996 CE

(Scootaloo)

"Do ya gotta?"

"No, squirt, we've been over this. I know you like it when it is just us hanging out, but I promised I would look after the others. I promise it will be fun and it is only for tonight. It's not like we won't be able to hang out at all."

I pouted in defeat. Here I was, in the coolest place in all of Ponyville, Rainbow Dash's cloudominium just after Hearth's Warming, and I couldn't enjoy it. Mom was gone on her usual monthly business trips and I was with my usual foul sitter, Rainbow Dash. But unlike usual, it wasn't just going to be us hanging out for the weekend. Nope, Rainbow was looking after a few other foals today. Like, I get it, Rainbow is like the best foul sitter ever.

Meanwhile, in a broom closet in Canterlot Castle, Princess Cadence sneezes. Shining Armor is quick to follow up with a gesundheit.

But that doesn't mean it's okay to just take our Friday away! It's just been me and Rainbow; practicing stunts, telling stories about the Wounderbolts, and scooting around, all weekend, every month, for as long as I can remember! The other foals will just slow us down! Even if it is too cold to leave the cloudominium.

Three others were trying to steal my time with the coolest, most fastest mare in Equestria. First was Apple bloom. She was alright. Applejack is friends with Rainbow, so I saw her a few times while the two were competing. I think she might be a little stupid. I mean, you got to be a little stupid to cheer for anypony besides the obvious winner, Rainbow Dash. Her sister, brother, and grandma are super busy right now with the farm, so they asked Rainbow Dash to watch her.

Next is Sweetie Belle. She is a little annoying. Like Applebloom, Sweetie's sister is friends with Rainbow, although I don't know why. All Rarity does is complain and talk about fashion, super lame. I don't know Sweetie as well as Applebloom, but we have hung out a few times at Sugercube Corner. She is pretty cool, just so long as you can get her to stop talking for a while. Apparently, Rarity is going to get a big spa treatment tonight, so she asked Rainbow if Sweetie could stay over.

Last but not least is the mysterious Gwen. All the adults have been gossiping about the griffin ever since Fluttershy adopted her three months ago. I haven't met her yet, but she is just a little baby, so she will probably be lame. Although she does have wings. Maybe I can teach her how to fly when she gets older! Griffins are pretty cool, at least from what Rainbow said about her friend from flight school, so Gwen might not be that bad. Fluttershy is going with Rarity to the spa, so she asked Rainbow to look after Gwen.

Knock Kno-Kno-Knock Knock, Knock Knock

The rhythmic knocking probably meant the Apples were here. Rainbow left to get the door while I just watched. Sure enough, the Apple sisters were on the other side, both wearing fake gold necklaces with little cloud pendants on them. They were the cheap cloud-walking charms Filthy Rich sold at Barnyard Bargains.

Applejack and Rainbow were talking at the door for a little bit. I couldn't hear them, it was probably boring adult stuff anyways. I almost for sure right, considering Apple Bloom ran right past them, her signature bow bobbing up and down and a nervous look on her face.

"Is she here yet?!" Apple Bloom asked. She was looking all over like she was expecting some kind of monster to pop out. I don't know why she was worried, Rainbow Dash could beat up any monster that attacked.

"Who? What are you talking about?"

"That no-good feather-duster! Granny Smith said that she tricked poor Miss. Fluttershy into taking care of her!"

That took me by surprise. Mom had been complaining about other ponies in town being mean to Gwen, but I didn't think Apple Bloom would be like that.

"You're crazy. Gwen is just a little chick! She couldn't have done anything to Fluttershy! My Mom says that Ponyville should welcome every species, just like we welcome every tribe. You don't mind that zebra in the Everfree forest do you?"

"That's different. Zecora is nice and helps make some of Granny's medicine. Plus, zebras are practically just horses with strips! Griffins are way diffrent! They're car-carni, meat-eaters! And they were the bad guys in the war!"

"So! Gwen didn't do any of that. And she can't help what she needs to eat! Fluttershy looks after a bunch of meat-eaters and they aren't a problem. What about Winona! She eats meat!"

"Are you calling my Granny a lier! You're stupid!"

"Nuh-uh. You're stupid!"

"No, You're stupid!"

"Girls! Stop fighting!"

Applejack and Rainbow Dash were both looking at us angrily. Great. Only a few minutes after Apple Bloom shows up and I am angry and in trouble. This is why I wanted it to be just me and Dash.

"Now sugar cube. Ah need to be getting back to the farm. You play nice now. Don't be getting into any more fights! And don't pick on the little feather duster. I hear them little ones bite."

"Okay, sis! Don't work yourself too hard now!"

Just like that, Applejack headed out. Now we just had to wait for the other two to show up.

"Hey Rainbow, have you met the bird brain before?" Apple Bloom asked. I just sigh. All this species stuff is just stupid. Why does it matter?

"Um,... ya. I was there when she first hatched, but we aren't supposed to talk about that." Rainbow replies, rubbing the back of her head. "Otherwise, Fluttershy has been keeping Gwen in her cottage, so I haven't seen her too much."

Apple Bloom doesn't seem happy with that answer. I bet she was hoping Rainbow would have some horror story so she could rub it in my face.

knock knock knock

Dash was still by the door, so it didn't take her long to let the new ponies in. Both Rarity and Sweetie Belle were there, neither of them were wearing the cheap cloud-walking necklaces. Rarity had learned the spell soon after meeting Rainbow Dash. Apparently, she couldn't stand the look of the poorly made neckwear, and so spent about a month learning the spell so she didn't have to ruin her outfits.

After the Belle sisters moved in, I got a look at the center of Ponyville gossip. Fluttershy, with a sleeping Gwen on her back and a cooler behind her. Fluttershy looked rather tired, it definitely looked like she could use the spa treatment. She had slight bags under her bloodshot eyes. While her fur and mane didn't look much worse than what Rainbow or I usually had, it was definitely looked worse than normal, especially around one of her forehooves.

Gwen wasn't nearly as scary as I thought she would be. To hear the Flower sisters tell it, she was an evil monster with a razor-sharp beak and knife-like talons who was controlling Fluttershy like a puppet. In reality, she didn't look much different than a normal foal, her face wasn't even super pointy like most griffins.

Apple Bloom must have seen Gwen too because she dove behind the couch to spy on the griffin. I rolled my eyes. Sweetie is right there! If Gwen was going to do something bad, she would have done it already. To make my point, I fearlessly walked up to the adults.

"So is there anything else I need to know?" Rainbow Dash asked.

"Not that I can think of. Little Snowy is just a sweetheart, but make sure the girls don't get too rough with her. She can get a little... aggressive if provoked."

All the adults seemed to wince at that. Fluttershy even looked a little sad. I wonder if something happened.

"Are you sure you will be able to feed her? I could always come back early."

"No, no, I'm fine. Something little like that doesn't scare me! I am way too awesome for that! You two just have fun and relax. I will have everything under control here."

"Okay," Fluttershy said reluctantly. She then carefully transferred Gwen from her back to Rainbows, somehow not waking the white chick. A few quick goodbyes later, and it was just the five of us in the house.

After she had left, I noticed Fluttershy had also pushed the cooler into the house.

"What's in the box?" Apple Bloom said what I was thinking.

"That's for Gwen. Don't worry about it and don't mess with it. I need to put Gwen down. I will be back in a bit."

As Rainbow Dash headed upstairs, we did what any well-behaved five/six-year-olds would do. We immediately ran over to the cooler as soon as it looked like Dash was gone.

"What do you think is in it?" Sweetie asked,

"I don't know. I bet it is something evil." AB replied, giving me a snarky look.

"Na, it is probably just baby stuff. Maybe it is dirty diapers!" I responded.

"Ew!"

"Why don't you open it up and find out Scoots? Or are you too scared?"

Okay, that was it. I wasn't going to have Apple Bloom make fun of me all day! I would open the box, show her it was nothing, and prove that I am right!

"I'm not scared of anything! Just like Rainbow Dash and the Wonderbolts!"

Not giving myself any time to get nervous, I throw back the lid of the cooler. We all take a dramatic breath... and then let it out in disappointment. All that is inside was a doctor's mask, a pair of goggles, a pair of tongs, and a folded piece of paper. And not even cool flying goggles but lame science goggles.

"That's it? Maybe it is for changing diapers?"

"They are probably just hiding the bad stuff. Let's look more!"

"Girls!"

All three of us jump. At the base of the stairs looking annoyed, is Rainbow Dash. We all gulped.

"I thought you girls were supposed to be responsible. But I guess you aren't responsible enough for ice cream."

With ice cream on the line, the cooler was quickly forgotten.

(Gwen)

I woke up in a new place.

For the last three months, I have been staying with the yellow pegasus. I am tempted to call her mom since she appears to be my adopted mother in this world, but it is a little weird to start calling a new person mom at my age. Well, my real age. For now, let's just call her Yellow, hopefully, I will be able to learn what her real name is soon.

Speaking of, I had been making good progress on decoding pony language. I can recognize a few phrases and names, but I am hardly fluent. At least I am getting the best immersion therapy imaginable.

But back to the present. I found myself in a different crib, in a large bedroom with a dark gray color scheme. The walls are accented with little white curls, giving the whole area the impression of a cloud. In contrast to that, the room is filled with tacky posters and cheap-looking trophies. For the first time since the hospital, I am not in Yellow's animal house. I am confident in this assessment for one reason; I don't smell any animals. I am pretty sure I could smell Yellow's house a few miles away in the right conditions.

The reason for my awaking soon made itself known, my stomach rumbled. I remember being surprised by how easy it was to pretend to be a baby. It might be easy, but it certainly sucks. It is amazing how many things you take for granted in an adult body. My new stomach is tiny, which means I get both hungry and full really quickly. My new bladder is tiny, which means diapers. My new legs are tiny, which means no doing anything for myself. I try to be quiet for Yellow, but I still think I have been stopping her from getting a night of good sleep.

I let out a chirp, hoping to get someone's attention and thus some food. Almost instantly, I hear a commotion. Sounds like multiple voices from below. A bit more chirping later and I see a sliver of light from the opening door. Following the light is a cyan muzzle attached to a female pegasus topped with bright rainbow hair. Okay, I don't care what this one's name is, I am calling her Rainbow. Rainbow then says something in horse language that I roughly translate to;

"Hi, [my new name], you awake?"

I chirp back in response. The rainbow-haired mare fully enters the room, revealing three little horse heads behind her, stacked like a totem pole. At the bottom was a yellow pony, fur only slightly darker than my Yellow, with pinkish-red hair and a large bowtie peaking out from behind their head. Above them was a white pony with curly, split light-purple and light-pink hair. Finally, at the top was an orange pony with messy, darker-purple hair. They all appeared young and seemed to be arguing amongst themselves, but I could not tell more from here.

(Sweetie Bell)

"See! Gwen is just like a normal foal! And her tweets kinda sound like Fluttershy's choir!"

"Are you kidding?! Look at those creepy glow-in-the-dark eyes! She is obviously evil!"

I sigh, trying to stay out of it. Apple Bloom and Scootaloo had been fighting on and off since I got here. I could tell neither of them were very serious and were mostly fighting for fighting's sake, but I got enough of this from home. Rarity had inadvertently become entangled in this whole mess. With Fluttershy being more of a hermit than ever, Rarity had taken it upon herself to protect her friend from some of the meaner ponies. Mainly Spoiled Rich.

Just about every week, Rarity would come home complaining about a new plot Spoiled Rich had come up with to get rid of Fluttershy and Gwen. Last week, Spoiled Rich had started a petition to ban Gwen from attending Ponyvile Public School. The week before that, she had tried to force Gwen out by claiming that she lowered property values. The week before that she tried to outlaw the consumption or sale of meat in Ponyvile city limits.

Every time Rarity would have to try and make sure Spoiled didn't have enough support to do anything. And every time she would complain about it to me afterward. I didn't understand all the boring politics stuff, so I mostly just sat there and listened, but I could tell Rarity was frustrated. Now, while Rarity gets to have a nice massage at the spa, I have to listen more arguing about this dumb griffin.

"Okay girls. I am going to get Gwen's dinner. So why don't you go downstairs and chill for a minute?"

Rainbow Dash had come back to the door while the other two were still arguing. We all followed Dash back down to the living room. Once back in the foyer, Rainbow went to pick up the cooler still resting by the front door. So that was what was in the box. I had been curious since my sister and I met up with Fluttershy. I did wonder what type of food needed to stay cool and was only for Gwen, maybe it was a type of medicine?

"Make sure you stay down here. I will come down when I am done with Gwen so you can meet her."

That was suspicious. Why would Rainbow care about us seeing Gwen eat? A quick look at the other two confirmed we were all thinking the same thing.
There was no way we were going to miss this. We followed Rainbow back upstairs, quietly peaking through the door to watch. Inside, the lights were on, with Gwen leaning on the bars of her crib while watching Rainbow read out loud the note Fluttershy had left her.

"'Dear Rainbow,' bla bla bla. 'Some protection so you are comfortable' bla bla bla. Ah. There we go. Okay. 'Put the protective equipment on.'"

The cyan mare quickly put the goggles on over her rainbow hair and the mask over her muzzle.

"Next step. 'The food tastes better heated, but it can smell. I already cooked it beforehand, so it is safe to feed her cold.' Well, making something smelly is not really an option with the foals around, so on to the next step. 'Open the container with the blue lid next to Gwen's crib and use the tongs to feed her. She will eat it right from the tongs.' While that's not that hard. I don't know why Fluttershy didn't think I could do this. She knows I am awesome."

Rainbow took out a plastic container from the cooler, popping the lid. It was hard to see what it was from this distance, it just looked like brown mush. Pushing her mask down so she could use the tongs, Rainbow picked a pile of mush up and begin feeding it to the griffin.

"What do ya think that is?" Scootaloo whispered. She was currently on my back so we could keep a thin profile.

"I dun know? What is brown that griffins eat that we can't?" I reply. Suddenly I have a crazy idea that I really hope is wrong. "You don't think it is meat, do you? Where would you even get meat in Ponyville?"

"Wait, didn't your cow Mr. Geriken die recently Apple Bloom...?"

All three of us tensed as we realized what exactly the brown stuff was. I could feel Scootaloo stiffen above me, and I felt like I might through up. Apple Bloom had it the worse though, she fainted. That was a bit of a problem considering I was standing on her back.

(Scootaloo)

The weekend was finally over. That first night was pretty dramatic, but Gwen was alright if you could get over what she ate. Fluttershy and Rarity came to pick Gwen and Sweetie pretty late, so it was time for bed after they left. The next day and a half were just me and Rainbow, hanging out like old times.

A knock on the door signaled Mom was here to pick me up. I rushed to greet her. Hanging out with Rainbow is great, but not even the most awesome mare in Equestria could beat Mom. I got to the door before Rainbow and swung it wide open for my parent. What was on the other side was quite a surprise.

"Hey, sweetie! I'm back! I missed you so much! You know my family that lives down south? While I met them on my business trip and it turns out they needed some help. So, I offered to look after your cousin for a while!"

Standing next to my mom was a young colt, about my age. He looked a lot like Mom and had black fur with purple eyes and orange hair.

"Come now, don't be shy. This is my adopted daughter, Scootaloo, now why don't you tell her your name." My mom probed the colt.

"Um, H.. Hi, Scootaloo, my name is Thorax."

Author's Note

Hi everyone. I think moving to a biweekly schedule was a good move, I am actually able to build up a back log and can be a little more flexible. Anyways, Thorax and the changelings are going to be a little different then cannon, exactly how will be reviled with time.

As for lore this week, I thought I would talk about meat. Pigs and chicken aren't sapient, so ponies usually sell them to griffin butchers after they die or are no longer useful. Cows are sapient, but not as intelligent as ponies and griffins and such. They are mostly okay with being cared for by ponies in exchange for milk and labor. When a cow dies, it is not uncommon for the family to 'donate the body to the farm'. A result of this system is that beef is much more expensive then pork or chicken.