//------------------------------// // In the Thick of It // Story: The Problem with Being a Foal // by AlliePastel //------------------------------// Coco gripped the tabs in her hooves; she ripped back the tabs and let the soggy diaper fall flat on the hard wooden floor. Her eyes opened wide as she looked at the brown mess all over her friend’s cotton white bottom. “Oh my Celestia!” she giggled as she pulled out a few wipes from her side. Moving her hooves as quickly as she could, she used the magic wipes to smear off her friend’s mess. She stroked each clean wipe up and down her friend’s crevasses and bottom so many times, it felt like she was at it for hours. Eventually, her friend’s bottom once again looked like it’s usual pristine self again, even the parts of it she wished not to think to much of. She reached over to the powder and coated every uncovered bit with a small layer of white powder. Try as she did to cause little dismay, she still had to use her hooves to reach some of the harder places. The powdering all done, she lifted her friend’s spread legs into the air and quickly pushed a fresh puffy white diaper under her friend’s bottom. She pulled the front of the diaper up to the waist and wrapped the back up towards the front. Rarity was shaking, her entire body unnerved. For reasons she couldn’t quite pinpoint, she felt petrified. All she could see was her friend’s curious expression and the bulge that came of her the horizon line of her own tummy. With the help of her friend’s hooves, she rolled back unto her padded bottom. Without thinking about it, she sat perfectly still as she suckled lightly on her pacifier. She looked at her friend’s grin and puckered her eyebrows. “Wha?” she asked, behind the plastic mouth guard. Coco giggled a little, Rarity looked absolutely precious. She shook her head, getting back into her role as a foal. “Hehe, I cwean you!” she cheered, clapping her hooves before placing them over her semi-smug expression. She reached over to grab the white unicorn’s hooves. With the same happy expression on her face, she leaned in nuzzling her friend’s poufy coated chest with her nose. It tickled a bit, but Rarity’s coat was really soft; no doubt a result of good grooming. “Mmm, sissy soft!” she said, really pressing her head against her playmate’s chest. Rarity meanwhile cringed at the site and feeling. She understood the affection, but she was really feeling like a wreck right now. Still, she wrapped a hoof around Coco and leaned her head on her sister’s shoulder. “Mmm, tanks Coco” she sounded beneath her pacifier. Why was she sucking on it again? Her eyebrows puckered again as she spit it out. “Yuck.” She muttered. “Sissy no like binky?” Coco asked, backing out the hug and turning her head to the side. She changed her sights towards the ground and spotted the white pacifier. Picking it up, she rubbed it against her chest and stuck it in her mouth. Watching the scene unfold in front of her, the white unicorn stuck her tongue out. The pacifier looked a little nasty, let alone it had her own spit on it. Perhaps Coco wasn’t as pristine as she thought. Then again, perhaps Coco is just really enjoying her role as a foal. It was all possible really. It probably didn’t matter; the nursery was almost certainly spotless. Even if the pacifier was picked straight off the ground, the ground itself was probably clean. Of course she wouldn’t have risked it, but then again she really didn’t want to lose any more than her dignity tonight. The night outside wearily crept up on Coco as she looked out her room’s glaringly foggy windows. It would’ve looked pitch black outside had it not been for the street lights. Crystal white snowflakes gleamed down the lighted night sky; it was obvious that the snowflakes would soon coat everything in a white powdery frost. As it so happened, Ponyville’s usual dirt paths were quickly turning from a hardened light brown into a frothy white crystalized linen. The whole town seemed to be tucked away in their cozy little cottage homes as the cold winter weather seemed to get progressively more inclement. “Feels good doesn’t it?” Rarity asks, walking up behind Coco wrapping her hoof around the crème colored pony’s neck. She sat down and gazed curiously out the window, “The winter air is so brutal around these parts of Equestria. We’re lucky to be together. You know? In this house that is.” “It’s beautiful…” The earth pony muttered, nearly unable to keep the pacifier in her mouth. “Mmm- I see a gleam of beauty in your eyes every time you look out that window, out at the world, into toil. I don’t know what it is about you that keeps you so motivated…” Rarity turns her eyes back towards her friend, “I suppose it might be passion for the job, but your job seems to be what makes you passionate about this obsession of yours in the first place.” Coco smirked, letting the pacifier drop from her mouth. A small string of drool followed as it plummeted towards the ground. She wiped her hoof across her mouth and looked at her playmate, “I-I don’t know why I do this Rarity. Anymore it seems like this life is compensating for something, like I’m working to be remembered by all when it really doesn’t matter in the end.” Raising an eyebrow, Rarity questioned her friend, “Is there something on your mind dear?” She turned her attention towards the window again, “I know it’s rough, but you know your work is appreciated right?” “Psht, yeah.” Coco exclaimed, rolling her eyes. In all honesty, she knew her work was appreciated, but what of her as a the actual creator. Siri went her whole life being credited as the creator of the work she stole. Did it really matter who was making the clothes so long as they were being made? “Well-you are important Coco.” Rarity said, looking down at her tummy for a second. She reached her hooves down and undid the buttons, letting the two open flaps give way to a poufy white diaper. She stretched her hooves high in the air and used her magic to tug the white shirt off her body. “Huh?” Coco questioned, “You don’t wanna play anymore?” Concerned, she turned away from the window and towards her friend. She honestly could guess that Rarity was going to leave her; it wouldn’t be the first time she’d been stabbed in the back. She always had a bad time with commitment, even friendships. Tugging the shirt over her head with one final pull, Rarity dropped the onesies unto the ground, “No, I’m just a bit done with being a foal. I think being your momma might be a little bit more fun for both of us.” “Huh, then why are you leaving on the diaper?” The earth pony asked, poking at the side of Rarity’s diapered behind. “Oh, you know. I’m probably going to go ‘potty’ by the end of the night…” Rarity replied, making quotation mark signs with her hooves. “Well, that and the diapers add a nice curve to my figure.” She joked, wiggling her plot a little. “Hehe, alright.” Coco sighed, giving her friend a subtle grin. She always enjoyed Rarity’s humor, she really was a funny pony despite all her faults; not that she had many faults. Usually her friend was on the up and up, always running back and forth in the pursuit of being more socially accepted. It was nice seeing her fit so naturally in a role that ignored the rest of her social life. Coco smiled, trotting towards the playpen. She always enjoyed it, it was a nice way to play and stay tidy. Not to mention the foam padding made traveling on hooves super comfortable. She could also rest on the padding, which was nice. It was always nice to be able to just rest. A sudden glowing force stopped Coco in her place, she couldn’t move. A voice came behind her chimed, “Mmm… Momma wants to have some fun with her baby. I think it’s time I feed her something, maybe a jar of baby food.” The force lifted her into the air and brought her backwards against her will. Her body tensed up but then relaxed, the aura was blue; a clear indicator that Rarity was in charge of her movements. She watched as the window became smaller as a distance became more apparent. The blind closed as she was lifted over a plastic tray; she was being set down in her swing. Her face grew a wide smile as she was set unto the infantile textured padding of the swing. She felt her backside meld into the thick poufy padding of her diaper as it let out a subtle ‘pomf’ of air. She blushed a deep shade of red as a set of vinyl straps wrapped calmly across her tummy and chest. “Mmm, very good…” Rarity said, proud of her work. Trotting over to the fridge, she pulled out a jar of yellow foal mush out. The jar itself wasn’t an average foal jar, it was a mason jar, an entire pint of foal food in what she imagined was a banana-esc flavor. “Oh my…” Coco bellowed, her eyes growing wide as Rarity uncapped the jar and levitated a table spoon full of the mush towards her mouth. Reluctantly, she opened her mouth and slurped the crème in like a large lot of jello. “Awe, baby likes her mushy wushy food…” Rarity cooed, repeating the process of cycling the banana puree into her ‘daughter’s’ mouth. It was obvious Coco was having a hard time stomaching her food. It was adorable the way the yellow mush dribbled down her chin and unto her dress and diaper. The earth pony moaned, grabbing hold of her tummy as she shook her head. “No hungee!” she muttered as more of the mush was forced into her mouth. Slobbering her lifted her hooves and swatted the spoon away. If Rarity was a real mother, she might have been mad, but she wasn’t a real mother. Perhaps she was just stepping over her regular bounds as a mother, but she really was enjoying watching Coco struggling to eat her foal food, she really was just like a real baby. She knew her friend’s limits though. Levitating the bottle back, she capped it and set it on the ground. There was no doubt that the feeding wasn’t necessarily, the bottle of formula was enough for her and probably Coco too. But, Coco deserved to really feel like a baby. Right? For the poor earth pony who was forced to endure her ‘mamma’s’ feeding, she had no choice but to endure the fullness she felt inside her stomach. It took a minute, but she knew exactly why her friend did this to her. Simply put, it was probably a little bit of revenge. In all truth, Rarity wanted nothing other than to treat Coco like a true foal. Sure the feeding was a bit brutal, perhaps even uncalled for. But it was done to let her friend appreciate the situation all the more. “So… how about I read you a story?” Rarity asked, curiously trotting over to the playpen. Her curiosity was sparked by her friend’s note book. It wasn’t like Coco to hide her concepts; she was never one for taking real pride in her work. She was almost certainly hiding something. No doubt Rarity was overstepping her friend’s personal limits not that it would stop her. She was a pony of gossip after all, while she’d never hurt her friend by exposing a secret, the obligation to know overwhelmed her desire to maintain empathetic. Besides, perhaps leaving something taboo like a secret sketchbook out in the open was a calling card waiting to be answered. It’s not like there was much among the two that could embarrass either of them, they’d been through so much this evening, it was a crime not to be as open as possible. The padding inside the playpen felt nice on her hooves, it reminded her of the padding around her backside. Perhaps more elastic than the crinkly undergarment she was wearing, but it felt divine opposed to the hard wood she’d been trotting on. Coco watched in a silent anticipation as Rarity rummaged through her books in pursuit of the secret one she’d put back earlier. It wasn’t that she didn’t trust Rarity, but the content inside the book was too new to be explained. She didn’t want to have to explain it; it was all done on a fly. She wanted to say something but her stomach was churning, each second she felt the tension building like weight on a high wire. Waves of pressure building each second, the waves causing the integrity of the dam to lessen as time went by. Something inside her wanted to scream at Rarity to stop, but some bizarre impulse in her mind didn’t allow it. The ache in her stomach was too strong; she’d be fighting too many fights at once. She didn’t want to lose both of them, not yet. Rarity meanwhile lay on her stomach as she opened the journal. Its hard textured outer service offered way to an array of firm sheets of thin white sheets of paper. There was no denying it, this was the journal she’d seen earlier; it was very detailed compared to the other few she’d already checked. Her mind scanned up the page as she traced her hoof among the lightly colored cyan line. The text quite clearly read, ‘Worthless foal’. It was undeniable, the journal was a diary; more or less a sketch diary. This page in particular was dated over a year ago; she’d drawn a clear image of her dressed as a foal. Not only was she dressed like a foal, but she was also in the center of a page shrouded by darkness with gleaming angry eyes spotting her from every direction. Rarity felt hollow inside all of a sudden. She looked over at Coco who was hardly paying attention to her actions. The poor baby looked so out of it, she didn’t even have her eyes open. Her hooves tensed up as she turned the page to reveal more and more evidence that propagated the reason for the nursery to exist. Perhaps the journal was just a formal expression of her resentment from the world, or perhaps it was something much darker and elaborate. But the solution to Rarity was obvious; it was time for a nap. Coco opened her weary eyes as her stomach hit another sore note; Rarity was trotting in front of her carrying a sympathetic smile. “What is it?” Coco asked, trying her best not to bring up the journal. “It’s nothing dear, now I want you to relax…” Rarity said, using her magic to turn the dial up into a five number; a gentle setting. She watched in awe as the machine started rocking her friend back and forth. Rarity cleared her throat, “Let me tell you a story about a young girl...” she said, levitating a blanket over to her friend. She watched as Coco grabbed the fuzzy colorful throw blanket and snuggled it, it made her grin. “There’s a young girl named Coco Pomell who’s a little bit timid, but she makes up for it in her honest and eager work ethic. It’s no wonder why she’s so well known as an upcoming artist where she works, she’s a fantastic soul and ponies want a piece of her in the expressions she delivers in every stitch of fabric she sows. There’s no reason for her to feel ashamed, she’s such a hard worker and she has a very loving momma who promises to stay by her side every step of the way.” Coco raised an eyebrow as she listened carefully to her friend’s improvised speech. It almost certainly wasn’t a story but it was still a nice sentiment. It made her smile on the inside as well as the outside, she was lucky to have a friend as good as Rarity. Returning the warm smile, Rarity made a gesture with her hoof, “Go ahead Coco, I want you to go potty…” She smiled, bringing a napkin to Coco’s face as she wiped the baby food off the side of her lips. It was nice to have some pony to look after. While it was fun to be a foal, the night was short and she really wanted to get her message out to Coco before the night was through. Giggling a bit, she sat on her padded rump and watched for the inevitable to happen. As she observed her friend making some light grunting noises, her eyes traced down to her friend’s diaper which hug out at the bottom of her dress. While she couldn’t see much beyond the plastic divider divided that separated Coco’s legs, she could hear and smell as Coco shamefully filled her diaper. It made her smile even wider on the inside knowing that Coco was once again feeling content physically, hopefully she understood the words she’d said on emotional level too. Sighing in relief, Coco nuzzled her head against her blanket as she shifted happily in her messy diaper to find a cozy spot. The world around her seemed to black as she struggled to keep her eyes open. Everything felt so warm and cozy to her, everything felt like it didn’t matter anymore and it didn’t. She closed her eyes and let the gentle rock of her swing help her drift off into sleep. “Hehe, such a foal…” Rarity said, stepping towards the crib. Her horn lit up as the room’s lights dimmed. She opened up the crib’s entrance and stepped inside. Using her magic one last time, she brought an item to her hooves and looked around the room for wondering eyes. She slipped the amber nipple into her mouth as she plopped down on the mattress, tummy first. It was a good time to be alive.