What time is it?
I open my eyes and see the world around me is a bit hazy. I’m standing in the middle of what I think is a park. There are no playgrounds, but there are a few visible trash cans that you would see in a park. There is also a trail that most parks have. You know, the trail that goes all around the park. It feels strange being here for some reason. Part of me thinks I'm actually here, I can breathe in the crisp air around me, feel the gravel beneath my feet, but at the same time, another part tells me I'm not. I take a single step forward. When I do, it feels sluggish as if I’m walking underwater. Then my ears start ringing to the point that it becomes unbearable.
I try to cover my ears, but then the world suddenly shifts around me. I suddenly find that the ground is suddenly on its side. It takes me a while to understand but I realize that I’ve fallen down. I’m on the ground. What I find strange is that I didn’t feel the pain from the impact. I try to get up by pushing myself back up, but my body isn’t responding to my commands.
With no other choice, I stay down on the ground. I try calling for help, but no sound comes out. I can’t speak or move. I’m trapped in my own body. I can still hear the sound of my breath, indicating that I'm alive, so that's a good sign. The sky looks to be pitch black so I can assume that its late at night. I wonder if anyone is around. Would they even notice me?
So now I’m wondering. What am I doing in the middle of the park alone? How did I get here in the first place?
Faintly, I can hear the sound of a woman. She sounds familiar, but I can’t put my finger on it. Not that I could anyway. The woman’s voice grows louder. My head begins to turn to see behind me, but I’m not the one moving it. It’s doing it on its own. As my head turns I'm able to see the rest of my body. But it’s not my little foal body. It’s a human one again. I appear to be wearing a dark hoodie and blue jeans.
Strange.
My head keeps moving to locate the source of the voice and I’m greeted to the sight of a pool of red liquid.
Is that my…?
The world goes dark.
I jolt awake from my sleep. I sit up with better results than before. Sitting up got a little easier, but there was still the issue of strength. As a foal, you don’t have a lot of it. I’m starting to hate being a foal as every second goes by. Not only do I have to wear a diaper, but the idea that I also have to ‘go’ in it bothers.
After getting myself in a good sitting position I take a look at my surroundings. Right off the bat, I can see that I’ve definitely been moved someplace else. I’m no longer in the small nursery at the castle, but I’m in a bigger room, and my crib isn’t the only one in it. In fact, I think there are at least half a dozen others that I can see, but not all of them seem occupied.
Another thing I notice is that it’s dark. I look around to see if there is a window nearby. When I finally locate one I’m disappointed to see that the curtains are blocking the outside. Again. My crib is about a foot away from the window. Close enough that I can just see through the gap between the curtains.
Well, since everypony else is asleep, then I guess its night time. Again. Why am I waking up at night?
Then the sound of a door being opened is heard across the room from me. Light from the hallway bleeds into the room. A unicorn pony appears from it, levitating a candle. The pony looks to be a mare. I now notice that there are a lot of unicorns around here. She’s dressed in some sort of uniform. It isn’t a maid one, that for sure, so it must be some worker outfit. Perhaps she’s the caretaker for these foals.
She walks over to the other cribs. She quietly moves between them and leaning over to see their contents. She stops by a least five cribs. Giving me the impression that there are at least five other foals with me. Then she moves to the one right next to mine. As the candle moves over the crib, the light reveals the occupant. The foal is a small… pegasus?
There is something different about it. Apart from me not being able to tell what gender it is, what I can say is that this foal has a dark blue coat with a baby-blue colored mane and tail. But what strikes me the most is its wings. There doesn’t seem to be a single feather on them. Instead, they look like webbed feet. They almost look bat-like. A bat pony?
Then the caretaker moves over to me. She’s taken back as she flinches at the sight of me. She probably expected me to be asleep as the other foals here.
“I should be surprised to see you awake, but you have been asleep since you arrived. Well, no matter, I am sure that you will fall back asleep soon enough.” The caretaker says.
She heads back towards the door. She blows out the candle and quietly closes the door. I’m left alone in the dark again. Actually, scratch that, I’m the only one left awake. I don’t feel tired so I don’t think I’ll fall asleep anytime soon either.
I then hear the sound of something moving aside of me. I look over, but it’s so dark I can’t see a thing. The little bit of moonlight coming through the curtains from the outside isn't enough. The sound moves closer and closer. Then I hear the sound of somepony grunting, followed by something landing in the crib with me. Whatever or whoever it is, it’s shuffling closer to me until I can feel their breath on my small muzzle.
I squint my eyes in an attempt to get a closer look at my probable assailant. As my eyes try to absorb as much light into them I begin to make out a small shape. It's probably a small pony, a foal even. I think for a moment and realize that it’s probably the foal that was right next to my crib.
Then the small foal starts to sniff all around me. It tickles me so I giggle a bit because of it. Then I realize that they somehow made over from their crib to mine and were able to see me with no problem. My next thought is that something hurts.
“WWWWWAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHH” I start to cry in pain.
Whoever this foal is, they just bit me in the neck. The pain causes me to cry and my crying causes the other foals to wake up too. I feel the foal letting go of me.
The door swings wide open as four unicorns in the same uniform as before come charging in. One by one they try to calm the rest down. As I’m lifted into the air via magical levitation, I see the bat pony foal is the only one asleep. They’re sleeping peacefully, but thanks to the light filling the room I can make out a small white fang barely sticking out under their lip.
They are a bat pony.
“Oh, what could have caused this?” One of the caretakers asked.
“Only Faust knows.” another replied.
“At least the bat filly is still miraculously asleep.”
She’s a girl? Great another mare to make me feel weak.
Having Silver Dusk and Gray MIst was already bad enough alone. Those mares ruin my life. What was I gonna do? I couldn’t run or hide from them. It was futile to do so, they were experienced hunters and warriors. Teleporting could only help so much as they could do it too.
Then there was Spitfire. She was able to take out half of the village of the Enders. How she found me was beyond me. That place was basically in the middle of the Everfree Forest, the place most sane ponies avoid. Then again, you shouldn’t underestimate the captain of the wonderbolts.
The only mares that didn’t make me feel weak were my mare friends, Octavia Melody, and Vinyl Scratch. They didn’t care that I appeared from nowhere, was mostly mute, or the fact I was some OP pegasus. They cared about me. And now I don’t even know if I’ll ever see them again.
I wonder what they’re up to?
“Com- little… time to… -ake up.” I hear a gentle voice say.
Who the buck wants me awake at this ungodly hour?
When I open my eyes I’m immediately blinded by the light. I try shielding my eyes with my tiny hooves but they don’t reach all around. Then I tried covering myself using my blanket, but when I tried to grab it, it was pulled away.
“That is enough. A young little colt should not sleep during the day. After all, it is Celestia’s sun that gives us life.” The same voice spoke.
I sluggishly accept my fate and try to look up. Even though my vision is burry and is blinded by the light from the sun, I can make out a mare’s face. She has a gentle smile.
When I try to move I feel something wet and slimy on my rear. It feels very uncomfortable. Even though my brain isn’t fully awake yet it doesn’t take a genius to guess what it is.
How embarrassing.
I know that it's natural that babies have no bowel or bladder control, but when you have the mentality of a grown man or stallion in my case, it gets a little embarrassing.
The Caretaker takes notice as she moves her head closer to me and smells. She chuckles it off and lifts me out of the crib with her magic.
Another unicorn? Why are there only unicorns around here?
She brings me over to a small table at the corner of the room. There she changes me into a fresh new one. When she is done she places me into a stroller. At this point, I’m still tired, so when she lets go of me I instantly go back to sleep.
I can't see anything but I do feel the movements of the stroller. I can feel that we’re going through a long hall and then make a left turn into another room. I can still somewhat hear so I can make out the sound of other foals playing, laughing, and crying.
We came to a sudden stop and it caused me to jolt awake, it was enough to make me cry. I was getting tired of how this body works. Having an adult mind does almost nothing to prevent me from acting like a baby.
The mare picks me up and cradles me calmly. This stops me from crying. After wiping my tears away she pulls me away from her and places me down on the floor. The floor is cushioned with soft padding. I’m guessing so that we foals don’t hurt ourselves when we fall down.
The entire area I’m in is littered with toys varying from wooden blocks to the jumbo puzzle pieces. The foals from last night are also here. Two of them are unicorns, with both of them being fillies, they’re trying to fit a triangle-shaped toy block into the same shaped hole. One is a pegasus filly who is playing with the blocks. The last two are earth ponies with one being a filly and the other a colt.
However, the bat pony who bit me isn’t here. Even if I wanted to meet her and give her a piece of my mind, I couldn’t. Because I was still feeling sleepy. I looked around to see if there was something I could use to cover myself with or at the very least sleep on. The floor is cushioned, but it’s not soft enough for me. I really miss my cloud.
The cloud that I claimed as mine one day. I was flying about above Ponyville, it was scheduled to be a bright sunny day and we were clearing the sky for it. I was placed on the 2nd team to move the existing clouds elsewhere. When I finished my section I was getting ready to head back to base and clock out for the day. That's when somepony called for assistance. My entire team went over to see the problem. The 3rd team was having trouble getting rid of one cloud. No matter how hard they kicked, or how much they stomped, the cloud would not disperse at least not permanently. It would form back up again within a matter of seconds.
Rainbow Dash wanted to perform a sonic rainboom to see if that would work, but that was quickly shot down due to us being too close to the ground. Fluffy Cloud suggested moving it somewhere else in the meantime. No pony knew where to put it. Then Open Skies said if anypony wanted to take it home, but no pony volunteered, they all gave various excuses. It was getting us nowhere, so without hesitating I took it upon myself to take home. No pony noticed it missing, so they thought it left on its own.
When I brought it to my house I placed it above our roof. At first, I wasn't too keen on keeping it, but one day when I was hiding from Twilight, I was running out of places to hide. That's when I hid in it and I learned how comfortable clouds could be. Or at the very least this cloud. Surprisingly Twilight didn't find me. That's when I decided it would stay. Apparently I needed a license to keep it. So I did that.
Also, I think it might be sentient. But that's a tale for another time.
I sluggishly move about the playground, dragging my body against the floor. I was surprised that my forelegs had enough strength to move me. I found a corner that has a stuffed dragon hidden in it. It’s big enough that I could sleep on its legs.
It’s no cloud, but it’s good enough.
As I got closer I heard one of the caretakers shouting. I turned my head to see what the commotion was about. One of the filly unicorns had gotten frustrated that she couldn’t get the wooden block to fit into the same hole apparently as she was bashing the thing against it. One of the caretakers was trying to calm her down.
The unicorn filly lifted the wooden block into the air with her magic and threw it down. It bounced right off and flew right towards me. My first thought was that there was no way I was going to move out of the way in time with my current state. My second thought was:
Oh, s***.
Luna was pacing around her room still furious with her sister. She had only left to raise the moon and to lower it, but nothing else.
“How? How? And why?” She thought to herself.
When she was denied custody of Lunar, yes, she had already named him, she wanted to blow half the castle up. She stopped herself from destroying the crib she had custom-built by the finest carpenters in Equestria. Disappointed that she may never see it used she had it hidden away in the far corner of her chambers under a dark blue blanket.
Another thing that bothered her was the fact that she couldn’t find him while dream scaping. He didn’t appear anywhere. She could find thousands of foals’ dreams but not his. No matter how hard she tried or how long she would fail every time.
She cursed to Tartus.
“Great Faust, why does thee deny me this wish?”
“Sister?” A muffled voice spoke through the door.
Luna glared at the door. How was it that Celestia could still speak through the sound barrier that Luna had set up? Luna had placed at least 4 barriers, so it was quiet as a mouse in her room. Perhaps it was Celestia’s superior magical abilities that did the trick.
“Sister, please.”
There was no way she was going to let her in or talk. She was fine with this after all. No one paid any real attention to her or her night. So why would she?
That was a nice rest. Oh… it’s night again. Wait a minute. Why does my head hurt?
I wake up with no idea of what happened. One moment I’m making my way towards a spot to sleep in, then the next I’m here. I’m back in the crib, and it’s night… again. But seeing as I tend to wake up without know what happened exactly, it’s safe to assume something knocked me out. I’ve almost forgotten how it felt.
I look around and see that I’m back in the room with the other foals. They’re all asleep of course, as I can hear their soft snoring. The only one in the room not snoring is me. The room is a little brighter as the curtain is slightly open this time, letting the moonlight in. The moonlight lights up my crib pretty well, so I can see what’s in front of me.
Then I get a chill run up my spine. I feel like something is watching me. I look left and right repeatedly, but see nopony. Perhaps I’m just a bit jumpy from getting rendered unconscious and my body is on high alert. Then I feel the crib shake as if somepony just jumped in with me.
I slowly turn to see a black figure approaching me. As it approaches the moonlight, it reveals itself to be the bat-filly. She has a baby-blue mane and a dark blue coat. Fitting for a creature of the night. But what strikes me the most is her eyes. Her eyes are two completely different colors.
Heterochromia, huh?
Her left eye is purple, almost like mine, and her right eye is yellow. Her pupils are sharp like a cat would be in the dark. Like the dark, well duh, it’s dark out. I mentally slap myself. She interrupts my thinking as she comes even closer. I back away in response.
Oh no, no, no. You’re not going to drink my blood again today...night.
Then I realize that she has no trouble walking on all four legs. I didn’t even hear her coming. Last time I could hear her struggling to get from her crib to mine. This time it was like she appeared from nowhere. Was it my blood that she drank last night that gave her strength? If it is then, she’s back for more.
She comes closer and closer until I can feel her breathing on me. She takes a wif of my scent. I close my eyes for the inevitable. But it doesn’t come. I feel something nuzzling against me. I open my eyes to see that she’s laying next to me.
Okay? What’s this about?”
I stay completely still in case she’s going to bite me again. Then I hear her softly snoring. I relax a bit. I’m now stuck like this until she decides to wake up. I stay there wondering what exactly just happened.
What were bat-ponies exactly? I’ve never heard of them until now. Were they rare? Or are they just only out at night as regular bats are? Then again some bats appear in the day, even though it’s rare to see them then. Looking at her she seems like an ordinary pony if you remove the bat features.
Last night she drank my blood and now she’s sleeping next to me. Was drinking my blood some sort of unspoken bond? Or was it that she now saw me as convenient food that she wants to keep for herself?
Sleep suddenly overcomes me. I look over to the window and see that a golden glow has taken the moonlight’s place, indicating that the sun is rising. It doesn’t seem like I was awake for long. I guess it’s because I’m a baby and babies don’t have a lot of energy to stay awake.
It looks like it's going to be a long while. At least she’s warm.