Alright. This next entry's a little bit different. Now, I assume that you've all heard of Canterlot Park, right? A nice little place where people can sit down, kick their feet up, play with their families, smell flowers, and do all kinds of stuff outdoors. Me and Flash decided that we shouldn't just let the babies stay cooped up in the house all the time, so we packed some supplies into a stroller, loaded the kids up, and went off for a nice little walk around the park.
"Ah... Now this is a great sight, isn't it?" I looked around and drank in all the sights as sunlight poured down onto my face. "Fresh air, clear skies, plenty of open space. It's a great place for the kids to play, don't you think, Flash?"
"Yeah. I just hope the kids don't make a mess of it." Flash bent over the stroller and tickled Adagio and Starlight's chins, causing the two babies to laugh and wave their tiny arms around. "The last thing we need is the kids getting into trouble."
"Flash, they're not going anywhere." I patted the seatbelts around their tiny bodies just to make sure. "This is some high-quality stuff. The kids aren't going to be able to get out unless we let them out. Nothing to worry about." I leaned over the stroller and started to make silly faces at the babies, in some attempt to hopefully keep them happy. "Isn't that right, girls? Mama's gonna keep you safe and secure in this little stroller. Yes, she is. Yes, she is." I must admit, seeing the babies all giggle at me always warms my heart.
"Twilight, I've gotta say that you look pretty adorable when you do that." Flash jabbed a finger playfully at me.
"Oh, Flash. It's nothing, really," I said. "Just want to make sure that the babies all know that they've got a great mom and dad looking after them."
For most of the walk, the babies were all making incoherent gibberish as they pointed at everything they could see, often giggling at things for the strangest of reasons, or cooing softly as infants usually would when they're calm and content. Nothing really out of the ordinary here, but I thought it would be nice to have a moment in these stories where my kids aren't completely hopped up on funtime to be considered little monsters. Just wanted to leave that in. Now, back to your regularly scheduled "Twilight Sparkle Struggles With Motherhood" documentary.
Eventually, me, Flash, and the babies all found a lovely spot to sit down and soak up some sunshine. So, we pulled out a large checkered blanket from the back of the stroller, unfurled it, and sat down. Then, we took the children out, one by one, so that they wouldn't all just scramble off if we freed them all at the same time. As we sat them all down, the kids all touched the blanket and let out some tiny squeals, as if they were back on their cribs.
Sunset and Adagio were dressed up in bright yellow and pink skirts, with little hats to shield their eyes from the sunlight, Starlight was wearing a bright purple onesie with stars on it, and Trixie and Moondancer were wearing their regular baby clothes. We would've dressed them up too, but let's just say that they were against that idea.
Out of the babies, having to choose a favourite was a bit of a hard task, because all of them are so cute. Well... most of the time, that is. I wanted to choose all of them, but I didn't think that it would mean anything, as pretty much all of them were as lovable and forgivable as babies usually are. But I suppose if I had to choose one I loved the most, it would have to be Sunset Shimmer. I have high hopes for her and all of the others, but I'm hoping that she succeeds the most of all.
Speaking of success, Flash tapped my shoulder and pulled my attention away from the babies for just a quick moment. "Twilight? Have you thought about where you want to send the kids once they're old enough for school?" he asked. "I know, I know. It's early days, but that doesn't mean we can't plan ahead, right? Didn't you always say that it's better to have a plan without even needing it?"
"I know I said that, Flash, but for goddess's sake, they're only a month old," I retorted, looking down at the babies. "They barely know how to walk, talk, or think about these sort of things. It's best to save those thoughts until they're two or three years old."
"I just think it's better to be prepared is all." He shrugged at me. "You never know how fast these girls are gonna grow up." He stroked Adagio and Trixie's heads. "Sooner or later, you're gonna have to start thinking about their future, Twilight. They're not gonna be babies forever, you know."
"I know, I know. But you see, this is the easy part." As I spoke, I had no idea that my babies had seen an ice cream stand and were crawling off towards it. I was still telling Flash my feelings that I didn't even hear them move away. "The babies are all so young, so they don't have any real wants or needs. They can just play and have fun with whatever they can find and whenever they want it. But as they get older, their minds start to get a bit more complex. They start to want things more. Some expensive, others just beyond the realms of our imagination. And don't even get me started on how they're gonna behave when they become teenagers..."
"Yeah. Five teenage daughters is gonna be like hell on earth..." Flash chuckled and kicked his feet up in the sunshine. When he saw me glaring at him, he snapped his head back towards me and had a little spasm. "Uh, I-I-I mean, not that there's anything wrong with that..."
"Flash, you're a great husband, but sometimes, I worry for you." I turned back towards the blanket and saw that the children were all gone. To call myself shocked would be an understatement, as I belted out a scream so loud that it would be worthy of the opera. "WHERE ARE THE KIDS?" I shouted.
"I don't know!" Flash began looking around for them the second I'd stopped shouting, but unfortunately for us, they had been lost in the crowd of people. "This is a nightmare!"
"Hey! Twilight!"
Before me and Flash could panic any further, a woman with rainbow-coloured hair and a bright blue jumpsuit with orange flames down the side ran up to us. It was none other than Rainbow Dash, a certified Canterlot All-Star. They're the most athletic, highly-recognised, and famous sports stars in the whole city. Next to her was a girl with pink hair and butter skin. Her name was Fluttershy, and she was part of an animal protection organisation, kinda like P.E.T.A. but much less extremist.
"We heard you screaming, so we thought we'd come and see what's wrong." Fluttershy lifted a finger. "Um, where are your babies?"
"That's what I'm screaming about, Fluttershy," I said. "The babies all just crawled off somewhere and I don't know where they've all gone!"
"Oh no!" Fluttershy gasped and put her hands to her mouth.
"Don't worry! We're on the case!" Rainbow Dash slapped both me and Flash's hands. "We'll find those babies faster than you can wipe your eyes clean!" And with that, Rainbow darted off to find the kids.
"I'll help out too." Fluttershy's sweet voice melted into our ears like butter as she helped us back onto our feet. "It's an awful thing for someone to lose their baby. But you lost five, and that's the saddest thing ever."
"Let's find them quickly." I packed everything back into the stroller and ran off with Flash and Fluttershy by my side. "The babies can get a little bit... out of control at times. Especially Sunset and Trixie. For some reason, they love me most of all, and if they can't see me, they'll begin crying as loud as they can, and I'm sure that won't be any good for the park-goers."
Now, I have no idea what my babies were getting up to after we had lost them. All that I was thinking about was getting them back home safely. Now that they were separated from their mom and dad, Adagio, Starlight, Sunset, Trixie, and Moondancer were all incredibly vulnerable to the world around them. At any given moment, disaster could strike, or someone might do something callous to them. As the thoughts roared in my head like a jet engine's whine, I clenched my hands and picked up the pace—almost moving as fast as Flash. Almost.
"Girls! Where are you?!" I called, putting my hands to my mouth. "You're not safe without mama and dada! Come back!"
Before I was about to give up, I saw Adagio and Starlight both climbing up towards a cotton candy machine. My mind was abuzz with relief, shock, and intrigue. Relief that two of the babies were alright, shock that they were climbing up into a cotton candy machine, and intrigue as to how they were doing it, given their tiny statures. But I quickly snapped out of that and ran over to the machine, just as the babies tumbled in and got themselves coated in cotton candy. Somehow, the laughter I heard out of them didn't sound that cute.
"Adagio! Starlight!" I started to clean the girls up, picking large amounts of cotton candy from their skin. But before I could complete my job, there was a stall owner looking at me a little disgruntled. "Oh. I'm sorry, sir. I didn't mean for them to cause any trouble." And I handed him some money just to be safe.
"Alright," he said. "I'll let you off this one time. But next time, make sure you keep them under control."
"Will do, sir," Flash said before we moved on.
After cleaning the two babies up, I put them back into the stroller and made sure that they were both properly secured before moving on. We wouldn't want to have another escaping act now, would we? One's enough for the day.
I was just about to keep up the search when I suddenly saw Sunset playing with Pinkie Pie and the Cake Twins at the nearby park. Now that was some good news. Not because of the fact that Sunset wasn't in someone else's grubby hands, but because of the fact that she was with another one of my friends. Now, I know that sounds coincidental and all, but you haven't heard what I had to go through to get Trixie and Moondancer back, let me tell you.
"Pinkie! Thank goddess!" I came up to her with sweat dripping down my face. "I thought for sure that the babies were long gone by now."
"Nope!" Pinkie gave me one of her sickeningly cute schoolgirl smiles. "Sunset was a good little girl for us. She didn't poop or cry or anything like that once Pound and Pumpkin got to playing with her." She looked down at the infants, who were all looking down at the grass and plucking it, blade by blade with their miniscule hands. "Aww... They wanna learn how to mow lawns in the future. Isn't that precious?"
"Pinkie, this is a crisis!" I hastily scooped Sunset back up and set her with Adagio and Starlight, who were still picking off some of the cotton candy that I had missed. "Have you seen Moondancer and Trixie anywhere? They ran off while I was talking to Flash and I think that they might've gotten run over, or fell into the lake, or maybe even—"
"Twilight. Chillax." Pinkie slapped my mouth shut and silenced me. "Trixie and Moondancer aren't gonna go anywhere anytime soon. Babies can't crawl that fast. For all we know, they're probably in someone else's hands by now, and they might decide to take them away to social services or to the police stat—"
"PINKIE." I shot death glares at her as I returned her mouth slap gesture. "NO. DON'T. EVEN. GO. THERE." I could hear her mumbling something, presumably saying OK or something like that.
"Um, Twilight?" Fluttershy tapped my shoulder, as if she had seen something.
"Not now, Fluttershy. I'm trying to give Pinkie a scolding." I was so oblivious back then. I was consumed by anger, frustration, stress, whatever the fuck you wanna call it, but I was still pretty peeved with Pinkie for bringing up social services and the police. "Now then, you KNOW that if the babies get taken away, that'll make me look like a really shitty parent, and I'll lose everyone's respect, Flash and I could divorce, and—"
"TWILIGHT!" Rainbow Dash came running over to me, snapping me out of my little tirade. "It's an emergency!"
"What is it, Rainbow Dash?" I asked, getting back onto my feet.
"Alright. There's good news and bad news to this. I'll just tell you them both now to save you the trouble." She took a deep breath and blew the air out of her nose. "The good news is that I found Trixie and Moondancer. They're over by the lake."
"And the bad news is that they've fallen in?!" I guessed, then sped off without even getting the answer. "I'M COMING, GIRLS!" In my haste, I'd completely left Flash, Fluttershy, and the rest of the gang with the stroller and everything else.
When I made it to the lake, I checked every inch of the water to see if the babies were treading water or miraculously floating on it. But, much to my relief and dismay, the babies weren't in the water or anywhere near it. I thought for sure that someone might have fished them out and that they were going to report the missing babies and ruin my parental life because of the social services issue a moment back, but instead, I saw something else entirely.
By the swan boat ticket office, I saw both Trixie and Moondancer crawl underneath the ticket booth and turnstile, inching farther down the pier towards the boats. And that was all the proof I needed. Doing something incredibly bold—and or stupid, depending on what you might think—I jumped into the lake and began swimming all the way towards the boards to try and catch both of them before they tumbled in and met a watery demise.
"Trixie! Moondancer!" I called, fighting back the water sloshing into my mouth as I swam graciously—or as well as I could, given the fact that I was wearing clothes and shoes—towards the pier. "Mama's coming! Just hold still for two seconds!"
And just as I was about to get onto the pier and get the babies back, I saw that they were reaching towards one of the swan boat's necks, apparently taken with how pretty they thought it looked. I was literally inches away from picking them both up when they crawled over the edge and landed butt-first into the boat, letting out a little giggle as they saw the pedals. I hoisted myself onto the pier, dripping water from my hair to my toes, and was about to take the babies out of the boat, but they were both playing with the pedals and were moving the boat out of the docks and away from my grasp. That moment I fell back into the lake, had to have been one of the most embarrassing moments of my life. I was being outplayed by babies. Fucking babies of all things!
"Oh, girls..." I grimaced. "Why do you have to make this so difficult for me?"
And just as I was about to swim off and get them, I saw that someone dressed up in a park uniform had followed me and came up to me with a rather unamused look on his face. I might as well have just swam underwater and let out a scream, as I knew that this day had gone from shit to unbearable...