Take comfort in the simple pleasures of life ✓
Twilight Sparkle stared at the eight foals sitting in the bathtub. Rainbow Dash’s foals were currently in her care, for the evening, giving Rainbow Dash and Soarin’ some much needed time with one another. Foal sitting was becoming a common occurrence in life.
It would be their first birthday soon, making them at least two years old, which was odd, but made sense when you thought about it. Although, not much of that trying time made sense. It was still very, very confusing.
Eight giggling trouble making foals. Twilight knew her foals were perfect, but Rainbow Dash’s foals were a hoof full of trouble.
Currently all covered in bubbles and splashing in the giant claw footed bathtub.
Trixie sat nearby, looking exhausted, but still smiling. Motherhood agreed with Trixie, foals loved her, and Trixie loved being loved. Trixie loved being the center of her foals’ world. And every other foal. Trixie was a great mother and a foalsitter as well.
Trixie even loved Quadrashy, a difficult task to do.
There was a squeak from the door as it opened, and Spike came into the bathroom.
“Twilight, we have a problem,” Spike said in a low voice, full of concern. “And visitors. Downstairs. Who need to see you right away.”
Twilight Sparkle studied her visitors carefully, full of fear and uncertainty.
“Mother and father won’t stop fighting,” said a bright orange alicorn filly.
“Father is really angry!” added a dark purple alicorn filly.
“Mother was being unreasonable…” muttered a juvenile draconequus.
Daystar, the bright orange alicorn filly, seemed awfully familiar. Indigo Skies, the dark purple alicorn filly, also seemed rather familiar. Discombobulated, the juvenile draconequus, had one tentacle that filled Twilight Sparkle with total dread.
“Mother threw father out of our home,” said Daystar. “She said she couldn’t take the chaos anymore.”
“No, father said he was leaving to find his own place to live,” corrected Indigo Skies. “He grew tired of mother’s constant need to control everything.”
“Father went and created his own pocket plane and calls it Hell,” Discombobulated added. “I’ve been there, it is nice.”
“No, Hell is a horrible place. It smells awful!” protested Daystar.
“Mother is missing!” Indigo Skies cried.
“Daystar, your constant bickering drove mother away,” muttered Discombobulated.
“I never fight with anypony!” protested Daystar.
“Yes you do,” argued Indigo Skies.
“No I do not! And how dare you say otherwise!” shouted Daystar.
“ENOUGH!” Twilight Sparkle commanded. “I AM YOUR GRANDMOTHER AND YOU WILL LISTEN TO ME!”
Twilight Sparkle’s grandfoals cowered before her, Discombobulated’s tentacle writhing into a knot, hiding himself behind his sisters.
“What happened?” Twilight asked. “Calmly. No fighting, Indigo Skies, you may speak.”
Indigo Skies stuck her tongue out at Daystar and turned back to Twilight Sparkle. “Father left our home, created his own home where mother couldn’t go, mother is now gone and nopony can find her, and all of our little ponies have separated into tribes and will not stop fighting. Discombobulated keeps trying to get them to see reason, but it seems that everything he does just makes the problems worse, the fighting is getting really bad.”
“I just don’t know what goes wrong,” Discombobulated said sadly. “I tried to get the pegasi to recognise the magical prowess of the unicorns and now they’ve gone to war, and the poor earth ponies are caught in the middle.”
“Discombobulated brought us here with his magic because father told him you might help us. Discombobulated can do magic that we cannot. And he’s a brat!” shouted Daystar.
“Am not!” Discombobulated retorted. “The spoiled little sun princess in the royal pain!”
“I am not a pain!” Daystar shrieked. “Indigo is the pain!”
“You take that back you pain in the plot, Indigo is the best sister you could ask for!” growled Discombobulated. “You are a rotten little dessert thief! Cake stealer!”
“STOP!” Twilight Sparkle shouted. “Stop fighting or I WILL STAND YOU IN THE CORNER!”
“They started it,” Daystar whined. “They’re horrible siblings! Both of them are monsters. Always getting me in trouble and I never actually do anything wrong!”
“THAT’S IT!” Twilight Sparkle teleported Daystar into the corner and held her in place with magic, the corner of Twilight’s eye twitching alarmingly.
Twilight felt Trixie brush up against her and heaved a sigh of relief. Trixie made everything better, made life bearable.
“Foals are upstairs, being read to by Spike,” said Trixie. “Trixie has heard much of what has been said down here.”
Twilight struggled to come to terms with standing an alicorn in the corner. Her brain recoiled. And a little sun princess no less.
“Discombobulated is a good brother,” Indigo said, glaring at her sister’s backside in the corner. “He means well, but things always seem to go wrong for him. I feel so bad for him sometimes. And Daystar teases him all the time and leaves him feeling insecure and afraid. She’s mean!”
Daystar mumbled in the corner, but found that she could not speak.
“Discombobulated can’t help that he’s accidentally caused a war among our little ponies and made all the dragons into arrogant bullies,” Indigo continued. “Discombobulated is sweet and kind, and I cannot figure out why everything keeps going wrong. And now, mother is gone and father has left, and our entire world is falling apart, and I don’t know how to fix it,” Indigo sobbed, now breaking into tears.
Discombobulated wrapped a tentacle and a dragon foreleg around his sister and hugged her, pulling her close, placing her head against his chest.
“Daystar makes me so angry sometimes that my magic goes funny and bad things happen,” Discombobulated said.
“It is late,” said Twilight. “I am going to put all of you to bed, and then we will figure out what to do tomorrow. As a family.”
“Can I have a snack before bed?” asked Discombobulated.
“Yes, you and Indigo can have a snack.” answered Twilight. “But foals in the corner get to go to bed without a snack. Tomorrow, I will get your grandfather Discord and we will try to sort this all out. Maybe we can find a way to fix things and bring your parents back together again.”
Where are Discord, Celestia, and Luna’s parents? Twilight thought to herself. How come they didn’t seem to have any memory of being siblings? Were they actually siblings? What happened? So many things don’t make sense!
“Trixie is thinking what you are thinking Sparkle,” Trixie whispered.
Ahead of them was a mystery…