On a hot summer day like today, Ponyville’s local pond is the place to be. Most of the time, it feels like half the town is there, cooling off and relaxing. Today, though, you should have the place to yourself. Everyone’s busy getting ready for the upcoming Summer Sun Celebration, but you managed to sneak off. Procrastination has always come naturally to you, and trying to focus on work in this heat is downright impossible.
Rounding the last bend of the trail, the sparkling water comes into view, partially obscured by a few bushes and trees. You smile, and trot faster towards the pond, eager to rinse off a heavy layer of sweat. Just as you reach the edge of the water, you hear some noises from the other side of a bush. Peeking around it, you spot a couple ponies by the water a little ways away. You recognize Sweet Roll, one of the town’s bakers, lying down and reading a book while her foal, Cinnamon Roll, is playing with a beach ball by the edge of the pond.
You jump back behind the bush, sighing inwardly. The pond was supposed to be all yours today! No one can know you’re skipping work again though, not when you already took more than a few impromptu vacation days last week. You lie down, rubbing your face with your hooves as you think. Maybe if you wait, they’ll leave soon, and you can get in the water. The heat is unbearable, and it’d be a shame to come all the way out here and not cool off. From your position on the shore, the water taunts you with its clear, glassy surface, practically begging to be jumped into.
A light bouncing noise grabs your attention away from the pond. Looking to the side, you spot a familiar beach ball, sitting less than a foot away from you. You stare blankly at it, as the little unicorn foal from earlier shuffles through the bush, eyes on the ball. Once the Sweet Roll notices her foal is gone, she’ll start looking around. This filly’s gonna blow your cover! Thinking fast, you pick up her beach ball. Making sure she sees, you lightly lob it back over the bush. Or you would have, anyways, if the ball hadn’t gotten stuck on a branch near the top, popping in the process.
The foal just stares up at her beach ball, limp and hanging out of reach on the bush. She lets out a little whine that slowly grows in intensity into full-blown wailing.
“Cinnamon? Where are you?” you hear the mare call. Shit. You try and shush the foal, anything to stop the crying. No luck, she’s fixated on the defeated beach ball. You can hear her mother getting closer. You spin Cinnamon around, and make a goofy face in a last ditch attempt. You might be found out for skipping work, but the last thing you need is an angry mother going off on you for making her filly cry. It seems to work for a moment, the foal stops crying out of confusion. She looks up at you, and starts to sniffle again. Suddenly, her horn starts glowing, and there’s a flash of light as a strange chill runs through your body.
As your vision adjusts from the flash, you notice Cinnamon isn’t crying any more. Actually, she’s giggling and crawling towards you. Mentally, you add ‘Foal Pacifier’ to your list of self-granted titles. Silly faces get them every time. She calmed down just in time, too. You see her mother come into view from behind the bush.
“There you are, Cinnamon! You had me worried,” Sweet Roll sighs, as she nuzzles the little filly. Breaking away, she turns to look at you. “What do we have here?” she wonders out loud. You go to extend a hoof and introduce yourself, but your arm doesn’t move. Confused, you try to look down and see what’s wrong, but you can’t seem to move your head, either. Panic beginning to well up in your chest, you try to desperately thrash around, trying to move anything. Nothing. You try to yell, to ask the mare for help, but no sound escapes your unmoving lips. You feel something bump into your unmoving leg. You can’t see, but it feels like Cinnamon has grabbed your forehoof in a hug. The unnatural feeling of your leg contorting to the way the foal squeezes it only scares you more, as does the slight squeaking noise you hear. Her curious mother, still inspecting you, stares into your eyes as you try to give her some indication that you need help, pleading for her to notice.
She steps back, “Huh. One of the decorations for the festival must have floated off down here.” Picking her filly up on her back, Sweet Roll smiles at her daughter, “That dough should be done rising anyways. Let’s head back into town, and bring this back with us.”
Decoration? Just what did that little foal do to you? It’s common knowledge that baby unicorns can have spurts of magic, but this is beyond anything you’ve heard of. Urgent, panicked thoughts buzz through your head as you try to make sense of things. You’re momentarily broken out of your frenzied state as the mare effortlessly flips you over. The fall to the ground seems slower than it should be, and as you land on your side, the impact makes a quiet ‘pomf’ sound. From you new vantage point on the ground, you can see part of your reflection in the water.
Dead, unmoving eyes. Muzzle locked in a permanent smile. Shiny, plastic skin all over. You’ve been turned into an inflatable toy. Unable to move, unable to speak, unable to even cry out of panic and anxiety, there’s nothing left to give any indication that you were ever a living pony. As the reality of the situation begins to slowly close around your shattered mind, you feel something being pulled out of your back, near the base of your tail. A whooshing sound fills your ears as you feel hooves pushing down on your back, forcing your body to twist and bend in ways that should have been impossible. You start to feel a growing pervasive sense of emptiness, as if your body were slowly collapsing in on itself. From somewhere behind you, you can hear Cinnamon whimper a little.
“Calm down kiddo, I can’t carry you and this back to town at the same time. I hope they don’t mind blowing it back up again, though,” your unaware tormentor chuckles. You can only sit in quiet despair as she continues to push the air out of you. Soon, parts of your body are completely deflated. The sensation of the insides of your hooves touching each other is lost among the cacophony of your panicked, buzzing thoughts. Working her way up your back, you can feel your body collapse under the gentle pressure of her hooves, accompanied by the steady whoosh of air out through the valve on your back. She finishes the job by squashing your head and piping the last of your air out, leaving your entire body crumpled and flat on the ground.
Suddenly, your back hooves are bent up and laid flat against your body. You can feel your tail being pressed on top of your hooves, right before your flank is folded in on top of them. Your body produces squeaking noises of plastic being rubbed together with every fold Sweet Roll makes. The mare continues, folding your forehooves up, tucking them into the rolled-up pile of plastic that is your body. As she finishes wrapping your head along your own side, you can see her face out of your one eye that’s facing outwards.
She picks your folded self up, and swings you around towards her back. For a brief instant, you see the foal that caused all this, the only one who knows you’re not supposed to be a deflated, rolled up bundle of squeaky plastic, sitting comfortably on her mother’s back, drooling and smiling at you without a care in the world. Then, you’re stuffed into a saddlebag, and everything goes dark.
“What a nice visit to the pond,” Sweet Roll muses to herself as she begins her walk back into town.