//------------------------------//
// The Schmidts: Diamond's Chips (Guest) 
// Story: Tales from Tinies. 
// by MrAquino 
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 Somewhere, deep in the snowcapped mountains far beyond the reaches of the the unknown, two children trudged through the blistering cold with nothing but their spring clothes on. The children, one ten-year-old Timmy Schmidt, and his seventeen-year-old sister, Emily walked through a giant field of white powder as the frigid wind blew the snow against them, hitting them like slushy bunches of snowballs. Emily kept her youngest sibling close to her and wrapped him in her jacket, breathing heavily as the early stages of hypothermia began to set.
"S-S-Sis?" the shivering form of Timmy called to his sister. Instinctively, Emily held the trembling boy closer to her, brushing his icy hair with her hand.
"Shh, don't talk, Timmy," Emily cooed the child. "Save your energy. We'll need all of it if we're going to make it out of here alive."
"B-B-But, sis. I-I-I-I'm cold," Timmy said. "I can't f-f-feel my face, I'm sleepy, I'm h-h-hungry, and I'm sore a-a-all over."
"I know, Timmy, I know," the older sister said, "but we can't stay a minute in this blizzard. We have to keep moving or we'll freeze to death."
"Emmy... I... I don't think I'm gon-n-nna make it... "
"Timmy! Don't say that! Don't even think that!" Emily scolded her little brother. "I know we're in a bad situation right now, and I can understand why, but you have to keep positive and keep focused! Don't even think for one second that you're going to die out here! I said we would get out of here and I'm going to give up on it. And neither should you! Understand?"
The little frozen boy, his nerves unsettled from the cold, began to sob from his sister's raise in voice. "I'm sorry, Emmy... I'm s-s-sorry for saying that."
Emily hugged Timmy closer to her. "It's okay, Timmy. I'm sorry for raising my voice at you," she said sympathetically. "The reason I did that was because I'm concerned for you. I just don't want you to think you're going to die here in the cold like that. I would never let that happen, not even if it meant I gave my life up for you."
Timmy sniffed, his mucus already turned to frozen clumps. "I-I-I know... I'm sorry, Emmy."
"It's okay, Timmy. There's nothing for you to be sorry for," Emily said, hugging her little brother. "Now come on. We still have a long way to go."
Draping herself over her Timmy, Emily continued to lead on in the cold, her mind trying its best to not fade as they wandered aimlessly through the mountains. She thought back to how she and her little brother was suddenly pulled from their school district and brought here on these mountains, all because of a brief flash of light. It was on a typical Monday midmorning, an ordinary day in the school district that both Emily and Timmy attended. For some unknown reason, people from their hometown began to disappear one-by-one, including some of the students. Then, with that flash of life, and some mysterious divine intervention, Timmy and Emily found themselves lost in the mountains, the frigid cold assaulting them in less than two minutes.
Now they have been walking for over two hours, and with no winter clothes on their backs or any food to satiate their hunger, the Schmidt siblings were finally feeling the early effects of starvation, fatigue, and hypothermia set in. Timmy's eyelids drooped heavily over his eyes, drowsiness luring him into a deep sleep, and Emily's breathing was starting to quake. Their stomachs tied themselves in painful knots. Their ability to physically feel with their fingers and toes have been numbed by the cold. Every bit of natural heat their bodies tried to produce have all but left their bodies, giving them very little time until they would finally feel the big chill.
When at last, as things looked hopeless to the two Schmidt children, Emily saw something in the snow that caught her eye. It was a shadow, a dark shape in the snow that stood as tall as a four-story house. Emily gently shook her little brother, bringing him out of the temporary state of drowsiness. "Timmy. Timmy, look. Look over there."
The freezing boy looked up and barely saw the shape through his waning vision. "Emmy... wh-what is that?"
"A place to stay, hopefully," Emily deduced as she led her brother to the shape. "Come on"
As the children made it towards the shape, Emily stopped as she knew something was off. She and Timmy barely made two steps when the shadow began to move, more specifically towards them as it grew bigger. Past the howling winds blowing from the east, Emily heard the sounds of what seemed like footprints getting louder with each step, leaving her to believe that this giant was either a bear or the abominable snowman. Fearfully, the high school junior hugged her second-grader brother tightly and squeezed her eyes shut.
Not knowing why Emily suddenly stopped and hugged him, Timmy looked up and saw the giant figure towering over them. It had the appearance of some sort of four-legged mammal, possibly a giant horse lowering its head to meet them. For the first time since he appeared in the mountains, Timmy felt a rush of adrenaline and fear spread through his body as the muzzle of said horse inhaled, gathering the children's scent inside its nostrils. At the sensation of cold air being sucked into the giant horse's nose, Emily and Timmy screamed in fear of them becoming food for the titanic animal.
"Whoa, whoa, whoa, take it easy, little dudes," a booming male surfer voice assured the screaming children. "There's nothing to be afraid of."
Immediately, Timmy and Emily ceased their screaming. They looked up and got a better look of the giant equine. His mane and coat were as white as the snow with three snowflakes tattooed on both sides of his flank. He wore a skiing helmet on his head, and a pair of protective snow goggles move up over his blue eyes. Around his neck was a green-striped scarf to keep himself warmer against the cold.
"Did... did you just talk?" Emily asked.
The giant horse laughed. "I sure did. Why? Have you never seen a talking pony like me before?" he asked with the same voice.
"N-No! I-I-I've never seen any pony that can talk, l-l-let alone ones that are as b-b-b-big as y-y-you!"
The snow-white titan stallion waved it off with a hoof. "Don't worry yourselves about it one bit! Here in Equestria, everypony is around the same height, some of them are bigger than me, but the fillies are way smaller than me! They're so cute!"
"Wait! W-Wait a minute here!" Emily interjected. "Equestria!? Where in the world is that!?"
"Where in the world is that!?" the pony parroted with a big laugh. "You're on it right now, little one! Equestria is the world that you're in right now! You've just arrived here in the Northeastern mountain region is all."
Emily looked around her surroundings. "The N-N-Northeastern region?"
"I'll tell you all about it later," the colossal equine said, "but first, we've gotta get you guys out of this blizzard. Your little one there looks like he's about to freeze to death."
"Huh?" Emily squeaked, looking at the ice-cold figure of her brother in her arms. "Oh no! Timmy! He's lost all of his body temperature! He won't survive for very long if we stay out here!"
"Here, I might be of some help," the pony said. He lifted his helmet off of his head, shook his head to sway his hair loose and lowered his hoof to the two tiny children. "Quick, hop on my hoof. I'll put you and your little one inside my mane and it should keep you as warm as long as it will take until we reach Our Town. Once we get there, I'll have my friends get you two warmed up and healthy again."
Emily reluctantly looked up to the car-sized hoof laid before her, then to the giant stallion smiling down at them like a guardian angel. She didn't completely trust the giant, what with him being a stranger to her and her brother, approaching them from out of the blizzard and taking them back to his village. One that was dubbed Our Town of all names, a name that somehow had an eerie, too-much-equal society to it that unsettled Emily greatly. She couldn't tell if she could take the giant up on his offer and carry her and her brother far away or risk hypothermia as an alternative to being possibly kidnapped.
Timmy suddenly let out a raspy cough, turning Emily and the pony's attention towards him. The youngest Schmidt child looked up to Emily with weak, pleading eyes, and immediately, the middle Schmidt child knew what she had to do. She reluctantly gingerly lifted Timmy up onto the frog of the stallion's upturned hoof then hoisted herself up. The hoof was gently lifted to level itself with the stallion's face, and brought them closer to nuzzle them affectionately.
"It's going to be okay," the stallion said reassuringly. "Trust me. Everything will be fine."
Emily drew a deep breath to calm himself. She looked back to the stallion's blue eyes with a slightly forced smile.
"I believe you," she said finally.
"Good. Now hold on tight."
The stallion gently lifted his hoof to his mane, careful not to make the children fall off until they were near enough to his scalp. He tilted it, and the two Schmidt siblings were sliding or rolling down into the expanse of the forest of white hair, landing in the web of natural fibers that almost felt like a soft, silky hammock. Then, with the two human younglings in his mane, the stallion gently covered his scalp with his helmet, compressing the children sink further into the hair, but providing a blanket for them to keep warm for the time being. When all was finally said and done, the stallion placed his snow goggles on his eyes, turned, and ran towards the direction of his home village, hoping that Sugar Belle can warm the two tinies with her especially special hot hot chocolate.

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"Here you go, young ones," a unicorn mare name Sugar Belle said to the Schmidt children, placing a giant tray of chocolate chip cookies and a small teacup of especially special hot hot chocolate before them, with two little mugs made perfectly for them at their size. "Now eat up, drink up, and warm up. You must've been chilled to the bone being trapped in that blizzard without the right winter attire."
"Thank you, Sugar Belle." Emily graciously accepted a chunk of the cookie and the mug. She turned to her brother, wrapped up in a thick hand towel to warm his shivering form, slowly recovering his normal body temperature. "How are you feeling, Timmy? Are you still feeling cold, or not as cold as you were?"
"Not as cold as I was," Timmy answered, never stuttering in his speech for the first time in hours. "Thanks."
Emily spilt the cookie chunk and two and handed the biggest chunk to Timmy, which quickly disappeared inside his mouth within the first few seconds. The Schmidt daughter stood up and dipped both mugs into the teacup, scooping up the hot, frothy chocolate drink up to near the brim and gave one of the mugs to her brother. Timmy eagerly took the mug and gulped down a few swigs of the hot chocolate before he shot up and coughed, cringing at the intense heat running down into his stomach.
"Timmy! Are you alright!?" Emily asked, shocked by her little brother's display.
"AHHGK! It's too hot! It buuuurrrrrnns!" Timmy yelled with agony.
"Here, this should cool you down," Sugar Belle said, pushing a thimble of ice-cold water to Timmy. The youngest Schmidt child took the thimble and swallowed the water down as the heat died down in the form of steam. Timmy let out a relieved sigh that helped the steam escape his mouth, causing Sugar Belle and Emily to giggle at the sight.
In fact, this was a sight that Emily was glad to see. Just a few hours ago, the stallion who later introduced himself as Double Diamond helped the two Schmidt children down into Our Town, a village once run with a radical equal society by a Cutie Mark-hating unicorn now a remote utopia only accessible through the use of the railroad. Once Double Diamond made it to Our Town, he immediately called on Sugar Belle to have the first two human children in their village to give them a hot bath and quickly warm themselves back up. It was quite fortuitous that Emily and Timmy got to the hot baths in time before the hypothermia took hold. Timmy was nearly unconscious and ready to slip into the next world, but the soothing heat and his sister's efforts were all that kept him alive and well.
After the bath was done, and with a few hours of rest, Emily and Timmy made a significant recovery, although their stomachs, bodily temperature and hydration were running on empty. That brings us here to this moment, where Emily was taught from Sugar Belle about Equestria, from the few princesses who ruled over the land to the origin of Our Town, and from the dysfunction of the tyrannical society brought upon by the unicorn, Starlight Glimmer to how Equestria's fourth princess and her five friends overthrew that society and transformed Our Town into a quaint, symmetrical village.
"So after Starlight earned our forgiveness for what she did in the past, she went off to Ponyville to become Princess Twilight's pupil so she could study the magic of friendship," Sugar Belle explained as Emily took a sip of her hot chocolate. "We haven't seen her since then, but she's sent her first letter to us about a week ago, saying that she helped save the Crystal Empire from being permanently frozen in the blizzard."
"And she really saved those crystal ponies by helping three different princesses?" Timmy asked, entranced by the tale.
"She did. She said so in her letter," the Earth mare confirmed.
"Wow..."
"That's a lot to take in," said Emily, "especially from a race where there is no such thing as time travel and actual magic."
"There's no such thing as magic?" Timmy asked his sister, who immediately regretted what she said; Timmy was into magic at an early age, and he believed it was real for a boy his age.
"There is plenty magic here in Equestria, Timmy," Sugar Belle quickly assured the boy. "In fact, unicorns and alicorns possess horns that each have a different kind of magic. They can use it for mostly levitation, just like what I did just now."
"Wait," Emily urged. "So if you can use magic to levitate stuff, then can you use it to find our family?"
Sugar Belle perked up with shot, and her face twisted itself into an uncertain expression. "I don't know how to tell you two, but I can't use my magic to track down your family. Only a unicorn of a higher magical ability or an alicorn can make a spell to find your loved ones. Fortunately, I know a certain alicorn or unicorn that can help."
"Princess Twilight!" Timmy blurted out. "She can help us find mommy, daddy, or even Joey!
"And if Princess Twilight isn't around, then maybe Starlight Glimmer can help us out as well," Emily theorized. "It's like you said, Sugar Belle, Starlight is a unicorn who knows so many spells. Maybe she suit us better as an alternative just in case."
Sugar Belle pondered this, rubbing her chin with her hoof. "That's an excellent idea!" the unicorn baker commended. "Ooh! I just got an idea! I'll send a letter to Princess Twilight and Starlight and ask them to meet up with us as soon as they can. By tomorrow, once you two have filled up and rested, you two can come with me and then we can go to Ponyville so that we can find your parents and this Joey person as well!"
Emily gasped with happiness and covered it up with her hands, but Timmy expressed his happy feeling through childlike squeals and repeated ten-year-old jumps. He ran up to Sugar Belle's lowered face and hugged her nuzzle which shook with a giggle from the baker unicorn.
"Oh, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you!" Timmy cried into the fur. "You are the best pony ever, Sugar Belle!"
The violet unicorn "d'awwww"ed at Timmy's comment. Gingerly, she scooped up the little boy in her hooves and hugged him against her cheek affectionately while Emily watched the display, laughing with tears in her eyes. She lowered Timmy to the surface of the table as Emily walked up and gave Sugar Belle a grateful hug of her own, a heartfelt sob muffled into her fur.
"Thank you so much, Sugar Belle. You have no idea how much this means to us," Emily sobbed into the fur as Sugar Belle gently wrapped her hooves around the teenage girl.
"You're so very welcome, Emily. I'm just glad I was able to help." After a moment of the colossal pony and the tiny human hugging each other, Sugar Belle unfurled her hooves from Emily. "Now then, before I forget, I'm going to have to get started on my letter. So you two eat up drink up as much as you can while I get the letter written and done. Just don't go wandering off without my supervision, okay?"
"Okay!" Timmy cheered.
"Don't worry about us, Sugar Belle. We're staying right here until you come back," Emily said.
"That's good to hear," Sugar Belle said, glowing her horn to levitate a pen and paper to her. "Now if you'll excuse me, I need to find an envelope to send this in."
Sugar Belle left the room for a moment to check her upstairs floor for any envelopes to seal her letter inside. Emily and Timmy continued to eat and drink their fill, but Timmy's metabolism of a growing boy made him desire more food and drink inside of his belly. Without any further delay, Timmy hopped up into one of the highest cookie of the pile and began to eat away at the sides like a beaver would eat at a tree.
"Timmy," Emily called, "Timmy get down here. You're going to get hurt if you fall!"
"Nuh uh!" the younger brother shouted with his mouthful of cookie and chocolate chips l, "Thiff if nuff too goo to nuh eah!"
"And don't talk with your mouth full! You're going to choke!"
Just then, the door to Sugar Belle's house opened, and in came Double Diamond with his helmet and goggles over his head and eyes. He lifted up his goggles, gave an exhausted sigh and looked around the room, the first thing that he saw being the plate of cookies and the hot chocolate on the table.
"Mmmm! Sugar Belle made her famous chocolate chip cookies," Double Diamond said to himself as he put his hoof to his belly. "and she's got her famous hot chocolate here, too. Good thing because with all the skiing and finding those kids, I could really go for a snack."
Taking his hoof, Double Diamond slammed on the surface of the table and caused everything to jump, cookies, hot chocolate, and the two children that the stallion was none the wiser of. Timmy screamed as he was launched into the air, watching as one of the cookies was caught in his savior's jaws and munched on. Timmy fell down on he surface of another cookie that fell on the table first, and he saw in horror as Double Diamond munched on the cookie and turning it into pulp between his teeth.
"Timmy!" the Schmidt daughter yelled as she got up and ran towards the cookie to hthe longer brother. She crawled onto the surface of the pastry and grabbed Timmy in a quick hug. "Oh my god! Timmy, you're not hurt are you!?"
"N-No, but..." Timmy started to cry in fear as Emily wiped his tears away.
"Shh, shh, shh. There's nothing to be afraid of," Emily cooed the child. "Come on. We've gotta get off of this cookie!"
By awful timing utilized by the laws of Murphy, Double Diamond swallowed his salivated pulp down, creating a lump that descended in his throat and disappeared into his chest. "Mm-mmm! Sugar Belle really has outdone herself this time!" he said to no one in particular. "I might have to sneak off one more before I hit the slopes again."
Once again, Double Diamond slammed his hoof onto the table and launched the cookies upwards, taking the two screaming children into the air as they fell down with the cookie. Except, instead of falling back onto the cookie where it reside on the plate, they fell onto the cookie as Double Diamond opened his maw to catch the delicious treat. The Schmidt siblings shrieked as they and the cookie entered Double Diamond's mouth just as his lips and teeth slammed shut, blocking all light from the inside. Then, with the cookie's flavor hitting his tongue, Double Diamond began to crunch on the pastry, his moaning drowning out the pleas of the children he rescued.
Emily and Timmy screamed as they were thrown around in Double Diamond's mouth,no coating them in thick saliva while they avoided the teeth that made short work of the cookie. The teeth crushed the baked dough and the melted chocolate chips, washing the Schmidt children in the gooey residue while they were disoriented by the rough bucking of the tongue's movements, and the "MMMMMMM" that reverberated around the interior of the maw. Emily and Timmy's torture did not end, for Double Diamond lifted up his head, allowed his tongue to push the cookie and the children into his throat, marked by his dangling uvula. With a wet, thick, swallowing sound, Double Diamond gulped, sending everything in his mouth down his esophagus, creating a lump that trailed itself into his stomach.
After being unwillingly squeezed through the muscles in a wave of gooey dough, melted chocolate, and spit, the Schmidt children were dropped into a large fleshy chamber, one that swayed and rocked at the walls with its bottom pooling with acid. Emily and Timmy came up coughing, choking to get the residue of spit and goo out of their throats.
"T-Timmy? Are you okay?" Emily asked.
"N-N-No..." Timmy squeaked. "He... he ate us! Double Diamond ate us! I thought he was our friend, but now he... he... he ate us whole!"
Emily followed Timmy's voice and hugged his sobbing form to her chest, trying to calm him down. "Shh, it's okay, Timmy. I'm sure Double Diamond didn't mean to eat us," she assured her brother. "He most likely didn't see us on those cookies, so he doesn't know we're in here. If we want to get out of his stomach, we'll have to get his attention first."
"But what if he doesn't know we're in here!?" Timmy argued. "He'll probably keep us like pets in his tummy forever! I'll never see mommy again! I'll never see daddy again! I'll never see Joey again!"
"Never say never, Timmy. We'll be out of here in no time!"
Suddenly, they felt a drop of hot drop dripping from the small opening at the top of the stomach. The sphincter opened its way to welcome the hot chocolate, causing Emily and Timmy to scream in pain as the intense temperature caused their skin to grow red and the stomach liquid levels to rise. As the two siblings struggled to get on higher ground, Double Diamond's voice reverberated all over the interior of his body. "Hey, Sugar Belle! I just came by to check up on the two! How are they doing, by the way?"
"Sugar Belle?" Timmy parroted.
From beyond the groaning stomach walls, Emily and Timmy heard the voice of Sugar Belle converse with the stallion all around them. "They're doing just fine!" the unicorn mare said. "I was just down here to let those two know that I wrote a letter to Princess Twilight. I was about to tell them that I'm heading for the mailbox so that the mailmare can send it to Twilight and let her know about the children's predicament."
"Totally cool!" Diamond replied. "Well, I've gotta be off now! I need to get to the mountains so that I can practice my moves for the upcoming Extreme Equestria Skiing Challenge!"
"Cool. Have fun and be safe!"
"Now's our chance!" Emily signaled her brother. The Schmidt children waded through the goo and the liquid, went up to the stomach walls, and screamed as loud as they could. "Double Diamond! It's me, Emily! Can you hear me!? You accidentally ate my brother and I on that last cookie and now we're trapped in your stomach! We need to get out! Help!"
"Diamond, help! We're trapped in here! Help us! save us!"
As if fate was not on their side again, Double Diamond's stomach groaned and gurgled to the movements of the Schmidt children, blocking their screams as the natural stomach noises echoed around him, followed with the echo of Double Diamond's voice. "Wow, my stomach's feeling a bit funny today. Did Sugar Belle make those cookies gluten-free again? I keep telling her I need a bit of wheat in my diet."
"He can't hear us!" Timmy cried. "Double Diamond can't even feel us!"
"Then we have to try harder!" Emily ordered, using every ounce of strength to pound her fists into the stomach walls. "If we can't try harder, then we'll never get out of here! DOUBLE DIAMOND! HEEELLLLP!"
"DOUBLE DIAMOND! HELP US! WE'RE IN HERAAAAGH!"
"AAAAGGHH!"
The two children were surprised when they felt they were falling down a steep slope, the increase in velocity speeding up each passing second before they felt themselves swerving to the left and the right. In actuality, Double Diamond was practicing his basic moves down one side of the mountain where a slope leading to a big jump awaited him. He leaned forwards to increase his speed, launched himself from the jump and flew into the air, doing a series of spinning tricks with different angles in their names written in the book.
Inside, Emily and Timmy were subjected to the sensation of flying, falling, and spinning, being mixed up in a fleshy washing machine of stomach acids and cookies, and soon to be their own cookies that would be lost. They felt Double Diamond's skis hit the ground perfectly and swerving motions to stir them around every crevice of the stomach walls, including the two tightly-closed sphincters that would've let them out either way. Soon enough, they were flying in the air again as Double Diamond found another jump, attempting a full 180 somersault in the air, making the children flip around the floors of the stomach and into the goop, and then again in a backwards motion when Double Diamond did a reverse 180 in the air. For thirty minutes, Double Diamond practiced his tricks on his skis, the time frame of the children in his stomach differentiating in years. When those thirty minutes were done, Double Diamond hiked back up the mountains, feeling himself exhausted and steaming up from his training.
"Wow, I'm tired," Double Diamond said. "Guess I shouldn't have had those cookies before I left. Oh well, it was worth the snack I suppose."
While Double Diamond trotted back to Our Town with his skis, the inside of his stomach was gurgling, with a pile of digesting mush and rising acids pooling the bottom of the belly. Suddenly, a shape emerged from the mush in the shape of a humanoid form, the mush which slid off to reveal Emily and Timmy huddling each other as the high school junior pulled herself and her brother out of the lake. Emily was breathing hard after the traumatizing event that would've killed her in the process. Timmy was hugging Emily close like a fly to flypaper, whimpering, tearing, and all-around catatonic.
"Timmy?" Emily shook her brother. "Timmy, can you hear me?"
There was no reply from the young boy. Emily took her brother into her arms and hugged him back, rubbing his back with soft little pats in between. "Oh, Timmy, I am so sorry this happened to you. I should've done something earlier, and that way, we wouldn't have ended up here," she lamented, "but I'm not going anywhere. I'm going to stay right here with you. I'll be with you until we get out, okay?"
Timmy could only whimper in reply.
Eventually, Double Diamond returned back to his village house in Our Town. He set the skis down against the wall next to his door, flung his helmet off of his head and sighed. He slowly trotted onto his bed, laid on his back and fell into a deep sleep, an audible snore to shake his body's interior. Trapped in his interior with no way out, little ten-year-old Timmy Schmidt huddled up to his seventeen-year-old sister, Emily, as they tried to remain vigilant through the sounds of Double Diamond's stomach growling, the noise of food digesting in the bubbling acid, and the snoring reverberating over his beating heart. Timmy's eyes were wet with moisture while Emily ran a comforting hand through his hair. "Sis?" he squeaked. "Will Joey and the others know that we're been trapped in here?"
"Maybe," Emily whispered into his head. "We'll have to wait until he wakes up, Timmy. That's the only time we can let him know that we're in his stomach."
Timmy wiped his eyes. "But I don't want to wait! I want to get out of here now!"
"And we will," Emily reassured him, "but we'll have to wait until morning when he's awake. Then we'll make sure he knows we're in here. Just wait and see."
Horrible thoughts of her older brother's fate ran through Emily's mind as a couple of tears streamed down her face. "Just wait and see."
For a few hours, Emily and Timmy waded in the stomach juices as Double Diamond slept away his exhaustion, unknowingly having the children he saved from the mountains tucked away in the warm folds of his stomach. When at last there was a sharp slam of Double Diamond's front door jolted him awake, opened by the panicking form of Sugar Belle whom cantered up to his face. "Double Diamond! Have you seen the children!?!"
"W...Wha...?" Double Diamond said drowsily. "The children...?"
"Yes! The children! Emily and Timmy! They were in my house, eating my cookies and hot chocolate while I was writing that letter for Princess Twilight! When I came back down, they were nowhere to be found!" Sugar Belle grabbed Double Diamond and frantically shook him. "Tell me, Double Diamond! Tell you've seen them just before you left for your practicing! Tell me that you didn't do your practicing while you had the children with you! Tell me! Tell me! Tell me!! Tell me!!! TELL ME!!!!"
The shaking from Sugar Belle to Double Diamond caused the entire stomach to mix and churn its contents like they were caught in a maelstrom. The children screamed bloody murder as they were washed from wall to wall, their screaming loud enough to reach the sensitive ears of the unicorn mare. Sugar Belle stopped her shaking while Double Diamond's head wobbled from the dizziness, groaning.
"Shh! Double Diamond, did you hear something?" Sugar Belle asked.
"Hear? Hear what?" Double Diamond asked while the baker mare looked around.
"Emily? Timmy? Are you here?"
Inside the stomach, Emily surfaced from the liquids with Timmy under her arm. When the voice of Sugar Belle rang from beyond the stomach walls, Emily felt her spirits rise and gently shook her brother. "Timmy! Timmy, listen," she whispered. "It's Sugar Belle. She heard us! She's looking for us! We can get out of here! Come on, we have to reach out for her again."
"Out," Timmy muttered, now too shaken up (figuratively and literally) to do anything. "Please. Let me out."
Emily swam up to the stomach walls. She pounded the walls as hard as she could and screamed from the top of her lungs as loud as she could. "SUGAR BELLE! DOUBLE DIAMOND! IT'S EMILY! CAN YOU HEAR ME!?!"
"Emily!?! Is that you!?" Sugar Belle asked. "Oh, thank goodness I can hear you! Where are you!?"
"Timmy and I are in Double Diamond's stomach!" Emily called. "We were accidentally eaten on one of the cookies and we were stuck while he was doing his skiing!"
"You were!?" Double Diamond asked. A pang of guilt came up as he thought back to how he felt his stomach was feeling funny. "Aw, no! I am so sorry, little dude! I should've looked at what I was eating! I am soooooo stupid!"
"Don't be hard on yourself, DD. It was an accident that we can overlook," Sugar Belle assured the stallion. "Emily, are you okay? How's Timmy?"
"He... He's not doing good!" Emily answered. "He can't move! He can't speak well! Sugar Belle... I think he needs a doctor!"
"Oh dear! We'd better get him out, then!" Sugar Belle replied, shocked. "Diamond, can you get the children out?"
"I'll try," came the response that Emily waited for.
Suddenly, the stomach walls contracted, squishing Emily and Timmy on all sides as they felt themselves pushed in an upward motion. The Schmidt children found themselves being squeezed up and out of the stomach walls, up into the esophagus as the gases produced underneath their feet thrust them up deeper into the throat. Suddenly, with a loud belch, the two children found themselves flying out of the back of Double Diamond's maw and onto his tongue. The stallion's jaws parted, his tongue met his hoof, and the two children slid onto the frog of the hoof, blinded by the light at first until their eyes adjusted to the sight of a concerned mare standing over them.
Gently, Sugar Belle scooped the Schmidt children into her hooves and nuzzled them. "Oh, children, I was so worried about you!" she declared. She looked down and gasped at their crisping skin and the catatonic boy in his sister's arms. "Oh my! Perhaps we need a doctor after all! Come on, I'll take you to Ponyville General Hospital and get you guys looked at!"
"Please hurry, Sugar Belle!" Emily pleaded to the giant mare. "I don't know if my brother is going to stay this way!"
Sugar Belle nodded. She placed the children in her mane and ran out of the house, Double Diamond trailing behind them as they ran for the train station and the next train scheduled for departure to Ponyville within five minutes. Emily kept one hand gripped on the hairs tightly and her other arm around her whimpering brother, muttering his mom, dad, and their brother's name. Feeling sad for her brother, Emily gently planted a kiss on the child's head.
"Don't worry, Timmy. We're getting you some help." She rested her face onto his head. "Then, we're going to find mom, dad, and Joey and we can finally be together again. I promise."
"Mom... dad... big bro..." Timmy whimpered, cracking a smile. "Together..."
The train whistled as Sugar Belle and Double Diamond made it onto the train. The doors closed, and the train headed for the direction of Ponyville.



To Be Continued...