately shaped holes to pull open the door and squeeze inside. She hovered in place, without much room between the curve of her rump and the sides of the tube, looking up for the hose that would let her fill it with some water.

She thought about if it really made sense to be taking a shower in her suit, but, then again, she was only testing the tub, not actually showering, which made enough sense to her.

As she tried to find the control, something did occur to her. “Er… Luna? Shouldn't there be something else in the bathroom?”

“What else would there be in here?” Luna asked. “Can you think of anything else?”

“Well-” Twilight began, then stopped.

She really couldn't think of anything else that should be in here. Or… she could think that there should be something else in here, but it was like she was having a mental blank about what it was.

If a pony said they were “going to the bathroom”, they meant something that wasn't going to have a bath or shower, didn't they?

“Sorry,” she said, after realizing she'd been silent for a minute or so. “I was just confused.”

“That's all right,” Luna said. “Now let's try the shower out. You turn it on with a voice command.”

“Oh, that's neat,” Twilight smiled. “Um… Shower, on?”

A spray of warm water started to come out of the top of the tube, showering Twilight with water heated to perfection, and she smiled at the evidence that the shower was working.

“Should I turn it off now?” she asked, watching as some of the water that bounced off her just floated there in mid-air.

“No, not at all!” Luna replied. “You haven't tested out the other features yet! This is to get you clean, not just to get you wet – you can get wet by yourself!”

“Hey, Luna!” Twilight protested. “That's...”

“Don't talk back to mission control,” Luna said, though she sounded mostly amused. “Let's see if the soap works – you'll need soap to scrub!”

“Okay… soap, on?” Twilight tried.

The water that was coming out of the sprinkler changed, and quite quickly lots of bubbles started to form. They were big and frothy and floated around the tube, and much to Twilight's surprise they were actually quite thick-walled and solid – which became a problem as they built up, squeezing her from the top of the tube as they multiplied.

“Luna!?” Twilight asked, blushing as her swollen suit and especially her padded behind were squeezed into the base of the tube. “What's going on?”

“That's how you get washed, Twilight!” Luna told her. “Don't forget to scrub!”

“But – I don't – help?” Twilight asked.

“When you're done, just turn the vacuum on,” Luna advised, and Twilight leapt on that advice.

“Water off, soap off, vacuum on!” she said, and there was a whoosh and a sudden suction as the vacuum turned on.

Twilight had just enough time to remember that of course you'd need a vacuum in zero gravity as the water wouldn't flow anywhere without one, then the pull yanked her down.

Twilight's swollen diaper became stuck in the vacuum at first, leaving her upper half free to press against a few of the bubbles that hadn't been sucked away yet. She was quite surprised her hooves have managed to squeeze through at all, with how tightly bound together they felt beneath her padded behind. Her blush only grew brighter as she could hear the system whirring faster in an attempt to force her ballooned backside through. She twisted left and right, slowly corkscrewing her way downwards before her rump finally managed to make it past the impossibly small opening the rest of her slipping easily down the drain as the rest of the bubbles followed suit. The interior of the tube continued to squish and squeeze down on her swollen suit, making her ride a rather bumpy one as she was sent twisting and turning all around.

Then, suddenly, she fell out of the tube and into a pile of thick blankets and pillows, sending them catapulting in various directions. She shook her head to gain her bearings, finding herself sitting in what could only be described as a large cage or... crib? The blankets and pillows filled most of the available space in the bed, along with a small plush dragon, so Twilight was held snugly in place while still allowed to drift softly. She pressed herself up against the bars of the crib, paging Luna again. “Luna? I think I'm in the bedroom.”

“Just in time, it's time for your nap!” Luna responded happily. “Would you like a bedtime story?” She asked.

“No, I...” Twilight was about to decline, but she yawned, sinking back into the pile of blankets, reaching out to pull the dragon plushie, fit with its own bloated space suit, into her chest. “Actually, that sounds nice...” She said.

“Very good, Twily.” There was the sound of flipping pages and Twilight's head fell back into a pillow, curling up in the sea of fluff...

“...so just get to work on those work sheets,” Twilight said, looking around the class. “And if anypony has any questions, put your hoof up and I'll come and help.”

There was a rustling as the ponies started working on their work sheets, and Twilight sat back in the chair with a frown.

For some reason, she'd felt a bit dizzy all of a sudden. She could see that she was teaching class, and she could sort of remember what was going on, but the precise details about what was on the work sheet she'd given out was sort of… vague.

The multicoloured mane of one pegasus caught her eye, and she checked to be sure that the filly was doing the work properly. She was having a bit of trouble with it, face all scrunched up as she concentrated, but it looked to Twilight like she was answering the questions.

Then there was the colt with the orange coat and the deep blue mane, who was doing the work as well. Twilight sort of wondered why she couldn't remember their names, but that all went out the window when she saw what Nightwear was doing.

“Excuse me, young mare,” she said, trotting briskly over to the desk of the alicorn filly. Up close, Twilight could see even more clearly that Nightwear was just scribbling all over her work sheet instead of doing it.

“What?” Nightwear asked. “I didn't want to do the sheet. It's boring.”

“It's what you're meant to be doing,” Twilight replied sternly. “So you'd better do it.”

“I'd much rather talk about this play I wrote,” Nightwear said. “That's much more interesting than this boring worksheet.”

“You're in class,” Twilight insisted. “So you should be doing the class work, unless you want a time out.”

Nightwear just shook her head. “Good foals do what they're told.”

It was a strange thing to say, but Twilight blinked – feeling suddenly really fuzzy. “W-what?”

“I said good foals do what they're told,” Nightwear smirked, and for some reason those words sounded very true to Twilight – like they were something fundamental to how she understood the world. “And I'm telling you to listen while I talk about this play. Are you a good foal?”

“Yes,” Twilight replied, automatically, then blushed – confused about why she'd said that, and hearing the giggles from the other colts and fillies in the class. “Wait, um...”

“So the idea is,” Nightwear began, and Twilight found herself listening.

Well, half listening. Despite trying her best, Twilight found herself just a bit distracted by the filly's description, as she wondered about how exactly one would put this play together…

Twilight was looking over her checklist just before the show to ensure everything was taken care of. Lights had been checked, microphones were good, everyone was in costume and had performed their vocal warm ups... She placed her clipboard on a nearby prop table and levitated over her briefcase before looking herself over in the mirror. She was dressed in a smart suit and hat, and with her briefcase she really fit the part of a salesmare. She wondered for a moment why the director of the play was playing a role, but she figured there must have been a last minute cancellation by one of the cast members that she had just forgotten about. It was only a rehearsal anyway, someone had to help the other actors perform after all.

She moved to her place just offstage, and upon her cue, she trotted out. She knocked on the door, to which the homeowner, a rather timid looking pegasus, answered. “Good afternoon, ma'am! I hope you've been having a good day!” Twilight spouted her lines, just a bit woodenly.

While the pegasus stood there, trying to remember her own lines, Twilight glanced out towards the audience, where she spotted the show's patron. She was sitting just a bit further back than she needed, obscured by the darkness, and was sitting motionless.

“I... I-I'm doing alright... Is there something I can do for you?” The pegasus eventually responded, and Twilight looked back to her.

“There is! I'm here to introduce you to one of our fine products!” Twilight said, standing proudly.

“Cut!” The patron's voice came from the audience.

“I'm, um… I'm sorry,” the pegasus mumbled. “I didn't...”

“Don't worry,” Twilight replied quickly, then turned to face the audience. “Is something wrong?”

“Quite a lot,” the patron said. “But I don't really think you're very much in character. You really need to sell the idea that you're a salesmare.”

“Huh?” Twilight blinked, not having expected that complaint. “I thought...”

“A salesmare should be insistent,” the patron went on. “And, more to the point, she should be very willing to demonstrate the products she's selling.”

Twilight realized she wasn't actually sure what she was supposed to be selling, now she thought of it.

“So let's see you moving in on that pause,” the patron told her. “Opening the briefcase to show what you're selling. Now, let's take it from the top.”

“Isn't that my role?” Twilight asked, a little distracted. “I am the director.”

“But you can't do the directing role if you're one of the actors, of course,” the patron pointed out. “Now, back to your places.”

Twilight couldn't really contest that, and shifted back to her mark until her cue came again.

“Good afternoon, ma'am,” she said, for a second time. “I hope you're having a good day!”

“I'm doing alright,” the pegasus replied, still a little nervous. “Is there something I can do for you?”

“There is! I'm here to introduce you to one of our products,” Twilight replied, opening the briefcase, and it revealed a collection of towels. “Perhaps you'd be interested in-”

“No, hold on,” the patron interrupted. “This scene doesn't work with towels.”

“What?” Twilight asked. “That's – we were only just doing this scene, why can't it work with towels?”

“It doesn't fit my vision,” the patron told her. “Here, use this briefcase instead.”

A swirl of sparkling dark magic carried a new briefcase over to her, and Twilight took it before floating the one she'd been using off stage.

“Should we start from the beginning again?” the pegasus asked.

“No, let's just go from when she opens the briefcase,” the patron declared.

“Perhaps you'd be interested in-”

Twilight's line was cut off again, but instead of being stopped by the patron, her voice had simply died in her throat upon seeing the new product in the briefcase. Thick, puffy diapers bulged out of the briefcase. They were so large, Twilight wondered how they had managed to fit in the first place. Strangely, the pegasus didn't seem quite as surprised by the padding, simply acting interested as Twilight tried to continue.

“Perhaps you'd be interested in some of our... new diapers? I'm sure a... mother like you would be in need of some?” Twilight stumbled over her words, as the script she had been memorizing for this rehearsal was rather incompatible with the changes the patron wanted to do. She ran through the script in her head, trying to think of a line about the towels that would make sense with the diapers. “They're... the fluffiest ones we have yet? And they're very absorbent! Would you like a...” She paused, not entirely sure she was really going to go say this. “Would you like a demonstration?”

The pegasus nodded, stepping aside to let Twilight inside. She wandered over to the coffee table, as the pegasus went to fill some glasses of water from the sink. Twilight briefly wondering what the greater point of this scene was for the play, but remembered she had a bit part, and supposed it was just meant to fill the time for other actors to go through a costume change. The pegasus returned, balancing the glasses of water on her wings, clearly waiting for Twilight to do something.

After a beat, Twilight realized she probably was forgetting a line, so she hurriedly pulled out a couple diapers, accidentally letting a few fall to the floor. “Ah, well, you'll see these can easily hold quite a bit of water to clean up all kinds of spills,” Her horn glowed as she levitated up the glass of water, about to pour it on one of the diapers, when she was stopped again by the patron.

“Surely this is the best way to show their absorbency?” Twilight responded. The patron simply sat still, but Twilight could tell she was waiting expectantly. She looked back down at the diapers, whimpering just a bit. Surely she wasn't serious.... right?

After a pause of several seconds, the patron cleared her throat.

“Yes?” Twilight asked, eager to be told it was all a misunderstanding.

“How exactly do you expect the rest of the scene to work if you don't do the demonstration?” the patron asked. “I thought you understood how directing a play worked.”

Twilight flushed, wanting to protest about how she did know how directing a play worked and this didn't seem much like it, but the idea of letting down the patron was embarrassing given how important this was for the theatre.

She wondered if it would be more embarrassing to do the demonstration or not, but one thing was certain which was that staying around trying to decide was more embarrassing still. So, after agonizing over it, she reluctantly picked up the diaper.

“What's the best way to use them?” the pegasus asked, clearly flailing around to find some relevant lines to say that were sort of close to what was in the script. Twilight herself was all out of that sort of line, so she decided the best thing to do was to just try and put the diaper on as best she could.

Oddly, it actually seemed quite easy. It felt like something she'd done a lot, and in just a few seconds the thick diaper was taped around her rear.

“So, um… as you can see… it's the right size?” Twilight speculated. “And it's… ergonomic, I guess?”

She glanced desperately into the audience, almost hoping the patron would pause the play now, but the shadowed mare sat silently.

“How much liquid can it absorb?” the pegasus asked. “It looks quite fluffy, but appearances can be deceptive.”

That sounded like another towel-related line, and Twilight winced as she realized where her own reply would probably be leading.

“It can absorb more than a cupful of water,” she said.

Twilight stood still, taking a deep breath as she thought of what to do. Suddenly a thought sparked in her mind, and she almost laughed at herself up on stage. Just because she was wearing the diaper, surely she wasn't expected to actually wet it. She hovered over one of the glasses of waters, doing her best to turn to hide it and still show off the fluff of her diaper to the audience. It didn't completely remove the embarrassment of what she was about to do, but it was certainly helping. She began to slowly pour the water into her padding. It began to slowly balloon outwards as it soaked up the water, growing larger and squishier as she did.

“A-a-as you c-can see, it's q-quite... absorbent...” Twilight's voice died off just a bit as she tried to keep up with her lines. She waited for the pegasus's next line, which she assumed would come when she had completed her demonstration.

As she waiting, she focused a little more on the feeling of her diaper swelling. It slowly pushed her legs apart and swallowed her tail, growing puffier and puffier as she poured more water into it. The water was surprisingly warm, cradling her rump comfortably as it drank it up.

Twilight sighed, slowly forgetting where exactly she was as her diaper spread down to her knees. The glass surely should have emptied by now, but she hardly noticed at all. Bigger, sloshier, squishier, she simply enjoyed the sensation of her diaper growing larger…

“I think that's enough!” The patron's voice suddenly cut through Twilight's trance, and she stumbled a bit, looking over her shoulder at her now ballooned diaper. It squished with ever shift of her weight and turned every step into a wide waddle. Twilight thought she had been filling it with a glass but... she wasn't sure where that glass had gone. Her diaper was soggy, but how else could that have happened?

“Dear, it's your line!” The patron called out to Twilight's co-actor, who was now sitting in her own soggy, bloated diaper.

“Oh, um...” the pegasus began, and Twilight suddenly wondered if she should know her.

Something about her seemed familiar, but… then she frowned, as the irrelevant thought went away again.

“I think I'm convinced,” the pegasus went on. “I'll take… I'll take your biggest deal!”

“Well-” Twilight began, but the patron thumped a hoof on the floor – a clear instruction not to say anything.

“Only...” the pegasus continued, a little more confidently. “Only, what are the special bonuses?”

“Well, there's plenty of bonuses,” Twilight said, and she could sort of remember her lines for this bit. “There's… extras in double-size for every ten you order, and when you get twenty you get a pacifier..?”

A pacifier? Why would that be what you got as a bonus for ordering towels?

That was an odd thought, and Twilight wondered why she'd thought she was selling towels in this bit. She felt all confused, like there was something important she wasn't getting, but she was on stage so she had to just push through.

It'd all be all right on the night, right?

“That sounds good,” the pegasus said. “Um… can I see what the double size one looks like?”

Twilight reached into her suitcase and brought one out, demonstrating how it was much bigger – a larger area, longer and stronger tapes – and at another request from the pegasus put it on over her own now-wet diaper.

“That is very big,” the pegasus smiled. “And, um… and what about the pacifier?”

Twilight glanced aside, wondering if this was part of the script, and the patron coughed meaningfully.

Twilight fished around in the suitcase for a moment before producing a pacifier proudly. “One of our best products, you should know! It's sure to soothe any fussy-” Before she could continue the pacifier was pushed unceremoniously into her mouth by the pegasus. She gave it a few instinctive suckles, rocking back and forth on her diaper as she crossed her eyes to look down at it. It was rather cute appearing, with her cutie mark adorning the shield. Why the pacifier was specifically designed to match her never crossed her mind, and she didn't think it really was a question that needed an answer even if it had.

“Is there anything else?” The pegasus asked, pulling the suitcase over to herself to rummage through it as well. Twilight tried to speak around the pacifier, but all she could manage was a bit of embarrassing babbling.

Twilight watched as the pegasus lifted out a bonnet. She took Twilight's hat off, placing it upon her own head as she began to affix the string around Twilight's chin. “See? Doesn't that frame your face so cutely?”

Twilight nodded slowly, her hooves pressing into the front of her padding to hear it crinkle as she watched her partner return to the briefcase. She leaned down into it, her rump presented proudly in the air as her diaper swished left and right. She leaned a little further in, as if the briefcase opened up into deep pit, and suddenly she fell forward, her own thickly padded rump getting stuck. Twilight waddled over as the pegasus kicked her legs helplessly in an attempt to free herself. Twilight took a hold of her tail tugging as hard as she could to free the salespony.

The pair struggled for a moment, Twilight leaning into the cushy diaper before leaning back to tug again, and with an audible pop, the duo fell backwards into a heap of fluff. The salespegasus stood up, shaking herself and smoothing out her suit. “I do hope you enjoy your complimentary sleeper too.”

“Wait, um, hold on-” the alicorn said, blinking and wondering what was going on.

Or, more accurately, tried to say. All that actually came out was a kind of mumbling, and she blushed a little at the reminder before the pegasus unfurled the sleeper.

The salespony unzipped it, going into a spiel about how comfy and cozy and thick it was, and Twilight did have to admit it looked all of those things. Then she found out it also was all of those things, as the pegasus fitted her into it.

“See?” the pegasus asked. “That's just one of many reasons we consider our diapers to be superior. The sleeper hugs you snugly just like they do, and what's more we offer a new design every month! So be sure to order more next time, to collect the whole set!”

Twilight blinked a few times, feeling suddenly drowsy, and yawned around her pacifier.

“I can see you're busy to get back to your nap,” the salespony said. “So I'd better head off!”

Twilight heard applause, and it took her a moment to remember that they were on stage.

Wasn't this supposed to be a dress rehearsal? But why would there be an audience if there was…

She yawned again, head nodding a little, and the patron coughed to get her attention.

“I think that went very well,” she said. “You had a little trouble remembering your role at first, but you got into it in the end.”

Twilight's head nodded again, and she felt her eyes close-

Twilight nearly hit her head on the register of books taken out, and blushed as she straightened up and hoped none of the patrons had noticed.

It wouldn't do for the librarian of the Twibrary to be falling asleep on the job!

She looked up to see the black alicorn now holding onto a ladder to reach the top shelves, balancing precariously as she pulled a book labeled “Celestia” out of the 'trusted mentors' session, and putting “Nightmare Moon” in its place. Twilight was about object, but a moment later wondered why she felt such a strong urge to do so. After all, Nightmare was someone she trusted quite a bit, had studied under, in fact, so clearly she must know what she was doing helping her organize the library.

“Goodness me, Twilight, so many things in the wrong category! You should pay much better attention when placing your books on the shelves.” Nightmare said, trotting over to slip the Celestia book she had just removed into a previously empty shelf labeled 'meanie-heads' in the kid's section of the library. “I hope we won't have to redo everything from scratch in here!”

Twilight looked a little ashamed, bushing at Nightmare's remarks. “Sorry, princess. I had meant to get around to reorganizing it, but...” She felt like she was forgetting something, like there was a very good reason all the books were in the places they had been, but for the life of her, she couldn't quite remember.

“It's alright, it isn't a bother to help.” Nightmare responded as she slipped a book about Spike into the 'cuddly plushies' area. “Your friends needed some help too. Rarity's boutique was a complete mess, and Dash's trophy room was in total disarray! You do know what that word means, right?” Nightmare asked.

“Of course I-” Twilight was cut off by Nightmare tossing a couple pages from a dictionary out the window.

“I... I thought I did... does it mean... cluttered?” She took a guess given the context clues. Nightmare nodded warmly, patting her on the head.

“Exactly, Twily! What a smart pony you are!”

Something about that did seem a bit odd, but Twilight couldn't put her hoof on it. It was nice to be recognized for how smart she was…

...though it really was a bit strange how Nightmare was praising her for guessing the meaning of a word.

Wasn't it?

While she wondered why she felt so confused about the whole thing, Nightmare trotted over to the textbook section.

“Oh, do you want to take one of those out to do a class?” Twilight asked, interested in helping her mentor.

“No, I'm just browsing,” Nightmare replied. She reached for one of the books, opening it and flicking through it, and Twilight recognized it as the most basic maths book – the one handling basic addition, subtraction, multiplication and division.

Twilight looked down to check in case Nightmare already had books out, because Nightmare would still have to follow the rules, and when she looked back up Nightmare was putting the book back on the shelf and carrying a pot of glue away.

Trotting over curiously, Twilight had another look at the maths book. It was definitely the one she was thinking of, but it seemed a bit sticky… and when she tried to open it, the pages wouldn't budge.

“Are you all right, Twilight?” Nightmare asked, making her jump.

“Oh, um, sorry,” Twilight apologized.

“I was wondering – I can take out ten books, but if I'd chosen three, how many more can I choose?” Nightmare asked, hanging up a poster that said that 'Padding: it's dia-PERfect'.

That sounded like a very simple question to Twilight, and she nodded. “That's easy, it's...”

For some reason, the answer just wasn't there.

Nightmare smirked, then patted Twilight on the head again. “Tell you what, Twilight. I know you've been a bit stressed lately… don't you think it would be a good idea to go to therapy?”

“Well...” Twilight began, feeling a bit embarrassed about it.

She had been feeling a bit odd lately, though… maybe it would be a good idea…

“Come in, please,” Nightmare said.

Twilight shook her head slightly, and opened the door of the therapist's office.

Sitting opposite the door was Nightwear, her puffy, crinkly body squeezed in a knitted vest while a notepad and pencil hovered gently in the air in front of her. “Ah, Twilight, comfortably early, as usual. Please, take a seat.” She motioned to a chair opposite her, and Twilight trotted over. The chair was surprisingly cushy, and Twilight sank into it just a bit further than she would have expected to. “Now, I believe you had said this session you would like to focus more on your sleep troubles, yes?”

Twilight wasn't entirely sure, but nodded in agreement, figuring she must have just forgotten what she had suggested during her last therapy session. Nightmare took a few notes on her pad, and Twilight couldn't help but wonder what she was writing down already, they hadn't even started! “Would you mind telling me what the issue is?”

Twilight paused, trying to think. “I... I think I have narcolepsy or... something. I'm falling asleep at random times, even when mentally stimulated, and I'm having trouble remembering parts of my day.”

Nightwear was dutifully taking notes, adjusting a pair of glasses on the end of her muzzle before looking back up to Twilight. “Is that all?”

“I... guess so? Isn't that enough?”

“Oh, I'm sure it would be, but you seem to be forgetting a rather large factor here, Twilight.” Nightwear responded. Twilight looked confused, shifting in her seat just a bit to get more comfortable. “Twilight, you might be mentally stimulated, but if you're as comfortable as a mare like you should be, of course you're going to fall asleep easily! After all, your diapers are awfully comfortable, wouldn't you say?”

Twilight looked down at herself, suddenly realizing half the reason the chair felt so soft was the pair of thick padding wrapped around her rump. She shifted, listening to it crinkle, and that alone was enough to make her yawn softly.

“I... suppose it does...”

“Excellent,” Nightwear pronounced, making a note on her pad. “I imagine you're feeling a little bit drowsy, and that's perfectly fine. That just shows how relaxed you are, and it feels so much better to be relaxed, doesn't it?”

Twilight frowned slightly, then nodded, and Nightwear smiled as Twilight's nod turned into a yawn. “That's right.”

“But… um… that isn't the only thing,” Twilight added, blinking a few times as she tried to remember the other reasons she'd booked the meeting.

It was a little hard for her to bring them to mind, but she must have had good reasons…

“Anything else related to sleep, perhaps?” Nightwear asked, and Twilight nodded.

“Yes!”

“Well, go on,” Nightwear invited. “I'm here to listen. Isn't listening nice?”

Twilight nodded again, blushing. “It's… kind of silly, especially because of the narcolepsy thing, but… I've got problems with insomnia as well. It's just so hard for me to get properly to sleep at night, which is really frustrating with how easy it is for me to drop off to sleep in the day.”

“That sounds unfortunate,” Nightwear agreed, taking another note, and Twilight nodded again. “I think the best option for dealing with that would be hypnotherapy.”

“Hypnotherapy?” Twilight repeated, a little nervous about that idea.

“Don't worry, I'm a pooffessional,” Nightwear assured her.

“A what?”

“A professional,” Nightwear repeated. “I really do think that's a good idea. But perhaps we'll leave it for the end of the session, because if it works and you fall asleep then we won't be able to discuss your other issues.”

That sounded very sensible.

“Anything else you wanted to bring up?” Nightwear went on. “You seem to be a little forgetful?”

“Oh, yes, that's a worry,” Twilight admitted. “I keep sort of… forgetting things, or thinking I must have forgotten something because I can't remember what should go somewhere. It's very strange.”

“It could be that you're repressing memories.” Nightwear suggested.

“Of what? I remember fighting off Discord and Tirek just fine, and they're a lot more terrifying than any of the other things I'm forgetting. Just this morning, I couldn't think of the... thing... in the... room.” Twilight was gesturing in such a way that, were one to seriously stretch the definition of sign language, would have given Nightwear a clue as to what she was talking about. Instead, it looked as if she was trying to perform a rather peculiar dance, and Nightwear just coughed.

“Repressed memories don't necessarily have to be traumatic, Twilight, at least not in the traditional sense. It might be that you prefer something else in its place. Whatever it is you've forgotten, perhaps something comforting like diapers or blankets has taken its place.” Nightwear pondered.

Twilight tried to think of what she had been trying to describe. She remembered getting out of bed this morning, going into the bathroom... taking a bath... putting on her diapers... surely she was forgetting something, right? But why would she forget something, it only made sense for her diaper and changing table to be in the bathroom. What else would be there?

“About you defeating Discord and Tirek...” Nightwear broke Twilight out of her pondering. “I think we should speak about you and your delusions of grandeur. You seem to be thinking that there's a great power trying to capture you and your friends, stuffing them into puffy suits and thick diapers. Really, Twilight, that's all a little hard to believe.”

“But...” Twilight began, automatically wanting to object, then stopped to marshal her thoughts together. “But I'm fairly sure that… well, I remember the details only vaguely, but there was an ancient evil spirit and it was trying to make me wear diapers.”

She stuttered a little, somehow feeling slightly embarrassed about what she was saying. “And it put us all in puffy suits, and… well… but why is it so unbelievable?”

“You have to understand, Twilight, I'm not questioning whether there are ancient evil spirits,” Nightwear said, sounding soothing and reasonable. “There clearly are ancient spirits, and it's entirely believable that some of them would be evil, just like some of them are good.”

She shifted a little, crinkling and creaking as she did. “But that's one thing, and what you describe is something else. Why would an evil spirit want to make you wear diapers?”

Twilight frowned. “I… don't know, but-”

“You're already wearing diapers,” Nightwear interrupted. “So it wouldn't be an evil spirit trying to make you wear diapers. It seems more believable to me that if this spirit was trying to make you wear diapers, it wouldn't be evil, and if it was trying to make you not wear diapers then it would not be evil.”

That made Twilight pause.

It sounded like a good point, and she wasn't really sure how to reply.

“As for the suits,” Nightwear went on. “Do you think these suits are comfortable?”

“Well… yeah, they are,” Twilight had to admit. She couldn't remember many of the details, it was all fuzzy… but the costumes had been all fuzzy, too, so maybe that was sort of appropriate?

They'd been comfortable, but that hadn't been her objection… had it?

“It sounds like your problem might mostly be about trust, then,” Nightwear decided. “So I can assure you, Twilight, as the only powerful spirit here I'd never try to make you not wear your diapers.”

“I, um… okay,” Twilight said, sort of glad for the reassurance even if she wasn't sure why she was glad for it. “Thanks.”

“It's what diapers are here for, after all,” Nightwear replied. “To keep you feeling reassured and safe.”

She reached into her vest pocket to reveal the chain hanging loosely was connected to a large sliver pocket watch, which was etched to look a bit like the moon. “Now, I think getting started on taking care of your insomnia should help first and foremost. You won't get anything done if you don't get a good night's sleep, after all. Focus carefully on the watch, and listen very closely to what I say...”

Nightwear began to swing the moon left and right in her magic, Twilight's gaze watching it intently.

Despite being told to pay close attention, Twilight wasn't entirely sure what Nightwear was saying. The watch was surprisingly captivating, the way it glimmered and shined in the light. Its arcs began to slowly widen, Twilight thought she heard something about swelling, but both of these thoughts were drowned out by the sheer comfort of her legs being widened by her padding, allowing her to let out a sigh as she leaned back into the chair. She sank into it, eyes shimmering as she watched the timepiece sway, and as if the chair was swallowing her up, she buried her muzzle into it and let the comfortable material fold around her...

Twilight watched as the moon swayed softly in the night, Luna's magic coaxing it through the starry sky.

“Alright, Twilight, I think you've seen enough moon magic. I suppose I shouldn't be that surprised, you can't watch my sister do her magic very well without going blind, but unless you scurry off, I'm going to place your own padded butt in the sky and make a new moon to show off.”

Luna grinned, Twilight shaking her head as she realized she was sitting in Luna's lap, both out on a balcony of her crystal tower in Ponyville.

“Thank you, Princess,” Twilight began, stumbling over her words a bit. “That was...”

She paused. She couldn't find the words, but that was partly because she couldn't remember any of what she'd just seen. Except for something about diapers… diapers had been involved.

But why would diapers be involved with the moon? Except for Luna's teasing comment, anyway…

“That was what, Twilight?” Luna asked, then smiled before Twilight had a chance to actually remember what she was going to say. “Are you having trouble with your words?”

“Um-” Twilight began, and Luna promptly placed a pacifier in her muzzle. “Mrff?”

“That's better,” Luna pronounced. “You don't need to worry about picking the right words if you don't have words to use to begin with. Isn't that right?”

It was logically consistent, admittedly, and Twilight nodded a bit before actually thinking about what nodding would mean.

“There you go, see?” Luna said, lifting Twilight up and giving her a pat on the diaper. “But I bet I know what would keep you interested.”

“Mmhmm?” Twilight mumbled, blushing as the noise reminded her of the pacifier preventing her from doing more than just vague noises like that.

“That's right!” Luna agreed. “Playing with toys! That's just what will keep you occupied.”

She carried Twilight in through the balcony doors, into a room with lots of foalish paraphenalia all over it from a crib to a changing table to a playmat with Canterlot streets on it. Twilight blushed, wondering why she didn't remember seeing it before, but the worry went away and her confusion got much stronger when she heard what Luna said next.

“Spike!” the elder Princess called. “Can you get some cocoa in a sippy cup for Twily? I think she needs something warm before bed!”

Spike? Spike was going to see her like this?

Twilight wriggled and blushed, trying to get out of Luna's magical grip, but Luna just booped her on the nose.

“Don't make a fuss, Twily,” she said. “If you're good you'll get something nice before bed~”

Twilight's blush felt like it would light up the room.

“Here you go, Luna,” Spike called, coming in surprisingly quickly with a sippy cup. “It's got extra sugar in it for little Twily!”

“Mrrf,” Twilight mumbled, trying not to look Spike in the eye as Luna set her down on the playmat and passed her the cocoa.

“What about playing with these toys?” Luna added, bringing out a little plastic toy version of Twilight herself – complete with a cutie mark – and a plushy version of her Nightmare Moon self. “What do you think would happen if they met?”

Twilight wanted to say that they already had met, but the pacifier meant she couldn't really point it out.

She glanced back at Spike, who was watching Twilight, as if waiting to see her response. Between her thickly padded backside, the sippy cup clutched in her hooves, and the embarrassing way she suckled on her pacifier, even as she tried to stop herself from doing so, Twilight wasn't in much of a mood to try play acting with some toys. Spike just let out a soft chuckle, sitting down across from Twilight. “Oh, alright, I'll play with you too.” He said, pulling a slightly-too-pudgy Spike toy out of the box and standing it up beside the toy Twilight. Luna took a place opposite Twilight, her magic standing the Nightmare Moon plushie up.

“Oh no, Twilight!” Spike began, trying to impersonate himself. It somehow sounded perfect, and yet nothing at all like the dragon. “It's Nightmare Moon! What are you going to do?” He bounced the toy left and right as he spoke, only to then look back at Twilight for a response.

Twilight's face burned brightly, but she figured humoring them might make their playtime shorter. Besides, Luna wasn't going to make Twilight lose. You always let foals win.

She felt like she should have caught herself on something in that last thought, but whatever it was, she figured it didn't matter as her own magic swirled around her toy, and she began to bounce it up and down while speaking just as Spike had…

Chapter 3

“Oh, no, Twilight! It's Nightmare Moon! What are you going to do?” Spike shouted. Darkness swirled around the field, wind whipping Twilight's mane as she stood proudly in front of the cackling alicorn. Her friends were waving for help from a comically oversized toy chest floating behind Nightmare, only for her to snap it shut, lock it, and make it vanish before Twilight's eyes.

“Hahaha, there's nothing you can do to stop me! Even if you were to get the key back, you could never save your friends and their elements, muhahaha!” Nightmare twirled the key in front of Twilight, taunting her.

Twilight's brow furrowed as her magic surged forth. A blast shot forward, knocking Nightmare out of the sky. The key fell down to the ground, and Spike rushed forward to grab it. Nightmare quickly took flight again, soaring down to attempt to reach the key before Spike could. Twilight cheered, sure that Spike would make it well before Nightmare could, but as she watched, Spike's dash was slowing. He huffed and puffed, becoming exhausted before flopping to the ground mere inches away. Twilight wasn't sure, given she was standing so far away, but she thought his gut seemed a bit... rounder than it had been before.

“Ahaha!” Nightmare laughed, scooping up the key in her hoof. “I'm unstoppable! You can't stop me! That's what unstoppable means!”

“But I can stop you!” Twilight protested. “I mean, I will stop you!”

Her horn lit up as she put together a powerful lightning spell, sending it flashing towards Nightmare, and she got a direct hit!

Twilight felt like cheering, until she saw that the attack had just made a little shower of sparks and nothing else had happened.

“Was that supposed to hurt?” Nightmare demanded, sounding amused. “That doesn't seem like the kind of spell I'd expect to see from an alicorn princess of magic.”

“What – why didn't that work?” Twilight asked herself, baffled.

She was sure that had been a powerful spell!

Nightmare was preparing a counterattack, and Twilight cast a shield spell to protect herself as she galloped over to Spike to make sure he was okay.

He seemed all right as she got close enough to get a better look, though Twilight was sure he should have been in better shape, but she could only look for a moment before Nightmare cast a spell that hit her shield.

The shield shattered into a thousand pieces, making Twilight gasp with surprise. It felt like Nightmare had needed to spend no effort at all to break through her strongest shielding spell.

“Is that it?” Nightmare demanded. “Is that the best you can do?”

She chuckled. “Well, I suppose you are a very young alicorn princess...”

“No, it's not!” Twilight countered. “I'm strong enough to beat you!”

The Element of Magic threw another attack, then another, but none of them seemed to impress Nightmare Moon at all. One of them she just batted away with her wing, another she actually opened her mouth and ate…

Nightmare dropped to the ground, and Twilight wondered if maybe she'd be able to gallop over and take the key. Then Nightmare slammed her hoof into the ground, sending waves of darkness rippling out as the ground itself shook underneath her.

Twilight flared her wings to try and control herself, staggering to the side, and nearly fell over.

Twilight stood tall once again, but as she made to charge towards Nightmare, she found her hooves were stuck in something. Looking down, Twilight let out a yelp as she saw the ground was now covered in a jet black rubber to match Nightmare's coat. Twilight tugged against it, but was unable to free herself.

Spike was in a far worse state. He had been completely covered by the vinyl goo, and was trying to sit himself up straight. Twilight's horn glowed, and she managed to take hold of Spike's claw, lifting him into a sitting position. The vinyl surrounded him with several creaks, however, leaving him pressing against his gut. He squeaked with every poke and prod, and each breath of his was muffled by the vinyl. As he huffed, his gut seemed to get bigger. His cheeks puffed up, and Spike wriggled about, as if he was being squeezed inside a thick rubbery suit. Nightmare wandered over, whistling softly as she produced a paintbrush and several small cans. She dipped the brush into the purple paint before starting to slather it on Spike. The paint was drying quickly, and once the base coat had been placed, Nightmare happily moved on to painting the green of Spike's belly and spines.

It wasn't too long before Spike's new ever inflating suit now resembled the dragon stuck inside, albeit with a big dopey grin spread on his face. He squished his cheeks with his mitten like claws, his 'mmphs' of struggles now sounding more like giggles of delight. He was able to stand up with a bit more help from Nightmare, who then pet him on the head softly. “You make a lovely toy, Spike. Perhaps you'd like Twilight to be one too?” She asked.

Spike shook his head, but Nightmare just laughed, taking her brush in her magic again and starting to paint circles in Spike's eyes. “Are you sure? I bet she would feel good squished into your belly.” She finished the circle, then moved to another circle, and another color.

“Smothered under your butt.” Another circle, another color.

“Feeling her flattened as you inflate.” Another circle, another color.

“And then just as big and bouncy as you.” Nightmare had finished the circles, before flicking the brush upwards. The colors swirled in Spike's eye's, and he giggled again. “Don't you agree?”

Twilight had been staring as all this happened, torn between total shock at what was happening to Spike and trying to dispel the strange latexy corruption to actually be able to move and help.

When she saw Spike's eyes start to swirl, she tried to take off – her wings hammering at the air – but that just made her bounce up and down a bit, and Spike giggled.

He waddled over to her with a squeak, his suit swaying from side to side as the air moved, and Twilight spoke up for the first time in a while. “Spike! Are you okay – we've got to do something!”

Spike nodded, giggling again, and wrapped his puffed-up arms around Twilight – pulling her into a hug, her hooves coming free of the black rubber surface but leaving them in four big round balloonlike blobs instead.

The force of the hug took Twilight's breath away, leaving her gasping instead of protesting, and Spike seemed to take that as agreement – continuing to embrace her, rolling onto his front and squishing her with his balloonified weight.

“Mrph!” Twilight protested, wriggling as best she could (which turned out to be not well enough) until she caught sight of Spike's eyes.

It seemed oddly easy to just stare at the spirals…

...until she shook her head, managing to squirm free somehow!

“You won't beat me that easily,” she began, then realized something felt odd. Looking back at herself, she gasped – she had a big black inflatable diaper on, as well as the big black inflatable things on her hooves!

“I've, I've still got my magic!” Twilight added, as Nightmare chuckled.

“Oh?” Nightmare asked. “Well, let's see your magic then~?”

Twilight should have realized something was wrong, but she was too flustered, and she summoned her magic – only for another blob of puffy black rubber on her horn to suddenly puff up, drinking up the energy of her magic and making all the inflatable blobs of vinyl get bigger!

Twilight let out a squeak of fright to match the squeaks from the thick balloons growing along her body. She instinctively tried to shove the diaper off her rump, but all she succeeded in doing was making herself blush as the spheres on her hooves indented into the vinyl. Nightmare fired a small bolt of magic up to Twilight, who tried to deflect it with her own spells. Naturally, all that happened was the vinyl swelled up once again, though the spell had missed her by a mile anyway.

She blushed, realizing Nightmare was just toying with her.

She looked down to see Nightmare leaning in to whisper in Spike's ear. He gigged, squeezing his cheeks once again as his painted on grin widened as he squished his face around. He leaned back onto his tail, carefully positioning it beneath his rump like a spring. The vinyl crumpled as he leaned his weight into it, sinking slowly lower and lower to the ground. His belly and rump swelled as the air was forced into separate parts of the suit, Nightmare backing away a few steps. Her horn glowed, and a spectral hose started to snake from his belly before materializing into a pump which Nightmare placed her hooves on. A band could be heard clicking, and Spike wiggled his rump. Then Nightmare began to pump.

Spike's belly swelled outwards, growing steadily rounder and rounder, the giddy dragon pressing his claws into it to feel how the vinyl squeezed himself inside it. Bigger and bigger he grew, head and chest starting to inflate as well, though he retained a disproportionately bloated bottom half. It wasn't long before he was now bigger than Nightmare, and the starry hose and pump vanished in a puff of smoke. She trotted up behind Spike, placing her hooves on his shoulder.

“One...” She pressed him downwards, the sound of metal straining could be heard through the creaking vinyl before she released the pressure, and he rose back up slightly.

“Two...” She pressed him down further, the creaking growing louder before she once again let go of the pressure.

“Three!” She shoved him downwards until he was laying flat on his back, his arms and legs sprawled outwards. The sound of metal snapping echoed around as the band wrapped at his tail base gave way and all his new air rushed down into his tail. Spike was propelled upwards, and before Twilight could react, he collided with her mid-air.

The impact made a loud squeak, and Spike hugged Twilight again before holding her in his big squeaky paws.

They were hanging in the air for a lot longer than Twilight thought really made sense, but it was hard to focus on that – then it got even harder as Spike pressed into the squeaky diaper on her rump and Twilight felt a spark of magic rush involuntarily out of her horn.

“What-” she began, breathlessly, and Spike pressed again to make another spark of magic flow out and swell up her inflatable booties and diaper.

“Any good toy has a button that makes it do something,” Nightmare observed, chuckling, and Spike pressed harder – making Twilight produce a continuous stream of magic, which made the vinyl swell up and swell up and make her more and more lightheaded.

The squeaks and creaks and crinkles echoed all around Twilight as the black material spread, changing colour and becoming purple as it engulfed her, and it was all really confusing but for some reason it felt like she was turning into a toy just like Spike had…

...and Twilight and Spike landed with a bounce and a creak and a squeak, springing twelve feet into the air before bouncing again and again and finally coming to rest with big white balloon bars all around them.

Twilight wobbled to her hooves, feeling her big inflatable diaper swaying behind her, and looked down at squeaky, crinkly plastic covering her hooves… her body… everything.

There was no roof to the bars, making it clear that it was an inflatable crib with inflatable blankets and inflatable pillows – the blankets were covered with a pattern of stars over the top of a black “night sky”, which made it obvious where it had come from – but when Twilight tried to get out her inflatable-covered hooves couldn't get enough grip. Then Spike hugged her tightly, pulling her back into the crib, and Nightwear trotted over with a smirk.

“There you go,” she said. “You just needed the right accessories.”

Twilight tried to protest as the blanket was pulled over them, but all she could do was squeak – and yawn, because she felt very sleepy all of a sudden…

“There you go, see?” Luna asked.

Twilight blinked, a bit confused, and looked down at the toys they'd been playing with. There was her balloon-animal version of herself, and a balloon-animal version of Spike, all tucked nicely into a balloon crib.

They were really impressive pieces of balloon art, but Twilight was sure they'd been playing with… something else?

“Now, let's get you ready,” Luna added. “I said you'd get something special if you were good, and you were good, so you get something special!”

“I know how language works, Luna,” Twilight mumbled around her pacifier.

“I don't think you do,” Luna replied. “Or you'd have remembered that we can't understand what you mean when you mumble like that~”

Twilight pouted, feeling very put-upon by that logic, and poked the balloon crib as she wondered how the play session had actually gone.

She remembered some things happening, but it was all kind of vague, and – would she really have said those things should happen? Not to mention that she remembered being the Twilight who was battling Nightwear, unless that was just a thing about imagination.

Luna picked her up all of a sudden, making her yelp, and the elder alicorn used a hoof to hold the pacifier in Twilight's mouth as she lifted her onto a changing table. A diaper was already waiting for her, and Twilight looked down to make sure she was actually still wearing one.

“But – I've already got one,” she mumbled. “Do I need two?”

“Of course you do!” Luna said, putting her down on the diaper. “If I say you need a diaper, you need a diaper – after all, you might have wet yourself and not noticed!”

Twilight blushed deeply at the idea, but she was sure she hadn't wet herself – and, besides, Luna was now putting the second diaper on on top of the first one. Twilight was about to ask why again, but Luna slipped something into the space between the two diapers before taping them up.

“That should keep you nice and entertained~” she said sweetly, and picked up a remote control by the side of the table before turning a control knob on it.

Twilight squeaked as the thing Luna had snuck into her diaper began to buzz, taunting and teasing her and making her squirm! “M-rff!”

“See?” Luna asked. “Told you you'd like it!”

Twilight whined and whimpered, pressing her front hooves down into the fluff of her diaper. She suckled instinctively on her pacifier as a soft tingling surrounded her from Luna's magic.

Twilight looked down to see a star speckled onesie being held open below her. She suddenly dropped down, the onesie squishing her two diapers and the buzzing toy between them into her tighter and forcing an embarrassed “mmpph!” from behind her pacifier.

Her eyes spun as Luna zipped up the sleeper and patted the bulging butt that couldn't even pretend to hide her diapers. She was softly levitated over to her own oversized crib. While it wasn't nearly as big or puffy as the play one was to her toy self, it was quite spacious, with enough room to line it with pillows just as puffy as the padding she was wearing... which Luna had graciously done.

Twilight rolled back and forth in the crib, burying her muzzle in the pillows as Luna draped a thick comforter on top of her. The fluff was almost restrictive in the way it pressed Twilight down into the mattress, but in spite of that and the rumbling of her padding, Twilight let out a long yawn as she found herself growing tired yet again...

Twilight shifted in her seat slightly, feeling just a bit... off. She wasn't sure why, but something was making her heart flutter and her breaths just a bit airier than usual. She tried not to think about it as she watched Nightmare fiddling with the lamp hanging in the entryway. “A-are you sure you don't need any help?” She asked, sure that if she had offered before, she really should offer again to be polite.

“Oh, don't worry, I'll be fine,” Nightmare told her, smiling in a way that Twilight was sure wasn't a smirk. “I'm just setting up a nice new voice-activated lamp, that's all. All I need to do is say the right phrase and the Twibrary light will go off just like that!”

“All, um, all you need to do?” Twilight asked.

“Of course,” Nightmare replied. “You wouldn't trust just anyone to be able to turn your light out, would you?”

Twilight shifted a little, and she had to admit that, no, if she would trust anyone it would be Nightmare because she trusted Nightmare so much.

“Exactly,” Nightmare said, tapping the light a few times. “All I need to do is to say, 'Twi-Lights Out', and out the light goes.”

The light went off, just like Nightmare had said, but Twilight felt dizzy all of a sudden, until the light went back on again and she shook her head.

“Sorry, I… think I missed some of that?”

“Well, you don't really need to know how to turn the light back on again anyway,” Nightmare said. “You can just trust me to do that sort of thing. Now, let's go and have a look to make sure all the books are in the right places.”

“Umm… weren't you doing that already?” Twilight asked, frowning. There was a crinkling sound as she got up, and she blushed to realize she was wearing a diaper… but, after a moment's thought, she wondered why it was embarrassing at all.

After all, she could clearly see the big book of diapers over in the Twilight's Clothes section, in pride of place. So she was wearing the right thing anyway.

“There's a lot of organizing to do,” Nightmare said simply. “I can't be sure, but I think Celestia got involved with getting everything confused and mixed-up in here so nothing's in the right place.”

“Celestia?” Twilight repeated. “She's a meanie-head!”

Something about that description sounded a bit odd, but everything else about it sounded just right, so Twilight put it out of her mind.

“For example, this section's been mis-labelled,” Nightmare said, as Twilight waddled out from behind her desk to see what she was looking at.

It was a section about Fluttershy, and Twilight looked at it before looking at Nightmare.

“Are you sure that's mislabelled?” she asked. “It looks…”

She paused, wondering why the word she wanted to say didn't seem to be there.

“...right,” she finished, a bit lamely.

“It's a mis-spelling,” Nightmare explained. “And there's a few books that need to be put here instead of the ones that are here now.”

The odd tingly excitement Twilight had been feeling got suddenly a bit stronger as Nightwear worked, changing the label to Floodershy and putting in some books about soft toys and cuddling, and when Nightwear was done Twilight had to admit that it did seem to fit better with what she remembered about her friend Floodershy.

“I've already changed a few other misspellings I've noticed. Your friend Rainbow Splash, your remember what she is, right?” Nightmare asked.

Twilight thought, plopping down on her padded tush to poke at her head as she did. Rainbow Splash had always wanted to be big, right? A big celebrity... bigger than a celebrity, she wanted to be a blimp! A big, blimpy... baby...? “Oh! She's mascot of the Wonderbutts, isn't she? I still have tickets to see her show!” Twilight said, suddenly very excited upon remembering her friend had invited her to a game.

“Oh goodness, it seems I've missed something, she's a member of the Shadowbutts, remember?” Nightmare said, trotting over to a separate pair of sections. They were considerably smaller than the one on her friend, but Nightmare was quick to unlatch the labels of Shadowbolts and Wonderbolts and switch their places... and scratching out the original words to be more accurate to Splash's new job. “I'm sure you'd enjoy her show, her blimp butt can get so big she smothers the audience, you know!” Nightmare chuckled, almost seeming to crinkle as she did.

Twilight shifted in place, blushing just a bit as the tingling sensation grew stronger. Nightmare noticed, her smirk widening as she watched Twilight fuss a bit just as a bored filly would. “Perhaps you better leave this to me for now, I think we'll find something you'll enjoy more soon enough. I think it's almost time for your favorite subject.” She winked, but before Twilight could ask for clarification, there was a strange jerking sensation just behind her naval as she felt herself being tugged backwards…

Twilight stumbled slightly on the stairs.

“Nightwear!” she called. “What are you doing?”

There was no reply at first as she reached the top of the stairs, and Twilight looked around before deciding to check the bedroom.

She wasn't quite sure what Nightwear was doing, but the filly had been silent for more than five minutes which meant she had to be doing something.

As she entered the room, though, Nightwear didn't actually seem to be doing anything. She was standing there with a pile of blankets in front of her, and frowning slightly.

“Overdid it there a bit,” she said. “That's easy enough to fix.”

“What are you talking about?” Twilight asked, confused.

Had she put on too much padding?

“Twi-Lights Out,” Nightwear replied, and Twilight suddenly felt very tired-

Twilight blinked, trying to remember what she had just been saying. She was drawing some diagrams on the chalkboard for the students to take notes on, but felt something poking at her rump. Looking over her shoulder, she blushed as she realized the chalk was continuing to write the figures on a diaper the same gray as the board, pressing and poking her rear as it continued along. “I... um...” she blushed, trying to keep her composure as her magic pulled the chalk away. She wasn't entirely sure, but it almost felt as if it was still poking her slightly, which did nothing to help her blush.

“Miss?” asked a filly alicorn in the front row, holding up her hoof in a vague sort of way. “Weren't we going to learn about how magical research is done?”

“That's right!” Twilight said quickly, glad for the hint or reminder or whatever you wanted to call it. “Magical research is an important topic, because not every pony can just come up with the spell they need at the moment they need it. In fact, most ponies can only do that when it involves their cutie marks, and even then it doesn't always work out well. And ponies who aren't unicorns have to do that kind of thing as well, to make sure that they actually can do the thing they're aiming for-”

She coughed, realizing she was going off topic, but the odd thing that seemed to be keeping her distracted was still there and it was just as annoying as before. “That is, um, magical research is in two types. Either a pony knows what they want to achieve and they tweak something that's close slightly until they get there, or they're coming up with a whole new magical combination and they want to see how it'll work nearby.”

Twilight looked around, hoping she'd remembered to get some kind of materials ready for the lesson, and sighed in relief as she spotted the TV over in the corner.

“I'll show you a film about it,” she said, using her magic to wheel the TV over for everypony to see, and started the video tape with the press of a button.

A picture of a laboratory came on screen, along with two ponies wearing lab coats and diapers, and Twilight wondered why they both seemed so familiar…

Twilight fiddled with the knob on the side of some large contraption, making sure everything was calibrated properly and ticking off a box on her checklist. She placed her clipboard down before turning to her partner, who was closely inspecting a series of flasks filled with various potions. “Alright, what was our first test, Nightmare?” Twilight asked. Nightmare flipped over a page on her own clipboard, scanning the contents.

“Absorbance was first on our list. We want to make sure the new product can stand enough liquids without leaking, considering it's the whole purpose of it,” Nightmare replied as she levitated a few beakers over. Each contained several beads of... something. Twilight tried to think what exactly it was they were supposed to be examining, she was sure it should be obvious, but she couldn't quite remember what it was. She figured she'd remember as they went about their experiments, so she simply stepped up beside Nightmare, who was holding some bottles of water above the beakers. “First beads are the Super Fluffs,” she said as she began to pour the water in. Each bead swelled slowly, sucking up a bit of the water. Twilight quickly jotted down the starting size and final size of the beads, noting they didn't grow very much before the water started to pool within the bottom of the glassware. “Rather disappointing, I'd say. Padding that thin would hardly be worth wearing.” Nightmare said with a bit of a smirk.

Twilight nodded, though she wasn't fully listening as she looked at the other two beakers sitting on the table. True, they hadn't swelled that much, but if the checklist said they expected 10, maybe 100 times the absorbance... Twilight wondered what might happen if those puffy beads were to overflow in the lab and bury her in the squishy, soaked...

She shook her head, as they moved on to the Storm Clouds.

“Okay, so we're looking to see how much of the bottle these beads soak up,” Twilight said out loud, to get the thought clear in her mind, and nodded to Nightwear to pour out the bottle.

The water splashed into the beaker, and Twilight shifted from hoof to hoof – not sure why she was feeling a little bit antsy and tingly.

Maybe it was just the thought of doing science – but then she gasped as the beads swelled up much more quickly than the Super Fluff beads had, soaking up almost all of the water in the bottle and filling the beaker just about to capacity.

“Well!” Twilight said, impressed, and noted that result down. “I think this means that the Storm Clouds have won that test!”

“They certainly did better than the Super Fluffs,” Nightmare agreed. “But what would science be without testing all three?”

“Oh, good point,” Twilight admitted, as Nightmare held the third and last bottle of water over the Wonder Butt beads. “Well, the starting level is at ten percent of the volume of the beaker...”

Nightmare poured in the bottle, and the beads began to swell.

“That looks like the same performance,” Twilight mused, then her jaw slowly dropped as she watched.

The Wonder Butt beads kept swelling, and swelling! They got far bigger than they'd started, bigger than the Storm Cloud beads, bigger than should really have been remotely possible with how much water had been in the bottle – each individual little bead swelling to at least the size of the original water bottle, overflowing the beaker in an endless, slightly squishy wave and pooling on the floor of the lab, and Twilight finally shook her head to make sure she could focus in the first place.

“Nightmare!” she called, looking for her trusted assistant. “What should we do?”

“Hold on a minute,” Nightmare replied, sounding completely un-worried. “I'll sort it out.”

“Well, can you hurry?” Twilight asked, as the lab began to fill with squishy beads. They didn't really feel wet, any more, just… big, and fluffy, and squidgy, and there were more and more of them every second until Twilight was sort of halfway between floating, wading and swimming in soft cushy beads.

“We just need to compress the beads down into one space,” Nightmare said, and since the beads were near the ceiling Twilight wasn't sure where Nightmare was to be saying it. “And it's a good thing too, because you forgot some of your protective equipment. Hold still...”

Twilight pressed against the beads as they continued to grow, starting to shove her downwards and smother her beneath them. She tried to break the surface, but every wriggle and attempt to climb her way back upwards only sent her falling back down once more. There was a rustling, crinkling, and squishing, other than the ones being caused by her struggles.

She tried to spot Nightmare, but the only clue of her whereabouts was the crinkling growing louder. She suddenly felt a hoof grab hers and hoist her back to the surface.

Twilight blinked as her vision was once again filled with the bright lights of the lab after the dark of the smothering puffy beads. She was standing beside Nightmare, and the room seemed to have been cleared of the beads. She wondered momentarily where they had all gone, only to let out a gasp of surprise as she tried to step forward.

Her padding was absolutely huge! Almost reaching down to the floor, it swallowed so much of her tail she could no longer wag it. With every step she felt her padding slosh back and forth, turning her already wide waddle into an even wider stagger. She blushed as she tried to slip out of the diaper, but Nightmare coughed as she held up a pair of goggles for Twilight. “Here, you better put these on before the next experiment or you might get stuck again.”

Twilight complied, though she wasn't entirely sure how goggles would have stopped her from drowning in puffy fluff.

“We're working on mixing some potions to give someone a bit more bounce in their step,” Nightmare explained as she trotted over to an overly complex glassware apparatus. Pipes and tubes bent and twisted this way and that, and Twilight struggled to make heads or tails of the network. “Watch closely, it's important to see how these potions interact with each other.” Nightmare was hooking up some beakers to the pipes, burners starting to kick into gear and slowly bring them to boil.

Twilight watched a the bright blue and red potions at the start boiled, the way their colors shifted as bubbles rose within them, only to turn into turquoise and pink gases that began to flow through the pipes. They spiraled and spun as they rushed around, turning back into a liquid and dripping into another beaker which had a neon green potion laying within. The colors swirled together as they mixed, and Twilight found it hard to look away.

“…swirling,” Nightmare said. “...focus… concentrate...”

Twilight was doing her best to focus and to concentrate, but the best she could do seemed to be to focus and concentrate on the swirly colours instead of on what the potion was actually doing.

Or was it that what the potion was actually doing was moving colours around? Twilight couldn't really muster enough coherent thought beyond observing the swirly colours to think about what actual science was going on here… but wasn't science about observation, anyway?

Her trusted lab assistant was saying things, and Twilight nodded along – sure that Nightmare was right about whatever it was she was talking about.

Like how it made sense for Twilight to be the one who did all the experiments and tested everything out. That was just… obviously correct, in a way so deep that Twilight didn't feel like it was worth spending any time thinking deeply about it.

Or how diaper science was more important than non-diaper science. That was obvious and correct as well, and Twilight's only real wonder was why exactly Nightmare was bothering to mention it.

Naturally Nightmare was the one in charge, because she knew better than Twilight and it was always the scientist who knew better who was in charge.

And because she knew better, and she was in charge, it made sense that she'd remind Twilight of all those things…

“..all right, it's ready,” Nightmare said. “Drink up, Twilight.”

“Oh, um, yes,” Twilight replied, blinking a few times and trying to shake off the sudden feelings of fuzziness.

She must have been woolgathering instead of focusing on her duties, because she hadn't noticed the potion being distilled into a bottle. It still had a swirly, rainbow effect to it, and when Twilight moved the potion bottle a bit it swirled around in a spiral that drew in Twilight's attention for several long seconds.

Nightmare coughed, and Twilight blushed before downing the potion in one go.

The taste was very sweet and sticky, like liquid candy, and Twilight found herself wishing she had more than the mouthful she had been given. She hiccuped, her eyes swirling as she suddenly felt like she had the wind knocked out of her.

She took a deep breath, only to hiccup again and have the same sensation. She took another deep breath, and another, and another. The waistband of her padding felt a bit tight, and she wiggled as... something made her quiver with delight. She tried to take another deep breath, and her waistband felt even tighter. Her rump swayed before she fell onto it with a crinkle and a squeak. She looked down, and noticed she looked quite a bit pudgier than she remembered. She poked her gut, feeling it squish beneath her hoof, and she let out a giggle, hiccup, and another deep breath. She tried to get back to her hooves, but was distracted by Nightmare suddenly poking and prodding her swelling rump.

“Hmmm, pliable, squishy... all we need left is to see if you bounce.” Nightmare swiftly picked up Twilight, who let out a squeak-hiccup of surprise. Despite her increasing size, she was clearly easy to hoist upwards, as if she was just a big bouncy ball. She wriggled as Nightmare tossed her into the air a few times before suddenly bouncing her into the floor. She let out an 'eek!' as she flew through the air, only to be caught before she was sent crashing into the machine she had been calibrating before. She gasped and gulped in more air, swelling outwards yet again.

“My, Twilight, you're almost a beach ball! At this rate, we'll need to fit you for a new lab coat.” Nightmare smirked, watching Twilight's belly continue to stretch outwards.

Twilight tried to protest, asking just what they were studying, but when she took a breath in to ask she just hiccuped again.

Her wings swelled up and out, wobbling slightly as they took on fixed positions, and Nightmare trotted calmly past to examine the machine Twilight had been working on.

“It looks like this is ready to go,” she said. “Excellent. Hold still, Twilight...”

Twilight wanted to complain that she couldn't really move whether or not Nightmare told her to stay still, but that wasn't really an option.

“Aim,” Nightmare went on, writing down on a piece of paper as she spoke. “Test the Critterification Ray.”

She poked a button. “Diagram: the ray is pointing at my faithful assistant, Twilight.”

Twilight squeaked, wanting to say that that wasn't a diagram.

“Method,” Nightmare continued implacably. “We point the ray at Twilight, turn the dial to the highest setting, and press the button.”

She put action to words, slowly turning the dial click by click, and then hit the button with a zap!

A bolt of tingly lightning ran through Twilight, and suddenly she began to change.

Twilight felt as if she was getting fatter, although that wasn't quite the right sensation either. There was more bulk to her, sure, but all of it felt so much lighter than she normally was. But she wasn't inflating larger either.

It felt like the soft hug of her padding was creeping along the rest of her body. She tried to wriggle her legs against her swollen gut again, and this time there was far more crinkling than she would have expected. She tried to turn her head to look, but the puffiness off her body held it comfortably in place. Nightmare was happy to levitate over a mirror, however, placing it down in front of Twilight before lifting a second one to give her a look at her backside. Twilight's eyes widened as she saw her tail had become just as puffy and crinkly as her diaper. In fact, her entire rump seemed to be swallowed in a puffy crinklesuit!

Though the longer Twilight watched, she could see her already taut body puffing outwards, her coat growing a bit shinier as it was replaced with crinkly plastic. Seams ran along her belly as tapes folded over to hold them together.

Twilight let out a squeak of surprise as she suddenly felt a weight pressing down atop her. Looking in the mirror she was just able to make out Nightmare leaning back onto her like an over sized beanbag chair. The shifting of her weight was pushing the crinkly material further forward on Twilight. She gulped as soon her upper half and forehooves were being converted to crinkly, cushy fluff.

“Results... an especially comfortable, cushy, bouncy, bloated, beanbag, Twilight!” Nightmare laughed as she sank a little further into Twilight to surround herself more with her faithful scientist's puffiness.

Twilight tried to complain, wiggling back and forth a little, but all she was able to do was to bounce a little bit and make Nightmare bounce up and down.

“With a massage setting, as well!” Nightmare added, chuckling and sounding like a salespony like Flim and Flam. “Order now and get a complimentary gem holder!”

She summoned a clipboard from the table, holding it where Twilight could read it over her shoulder. “Now, tomorrow we could work on puffiness, absorbancy, compressibility… there's all sorts of tests to do on a recently crinkle-ified Twilight...”

Twilight could clearly see that the things she'd listed off weren't even the half of it! The checklist also mentioned helium capacity, relative floofiness index… it was enough to make her blush, and Nightmare winked before putting the clipboard to the side.

“But for now, well, science is really quite tiring,” she said, with a little smile. “So… Twi-Lights Out.”

Twilight yawned, suddenly feeling very sleepy…

...she blinked as the film ended, and one of the fillies in the class raised her hoof to ask something. Before Twilight could call on her, the filly said something about “lights out”, and Twilight yawned, suddenly feeling very sleepy…

“...are you all right?” Nightwear asked.

Twilight startled awake, her diaper crinkling as she jumped to her hooves – or tried to, with the sheer puffy padded bulk preventing her from standing up properly. “Yes!”

She blushed. “Sorry, I was… kind of...”

“It's all right,” Nightwear assured her. “I know you work hard, but it's not the end of the work day yet...”

Twilight shook her head, trying to come back to her senses, but she felt unusually drowsy. She tried to get to her hooves again, but all she was able to do was squeeze her padding with her hind hooves as they flailed for the floor. “S-sorry, I don't know why I'm soo....” Twilight yawned and tried to peek at the clock.

It was... she wasn't sure what time it was... she wasn't even sure she could read the clock at all. But if Nightwear said it was a long time until the end of the work day, then it must be. She wobbled back and forth on her padded rump as she looked around. She vaguely wondered why she wasn't sitting behind a desk, and instead at a short plastic table with a few blocks and foal's books strewn about it. She supposed that she must have been pretending to be a big grown up librarian, and that these small books were the ones she was checking out to Mr. Smartypants, who was sitting opposite her in his own small chair.

“Well, um... how much longer is it?” Twilight asked as she tried to organize the books in front of her. Nightwear was spreading a large play mat out on the floor, which looked like a birds-eye view of Ponyville. Twilight thought she even saw a few ponies stitched into it going about their day.

“A few hours still, which is a long time, and from the look of things, you're in need of a nap!” Nightwear said, smiling at Twilight. “I have an idea, though. If you'd like to take a nap and just enjoy the warm, cushy diapers you have on, I could run the Twibrary for you for a little while.”

“Wouldn't it be the Nightwearbry then?”

“Nonsense, silly! It will still be your Twibrary, I'll just be the one taking care of it. You do trust me, don't you?”

“Of course, Nightwear! But... I think you need a Twibrary card to run the Twibrary... And I don't know where to get another one.”

Nightwear chuckled and patted Twilight on the head. “Well, the solution seems obvious, doesn't it?”

“I, umm...” Twilight began, blinking a few times. “Sorry, but – it really doesn't?”

“Just think a little, it'll come to you,” Nightwear advised, trotting off with a soft crinkling sound into the stacks.

Twilight watched her go, then frowned – yawning, wondering why it was that she couldn't work it out when Nightwear seemed to think it would all be so very simple.

So… she wanted to give Nightwear a Twibrary card, but… she only had one, and it was hers.

Twilight wondered whether that was what Nightwear meant, but she was distracted for a moment as Nightwear trotted back out of the stacks again with a rolled-up poster.

“Just need to replace this,” she said, taking down the food pyramid on the walls and replacing it with a new one.

“Why's that?” Twilight asked, looking at the new one.

Bottle of milk, sippy cups of apple juice, jars of mushy foal food, candy…

Had it always looked like that?

“It's much more colourful than the old one,” Nightwear explained with a smirk. “Now, do you think you've managed to work it out yet?”

“Well...” Twilight began, uncertainly. “I guess I do have a Twibrary card I could give you, but it's mine...”

“Oh, don't worry about that,” Nightwear told her. “I'll take good care of it. You trust me, don't you?”

“Yeah,” Twilight agreed.

There wasn't really another answer she could give. She did trust Nightwear, on a really deep level.

“Then there isn't a problem, is there?” Nightwear asked, the very soul of reason, and Twilight nodded.

She started looking around for where her card was, hoping she hadn't left it a long way away, but – it was right there, on the table.

Had it been there before?

Twilight levitated over her Twibrary card, holding it up for Nightwear. “A-alright, I suppose. Just take good care of it, okay?” She said. Nightwear gave her a soft smile as she patted Twilight's head and took the card from her.

“Don't you worry, Twilight, I'm not taking it forever, just until I finish a few changes.” Nightwear immediately turned about, and started to shift books around on a much larger scale than she had before, while Twilight watched in amazement at the colorful books swirling all around her. She watched and several books were moved from dislikes to likes, and vice-versa, while a few more were tossed out of the window. Twilight thought she caught the title of one, “There are no Monsters in the Closet”, before it fell outside, and she couldn't quite remember what she had been thinking of... as well as the sudden strange urge to make sure she never went towards the dark door in the back of the Twibrary.

After the flurry of books and paper died down, Nightwear trotted up to the front desk and took a seat, looking over at Twilight with a small smirk. “So, Twilight, I hear you're here for your first Twibrary card?”

Twilight was going to say she already had one, but then thought for a moment. She didn't think she had ever been to a Twibrary before, so why should she have a card? She nodded, looking back up to Nightmare expectantly.

“Well, to get a Twibrary card, all you have to do is answer a few questions for me. First, what's your favoritist, most bestest toy?” Nightwear asked.

“Oh, Mr. Smartypants! He's the bestest, snuggliest plushie ever!” Twilight answered eagerly.

“That's good to know,” Nightwear said, writing it down.

Somehow, having it written down made it... more true, in a way that Twilight didn't really understand or think much about. It was already true anyway, wasn't it?

“Now, the next thing we need is to put down your family,” Nightwear added.

“Oh, um...” Twilight began, frowning.

The first person she could think of was Nightwear, but she couldn't really say to put down Nightwear, could she? These cards were for, um… for something the Twibrary didn't already know, so if it was Nightwear then Nightwear would already have filled in the card…

Twilight spent quite a long time thinking about it, finding it very hard to concentrate properly, and after a few minutes Nightwear smiled.

“Perhaps you were having trouble thinking of Mommy Luna?” she asked.

“Mommy Luna?” Twilight repeated, confused, but Nightwear's pen was already writing,, and a moment later Twilight nodded. “Yeah!”

How had she forgotten that Mommy Luna was the one who took care of her?

“Next I need your age,” Nightwear told her. “Hmm… you look like you're about twenty-four.”

“I do?” Twilight asked. Somehow that sounded right, but at the same time it sounded wrong.

“Yes,” Nightwear said, writing it down on the card.

Twilight suddenly felt a bit less fuzzy, and frowned as she did her best to concentrate hard… something about all this was really odd, but what was it?

“Twenty-four months, that's you,” Nightwear concluded, adding a little capital M to the end of the age field, and Twilight's thoughts fuzzed up again.

Whatever she'd been thinking about wasn't important.

“There's still a few things to add,” Nightwear told her. “Let's see… we need to put what you're allowed to do, what you can check out without parental approval… oh, and we need your ID picture and your name as well, can't forget those!”

She smirked. “Of course, I can help with those first sections. After all, it would be a little silly for a filly to decide what she does and doesn't get to do, right? Then you'd have them staying up all night or eating ice cream for dinner!”

Twilight was sure that Nightwear was right about that, she had been right so far, but the more she thought about it, the more fun it sounded to be! Having cookies and ice cream all the time sounded good! And why shouldn't she get to stay up all night watching movies or playing?

“But... but those sound fun! I want to eat ice cream!” Twilight said, stomping her hoof for emphasis, and not at all because it seemed like the only way to properly convey her frustration that she couldn't have candy for breakfast.

Nightwear gave a small smile, bending down to be at Twilight's eye level. Twilight wasn't sure if she was bending more or less than she would have expected, but was too preoccupied to really care. “Are you sure? You're going to get a tummy ache if you eat like that all the time!”

Twilight nodded, absolutely, positively, 100% sure that she wanted cake and candy for lunch! Nightwear's grin widened as she stood straight again, marking something down on the card. “Very well, I suppose that will also cover the favorite food section. Hmmm, I suppose we might as well let you pick the thickness of your padding. After all, it never hurts to give a foal more fluff.”

Twilight nodded eagerly, thinking it to be perfectly natural to want thicker diapers to parade herself around in. “And plushies too! I want to play with my plushies!”

“Of course, of course, you'll be able to do whatever you want with you little stuffed ponies,” Nightwear continued to add on more ideas of Twilight's, which mostly involved what she could play with and a few obvious things she couldn't do, like cross the street on her own or run with scissors.

It was really comforting to Twilight for Nightwear Moon to clearly lay out everything she wasn't allowed to do, as well of course as the things she was allowed to do, and she snuggled Smarty Pants as Nightwear continued to fill out the Twibrary card.

Next came the reading level, and Twilight proudly proclaimed that she was able to read anything!

Nightwear looked a little skeptical, and gave Twilight a book to read as a test – The Decline And Fall of the Romane Empire by Edgar the Griffin.

Twilight opened it, eager to show off, but she couldn't understand any of the words at all! They seemed to swim on the page, making no sense, and after twenty seconds or so she had to admit defeat.

She didn't even begin to make the connection with all the dictionary pages Nightwear had thrown out the window.

Nightwear nodded, taking the book away and giving Twilight a much simpler book. This one was about a silly dragon who went shopping, but who got so much stuff he couldn't carry it all home… so he ate it all, and then he couldn't fit into his home!

It had a lot of pictures, and only a dozen or so words on each page, and Twilight had to get help with a couple of the longer words but eventually puzzled her way through.

“That's very good,” Nightwear told her, putting down her reading level, which wasn't a very big number. Twilight felt a bit huffy about it, but Nightwear had tested her and Nightwear knew best.

“Now, let's get your ID picture,” Nightwear told her, some minutes later. “There's still a few things to fill out, but I can ask them while you get into the outfit you want to wear for your picture!”

“An outfit?” Twilight asked, enthralled and confused at the same time.

“Of course,” Nightwear replied matter-of-factly. “You want to look your best for the picture, don't you?”

Twilight nodded as she followed Nightwear over to a large chest. Inside were a multitude of costumes, from princesses to space suits to pirates to dragons. Twilight started to eagerly rummage through them while Nightwear continued to ask questions.

Favorite pasttime? Reading, obviously! Her coolest friend's name? Rainbow Splash, everyone knows her! Cloth, or plastic? Both!

Twilight had been putting on a school-filly outfit over a pirate costume when she suddenly saw a jet black onesie with stars dotted all over it. She scooped it up and tried to wriggle her way inside, only to end up in a tangled mess of fabric.

“Dear, dear, Twilight! I thought you could at least dress yourself. Don't you worry, Nightwear's here to help.” Nightwear's magic surrounded Twilight to lift her gently into the air as her hind hooves were slipped into the onesie. Nightwear had to tug to get the suit over Twilight's bloated padded rump, which wasn't helped at all by the other costumes she had already tried to put on first. Twilight blushed, sure that she could have done this on her own, but finding it quite relaxing to let Nightwear do it for her. After all, she had picked out this suit because of Nightwear!

The zipper slid smoothly up to seal Twilight inside, leaving only her head free of the thick, warm fleece. She giggled as she pressed her hooves into her padding and rocked back and forth on her rump.

“Don't forget the last touch!” Twilight suddenly felt a pacifier being shoved into her mouth, one with a bright moon on the shield as she suckled instinctively. “You look perfectly adorable, Twily.” Nightwear grinned as she levitated up a camera. “Now smile big for your picture!”

There was a flash of light, and Twilight flopped back as her vision started to clear.

Nightwear put the picture on the card without any trouble, which was a bit odd but Twilight was far past thinking about that sort of thing, and some part of her mind started to constantly think of her as a little filly with a starry onesie and a moon-marked pacifier.

“Nearly done!” Nightwear pronounced, filling out a few more entries on the card. “I can do that bit myself… and that bit… now, we just need to write down your name.”

“Huh?” Twilight asked. “Don't you already know that?”

“I need to write it down,” Nightwear told her. “Do you know your name?”

“Of course I do,” Twilight said proudly. “It's Twilight Sparkle!”

Nightwear filled in that line. “So that's Twilight Tinkle?”

“Yeah!” Twilight Tinkle agreed. “That's my name!”

“Well, then, here you go,” Nightwear told her, giving her her Twibrary card. “You just need to sign it here, and you'll be all set.”

Twilight picked up a crayon in her magic, and scribbled vaguely on the card at about the right place.

“Excellent,” Nightwear told her, taking the card back and laminating it. “There's your card that makes you as a member of the Twibrary!”

“Do you have a Twibrary card?” Twilight asked.

“Of course I do,” Nightwear replied. “I've got the special card that means I'm in charge.”

She held it up, and it did indeed have Nightwear's name pasted over whatever had been there before – along with a picture of Nightwear smirking at the camera.

Twilight giggled slightly, and Nightwear patted her on the head.

“But I think it's time for you to go,” she added. “Isn't your mommy looking for you?”

Twilight gasped as she suddenly remembered, she was playing hide-and-seek with Luna! She couldn't be found, and all this time she was talking with Nightwear! She looked around, spotting the chest and jumping inside. She giggled to herself as she closed the lid, knowing she found the absolutely perfect hiding spot! Luna would never find her, this was a toy chest, so obviously Twilight couldn't be inside it, because she's not a toy! She giggled again, laughing at her brilliance.

She could hear Luna searching around the room, the sound of the closet door opening and a few toys being pushed aside. “Twiliiiiight, where are you? I didn't know you were such a good hider!” She trotted a few steps away. “Are you under the bed?” Twilight giggled, imagining Luna's face when she'd pull back the covers to see nopony there! “Hmm... I just don't know where she could be!” Luna said loudly, Twilight completely oblivious to the teasing tone of her voice. Luna's hoofsteps stopped just short of the chest. “Maybe she's...”

The lid of the chest opened slightly, and then suddenly as Luna stuck her face in to boop Twilight on the muzzle. “I found you!”

Twilight let out a small groan of disappointment, but she was smiling all the while. She climbed out of the toy chest, gasping a bit as her padding plopped onto the floor and she felt the toy buzzing between the diapers squish into her once again. She wriggled about a little before Luna helped her to her hooves, Twilight's face still burning softly. “I'm glad you're enjoying our games, Twilight. I do hope I'm doing a better job fulfilling your wishes as well,” She gave a bit of a smirk before bouncing her hips into Twilight to send her stumbling forward.

“I, uh...” Twilight began, blushing, and for a long moment it seemed like the buzzing of the toy got more insistent every time she was about to think of a word.

It made her swallow hard, her breath a little short, and Luna giggled. “Oh? I think somepony's too blissed out to answer~?”

She leaned closer, whispering in Twilight's ear. “Is it sooo hard for you to focus? To even think?”

Twilight nodded slightly, involuntarily, the buzzing of the toy like a reward.

“Easier to just be a good little Twilight Tinkle for your Mommy Luna?” Luna continued, and Twilight nodded again.

Luna's whispered questions all sounded so good… painting a picture of how she could be swaddled in plush, snuggled, teased, trapped like a good little filly and teased and loving it…

Twilight could only nod, agreeing, complying, obeying…

It felt so good to submit, to focus on nothing more than what Mommy Luna wanted to tease her with next and the buzzy, tingling toy and the diapers… on the thick plush onesie with the starry pattern to make her look just like Mommy Luna's filly…

Nightwear smirked.

It was so much easier to keep them captive when they loved it.