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// Chapter 2 
// Story: A Day at the Pond 
// by birchwood 
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	The walk back into town is a short one, but now it feels painfully long.  Each step Sweet Roll takes jostles your twisted body, eliciting tiny squeaks and reminding you how tightly packed together your limbs are.  Nearly every square inch of yourself is folded against another part of your body, and the sensation of plastic being lightly rubbed against most of your body with each bounce is only slightly less maddening than knowing that the material is your own skin.  Unable to move, you’re left to spend the whole trip posing countless terrifying what-ifs to yourself.  What if no one realizes you’re not supposed to be a pool toy?  What if the spell wears off right now, while you’re all folded up?  What if you’re stuck like this forever?  What if Sweet Roll keeps you and your new life is spent sitting in a dusty box, only to be taken out for the occasional swim?  A tiny little voice in the back of your head tells you that imagining these scenarios will only make you feel worse, but trying to calm yourself down is useless against overwhelming fear and anxiety.  Frustrated, you mentally scream while going through the motions of flailing your unmoving, lifeless limbs.  Being neatly folded into a bundle and placed tightly in a saddlebag is making you claustrophobic.  If you still had lungs, you’d be hyperventilating.  
Through the fabric of the bag, you can hear muffled noises.  Various voices, the clip-clop of multiple sets of hooves, and distant music.  Your little caravan must be coming into town.  As Sweet Roll walks through the town square, the hubbub tells you that all the ponies in town are working hard to prepare for the celebration.  If only you had stayed to help, you wouldn’t currently be folded up in a bag like a towel.  
As you inwardly curse your decision to skip work, you hear a mare’s voice over the general noise of the town, calling out to your unwitting captor, “Sweet Roll!  Over here!”
You lurch forward in your bag as your ride comes to a halt, then walks in the direction of the voice.  “Cloudy!  How’ve you been?”
You hear a drawn-out sigh, “I’ve just been busy getting things ready for tomorrow, but I’m exhausted.  It looks like you and Cinnamon are having a nice day, though.”
“We just popped down to the pond to have a little fun while our dough was rising.  This little filly just loves playing down by the water,” Sweet Roll responds.
“The pond…,” you can almost hear the longing in Cloudy’s voice, ”I could use a day down there to cool off after all this.  I’d better get back to work though, I’ve still gotta figure out where half our balloon supply went!”
“Now that you mention it, there was a weird pony-shaped inflatable toy down by the pond.”  Oh, no.  The conversation now holds your complete interest.  You really hope Sweet Roll isn’t going to do what you think she will.  ”Cinnamon found it stuck behind a bush.  One of your missing balloons, maybe?”
Light floods your vision as the top of the saddlebag is undone.  You’re pulled out of the bag and set on the ground.  Luckily, your good eye is facing up, giving you a glimpse of the town, the busy ponies around you, and the curious pegasus mare staring down at you.  She inspects your face, prodding your eye with her hoof.  It doesn’t hurt, but you try to blink and look away out of instinct.  Since your eyes are unmoving plastic, though, nothing happens, and you are treated to a close-up view of Cloudy’s dirty hoof.  
“I’m not sure, but at this point, I’ll take what I can get.  Thanks, and I’ll see you two later,” Cloudy says, as she gives a little wave to Cinnamon.  Picking you up in her mouth, she turns around and walks off at a decent pace.  She’s got a good grip on you, strong enough to feel it through all your folded body parts.  The feeling of being bitten simultaneously in what should be distinctly separate places is dizzying, made even worse by the sensation of half your body flopping up and down as the mare trots.  As you make your way through the bustling town, you mentally beg for any of the ponies to notice your predicament.  Even if they can’t change you back, being treated like the mindless, inanimate object you appear to be is just too much.  No one pays you any mind, though.  Even if they weren’t busy with their individual tasks for tomorrow’s celebration, you doubt that you would really warrant suspicion.  Who would think to investigate a pool toy?
Suddenly, you find yourself indoors in a large room covered with streamers, signs, and uncountable other ornaments.  Ponies scurry around, collecting decorations before darting out the door, to distribute them around town, no doubt.  Cloudy weaves around the small mob and ducks into a side room.  She spits you out onto the ground, then starts to unfold you.  Your flat limbs flop weakly onto the ground as your torso is unrolled.  Laid out on the ground, all you can do is look up at the ceiling, where dozens of multicolored balloons rest.  Cloudy disappears from your field of vision and moments later, you hear something being dragged over to you.  Something cold and hard is pushed into your back, where your valve is.  You know what’s about to happen, but you can only muster a mental whimper.  You can’t move, speak, or otherwise resist.  No one thinks you’re anything but a common inflatable toy now, and you can’t do anything to change that.  You may as well try to get comfortable with the situation, because it doesn’t look like it’s going to go away anytime soon.  The sharp squeaking noise of a valve from behind you, followed by the sound of rushing air signals the start of your inflation.  You try to ignore how alien the feeling of air being forced into your body feels with little success.  Focusing on a particularly round balloon near the ceiling, you try to block out your growing anxiety.
Cloudy looks disappointedly at your slowly expanding body, nudging you with a hoof.  “This is going to take a while,” she sighs as she turns and walks out of the room.  Before long, you hear her muffled voice through the door, talking to another mare.  You try to push the realization that you’ll never be able to do something as simple as speak again from your mind as you redouble your efforts to focus on that balloon.  
Time feels meaningless now, minutes passing like hours as you try to block the sensation of your body slowly swelling.  In your intense focus, it almost seems like the balloon is growing larger.  Wait, that’s not right.  Breaking out of your concentration, you realize that you can’t feel the ground any more.  You can’t see them, but your hooves feel full, and you’re practically bumping up against the ceiling.  Where is that mare?  You have to be done filling up, but she’s still in the main room, talking to someone, and the hiss of air isn’t getting any weaker.  As your entire body starts to feel bloated, making strained noises like an overinflated balloon, your unshakable sense of fear returns.  What if you pop?  There’s a question you hadn’t panicked about earlier.  The balloon from earlier, object of your attentions, fills your vision as your face presses up against it, the rest of your body bumping up against its neighbors.  You can feel your artificial skin beginning to weaken at the seams, an uncomfortable pulling sensation accompanied by the concerning noise of stretching plastic.  Unable to even close your eyes from fear, all you can do is wait to pop.
Just then, the door swings open and Cloudy walks in.  With the eye pointed towards the ground, you see her shocked expression as she sees you floating against the ceiling, just about to burst.  She scrambles to the gas tank and turns the valve off as fast as she can, stopping the air flow.  
“Whew, that was a close one!” the mare laughs as she pulls on the air tube, reeling you in towards the ground, “Guess I lost track of time out there.”  She swiftly pulls the tube out of your valve, then seals it up before much air can escape, keeping you stuck quite overinflated.  As she turns to put the gas tank away, you start to float back up to the ceiling.  Stowing the tank, the pegasus turns back to you, and flies up to your level, grabbing you.  A shiver runs down where your spine used to be.  Stretched out as it is, your plastic skin is apparently very sensitive, and the sensation of Cloudy’s hooves brushing against your distended body as she brings you back to the ground rushes through your head, blowing away your thoughts in a wave of pleasure.  It doesn’t last long, though, as the mare loops some thick string around your torso, ties it off, and lets go.  Your ascent is halted when she grabs the trailing string in her mouth, leaving you dangling in midair, an overinflated, pony-shaped balloon.  Leading with your tether, Cloudy carefully maneuvers you through the door, then pulls you through the crowded decoration storage area, and back out onto the streets of Ponyville.
Now you’re getting some attention.  As Cloudy tugs you along, ponies stare, amused, as you float by.  Distracted by the breezy, tickling sensation of being pulled through the air, you almost don’t notice where you’re headed.  Soon, you’ve stopped in front of the town hall, the focal point of tomorrow’s celebration, where a purple pony seems to be directing workers.  Cloudy walks up to her, transferring your string from her mouth to her hoof, and pulling you closer to the ground.  “Twilight, where do you want this balloon to go?  It’s the largest one I have,” she asks.
You feel a surge of hope as you recognize the purple mare.  Twilight Sparkle, the town’s magician extraordinaire!  Cloudy couldn’t have been more of a help.  Sure, she almost popped you with her carelessness, but if anyone can recognize your situation and reverse the effects, it’s this mare.  She should be able to recognize the latent magic, right?  Or maybe she can read your mind, and learn your plight.  As long as she can see the reality of your situation, it doesn’t matter.
Twilight looks at you closely as you lightly bob up and down.  Her eyes bore into you as you silently wait for her judgement.  Finally, she breaks her gaze, looking satisfied.
“Cloudy, this is no balloon,” Twilight chides.  Finally!  Someone’s figured it out!  If your eyes weren’t currently made of plastic, you’d be crying tears of joy.
“Its an inflatable pool toy, see?  It’s got seams in the plastic and a valve on the back,” Twilight says pointedly as Cloudy shoots her a deadpan look, “I think it’ll look nice above the town hall entrance.”
As Cloudy grabs your string in her mouth again and flies you up above the town hall entrance, all you can feel is despair.  If even Twilight Sparkle couldn’t recognize the effects of your magical mishap, no one will.  Cloudy deftly ties your string to a fixture above the entrance, then gives the knots one more check over before flying back down.  As you watch the pegasus leave, you wonder if you really will be stuck as an inflatable pool toy forever.  From your lofty position above the town hall entrance, you can see dozens of ponies going about their chores, all of them oblivious to your predicament.  Nearly all of them, you correct yourself, as you spot a familiar foal waving at you from her mother’s back.  Your inanimate body can’t wave back, though.  All you can do is sway listlessly in the breeze.