It all started with a familiar sensation, and a need to take care of it.
Shining Armor was on his way to the bathroom (one of many in the crystal castle in fact) when he happened to pass by the nursery of his daughter and only child, Flurry Heart. It was hard to believe she was already two years old and in potty training, it seemed like it was only yesterday she’d been born. Yet now here she was, in potty training.
Thinking about that more in detail, Shining remembered what Cadence had recently told him about needing to “spend more time with Flurry”, particularly in regard to supervising her potty training. True, he’d had a little experience with that when Twilight had gone through it, but she had only been a unicorn. Besides, Cadence was the one with tons of foalsitting experience. And Twilight had herself been something of a prodigy in potty training, once she'd gotten started on it anyway.
All the same, Shining decided that since he was headed to the bathroom anyway, he might as well bring Flurry along with him: Both to keep an eye on her, and to do what any good parent should do and lead by example. Hopefully, him showing Flurry how grown-ups went potty would give her a better idea of what she was supposed to do. Every little bit helped.
So the stallion trotted into the nursery and approached his toddler daughter, sitting in her playpen in nothing but a diaper (progress hadn’t quite progressed enough to reach the pull-ups stage just yet). “Hey, Flurry.” He greeted as he sniffed the air just to make sure his daughter didn’t need a diaper change.
“Hi, Daddy.” Flurry greeted with a coo and an innocent smile. All seemed well so far, but looks could be deceiving.
Shining continued to sniff the air as he hesitantly pulled back his daughter’s diaper with his magic, fearing the worst. But he found nothing: No stains, no smells, nothing at all. The diaper was nice and clean, a welcome relief to him. “Good girl for keeping your diaper clean, Flurry,” He cooed with exaggerated praise while patting her on the forehead. Positive reinforcement was always helpful. “Bet it’s been a while since you had to go, huh? You know what that means.”
Immediately, Flurry’s expression changed as her smile morphed into a frown. She pouted, folding her hooves across her chest. “Don’t wanna!” She protested. Obviously, she was too immersed in her playtime to care about anything else, even if she was supposed to know better by now.
Shining Armor wasn’t bothered in the slightest as he used his magic to pick Flurry up and carry her out of her nursery. “Come on, Flurry, we talked about this. You need to be a good little pony and do your pee-pees and poo-poos in your potty. After all, you wanna be a big pony like Mommy and Daddy, don’t you?”
“Uh-huh,” The toddler alicorn nodded. “Wanna be like Mommy and Daddy.”
“Good,” The stallion smiled as he trotted down the hall to the nearest bathroom. “So no crying or pouting. Potty time is potty time, no ifs, ands or buts. Well, aside from the butt you’ll be sitting on your potty chair of course,” He giggled a little at his joke. “Just a little bit of potty humor. But that can make potty time fun.”
Flurry, for her part, didn’t say anything more. She knew it was no use arguing with either her mommy or her daddy whenever they were like this. And thanks to those spells that her crystaller cast, she knew she wasn’t magically strong enough to fight back against them. One way or another, she was going to be placed upon her potty, and made to sit there for a good long while, even if she didn't need to do anything.
Shining pushed open the bathroom door, walked into the bathroom and closed the door behind him. Then and only then did he release his magical grip on his daughter, setting her carefully upon the bathroom’s tiled floor. But he wasn’t finished using his magic just yet, instead he concentrated his horn around Flurry’s rump, removing her diaper and setting it aside.
Just off to one side of the bathroom was a toilet, and near that toilet was a foal’s potty chair that was a pinkish purple in color. Its lid was lifted up, exposing a circular seat just right for a foal of Flurry Heart’s size. On the right side of it was a yellow star inside a yellow circle.
“Okay, Flurry,” Shining Armor cooed as he approached the toilet and ushered his daughter towards her potty. “No need to set a timer this time. Daddy decided he’s going to teach you by example.” He used his magic to lift up the toilet’s lid and gently rest it against the tank.
“Daddy go potty too?” Flurry blinked in surprise as she was sat upon her potty.
Shining nodded and smiled as he moved to sit down on the toilet seat. “Yup. After all, that book is more right than you might think when it says ‘Everypony Poops’,” He used his magic to float said book over to his daughter while giggling about the joke he’d just made. “Mommies and daddies go pee-pee and poo-poo too. And like all big ponies, they do it in potties, big potties like the one Daddy’s using. Someday, when you’re older and bigger, you too will get to use this big potty.”
Then, after checking to make sure his daughter was occupied, the stallion lit up his horn again and brought forth a newspaper: Equestria Daily. He found that potty time was always easier when you had something to read, whether it was a book or a newspaper. He’d check on his daughter after he was finished taking care of his “other royal duties”. Hopefully, the example would be a motivator for her to take her potty training more seriously.
However, as Shining Armor occupied himself with his newspaper, he failed to notice that his daughter had quickly grown bored of her book. After all, her mommy always gave it to her to read whenever she was the one taking Flurry to the bathroom. How was it that Daddy didn’t know this?
Flurry Heart’s wandering eyes looked up from her book and drifted towards the toilet. Something long and shiny caught her attention. In her mind, it looked like a lollipop. Maybe her daddy had put it there to give to her as a reward if she did a pee-pee or poo-poo in her potty. If so, how silly of him to leave it out where she could see it. She saw no reason why she should have to wait to be given that treat, she wanted that lollipop and she wanted it now. And since her hooves couldn’t reach it, she decided to try to pull it close to her with her magic.
Flurry lit up her horn, concentrating her magic on that long, shiny thing sticking out to one side of the toilet.
If Shining had been looking up from his paper at this moment, perhaps he might have seen the soft yellow glow from Flurry’s horn as it surrounded the toilet handle. But he was too busy focusing on his paper to pay any attention to what his daughter was doing.
Flurry tried to pull on the handle, and in doing so she forced it down with a faint click. Then, suddenly, a loud roar began to echo throughout the entire bathroom!
Shining Armor heard the unmistakable sound of the toilet flushing. He set his paper down and looked up. What had caused the toilet to flush so suddenly? He knew he hadn’t done it himself.
Without warning, the stallion felt something begin to tug on his tail, almost like a powerful suction of some kind. Then, it was as if he had slipped as he felt his tail and lower body dip into the toilet bowl, splashing his backside with cold toilet water! “Eee!” He cried as he tried to pull his tail free, only to find that it wouldn’t budge!
Flurry Heart, for her part, just giggled and clapped her hooves as if the whole thing were just a show. All the while, she didn’t loosen her magical grip on the toilet handle and the toilet continued to flush.
To Shining’s surprise and horror, the flush cycle didn’t end like it usually would’ve by this point. Instead, it kept on going! “Hey!” He shouted as he felt his tail and lower body be pulled into and then down the drain! All the while, more and more of his body began to be dragged into the toilet! “Flurry! Stop!” He cried out, hoping to be heard. But Flurry gave no indication that she’d heard or understood his plea as the flush cycle continued.
Desperately, the stallion tried to grab the toilet seat with his hooves, hoping that maybe somehow that would stop what was happening to him. He was too frightened to concentrate clearly, preventing him from using his magic to try to force the toilet handle back up! But nothing worked! Instead, Shining’s entire body was dragged into the toilet and he began to be submerged until only his head was above the waters!
Flurry didn’t seem to grasp what was going on as the toilet continued to flush, and more and more of her daddy disappeared right in front of her. It was as if she hadn’t any concern at all for what might happen to him. But that couldn’t be. She cared about him enough to not want him to go down the drain, right? Right?!
Poor Shining’s hopes were soon dashed as he felt the last of him slip down the bowl and through the drain! He held his breath as he prepared for the inevitable, headed down the drain to an unknowable fate! The last thing that could be heard from him was an audible gulp, before his head went down the drain! And then and only then did the flush cycle finally complete itself as the toilet made its usual sound. Slowly, the water in the toilet bowl refilled. But there was no sign of Shining Armor anywhere! He was gone!
Now the gravity of the situation seemed to hit Flurry Heart as she opened her eyes and her horn ceased to glow. “Daddy?” She called as she looked all around, expecting him to pop back up at any second like this was some sort of prank. She waited and waited, but her daddy was nowhere to be seen.
The toddler alicorn began to worry as she rose from her potty chair, flapping her wings as she fluttered up to the toilet for a closer look. “Daddy?!” She called, a bit more frantically. But silence was her only reply. She thought she’d heard him say something over that loud noise earlier, had he been trying to tell her something?
Slowly, the reality settled in as Flurry realized the horrifying truth: Her daddy had been flushed down the drain, and she was the one who had done it! “Daddy!” She wailed and sobbed as she hovered over the empty toilet. The only trace left of her daddy now was his newspaper. Other than that, there’d be nothing to suggest he’d ever been in the bathroom in the first place. He was gone, all because of her! And she didn’t think she would ever see him again!
What happens next?
Does Shining Armor find a way back to the bathroom after going down the drain?
Does Princess Cadence come in, and ultimately get Shining Armor out of the toilet?
Does Flurry Heart accidentally end up flushing herself down the drain too?
Does Discord rescue Shining Armor, and it turns out to be chaos magic at work?
Does Princess Luna show up, revealing that really it's all just a bad dream?