The Foal Six

by blayzekohime

Rating: everyone
Tags: My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Other, Slice of Life, Main 6
Length: 14992

Yet another Twilight spell mishap causes the mane 6 to each spend a day in the past as their old foal selves. Various shenanigans ensue.

Twilight borrows an idea from Time Turner to 'bring the past forward to you', creating a spell that in theory should allow one to see the past without taking part in or altering it. Due to Twilight's genius alterations made with too little sleep, it backfires and results in semi-actual time travel where each pony is sent back in time into their old foal bodies. Various shenanigans ensue with a chapter for each pony.

Cover art by mlplary6 on Deviantart and used with permission. See the animated version there.

Published 2023-03-26 01:10:01 UTC
Last updated 2023-04-15 15:33:50 UTC

Prolog

"Can we hurry this up?" asked Rainbow Dash. "I still have half a nap to finish." Despite her claim of needing rest, her wings were flapping wildly as if she might burst into a marathon at any moment.

"You literally just woke up, darling," Rarity said as she stared at her.

"Speaking of waking up," Pinkie blurted out. "Last night I had a weird dream where I gave Dashie a sleepy cupcake and-"

"What'cha call us here for, Twi?" Applejack asked as she casually put a hoof in Pinkie's muzzle to quieten her. "We're all ears!"

"I'm hoping it's fast too... um... not to be rude," Fluttershy admitted, then ducked slightly as soon as Twilight glanced in her direction. "It's just that Trixie has me taking care of her manticore this weekend, and I'm trying to find food it can eat without asking for volunteers from my other animal friends... or pony friends."

The group currently sat around the large map table, as they often did. Twilight was in the largest seat at the front of the table, with Spike curled up on his seat next to her, already napping and hugging a Rarity plush as he did. It would have been cute if Rarity didn't keep glancing at him as if it creeped her out.

"Oh this won't take too long," Twilight was confident. "I just had to show you this new spell I figured out! Oddly enough, Time Turner helped me make it."

"An earth pony helped you make a spell?" Applejack head-tilted. Nopony else said anything because if a non-earth said that, it might sound racist, and Pinkie's muzzle was still full of Applejack's hoof as a precautionary measure.

Twilight explained. "Well he had this idea that instead of traveling back in time, we could bring time forward to us! I've expanded this idea until I believe I can create a temporal window to show us the past without interfering! I've made various improvements, so it should be very detailed, as if we were actually watching it in real time. Their time, obviously. If successful, it could be a boon to historians. What better way to settle debates over how past events occurred?"

"Doesn't that sound a little risky?" Fluttershy asked, her voice pitching up to a squeak at the end of the sentence.

"Like more than usual," said Rainbow, but had her head still on the table. "Like Starlight-using-time-travel levels of risky."

"Is that why you didn't invite Starlight?" asked Pinkie after extracting Applejack's hoof form her muzzle.

"You have 'tested' this spell, right Twilight?" Rarity asked, a slight quiver in her voice.

"Oh I just came up with it last night," Twilight said. "So I guess this is the test! But no worries, I'm quite confident that there shouldn't be any side-effects, paradoxes, or alternate realities created. Anyway, this isn't a big event, so even if it were slightly altered, the elasticity of time should ensure no big changes happen. And it will be super cute!"

"Aw," said Fluttershy, immediately convinced with the promise of cuteness. "Maybe a peek won't hurt."

"That's right!" Twilight continued before anypony else interrupted. "We're going to go see my first birthday party!"

"That sounds fun!" Pinkie blurted out, seeming to assist Twilight in cutting off complaints from the others. "And no worries, even if you destroy time in this story, it won't affect the canon timeline!" It worked to silence the others, as they took a moment to stare at Pinkie's nonsense.

Since they did look a bit nervous though, Twilight figured she would just go ahead and cast it so they'd feel better when they saw the flawlessly adorable result. As she concentrated, the time portal opened above the table so that they could look upwards into it. They all did so, at least aside form her loyal but sleeping assistant Spike.

Opening the portal went well, as did connecting to the proper time as an image slowly formed inside the portal. However, when Twilight attempted to put her own spin on it by projecting them ethereally into the scene so they could invisibly observe in person, things went less well.

In a flash, Twilight found herself in another place, in a much tinier and very non-ethereal body.

1. Twilight Sparkle

Maybe getting her mind smushed into an immature brain affected her, because for a moment Twilight had no idea why she was there. Her tiny body was sitting in a high chair, wearing a purple onesie decorated in little blue stars. As she wiggled in confusion, she heard the soft crinkle of the diaper beneath her onesie, the soft padding lifting her tiny body off her chair and making her wobble more.

Thankfully, the high chair had a tray locked around the front that kept her from wobbling onto the floor. The chair sat in front of a rather massive dinner table. Or maybe it wasn’t massive and she was just smaller than usual. Either way, there was a purple-frosted cake with a single candle on top in the middle.

Her mother and father were sitting on either side of her, with bright smiles on their faces and looking somewhat younger too. Shining Armor was on the other side of the table, himself rather small since he was around 3 at the time. Their mother was just intercepting the toddler colt’s attempt to grab at the delicious looking cake, moving it further away from his side.

Twilight slowly blinked as the spell-casting came back to her, and looked around to see if her friends were nearby. They weren’t, at least that she could see, though it wasn’t out of the question that only she was pulled in and they were watching. She at least hoped so; if it wasn’t that, they might be in their own bodies, wherever they were at this moment. What would that even mean for Spike? Dragon eggs could incubate for a long time, and she wasn’t sure when his egg had been laid.

“Aw, she looks so confused,” said Dad in a sweet voice as he telekinetically pinched her cheek, bringing her back to the moment.

“Think she can blow the candle out?” Mom asked curiously. “I guess we can help our little munchkin.”

“Just don’t put the candle within her reach,” Dad chuckled awkwardly. “Remember Shining tried to eat his first candle flame-first.”

As if on cue, Shining crawled up onto the table and grabbed for the candle. Dad quickly intercepted him and put him back into his seat with telekinesis, barely even having to look at him as if doing it by habit. Shining folded his front legs and scrunched up his face in annoyance as he sat back down.

“I want pretty fire…” Shining said dejectedly.

“It’ll burn you sweetie,” Mom said, her voice an octave higher than when she spoke to Dad. “You’ll hurt your widdle hoof.”

Twilight started to panic, but tried to think things through. Regardless of the spell doing something it shouldn’t, the effect was still temporary. That meant that she would eventually be pulled back to her own time safely, so she just had to make sure not to do anything that would seriously alter her timeline.

She’d theorized that time was rather elastic and should pop back into place as long as the changes were small, so that shouldn’t be an issue. She was more worried that her friends might be upset with her when she returned. Regardless, the most important thing was to be a convincing foal. She tried to remember how Flurry Heart acted… then quickly decided to definitely not act like that.

Mom moved the cake closer, eying Twilight as if carefully gauging how far she could reach on short notice, while Dad tightened up the tray on her high chair to make sure she couldn’t easily leap from it.

“You’re pretty quiet today,” Dad observed at Twilight.

Well of course she was quiet! She was still trying to remember what words a one-year-old could say without seeming suspicious!

“Madadama!” blurted out Twilight when she couldn’t decide whether to say ‘mama’ or ‘dada’, holding her front hooves up in a too-dramatic fashion. She then tried to deflect from the word salad with a near-screech. “Uh… uh… cakie!”

Her parents stared at her for a moment as she slowly put her hooves down. Did she do something weird already?

“Wow she’s… really excited about cake,” observed Mom, then smiled and reached over to pinch her cheek. “Aren’t you, you little angel.”

“Especially for having never tasted it,” Dad tapped his chin.

“Are you sure?” Mom said, peering at him, her voice taking a slightly accusative edge. “You didn’t give her cake when I wasn’t around, did you?”

“What? Of course not!” Dad said. While Twilight was relatively sure he was being honest, he really did say it in the most suspicious manner possible, complete with an awkward chuckle as he rubbed the back of his mane with a hoof.

Had she just gotten her parents into an argument? This was a disaster! Especially in Twilight’s mind, which rapidly magnified the insignificant disagreement until she fully believed it might put their marriage itself in danger. She had to do something!

“Waaaah!’ Twilight was sure her crying sounded fake, but it did the job of distracting her parents from their argument. It was surprisingly easy to produce tears as an infant, so at least it looked real.

“Oh no, did I raise my voice?” Dad worried, even though he definitely hadn’t.

“No be mean at sis!” Shining raised both front hooves as if trying to make a threatening pose and stuck his lower lip out. Apparently he was as defensive of her now as he could often be in the future.

“Aw, we didn’t mean to scare you sweetheart,” Mom reached over to ruffle her mane slightly, moving a napkin to dry her tears and rub her wet nose. “Come on, we’ll cut you your piece of cake… which I’m sure is your first piece!”

Okay, imagined crisis averted!

Twilight calmed quickly, which she then realized made the crying look more fake, but they didn’t seem to mind. Instead, they hurried to push the cake closer to her, just out of the reach of her tiny hooves. Twilight reached for it anyway, since that’s what she figured she should do, and it did look rather delicious.

“Happy birthday to you…” her parents began to sing, and Shining did his best to join in, even if he was adorably off key and more or less screaming the words.

Twilight instinctively tried to sing too, but all that came out was jabbering, as if her muzzle just wasn’t ready to make more than simple single words. That was probably best, but at least her parents thought it was cute; they had trouble not giggling at the end.

They all blew on the cake together, and Twilight tried to join in on that as well. Her little lungs produced a lot more air than she thought they would have, but she supposed that made sense since she needed them to make piercing cries to torment her parents. Still, it wasn’t enough to contribute, and her parents ultimately blew out the candle.

“Did you see that?” Mommy giggled. “She tried to help us blow out the candle!”

“That’s our little genius!” Daddy reached over and pinched her cheek again. “She gets that smarts from me, you know.” He was overselling it, but she appreciated the sentiment.

“Sure she gets it from you,” Mommy stuck out her tongue at him. “Says the colt that used to beg me to let him copy my homework…”

“Which I think was a rather genius solution to not having done mine,” Daddy nodded proudly.

“Time to cakie!” Shining dutifully got them back on the very important topic at hoof.

“Oh, right,” Daddy said as he took the smoldering candle off the cake.

Their parents each cut the cake together, as if worried one foal might take offense to being the second one to get a slice. Shining’s horn sparked a little as if he was trying to help them, but toddlers couldn't do much unless they were having a freak magic surge, which he wasn't. So he resorted to smacking the table with his front hooves excitedly.

For Twilight though, they didn’t just hoof the slice over to her. Instead Mommy held it a bit away with her telekinesis, scooping up a tiny bite with a spoon and slowly moving it towards Twilight.

“Open wide!” Mommy smiled. “Here comes the choo-choo train!”

Train? In what way was this like a train? Twilight couldn’t help but pull the saying apart in her mind.

“Go aaaah,” Mommy simplified it for her overthinking.

“Aaaaah,” Twilight mimicked as she opened wide.

She expected it to be tasty, but her eyes widened when the sweet icing touched her tongue. The sweetness here tasted better than anything she’d had. Maybe it was the point of view of a brain that had never registered it before, but it was so heavenly that she shuddered and felt like she might go catatonic from bliss.

Mommy made the mistake of floating the plate a bit too close as Twilight was taking down the first bite, and Twilight grabbed for it. She snatched it with both sticky-hooves and pulled it closer. Unable to contain herself with the willpower available to her immature brain, Twilight dove her face into it and took a huge bite, her mind lighting up with the sweet flavor. She couldn’t stop!

“Um… oops,” Mommy chuckled awkwardly.

“Just let her go at it,” Daddy chuckled. “It’s her day after all.”

“I cakie first!” Shining squeaked, seeing this as a challenge and gulping down his slice within a few seconds, gagging enough to draw concerned glances from their parents, but seeming relatively okay..

By the time she came to her senses, Twilight realized she had more on her face than in it, and blushed brightly at the amused smiles of her parents. Mommy giggled as she gently cleaned off Twilight’s face with a cloth they had nearby for just such an emergency.

Twilight tried to eat more conservatively for the rest, and even got a little ice cream atop that. It was all delicious, though her tummy felt a little gurgly as Daddy lifted her from her high chair and walked back to her room with her.

They didn’t bother to actually wrap her gifts since it wasn’t like she could open them anyway. Instead, she was simply presented with a number of toys. They were mostly block games and things that made annoying sounds that they would probably regret giving to her, but one gift stood out among the rest.

Twilight’s eyes lit up when they presented her with the final gift, a gray plush pony in blue shorts with white polka-dots. It had stringy hair and button eyes and looked a bit cheap, but Twilight recognized it immediately.

“Smarty pants!” Twilight exclaimed, then immediately went silent realizing what she had done. She wasn’t sure how discernible that garbled attempt would be to her parents.

“Arty ants?” Daddy tilted his head as he put Smarty in the crib with her.

“I think it was just jabber,” Mommy giggled. “But it did kind of sound like Smarty Pants, and that’s a pretty good name since it comes with a little quill and notebook.”

“We’ll give her the small parts much later,” chuckled Daddy. “But sure, we’ll name it that.”

Twilight awkwardly grasped Smarty and pulled her close into a hug, eyes slightly wide at what she’d done. Still, helping her parents name her foalhood plush wasn’t the worst damage she could do to the timeline. It’d probably work itself out, but her brain couldn’t help but worry a little that she’d get back to the future to find an epic pony war for some convoluted reason.

Come to think of it though, this made her think maybe she should ask Big Mac to give it back to her in her time. He’d borrowed it for too long.

“Uh oh!” Mommy said, and Twilight looked up at them to see them holding their noses. Now why were they… oh. Oh no.

Maybe it was her excitement, or just the fact that babies have no control in that area, but Twilight hadn’t even noticed she did it. She hadn’t even remembered that she was wearing a diaper, though she wasn’t sure how since it was thick enough to raise her more than an inch off the floor of her crib. She flushed as she started to smell it too. Maybe that cake had done a number on her.

“I got it!” Daddy said, picking her up out of the crib and working her out of the cute little onesie she had on to get at her crinkly diaper.

“I’ll get a bedtime story to read to her,” Mommy said. It was then that Twilight noticed the small bookshelf on the table where Daddy lay her on her back.

She tried to politely ignore the grueling task that she’d accidentally allotted to her poor father. Instead she looked at the small bookshelf. It was mostly very basic foal’s books, though there were strangely a few more advanced books. Had they put them here for good luck hoping she’d end up smart? Maybe it worked.

Twilight squeaked out a sneeze from the baby powder that her father used on her, eliciting an synchronized ‘awwww’ from her parents, but tried to get a better look at the books. She locked onto one titled “Ancient Arcane Arithmetic”. A first edition copy of a book she’d been looking for forever! In fact, she’d tried to find it again recently for the benefit of the very spell that put her in this condition!

“Book!” Twilight shouted as loud as she could, tapping her tiny hoof frantically against that book.

Her parents stared at her, as perhaps that word had come out a lot clearer than the others. Not to mention she probably hadn’t demanded a particular book before.

“Her first words are often different than I expect…” Daddy commented as he wrapped up her tushie in a fresh diaper, then chuckled.

“Well, I guess it doesn’t matter since she won’t remember either,” Mommy put back the book she’d chosen, and pulled out the arcane book instead. “I’ll read some of this to our little genius.”

Twilight couldn’t have been more excited, even if they probably wouldn’t read enough to her for it to solve the issues with this spell. Still, her parents never threw away books, so they probably still had it lying around; to think a book she’d been searching for was available all this time at her foalhood home!

As she was put back in her crib, she started to feel sleepy immediately, and realized that she’d likely wake up in her future body. Still, she was sort of glad that her spell failed so spectacularly. Not only had she got to relive cute moments that she’d long forgotten, but she’d be able to search for the hidden book treasure at her parent’s house in the future.

As Mommy read the book to her, her young mind couldn’t quite process the information, but somehow it still felt soothing as Twilight drifted off to sleep.

2. Pinkie Pie

Pinkie’s excitement at being able to see Twilight as a cute little filly turned into confusion as, in a single blink, she was somewhere else. As her eyes slowly focused, she found herself in a dull-gray crib, padded with an overly-firm mattress patterned with different types of rocks. There were various-shaped plush rocks inside the crib with her, as well as a few actual rocks. The crib itself was in a room that looked suspiciously like her room back at the rock farm.

Wait, was she… living her own life as a foal instead of seeing Twilight? This would be super fun!

She didn’t see or hear her parents, so maybe they were out working on the farm or dealing with business. Seeing a window near the crib, Pinkie tried to stand up taller to see out of it, but her shaky hind legs couldn’t prop her high enough to look. Instead she fell onto her back, rolling on her crinkly diaper in the process. It was on pretty tight making it harder to move.

But when she fell, Pinkie realized there was a second squeak other than her own, and turned to see her twin sister Marble sitting on the other side of the crib, half of a plush rock in her muzzle as she kicked her hind hooves about randomly.

Overcome with cuteness, Pinkie squealed a high-pitched ‘eeeee’ as she rolled herself towards Marble, heedless as Marble's eyes got larger. She then struggled to sit up and pulled her into an awkward hug. Marble briefly seemed to panic, hugging her rock closer as if thinking that Pinkie had come to steal it, then creased her forehead in confusion when Pinkie just clung to her.

“Mm-hm?” Marble said, sounding like a question. It was hard to say since it was muffled by the toy she was slobbering on.

“I can’t believe how cute you are!” Pinkie started a tirade about this, but a few paragraphs in, she realized that for all her efforts, what was actually coming out of her muzzle was a salad of indiscernible syllables. Still, Marble seemed to listen attentively, shocked by the wisdom of her sister’s nonsense. It wasn't unlike how Marble sometimes listened to her in the present; maybe she hadn't grown as coherent as she gave herself credit for.

She needed something else to get Marble truly into the experience. Foals their age didn't remember much later, so Pinkie had to make things so amazing and/or weird that it engraved itself in Marble's memory forever! Pinkie looked around, then spotted a pile of rags probably meant for emergency spills. She reached through the bars of her prison, barely able to sticky-hoof two over to her, then carefully folded each into something almost resembling a party hat. It took quite a while because her wobbly front hooves wouldn’t always do exactly what she wanted.

It wasn’t easy to get it to stay atop her head with her younger straight-maned style, but Pinkie managed. She then put one onto sis as well, but Marble just looked shocked again. She got very still as if unsure of what the thing on her head might do if she moved too much, her eyes slowly crossing more the longer it was there. Pinkie realized that from Marble's point of view, Pinkie was probably acting strangely even by her standards, but that wasn't her fault. She didn't really remember exactly what she acted like back now herself!

“Mm-hm…” Marble said again, very slowly moving the plush rock up so it would defend her from the strange thing on her head. When it fell off her head, she briefly spasmed in panic, but when it just lay on the mattress instead of attacking her, she calmly put the rock down and stuck the party rag in her muzzle instead.

Well this was incredibly cute, but it was also super boring! Pinkie had to think of a way to spice things up.

“Give back Boulder,” a high-pitch monotone voice said as Pinkie heard the cloppity clop of hooves about to pass her room. The voice sounded calmly enraged.

“Help me Maud!” the very tiny voice of Boulder cried out, which only the Pies could hear for reasons too horrifying to attempt to understand. “Last time I was rocknapped, she tried to flush me!”

Her other sisters! Surely they were more communicative and would adore the makeshift party hats!

“Maud! Limestone!” Pinkie cried out, or at least tried her best to. Who even knew what they heard. “Come in here and join the party!”

But the toddlers weren’t listening. Limestone wobbled down the hall past the bedroom door carrying Boulder in her teeth with a genocide-level evil grin on her face, followed quickly by an equally wobbly Maud in hot pursuit, both looking like they might trip over their own hooves at any moment.

“Boulder dumb name!” Limestone called back as she went back out of sight. “Name is Tuff now!”

“I would end you if it would not leave me with more chores,” Maud casually threatened as she disappeared as well.

This was shortly followed by loud banging noises, sounding as if they’d gotten into a fight and were literally body slamming one another into furniture. It didn’t surprise Pinkie that they were somehow more adept at having sisterly fights than walking down a hall. For normal toddlers this might have been a concern, but they were pretty hefty even at this age. The bigger concern was boredom! That could be lethal if not treated!

“Come on sisters!” Pinkie tried to call. “Come to my room instead! If Mom finds out you were fighting to the death she’ll make you sit in the comfy chair or poke you with the soft cushions!”

Pinkie shuddered at the mere thought of those punishments. Then again… at least getting in trouble would draw the attention of her parents and she’d get to see them. Actually that was an okay idea.

But what could she really do in this weak body that seemed to lack many of her physics-defying abilities that she enjoyed in her everyday life? Her first attempt was to find the biggest non-plush rock in the crib and throw it at her bedroom window, but it bounced off harmlessly. Unfortunately, she was not currently in an action movie or any other type of fiction where windows shattered violently if you so much as looked at them funny.

She wondered if this was how bored Pound and Pumpkin got when she made them stay in their crib, and had a new understanding for their plight. Finally, she decided the only choice was escape!

Pinkie grabbed Marble, who squeaked quietly as Pinkie rolled her to the edge of the crib, then propped her up against the side. Pinkie paused to pat Marble’s head and kiss her cheek.

“I’ll be back with more fun, I promise!” Pinkie attempted to say to Marble as she blinked and blushed at Pinkie. Marble probably wouldn’t have understood even if the words hadn’t come out as jabbers.

Pinkie then casually stepped up atop Marble’s head, making her little twinster squeak louder, but succeeding in pushing herself high enough to get over the railings and plonk on the floor. Luckily for her, she hit the floor diaper first, so the soft padding broke her fall. Actually it was a slightly squishier than she’d realized padding that broke her fall, but what did she care? She had to keep her priorities in order!

Still, she felt like she might cry on instinct after falling. This sure was a lot of trouble. If only she had some way to just call her… oh right! Foals could cry annoyingly loud; it was practically their job, so that’s just what she should do! She somehow forgot that.

She breathed in as much air as she could, opened her muzzle wide, and squalled. The cry turned into a shriek as it was louder than she expected, and she quickly covered her ears. Still, she continued taking in another breath and wailing out again while keeping her ears covered.

Marble, who up to that point had just been looking at her outside the crib with a scrunchy face, began to cry too now that her sister was crying. The wail sounded suspiciously like a very loud ‘mm-hm’, at least from what Pinkie could hear over her own cry. She felt a little bad for making her twinster cry.

Though the first to arrive wasn’t her parents, but her sister Maud, who apparently abandoned her fight to the death with Limestone as soon as she heard her younger sisters wailing. She was so fast that Pinkie barely saw her coming in the door; she was just suddenly in front of Pinkie in a battle stance like she was ready to fight whatever had made the twins cry. She looked around the room to ensure there were no villains, then slowly calmed herself.

“Hey!” Limestone staggered in the door next, worse for wear after the fight but not permanently damaged. “I gave you back dumb rock. Didn’t have to keep breaking things on me… what happen?”

“Marble body slam Pinkie out of crib,” Maud deduced in her squeaky yet monotone voice.

“Always quiet ones,” Limestone nodded as her eyes widened a fraction. “Like Nana Pinkie said.”

Pinkie immediately forgot she should be crying now that her other sisters were here, flopping forward to glomp Maud into a hug. Maud was like an immovable rock, but did raise one hoof to pat Pinkie when she was hugged. Pinkie reached for Limestone to invite her into the hug too, but Limestone took a step back as if she thought it might be an assassination attempt.

Marble was just sniffling to a stop too when the parents arrived. They were both huffing and puffing, so were probably in the field when they heard the crying via their sense of parental annoyance.

“What is going on hither?” Daddy asked, seeing Pinkie out of the crib hugging Maud.

“We toldeth thee not to taketh thy sisters from the crib,” Mommy added, shaking her head in disappointment at Maud.

“We no do,” Maud said. “Marble throw Pinkie out.” Both untrue and no more believable than the truth; this could be a problem.

“We busy fighting!” Limestone pointed out, then back-tracked when she realized that might be worse. “Cuddling! Busy cuddling! Happy time!”

“Art thee falsing to us?” Daddy peered down at Maud. “Doth not maketh us bringeth out the comfy chair.”

It was a good thing they had school and Nana Pinkie’s influence, or the Pie sisters would have never learned to speak proper modern Equestrian.

“You tricky!” Limestone pointed at Marble angrily. “I yeet off cliff!”

“Limemina Diane Pie!” Mommy gasped. “What has’t we toldeth thee about threatening to murder family?”

“Tis very impolite,” Daddy agreed.

Marble wouldn’t know what Limestone said, but saw a pointed hoof and an angry face, so broke into tears again, hiding behind a giant rock in self defense, one of the real rocks in the crib that were there for reasons.

Oh no, Pinkie had messed up! She’d gotten most of her sisters in trouble and no one knew what actually happened! Worse, she couldn’t tell them what happened because of her stupid non-verbal muzzle. She only had one horrible, terrible trick up her figurative sleeve, one she only used in the direst emergencies! Fake a medical emergency!

Or maybe she just thought it up on the spot? It was hard to tell. Pinkie usually didn't think much before acting. That way she got to be just as surprised as everypony else.

Either way, she stumbled across the room, ran headlong into a standing lamp, then dramatically pulled it atop her as she fell onto her back, choking and squirming. It probably wouldn't have been a believable act as an adult, but no one expected foal to fake an injury before they could even say 'I'm injured!'.

"Goodness!" Mommy exclaimed, rushing to her side and moving the lamp from atop her. "Art thee hurt?"

"Our daughter art crazed," Daddy said, but did also move to make sure she was okay. "Tis no wonder she was thrown out." It seemed he was in a better enough mood to make a joke, so things were moving in the right direction!

"She gets it from thy mother," Mommy managed a smirk at Daddy once she confirmed that Pinkie was indeed not dying.

"Nana Pinkie fun," Maud said after also checking to be sure Pinkie wasn't dying.

"Nana Pinkie cray-cray!" Limestone countered, and within seconds they were chasing each other down the hall again screaming back and forth.

Fortunately neither parent followed them, so it seemed that the distracted had successfully shorted out the argument! Pinkie would have to look for more opportunities in the future to have fake or even real medical emergencies. That was fun!

Nothing was said about the squishiness of Pinkie's diaper, though the parents seemed to automatically communicate the situation since Daddy went to the drawers to get a fresh diaper and powder, while Mommy took Pinkie to the changing station. Pinkie let them without complaint, since all the excitement had her a little tuckered out. Her young body didn't have the energy reserves her older body did; probably due to a lack of candy at the rock farm. Sad.

"Be-est respectful of thy grandmother!" Daddy called to Limestone, but didn't make any serious attempt to stop them as crashes came from the next room again. Instead he looked to Mommy and chuckled. "Tis good that mine mother is pink, or thee might has't been accused of..."

Thankfully, Mommy cut him off with a soft smack to the head as he arrived with the diapers. She tossed the used one in the trash nearby and began to clean Pinkie up with a cloth front-to-back, an always unpleasant task for an earth pony, but one done without complaint.

"Speaking of our children," Mommy said from around the cloth in her muzzle. "What doth thee bethink about having ano-"

"No," Daddy said, sounding more serious than Pinkie had ever heard him, and that was a feat.

"But we doth not yet has't a son," Mommy said as she pampered Pinkie with baby powder that may as well have been tiny rocks.

"Maud and Limestone square like colts," Daddy countered. "Yond is good enow f'r me."

Pinkie briefly panicked that she might have changed the timeline and created another sibling, which would get her in trouble with Twilight, then realized it was a false alarm. Then she promptly panicked again, realizing that she might have just missed a chance to have a cute little brother! Oh well, it'd have to be this way. Sticking a brother into the show for too little reason wouldn't make sense, now would it?

At the very least, the brief spout of panic distracted her from the embarrassment of getting her diaper changed by poor earth ponies that had to use their mouths for everything.

She didn't realize how awful the wet diaper had felt until she had the fresh one snug around her body and was placed back into the crib. Getting sleepier now, Pinkie rolled back over to Marble, giving her twinster a soft hug. Marble jerked a bit at first wondering what Pinkie might do now, but relaxed after a few seconds and hugged awkwardly in return.

As the two fell asleep together, Pinkie had to admit she wouldn't mind doing this all over again, but she figured Twilight wouldn't have messed up that badly. She'd certainly wake up in her old newer body.

3. Fluttershy

Fluttershy was happy at the prospect of getting to see a little cutie, but unexpectedly being a little cutie instead caught her off guard. But what really frightened her is that she felt like she was falling and saw the ground rushing up towards her. She completely freaked out, squealing and kicking her legs about in the process.

"Ow!" a familiar stallion’s voice said as Fluttershy felt her spasming legs thump against another pony.

It turned out that she wasn't falling, but landing. She was strapped into a bundle atop her father, head sticking out the front but mostly pressed closely to Daddy’s back. Unfortunately that meant her panicked kicking had given him a few sharp kicks in the spine with her tiny foal hooves. Her father landed in the grass, and immediately arched his back.

Her mother landed next to him, looking over with concern. Notably, Mommy as a lot thicker in the gut than Fluttershy was used to seeing. She actually looked… pregnant? Wait…

Had the spell gone wrong? She was in her own body as a foal, back when her mother was still pregnant with her little brother Zephyr. Goodness, it was a good thing she hadn’t kicked her mother.

“What’s a matter, sweetheart?” asked Daddy gently, then added with a shy chuckle to Mommy. “Goodness, now I know how you feel with one kicking around in there.” From another dad, it might have seemed insensitive, but he was just… awkward.

“Maybe a little,” Mommy said. Similarly, another mom might have been annoyed at his comment or at least corrected him, but they were both as shy as they were awkward.

Under normal circumstances, this alone would have calmed Fluttershy, but the thoughts of all the things that could have went wrong with the spell were filling her mind, and not understanding at all how the spell worked only gave her more potential scenarios. She was petrified by what might have happened to her friends and started sniffling as tears welled up in her eyes.

“Oh, did I make you cry?” Daddy seemed equally petrified by that. He tugged the tiny filly out of the pouch on his back. She was dressed in a bunny onesie complete with a bunny-eared hood and little paws around her hooves. It bulged out at her behind due to her diaper, the effect made even more so by the rest of her body being so lanky. Despite being overwarmed for the fairly cool weather, she shivered as Daddy pulled her into a hug.

“Oh no, it was probably my fault,” Mommy appeared equally worried, moving to share in the hug. She pushed a tiny pink plush bunny to Fluttershy's hooves in an attempt to comfort her.

Had Fluttershy stayed agitated, they might have had a reverse ‘No it was my fault’ argument on the spot, but Fluttershy took a deep breath and managed to get a hold of herself. Surely even if it weren't temporary, even Twilight in a foal's body could fix it eventually. Really the worst case scenario was Fluttershy getting a vacation from the stress of constantly caring for other creatures... or a long one if Twilight didn't figure it out and they had to take the slow path back to where they were. Maybe she should just relax and enjoy it, saving her panic for if she was still here in a few days.

It helped to see her parents as a happy young couple, even if they had trouble communicating it even with one another. And she finally got a chance to look around to see where they were.

With Cloudsdale anchored above them, they were visiting a park on the ground. Much like the cute bunny onesie and plush, it wasn't something that Fluttershy remembered from her foalhood, so it was much like a new experience. The park was surrounded by trees, making it seem almost secluded despite the crowds of ponies wandering through its grounds. A small lake lay beyond some large boulders near the edge of the forest, several ponies sitting at the edge.

"Oh goodness," Daddy said, flushing slightly. "I didn't realize so many ponies would be here."

"I didn't either," Mommy said, ears slightly flattened and ducking back as both parents seemed to try to hide behind the other. "Though I guess we should have known... again." It was true that most ponies there were pegasai, so it was probably predictable given it was visiting overhead.

"Well, to be fair, we haven't been here in some time," Daddy patted her shoulder, then both parents moved to snuggle Fluttershy again. He put her back in the pouch on his back so that she could drape her lanky body over him comfortably, making sure to strap her down so she wouldn't fall off.

Fluttershy might could have spoken a few words or at least jabbered, but she didn't even think to try. Instead, she looked around with fascination at the park as her parents walked through it with her. She put one cloth covered hoof in her muzzle without thinking, gnawing softly at it as she watched trees and flowers go by. It filled her with a feeling of fascination that felt new to her, as if it were the first time she'd ever seen so much of this. The brilliant colors and fragrances were so lovely that she forgot to be shy in the crowded park.

She hugged her bunny closer, smiling despite herself as she took a deep breath and relaxed. Their walk was slow, slowing down for Mommy's pregnancy even though it didn't seem advanced enough to slow them down too much.

"Ah look," Daddy said as they approached a large water fountain near the center of the park. "That celloist... what was her name? She still plays here."

"Ophelia," Mommy completed the idea for him. "Her little filly Octavia was newborn last we saw her."

Fluttershy looked towards the fountain to see an earth pony with a goldish gray coat and darker gray mane playing a cello as her own similarly colored filly sat nearby watching with fascination. The filly was out of diapers, probably a year older than Fluttershy, but still very cute of course. Several other ponies were watching her play, but something else caught Fluttershy's attention.

There were several dancing squirrels cavorting along the edge of the fountain, joined by a bunny and a turtle sitting on the ground nearby and looking up as the bunny rocked back and forth slowly to the music. It was a beautiful scene that Fluttershy was glad to revisit, since she'd long forgotten everything from this age, and it almost seemed like a few of the animals were glancing in her direction an awful lot. Fluttershy had to wonder if trips to places like this as a foal, that she didn't even properly remember, had shaped her later love for animals and made it easier to connect with that as her special talent.

"Should we say hello?" whispered Mommy. "Oh but I don't want to bother her..."

"And little Octavia seems so interested in the music," Daddy said, unconsciously helping Mommy come up with reasons not to interact socially. "Our little Fluttershy is a bit shy anyway."

Fluttershy glanced over at their conversation, and was tempted to attempt to motion that she wanted to meet the younger version of her friend Octavia, but it seemed her own social anxiety kept her from wanting to do so too. Perhaps her younger body wasn't equipped with what little assertiveness Fluttershy managed to develop in the future.

A little rumble from her tiny tummy brought Fluttershy away from the thoughts, and she realized she was rather hungry. It seemed as if her parents had noticed as well.

"Oh is that a little rumble I hear?" Daddy said, perhaps happy to find a reason to avoid the social interaction.

"We better go over to a corner and give her a feeding," said Mommy in almost a whisper as she stepped over to the other side of the fountain towards a cluster of trees on the other side.

The benches were all on this side, so there weren't any ponies there presently, but they'd still be able to hear the music as Ophelia started another song. Daddy managed to shyly slip some bits into the donation box Ophelia had nearby before following Mommy, and must have really liked the music to muster up the courage to do so. He blushed intensely as Ophelia smiled and nodded in thanks, catching up to Mommy near the stumps of the tree.

Fluttershy was a bit confused at what they were moving around for at first, but was still enjoying the music so wasn't too worried. Mommy lay on her side, then Daddy hoofed her over to Mommy. Fluttershy's hoof was gently tugged from her mouth and her face was put inches from Mommy's swollen teat, snuggled up against the enlarged belly containing Zephyr.

The little filly was mortified. She'd seen ponies nurse in parks or in public for sure, and it wasn't like Equestria had any sort of nudity taboo, but it was quite another thing to be the one that was nursing. A normal filly might not care, but Fluttershy was an adult mind full of all sorts of meaningless hangups and awkwardness, and couldn't even move when she realized what she was expected to do in at least partial view of a large crowd.

"You're doing fine," Daddy said quietly, patting her head and ruffling her mane slightly. "Just suckle normally."

He held Fluttershy's head firmly between his forelegs, supporting her neck so she could keep suckling. It was a kind gesture that he no doubt did from the goodness of his heart, but to Fluttershy's current brain it felt like she was being restrained. Fortunately he didn't push her forward though and creased his forehead a bit in concentration as if trying to help her along.

"Are you okay sweetie?" Mommy asked gently. "You were suckling on your little hoof and your tiny tummy was growly, so you must be hungry."

"Is she... embarrassed?" Daddy tilted his head in confusion.

"Don't be silly," giggled Mommy. "She doesn't know to be embarrassed yet... though it is a bit awkward for me."

"Oh there's no need to be shy," Daddy said despite being just as shy as Mommy. "I mean most parents don't even step aside to nurse."

Mommy chuckled at that and shook her head. "They usually are a bit less discreet about it, yes, but I'm sure you can understand why we're a bit shy ourselves."

Actually even Fluttershy didn't understand why she or they were shy other than maybe they just lost the genetic lottery. Now that she thought about it, it was a wonder that they two managed to get married and then have two foals.

Unfortunately the distraction allowed her head to be pushed forward and pushed her muzzle against the teat, and at that point her body reacted on its own suckling. It didn't taste bad, for sure, but she still felt her whole body warm with her blushing. Had she not been wearing a bunny onesie that hid most of her body, her parents might have been concerned for her health at that point.

She finally sighed and relaxed, giving in as her parents gently hugged her between them to keep her steady and make sure she was okay even now, and it was very touching. The smiled at her, then glanced at the crowd to make sure nopony was looking before gently putting their noses together and nuzzling. Goodness with their shyness that was outright scandalous.

Fluttershy knew that her parents loved each other dearly, but it was nice to see them express their affection in such a way. All the same, the moment they allowed her some leeway to see if she was still hungry, she pulled her head away, swallowing the last bit and taking a deep breath as she looked back at the ground.

"There you go," Mommy said, seeing she got her fill and very carefully placing her into the carrier on Daddy's back again, strapping her in.

"Seems a lot of ponies are clearing out," Daddy mentioned. "We should get back up to Cloudsdale soon before night falls. I don't want to have to fly in the dark with our little ones."

"We can go after this song then," agreed Mommy.

Fluttershy tensed every muscle in her body at the realization they were going to fly with her again. As silly as it was, the tiny pegasus still didn’t adore flying even as an adult, and as a baby she was sure it would feel more like a roller coaster ride than actual flying. She had a brief moment where she had to restrain herself from kicking her poor father again.

Fortunately for her, the nursing had made her sleepy, and the soft somber music played by Ophelia didn't help her stay awake. By the end of the song, she was already dozing off, and went from fretting the fly back to wondering if she would wake up in a crib or back at the map table.

4. Applejack

Applejack tended to be the sane one reacting to others' insanity, save for on the rare occasion where all roles were reversed. Because of this, she was both the most suspicious going into the experiment and the least surprised when something went wrong. At the same time, she was also willing to roll with the situation, figuring that even if Twilight couldn't fix it, someone would notice the time portal over the map table and have Celestia fix it.

Much like Pinkie, she awoke in a crib, though in a different situation. The crib was in the back of a wagon, as if she'd been taken out to the orchard so her parents could work and watch her at the same time. She assumed this was one of those times that Granny was away, and gods forbid her parents actually stop working to watch a foal; no they'd just take the foals with them and do both at once. They even had Big Macintosh out here with them, though he was toddling around their hooves. Her younger sister Apple Bloom was not yet born, so it was just the two of them.

The effect of her mind being shoved into a foal's body was so abrupt that it took her a moment for the full implications to dawn on her. She had been so young when her parents died that she had no memory of seeing them outside of photos, but now she was with them in the flesh! There was no telling how long the spell would keep malfunctioning, so she had to get their attention fast and spend some quality time with them before it was too late!

Of course her first instinct was to just shout at them. She struggled to her feet, wobbling over to the edge of the crib, and smacked into the side softly as she didn't quite have as much control over her legs as she'd like. She struggled to prop herself on the edge, her tightly wrapped cloth diaper causing her difficulty by keeping her hind legs awkwardly spread, and she bellowed at them.

"Momma! Dadda!"

Or she tried to, at least. What actually came out was a syllable salad that didn't have a single sound in common with what she wanted to say, as if moving her muzzle to talk was suddenly an impossible task, and her vocal cords cut in and out like a busted microphone. Dagnabbit! She couldn't talk yet! All she could do is jabber incoherently in their general direction.

Mommy and Daddy glanced back from their tree-kicking duties and smiled when she made noise, but didn't seem to think too much of it.

"She already sounds like she's really tryin' to talk," Mommy giggled.

"It's no wonder, she takes after tha smartest mare I know," Daddy smiled, walking past Mommy and swishing his tail to smack her behind before moving to the next tree.

"Oh you," Mommy laughed and turned back to her own work.

As arguably adorable as it was, this wouldn't work at all. She wanted to get them to come over to her, but at the same time she didn't want to be bratty about it. Applejack tried to think of a legitimate excuse to cry that wouldn't seem too dramatic, which probably made her bad at being a foal.

She flopped back onto the soft mattress in her crib, grabbing hold of a large plush apple and promptly throwing it over the edge of the crib, out of the wagon, and onto the ground. Perfect! Not only would crying because of the dropped plush not seem unreasonable, it'd be really cute too!

She decided to work up to it, so started to whimper quietly, trying to think of all the saddest things she could think of to get herself to cry, like losing friends, having to leave home, and being forced to eat non-apples. That seemed to bring tears to her eyes, but before she could work up to something that would be audible to her parents, her plans were foiled by none other than her big brother.

Big Macintosh spotted the plushie fall, and immediately toddled over to it. He dutifully picked it up, an extremely proud smile on his face as he did, and managed to toss it back into the crib from the ground.

"Mac protec lil' sis!" he said before toddling off to look at something else.

Dagnabbit times two! Of all times to do so, why did he have to be such a weird big brother! A normal brother would have grabbed it and ran off to play with it himself, possibly in spite of her, only working into her plan. She had never been more frustrated by how implausibly decent her family was!

What's more, she was starting to feel the slightest pressure in her tummy, and realized that she probably needed to use her diaper. On one hoof, this would be a very convenient way to get her parents' attention and a legit reason to cry. But on the other hoof... it was uncouth even by Applejack's very low standards. She might be in a foal's body but she had her own mind and couldn't imagine ever humiliating herself like that.

Unfortunately for Applejack, her long thought train about avoiding humiliation far exceeded her physical self-control, and she felt warmth in her diaper before she even finished thinking about it. The accident was so abrupt that it was almost like it teleported into her diaper. The crying that followed was just as unstoppable, bursting out like a dam bursting before she could consider how to go about it.

As uncomfortable as it was to not have her normal emotional control, the squalling worked alarmingly well. So well that as her parents rushed over, she had to put her forehooves over her own ears because of her loud squalling that she couldn’t stop.

“Oh you poor dear,” Mommy’s said, though AJ couldn’t see much through her own sudden flood of tears. It was a little shocking to her to find she ever had this level of emotional output.

“Are you hurt?” Daddy asked. “Oh, I think she made a mess. I’ll take care of it.”

“No I’m fairly sure you took care of it last time, I’ll take care of it,” said Mommy.

“Oh but I don’t mind…”

Her parents went back and forth for a bit more before Applejack was finally lifted out of the crib and placed on a small table also in the cart, so at least they were prepared when they took her with them to work. It took her a few moments to dry her eyes enough to see it was Mommy, though it seemed they had compromised by putting Daddy on make-silly-fakes-at-the-foal duty.

It was attention of a sort, so she’d definitely take it over nothing, but still not the sort of bonding she had been hoping for. Applejack attempted to complain as her diaper was removed, only to find herself giggling uncontrollably at Daddy sticking his tongue out at her. It seemed her lack of emotional control was going to make this a challenge in more ways than one.

She absolutely hated having to be cleaned like this. It might end up being her most mortifying memory as an adult since she mercifully forgot it the first time around. For a mercy, her current brain somehow didn’t share this opinion and she continued to spend most of the time laughing and squeaking at Daddy’s ridiculous faces.

By the time she got herself to stop giggling, she had already been wiped down and powdered up with Mom using suspiciously pear-scented baby powder. To her dismay, her parents immediately placed her back in the crib and left her there again, pulling Mac in the back of the wagon two and moving to pull this and another cart full of harvested apples back towards the barns.

At this point she was too frustrated to even try to contain her emotions, and was worrying that she’d never get in a proper cuddle with her parents while she still could, so flopped down in her crib and immediately started wailing again. She would definitely never think of crying babies as annoying anymore now that she knew what they felt like.

A series of ‘aws’ later, Daddy picked her up again, carrying her around to where he was pulling the cart. With some kind of supernatural balance, he carried her with one front leg, holding a bottle in the other front leg as he walked on his hind legs to pull the cart.

Having the bottle shoved into her muzzle was more annoying than not, but did make it rather impossible to cry as she instinctively started suckling on the mixture within. She suspected it was actual breast milk rather than formula, and that her parents were just efficient enough to have some already on hoof so Mom wouldn’t have to stop what she was doing to nurse. Dagnabbit their efficiency!

Granted being nursed or bottled wasn’t the sort of cuddles that she wanted still, and mostly just embarrassed her. Applejack could do nothing but quietly suckle as she blushed bright red from nose to all four hooves. She simultaneously wanted better cuddles while also not wanting to be pampered or treated like what she was.

In the end, it seemed Applejack’s efforts just caused them to take longer to get back home, not that Mommy or Daddy complained. Of course that just made her feel worse, but she still wanted her cuddle! This wasn’t a chance that she’d ever get again so her distress was at least a bit justified.

It seemed like forever before they got home, where she hoped that she’d get some attention that didn’t involve pampering or cleaning up after her. Her father took a moment to pat her back after the bottle feeding, resulting in a loud belch that definitely shouldn’t have come out of any creature her size, then she was summarily placed back in a crib, this time in her and Mac’s foalhood room.

Mommy and Daddy ran off hurriedly, and Applejack assumed it was to get the apples they just harvested into the proper storage location for processing or packaging, minus the ones that would serve as most of their own meals. Mac followed them right at their ankles in an attempt to help them in a likely counter-productive way, but AJ was stuck here without the ability to even try.

Worse, the bottle feeding had made her sleepy, but she didn’t want to go to sleep yet. For all she knew, going to sleep would end the experience and send her back to her own time. She leaned against the crib bars again, standing herself up on her hind legs, trying to hold her eyes open the best she could with her hooves at the same time.

She must have looked even sillier than Daddy when he was making faces, because the next time Mommy passed her room, she broke out into laughter after one glance into the room to check on her. AJ was again mortified but kept doing it if it got her any amount of parental attention.

She heard more hoofsteps, Daddy moving to the room door to see what Mommy was laughing at. As he did, Mac came behind him, running face first into a hind leg when Daddy suddenly stopped laughing. Daddy did his best not to join in, but soon snorted and started to snicker as well.

“What in Equestria is she doing?” laughed Daddy.

“I can’t even begin to imagine,” Mommy said, trying to stifle her own laughing. “I’ve never seen her do that before.”

Mommy turned to give Daddy a quick kiss on the cheek, then headed into the room as if to get a closer look. Daddy followed her after returning the kiss, while Mac toddled over to a toybox in the corner and started awkwardly tossing some wooden blocks from it onto the floor nearby. AJ supposed it made sense that he liked to build things even back now.

“What ya doin’ sweet Apple?” Mommy asked when she got closer and AJ continued with the display, unsure of what else to do as tired as she was getting.

“Is she… trying to stay awake?” Daddy seemed to get the idea.

“But why?” chuckled Mommy.

Honestly, even if it wasn’t cuddles, it felt good just to hear their voices talking to each other about her. She’d long forgotten what their voices sounded like, as she barely even remembered them at all.

“Maybe she just wants some attention before naptime?” mercifully, Daddy got more of the idea.

“Aw you poor thing,” Mommy said. “We’ve been so busy with the harvest lately, haven’t we?”

Mommy reached in to lift her out of the crib again, placing her on her back and holding her there. As Mac seemed happy with his building blocks in the corner, they left him to it and walked her out of the bedroom and into the living room instead.

They sat on the couch together, snugged right up against one another, and then Applejack was placed between them, their warmth covering her as their dusty but soft coats cradled her between them.

“There, there, we’re here now,” Mommy told her sweetly.

“We may get busy, but we never forget you,” Daddy added.

As each moved a hoof to stroke her mane, Applejack couldn’t have been happier. It had gone from the most awkward moment in her life to the happiest she’d ever felt, cuddled between the parents that she missed so much despite having remembered almost nothing about them. She took a deep breath, pure bliss spreading through her as she settled down and finally allowed her eyes to close.

This was what she had been wanting: a tender moment with her parents that had been lacking from her adult memory. She could feel the warmth of their love as they cuddled her between them.

As happy as she ever had been and likely ever would be, AJ finally drifted off into a sweet sleep between them.

5. Rainbow Dash

Rainbow, similar to others, suddenly found herself in a crib in her foalhood bedroom, and it took her a moment to figure out exactly what had happened. Even at this age, her room appeared to be full of trophies, though at this point they were all awards that her parents had made up instead of actual achievements. The entire room was also decked out in Wonderbolts memorabilia, which couldn’t possibly be from Rainbow at this tender age, so her parents must have successfully conspired to get her interested in them.

Slowly her tinyfied mind ticked away at her situation. She looked at the crib around her, that looked far bigger from her perspective than it should be, the crib mobile above her with tiny Wonderbolts as decorations, so far up that she couldn’t quite tell which Wonderbolts they were. She felt the crinkle of the heavy but plush diaper against the equally plush mattress in her crib.

Then Rainbow gasped in realization. Unlike with others, there was no consideration about whether or not this would be resolved. In fact… she hoped it wasn’t! This was a grand opportunity to first take a nice long break from being an adult with responsibilities, and second to start training earlier in life, not to mention avoid a ton of mistakes and/or disasters that she caused. If she hadn’t caused quite so many, she might have been accepted into the Wonderbolts Academy sooner, and the more of a headstart she got the better. This was perfect!

Her wings fluttered with excitement, though the lift wasn’t even enough to raise her off the bed. This was a little frustrating, she had to admit, since she was accustomed to being able to go into frantic flying mode when especially excited. Instead the loop she instinctively attempted was just her flapping frantically and then falling forward onto her face.

Weren’t pegasus foals supposed to have weird surges of air magic where they could fly around? Rainbow was certain they did, but she sure didn’t know how to activate the strange power that annoyed pony parents everywhere. She wasn’t good at figuring these things out, and realized that she was no more likely to do so than to discover the secrets of Celestia’s eldritch mane, so quickly gave up on the idea. She’d just have to wait and hope for it to activate at random like such things usually did.

“Do I hear a wing flutter?!” an extremely excited voice called out, shortly before a younger version of her dad zipped into the room. Before she could react properly, he had lifted her out of the crib with both front hooves, holding her as high up as he could.

“That’s our talented little filly!’ Mommy was next to Daddy so swiftly that Rainbow could have sworn she just appeared there. She had some soap suds on her hooves, so maybe she had been washing the dishes and abandoned the task over the chance to cheer for her daughter.

A foal flapping their wings frantically was among the least amazing things a pegasus her age could do, but it didn’t surprise Rainbow that it set off her parents’ Rainbow-is-amazing sense, and they just had to rush in and encourage her. On top of that, it didn’t feel very embarrassing as it normally would have as an adult. It wasn’t nearly as bad when put into the context of her being a foal, not to mention there being no one else around to be embarrassed in front of. That was another great advantage of this; Rainbow could surely use a break from caring about things.

“Here we go!” Daddy suddenly exclaimed, balancing Rainbow precariously on one hoof and suddenly taking flight towards the room door. She came within an inch of getting smacked against the wall as they exited, but that didn’t stop her from writhing about happily and giggling for her Daddy.

As he zipped into the living room area and started flying circles around it, Rainbow was precariously balanced on the one hoof, rocking about and looking like she might fall off at any second. Though ponies did have a localized telekinetic field around their hooves so they could grasp things or manipulate small objects, it wasn’t exactly safe.

But did Rainbow care? Why would she? He probably did this constantly and she was fairly sure she hit her head minimal times during her foalhood, at least that she remembered. And she wouldn’t want to change time too much by not having a potentially dangerous foalhood via her well-meaning parents.

Mommy zipped into the living room as well, again so fast that she may as well have appeared out of nowhere, or maybe Rainbow’s young brain could only perceive so much movement. Either way, she had also managed to obtain pompoms and was now cheering for Rainbow as she shook them about.

Rainbow had forgotten how awesome it felt to be lavished with undeserved praise as a foal! She felt a little worse about resenting it later on, but if Twilight wasn’t able to fix this, she could always just make a different later-on where she didn’t do that! Or maybe she would remember as soon as they started acting like this in public places in front of other ponies, but right now it didn’t matter much. Rainbow was always a live-for-the-moment kind of filly.

Though Rainbow wasn’t the only one not currently thinking through the consequences of their actions. In his excitement to give his daughter the best zoomies ever, Dad clipped his wing on a lamp and tumbled head over hoof several times. Rainbow didn’t see where he landed or if he was okay, because she was too busy watching the nearby window get closer to her at an alarming speed.

It was a good thing that she was Rainbow Dash and not some normal pony, because any of her friends might have sustained some serious injury when going head first through a window. Then again, head injuries might explain some things about her future self. Either way, it sure didn’t feel good to shatter a window with her head, and it somehow felt worse to remember that her parents lived on the third floor of a building and that she wasn’t able to fly at the moment.

Rainbow shrieked as she looked at the ground, though it was more of an adorable squeak that she would by no means admit to later. Fortunately, the path to the cement sidewalk wasn’t without any softer obstacles, and she realized that there was a cloth awning covering the first floor windows and doorway.

Though even without that, she probably would have still started giggling the moment she found herself in freefall, her wings flapping about instinctively but pointlessly as she fell. As her parents panicked shouts grew quieter above her, she managed to keep herself above the cloth canopy and bounced on the top without further harm aside from the existing potential head trauma.

But at this point, she was excited and in acrobatic mode, with or without the ability to put much purpose into it. Rainbow gave her wings another few frantic flaps, giving herself just enough lift to bounce off the awning instead of settling atop it. She collided with a pegasus in mid-flight, getting batted up into the air with their wing as they spiraled to the ground with an unappreciative mmph.

The filly went spinning up and over the busy street, a chorus of screams and squeaks raining out as ponies tried to dodge her, many of whom were crashing into one another in the process. Any of her friends might have been worried at this point that she might be doing things that would actually affect the timeline, but Rainbow couldn’t care less. She was still working on the assumption that this new timeline was her permanent home and that the other one would probably be mostly okay maybe.

Luckily for Rainbow, her parents weren’t slowpokes by any means, and by the time she got to the sidewalk on the other side, she felt both Mommy and Daddy grab her from opposite sides… before colliding in the middle. Rainbow didn’t get much more than a rough cuddle in the impact, and the trio settled down onto the pavement with a dull thump, Rainbow atop her parents.

“A-amazing…” Mommy said, sounding dizzy but not seriously injured.

“Y-yeah, way to go…” Daddy added. “But dang, we had just fixed that window…”

“We really need to get some covers or something to protect them,” Mommy said, checking Rainbow to verify that she was no more injured than usual. “The insurance companies will really start asking questions if this keeps happening.”

“Yeah, sorry.” Daddy chuckled awkwardly.

“Uh… are you okay?” an unfamiliar voice asked, and Rainbow looked up to see a yellow pegasus mare that had stopped to check on them. Behind her, it looked like her cart was on its side on the ground with one wheel missing, though who even knew why flying pegasus carts had wheels anyway.

“Okay we’re great!” Daddy claimed.

“Yeah this isn’t even half as bad as last time,” Mommy nodded. “I don’t think anyone is going to need an ambulance or anything!”

“L-last time?” the mare asked unsurely, but then decided not to wait on an answer and moved back over towards her cart.

It looked like she was the only one that had been damaged enough to stop.

“Uh-oh!” Daddy chuckled suddenly, sniffing about Rainbow. “I think someone got a bit TOO excited. Why don’t I take care of this while you take the easier job of setting that poor mare’s cart upright?”

Daddy carried Rainbow, flying her back in through the now very open third-floor window, then pulling down the blinds upon entering as if that helped.

“Maybe we should see about getting a lower floor apartment,” Daddy mumbled to himself as he took her back towards her bedroom again.

He moved to lower one side of Rainbow’s crib to lay her down on the blanket, then lowered the crib’s mobile so she would have something to distract her during his grueling task. She got a better look at it this time, and could of course name all the Wonderbolts that appeared on it… including the one she no longer liked, Wind Rider.

It was an unfortunate addition to her toy, but she supposed it wasn’t unfortunate yet, so it’d have to do. Still, she tried to reach up to get a few good hoof punches onto that one, and Daddy chuckled.

“He’s your favorite, is he?” Daddy said, completely misunderstanding her actions as parents often did. He tossed her old diaper in the trash with one wing, fortunately having that alternative to using his mouth like poor earth ponies.

Rainbow didn’t mind being changed, because why would she mind someone else doing something for her? Maybe others might be self-conscious, but she understood that as a baby, she could basically do anything and the worst repercussions she’d get would be getting called cute or something. It was time to enjoy her new young life with no worries, especially now that she knew what was in store for her with not-young life.

Either way, Rainbow was exhausted after her time playing outside. She figured she just needed a nap to feel better though, rather than a hospital visit after going out a window. From what they said, it wasn’t the first time it happened and definitely wouldn’t be the last time she crashed into something.

Seeing she was too sleepy for any more play, Daddy finished putting on her fresh diaper and tucked her in beneath a soft blanket to let her doze off. He then put the side of her crib back up and continued out of her room to either do whatever he was doing before, or to go visit the insurance company about their broken window.

Rainbow yawned, happy with her new life. She slowly settled in and dozed off, but probably wasn’t prepared for the disappointment of it not being permanent.

6. Rarity

Rarity was looking forward to seeing the foals like everypony else, and not having to deal with them because foals were a little gross, no offense to foals. But of the whole group, it took her the longest to realize what had happened.

All she knew is that she was, with no warning, dressed in one of the tackiest getups that she’d ever had the displeasure of being in. She had on a frilly mauve and puke green tutu, bedazzled with far too many random stones, some of which weren’t even proper gems, as if it were made by some amateur fashionista that had just snorted powdered poison joke.

Her diaper was even worse, patterned in plaid with the same colors, but also decorated with the mascot of her Dad’s favorite sports team, the Manehattan Nematode. It was a worm crawling out of a muffin; only sports fanatics could choose such a gross mascot and think it was anything but offensive!

She realized that the mauve and green were the team colors. She had always hated how Dad had their house decked out in those colors when she was growing up and it had taken her forever to talk sense into him. If that wasn’t bad enough though, she was in a bright neon pink crib with dirt brown bedding, which clashed worse than Applejack at a fancy dinner.

What was this nightmare she was locked in? Had Twilight’s spell caused an explosion and now she was in Pony Hell for some reason? She knew she should have donated more to the Church of the Inoffensively Vague Religion!

She must have spent a good half hour in shock, unable to move and sliding in and out of consciousness before she put two and two together and realized that Twilight’s spell had backfired, but not in the way she feared. She couldn’t decide if this was a worse way or not though.

Rarity didn’t remember having ever been dressed in such ghastly outfits, but that made sense since her brain would have probably locked away such traumatic memories to protect her from them. Was she stuck here? Would she be forced to relive the tackiness of her youth that had caused her to rebel so fabulously? She wasn’t sure she could go through that a second time!

Finally she screamed in abject horror, spinning as dramatically as she could when she could barely stand and smacking the edge of the crib. She screamed again as she imagined the mere touch of such tacky colors burning.

“Sweetie?” Dad asked as he rounded the corner into her room, wearing a horrifyingly unfashionable flower-print shirt with garish mismatched colors like a rainbow on a drug trip. It only made things worse.

“Oh?” her Mom’s voice rang out as she peeked into the room from the other side of the hall. Mercifully, she merely had a flower in her hair. Had it been something less fabulous, Rarity might very well have died from shock.

Daddy moved to the crib first, patting her diaper to check it and finding nothing, so scratched his head in confusion as Rarity wailed. She tried to motion to what she was wearing with her tiny hooves, hoping against hope that they would see the distress it was causing her, but they didn’t seem to understand.

“Oh I guess she wants to be fed then,” Mommy reached into the crib to pull her out.

Fed? But Rarity didn’t see any bottles so… oh no! As Rarity feared, Mommy intended on doing that the natural way, flopping over onto her side and smushing Rarity’s face against a teat. It was so unsanitary! How did babies ever deal with this sort of thing?

Rarity put one front hoof to her forehead to show them her distress, but any words she attempted to use just came out as babbling nonsense. She spun around to try and be more dramatic, but that only got her a better look at her foalhood room.

She’d forgotten how terrible her parents were at decorating before being exposed to Rarity’s healing influence, and everything she looked at terrified her more. There was a set of plastic looking drawers that were so pink that even Pinkie might have been offended, then green wallpaper with hoofballs and other related tools, why would they even think to put that in a baby’s room? She hoped they hadn’t been counting on her getting into sports because if so they were in for grave disappointment.

Mommy seemed determined that Rarity was hungry even though she tried to squirm away, and once the teat was in her muzzle it went on automatic to extract the bitter natural nutrition out. It was the worst three hours of her life, or at least it seemed like three hours, it was probably more like five minutes tops.

“I think she’s had enough,” pondered Daddy, scratching his chin. “She sure is fussy today. I wonder if there’s something we can do.”

How dare he! She wasn’t fussy! How else did he expect a civilized lady to react when thrust into such an uncouth situation? It was mortifying!

“Come on now little one,” Mommy picked Rarity up and gently placed her on her back, though balancing the currently drama-inclined foal was difficult so Daddy stepped up and held her on balance.

The two went out of the bedroom, down the hall, and into the equally poorly decorated living room area. By the time that they put Rarity on the couch, she was significantly less squirmy, though probably more because she was going into tackiness-induced shock than anything else.

“What was that one toy she really liked?” Mommy pondered, and went back to her room for a moment.

“I think we might have left it in the garage when I was showing her my cart maintenance tools,” Daddy said, referencing another event that she was thankful not to remember.

As they left, Rarity looked around, desperate to find anything that might calm her, and her eyes locked upon a glass bowl on the end table next to the couch she was on. It was full of what appeared to be chocolate candies. Jackpot! She would drown her despair in chocolate until Twilight hopefully fixed this situation.

It was on the other end of the couch, so getting there proved to be more of a task than she had counted on. She certainly didn’t remember any couch being so big, and the indentation between the cushions was like maneuvering over a trench. It didn’t help that she refused to open her eyes more than necessary lest she catch sight of some other unfashionable thing; she felt like if there was one more she might die from shock. She didn’t want to create some apocalyptically-garish timeline by denying her friends her fabulousness in the future.

After what seemed like another five hours but was probably again no more than ten minutes, she made it to the bowl, reaching both forelegs for it at once. The bowl tipped over, the candies mostly spilling out onto the end table and some landing on the floor.

She grasped one in her hooves, but her sticky hoof manipulation wasn’t working quite so well at her age, so getting it unwrapped turned out to be a challenge. Finally in sheer desperation, she stuffed the entire thing into her muzzle and chewed on it with her gums. She managed to salivate on the wrapper until it came loose, then swallowed, trying to spit out as much of the wrapper as she could but probably missing some.

The chocolate was like the sweetest nectar, and she sank into a psychotic haze as she grabbed one piece of candy after the next. Sometimes she managed to get the wrapper off, sometimes she just swallowed it whole, but all the time she got more of the tasty chocolate into her gullet. She wasn’t sure how much of it she managed to eat before a pair of wicked hooves grabbed her away from the bowl and deprived her of her coping mechanism.

She screamed again, muzzle overflowing with chocolate flavored foam, which was then dutifully wiped off by the one holding her.

“Goodness!” Daddy appeared to be the one. “You can’t eat those sweetie!”

“Oh no!” Mommy was next to him, holding some bright yellow pole with a lot of mismatched donut shaped objects that one could place around it. Apparently this was Rarity’s favorite toy? She found that hard to believe. Why would she have played with something so infantile?

What followed was an epic struggle as Rarity tried to stuff a few last pieces of chocolate into her tiny muzzle and her parents attempted to prevent her from it. They were so clearly unreasonable that they even attempted to pry them out of her mouth before she could swallow them. The nerve! She really wished that she could talk so she could give them a piece of her mind.

“My goodness, what has gotten into you, dear?” Mommy asked.

“Besides chocolate,” said Daddy. “Actually I think she ate a few wrappers too. Think we should take her to the doctor?”

“Well paper wrappers should digest,” Mommy said. “No need to frighten her by taking her to a strange place.”

Rarity grabbed one of the donut shaped rings from the toy and threw it at Mommy’s head. The intended message was to take her anywhere but here and she’d be far less frightened of her surroundings, but it didn’t seem to get through sadly.

“There you go!” Daddy smiled. “I knew she’d want to play with this… loopty loop thing, I don’t know what you call it.”

“Aw, how precious,” Mommy nodded, the toy hanging off her ear. She put the pole down on the couch and tried to instruct Rarity by putting the shape down over it. “This is where you put it, see?”

This continued for some time, with them trying to get her to put the shape onto the pole where it goes and Rarity throwing it in various places to try to communicate her rage. She threw it towards the door, at a particularly tacky checkered lamp shade, and tried to knock an ugly ceramic of the Manehattan nematode mascot off a shelf. Sadly her hoof strength and barely sparking horn just wouldn’t send them far enough to hit their target, and her clueless parents acted like they thought she was trying and failing rather than trying to communicate. The whole thing was mortifying.

Unlike the other things that she imagined took a very long time, this seemed to actually do so, since her chocolate had time to attempt digestion or at least to trigger something unpleasant. She didn’t even notice until both her parents were holding their noses, since it otherwise faded into the horror that surrounded her.

“Oh dear, there’s that chocolate,” Daddy cringed slightly. “Wow I hope she doesn’t get too much of a taste for the stuff.” He was clearly in for sore disappointment later in life.

“Oops, let me get a fresh diaper,” Mommy hurried out of the room.

Rarity’s rage kept her from realizing what had occurred for a while, but when she did realize, she was mortified. If she wasn’t already white, she’d have been several shades paler at least at this point. Being a foal was just one train wreck of humiliation after another, and she wasn’t sure for how much longer she could take it! If Twilight took too long to fix this, she’d end up in an alternate timeline where she lived in the mental health wing of the Ponyville Hospital right next to that one pony that barked at her from the window when she walked past.

Fortunately for her parents, Rarity was now too embarrassed to move, frozen in place like a mannequin with a stunned look on her tiny face. She probably would have snapped out of it had Mommy not returned to the room carrying a diaper that was striped with shades of green, yellow, and brown that made it look like Rainbow Dash threw up on it after a night of binge drinking sports drinks. Maybe it was just one trauma building on another, but it looked like the worst thing that they had made her suffer through so far!

“Aw what a silly face!” Daddy misinterpreted her mental state again. “Well at least she’s back to her happy self again.”

As Mommy and Daddy worked together to change her, Rarity lay on the couch so still that a chalk outline around her wouldn’t have looked out of place. It was just too much! She started to feel a bit dizzy and drowsy from the repeated reminders of how little fashion sense her parents had before she’d been able to guide them away from such horrors.

“Aw is she getting sleepy?” Mommy ruffled her head as Daddy was wrapping her up in the new diaper.

No, Rarity was pretty sure she was fainting, but it didn’t much matter. Escaping to an unconscious state was an acceptable break from this.

Conclusion

Thankfully for almost all of them, there was no effort or counter-spells necessary to return them to their own body. Each pony, as they fell asleep at the end of their day, returned to their own self in their own time. It wasn’t clear at first how much time passed on this end, but they all found themselves waking out of their communal nap together.

“Dang it!” Rainbow was the first to speak. “I thought it’d be permanent!”

“You would WANT to stay?” Rarity gasped at Rainbow. “Well… good to know you had a more fabulous foalhood than I did, at least.”

“Less fabulous and more awesome,” Rainbow corrected. “I got thrown out a window into traffic!”

“I got ta see my folks agin!” Applejack was happy with the trip and with being back. “Wait… what did ya say, Dash?”

“That was fun, can we do it again?” Pinkie asked.

“Oh well, I’m glad everyone is okay,” Fluttershy nodded as well. “... I wonder if my parents still have that bunny plush somewhere… I think I’m going to miss it.”

“Oh my Celestia, I’m so sorry!” Twilight jolted awake so hard that she slammed her head back against her chair. “But the good news is, I think I know how I can find out how to fix it, so I’ll let you guys know. I just have to find a certain book I saw…”

“Darling!” Rarity stared at Twilight. “How could you even consider it?”

“I’ll do it again!” Rainbow and Pinkie both raised their hooves together.

“Probably best if we don’t try that again,” Applejack sighed. “The result might not be as pleasant next time. You know, at least until you’ve had the other Princesses look at the spell?”

Twilight sighed, but she couldn’t argue with the logic either. She might have been powerful, but wasn’t always intricate enough with said power.

“Phew!” Spike sat up belatedly, stretching out and looking around. “I just had the weirdest dream that I was back in my egg. It was pretty relaxing though for sure.”

“Yeah, I suppose more study and testing is needed before casting the full spell again,” Twilight sighed again.