//------------------------------// // The Founder Ponies, A Hearth's Warming Special // Story: Bathtime for Ponies Part 2 // by Starry Eyed //------------------------------// You make your way through the castle courtyard, an oaken basket with bath towels draped over it under your arm. Now understand, when you first started this job, there was a mutual discomfort from you and the locals in your presence, being a human and all. It also never helped that, since you travel through time in addition to places, ponies in each new time or place were unused to you. But this was different, completely. The unicorns here didn’t look at you so much as an oddity. They really just didn’t like you, and that was that. You have been doing this long enough to tell. You decided to take it as a blessing that they ignore you generally, after all, the king “accepts” you, but that is only because the unicorn king wants nothing less than the greatest foalsitter ever for his precious Princess Platinum (though he was disappointed when he saw that you were not a unicorn). In truth, there is only one full-grown pony that treats you like a peer and equal. “Out getting your bathing supplies sitter?” asks a kindly court wizard. “Oh you know, the necessities Starswirled”, you lie to your dear new friend. You’re contractually not allowed to reveal any knowledge about the future, but it takes everything in your power not to have an awesome attack around the one and only Starswirled the bearded, greatest unicorn to date and your newest personal friend. Starswirled raises a knowing eyebrow at you, “Yes, I’m sure. And I’m sure those little ones just happened to get mixed into your supplies, aye sitter?” You freeze; the old guy is too smart for his own good. You lower the basket and remove the towel, revealing four baby ponies cuddled up in a ball of warm, loving pony cuteness. Two pegasi and two earth ponies. “I have to wash all of them, and the unicorn castle has the best tub by far. But you know nothing about this, right Starswirled?” Starswirled feigns ignorance, “Know nothing about what sitter? Is there something I should know?” You smile; Starswirled possesses none of the racism and hate of the other unicorns, or the other tribes for that matter, “Thanks, Starswirled.” Starswirled smiles and steps into a side room. A moment later he returns, leading two baby unicorns with him. You ask him to lead them to the bathroom, knowing that it would otherwise be a struggle. You go in and start the water to running, pouring the bubblebath into the tub. A small purple foal trots merrily into the room ready and waiting for a bath. The other foal on the other hand is sitting in a pouting position and would never have entered the bathroom at all if Starswirled magic was giving her any choice. Starswirled sets her down next to the basket and closes the door. You know that he is going back to work and you need to get around to yours. With the bath drawn you wake the little ones in the basket. The first to awaken is Smart Cookie, an earth pony a lot like Applejack. Her mane and tail are like shiny straw. Her coat is a light tan, but her (pardon the expression) down to earth nature is what really reminds you of the apple growing earth pony. Next, a sky blue pegasus flutters up and holds onto the handle of the basket cutely failing to perch there and wobbling about. Hurricane, the future commander of the pegasi race, looks exactly like Rainbow Dash, but has a storm cloud colored mane and tail and her wing tips are white, a fiery look permanently set in her eyes and in her soul. Puddinghead, or just Pudding to you, is a much lighter pink than Pinkie was in the play, and turns out, it wasn’t a hat; her mane just looks like chocolate pudding in reality. She jumps merrily out of the basket and starts playing with the little purple unicorn with a midnight mane: Clover. With the basket practically empty, a pegasus that Fluttershy acted as, Pansy, kindly pokes her head out of the basket, giggling at just the sight of you. She may not look anything like Fluttershy. Her body is light green and her mane and tail are bluish-purple (like a pansy), but her demeanor is EXACTLY like Fluttershy’s to the point you ignore the colors. You sit on the bath mat and lean your back against the tub, “Well, I’ve never washed 6 ponies at once before. Who’d like to get into the bath first?” The non-unicorns have just woken up and are only now realizing that a bath awaits them. Hurricane flies vainly towards the closed door, Pansy ducks down in the basket, and Pudding hides behind the basket. For her part, Smart Cookie (or just Cookie), happily wants a bath and volunteers. You start gently petting Cookie’s head for her good behavior but wait long enough to put a plan into motion, “Well, I guess you’ll go first. That means everyone else will come in… oh… you know, not first place.” Hurricane can’t bear the idea of not coming in first and flies into the bath so fast a good bit of water splashes out. Well, you asked for it after all. You place the foals in the tub: Platinum, Cookie, Clover, Pudding, and Pansy, ready to get started. You use “holiday spice” scented shampoo on the little ones, they may not know the future significance, but you do so it’s good enough. You start massaging the shampoo into Princess Platinum’s mane, since she’s the pickiest in regards to how she likes it. Platinum looks very similar to Rarity, but her mane is the exact same color as her royal robe (slightly different shade) and instead of being opal in color like Rarity, she is a platinum-white. Because of how picky she is about her hair, you still aren’t done even after half a minute. This normally wouldn’t be a problem, but there are five other foals waiting their turn that are starting to get impatient. And when foals get impatient, they start misbehaving. You realize that you can’t leave them all alone while you wash, and also begin to realize that at this rate the bath water will be too cold for playtime by the time you finish washing them all. Cookie may only be a foal, but she realizes your dilemma. She looks over at the shampoo bottle and points at it while squeaking cutely for your attention. You’ve gotta admit, she’s one Smart Cookie. You’re not sure letting little foals wash each other is a good idea, but realize you don’t have much of a choice. You give Cookie some shampoo and she turns to the pony closest to her, which happens to be Pansy. She starts scrubbing Pansy’s mane. You do your best to see that she’s not scrubbing too hard, but really can’t tell if her earth pony strength is too much, or if Pansy is just shying away from the cleaning. You then give some shampoo to Pudding, who starts washing Hurricane’s mane. Poor Hurricane looks up at you with pouting eyes, begging you to do something about this. You can only laugh at how cute she looks. You see that Clover has already magically picked up a bath brush and is washing Platinum’s coat. These foals, they will never stop amazing you. They are all getting along so well and doing a much better job than you would have thought possible. You get to work washing tails and keeping careful watch that nopony gets soap in anypony’s eyes. After a while, the little ones switch who is washing and who is being washed. You pull Hurricane over to the side of the tub, since she is the rowdiest, and start washing her wings. You know this is one job too serious and delicate to entrust to foals, no matter how gentle or well-meaning they are. Like most pegasus, nothing feels better for Hurricane than a good wing preening/massaging; it seems to have a tranquilizing effect on her. This is especially good for you, because it means the troublemaker of the group is temporarily gentle. You are ready to wash Pansy’s wings now, and see that she, Clover, Cookie, and even Platinum are all sitting in a circle, trying to figure out how in the world to wash Puddinghead’s crazy mane. They all have a hoof propping up their chins with a dumbfounded look on their faces, totally unsure how to approach the situation. You permit Hurricane to join the others and gently pull Pansy over to wash her wings. At first you are a little surprised that she seems to have no reaction to it, but then shrug it off as, “She’s like Fluttershy, already tranquil to begin with”. With no more wings or tails to worry about, you look over to see that, to your great surprise, Platinum of all ponies is using her magic and your brush to fix Pudding’s hair better than you ever could. Despite being a little stuck up (and growing up to be MUCH more so), she was actually very fashionable. You guess Rarity was perfect to play her part after all. Sadly, you see the water is cold now. “Sorry everypony, no playtime tonight.” Six saddened, “Aww's respond to you, but there’s nothing you can do. You hear a knock at the bathroom door and are terrified what will happen if the unicorns find out about this. “Sitter, it’s just me, open the door.” Hearing Starswirled’s voice relaxes you, and you go to open the door for him. “Sorry to disrupt you Sitter, but I forgot to mention earlier that the unicorns are all having a grand meeting in the city today, the castle will be mostly deserted. What that means for you is you don’t need to rush anything. Nopony is around to care about you bringing those other ponies in”. You shrug, “Thanks, but the baths are already over anyway. I was going to let them play, but the bathwater is too cold.” Starswirled is staring behind you, “Then… what do you call that?” he says pointing towards the bath. You turn around to a magnificent sight. Platinum and Clover are magically heating the bath, with no small amount of help from Pansy and Hurricane’s control over water. Cookie is holding Puddings hind legs so she can reach the toys before pulling her back into the tub, resulting in a victorious squeak from the other four. Hurricane balls up enough of the now hot bathwater into a cloud which she makes rain, one-by-one over each pony’s head, showering their mane’s clean. This process accidentally gets some soap in Pansy’s eye, but before you have time to react, Platinum combs Pansy’s mane back so the soap won’t get in her eyes anymore, and Pudding wipes her tears away with a dry washcloth you had on emergency standby. You can feel the moment taking your breath away. The love and harmony present here is like nothing you can find in “civilized, adult society”, and you can feel your hope overflowing out of you. Starswirled is just as surprised as you are; with all his knowledge, he is unable to explain what he is seeing. “What in the world did you do to harmonize them so perfectly in one bath, sitter?” he asks, desperate to find out the secret. “I didn’t do anything Starswirled. They did it on their own.” You look at him, “I’ve washed a lot of foals, and they hate a lot of things: baths, being fed, going to bed on time, hiccups. But I’ve never known them to hate others. The three tribes don’t hate each other, not naturally anyway. Do they look like natural enemies to you?” Starswirled already knows his answer, but is too busy watching the little ones, “No sitter, not at all.” Starswirled then looks back at you, “You seem to understand friendship better than I do, I’m currently writing my findings on it in my diary. I’d like your professional input sometime.” You shrug, “What I’ve learned most about friendship is acceptance and love, and what I’ve learned most about acceptance and love”, you point at the foals, “Is right over there. Foals understand love better than we ever will.” Starswirled nods sagely, “You may be right, sitter.” You head back in, “Close the door Starswirled. I owe six little ponies another 5-10 minutes of playtime.” Your statement is answered by 5 cheers, a closing door, and Hurricane grabbing the toy boats to begin her invasion of the toys on… well, everypony. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ You are on the phone with Twilight (technically, you are on the phone, she just hears your voice in her head magically. Isn't your boss's magic great!) asking for more of her magic bubblebath mix. Since it's Hearth's Warming's Eve, she politly asks how you will be spending the holidays. "Oh you know Twi, the boss made some adjustments to the time machine, though temporary. I'm just riding around, doing a bit of a... a bit of a charity drive you might say, you know, for the less fortunate." Twilight says that's wonderful of you, you talk a while longer, and you hang up. You drop a sleeping Smart Cookie off at her parent's home, and leave her some Hearth's Warming presents without telling anyone. One down, a few hundred to go. You aren't Santa, but hey, every one counts. And since you know from the Hearth's Warming Story that they live and found Equestria, you don't have to worry about saving someone you "shouldn't" and messing up the timestream. You can give them food enough for the winter, and toys enough for Hearth's Warming (even though it hasn't offically started yet, grateful foals won't care a bit). You love time travel, you love Hearth's Warming, AND YOU. LOVE. THIS. JOB!