//------------------------------//
// Flim and Flam 
// Story: Bathtime for Ponies Part 2 
// by Starry Eyed 
//------------------------------//

	You finish filling the tub, ready for today’s bath. You make your way to the living room and are once again amazed at what you see. Flim and Flam are using magic to make toy cars race each other around in a circle. Flim, being the younger of the two, is just barely able to make his car move, yet his car is winning the race. You take a seat between them, “You’re a good brother to let his car win you know”, you tell Flam so that his brother doesn’t hear. Flam is a year and a half older, but still technically a foal like his brother. 

Flam smiles, glad you think he’s a good brother. You smile and lean back to watch the race, “I’ll let you finish the race, but then it’s bath time.” Both cars stop in the tracks. The brothers’ ears drop and their eyes bulge. You realize too late what’s about to happen and both brothers race off in opposite directions. You lunge to your right grabbing Flam, knowing that he would be the harder to catch. You luckily manage to catch him on your first try.

You both turn the focus of your attentions to Flim, who is standing in the doorway looking to see if Flam got away. Flam is just old enough to talk a little now, and yells to his brother, “Sabe yurself! RUN!” Flim doesn’t need to be told twice. You hurry to your feet and give chase. Flim manages to stay several steps ahead of you. You decide to turn around and head him off as he circles through the house, but Flam yells ahead warning him. You look at Flam with an expression that asks, “Seriously?” Flam smiles a guilty smile, admitting that he’s just having fun.

You sigh, realizing this is getting you nowhere, “You know we can have cider after the bath.” You feel a tug on the rim of your pants and look down to see Flim sitting there waiting for some cider. Well, that worked great! You scoop up Flim and make your way to the tub.

You set the foals in the tub and go back to close the door. With everything ready you take your seat on the mat, ready to begin. You decide to start with Flam since he is older, and get out your apple gel shampoo. You begin scrubbing it into his mane gently until it becomes a fine lather. After about twenty seconds of this, Flam’s mane is ready to be rinsed. You scoop up some water and pour it over the sudsy mane seven times until it is clean.

With Flam’s mane clean, you get another handful of apple gel shampoo and begin to lather Flim’s mane, but Flim doesn’t let you. After slowly and carefully trying to convince him for about a minute, you sigh in defeat. You look to Flam for help, knowing he’s the only one that can convince his brother. Flam meets your pleading gaze for a moment and realizes you’re right so he sticks out his hoof, asking for some shampoo.

You give him some and he manages to get Flim to let him shampoo his mane. Flim doesn’t like it and Flam’s not good at lathering with his hooves at all, but Flim trusts his brother completely, an advantage you don’t have. This takes half a minute and still isn’t done. Thankfully, now that Flim isn’t scared of the shampoo anymore, you take over and finish lathering his mane in mere moments.

After seven rinses both brothers have clean manes. Deciding to move on to the tails, you get another handful of apple gel shampoo. Flam stands up first, and it only takes about twenty seconds before his tail is clean. You cup your hands and scoop up some water to rinse with, but Flam has already sat down and is effectively rinsing his own tail. You release the water you are holding and get out the last bit of shampoo you will be need for this bath, which happens to be all that is left in the bottle.

Flim’s tail also only takes twenty seconds to wash just like his brother’s, and just like his brother, he sits down to his rinse his own tail, probably because that’s the way his role model of a brother did it.

With the bath over, you give them some toys to play with. The boats, duck, and seapony are all present, but you also picked up a toy turtle the last time you shopped for more shampoo and supplies. The brothers both take a boat and begin playing. Flam has a little red boat and Flim has a boat that is identical, but green.

Flam drives his little boat around exploring, but Flim is content just to follow his big brother around. You are suddenly overcome with a strange since that you have seen this before somewhere. You think about it for a moment, but aren’t sure why this seems familiar. 

Flam decides to steer the boat back towards the other end of the tub where the other toys are waiting. At the extreme end of the tub under the faucet is the seapony and both brothers decide to send the boats that way, but due to their splashing around, the turtle floats into the middle of the path, preventing them from advancing. The brothers know they will have to defeat the evil turtle king to save the seapony. Why does this sound so familiar?

The brothers work together, magically moving their boats across the tub. Flim’s little green boat lags just a little behind due to having weaker magic at this point, so the little red boat takes the lead. They finally make it to the evil king turtle. You pick the duck out of the tub altogether since it’s been forgotten. You’re not sure what this reminds you off.

After both brothers try running their boats into the turtle to defeat it, to no avail, the little red boat hops up onto the turtle, knocking it into the nearby hazard of suds. With the path cleared, the boats save the seapony. Both brothers cheer, but you’re not convinced that they didn’t have more fun fighting the turtle than actually saving the seapony.

You unplug the tub and get Flam out to dry him. After about twenty seconds, Flam is dry. You reach into the tub to find Flim is mesmerized by the water going out of the tub, Flam looks and agrees that it seems fun. After twenty more seconds Flim is dry. You open the door and tell Flam that he can get some cider for the both of them and that you will be there shortly.

As you clean up the bathroom, you wonder what they remind you of: Two brothers going on an adventure, to fight a turtle, and save a princess, are fascinated by plumbing, at least one has a mustache (will eventually anyway), and speaking of eventually, they eventually drive a cart. You just aren’t sure what they remind you of, but decide to order some Italian for dinner tonight.