Baby Sitting

by storm the castle

Eclipsing Exhaustion

“Can you tell me what happened?” asked Dr. Stable, concern etched in his face.

They had just gotten the princesses settled in his office, and their color change had all present biting the edges of their hooves with worry.

“We’re not sure.” Answered Twilight. “They had a fight, and accidentally caused a solar eclipse, then they just passed out.
We think it’s because they used too much magic.”

“Given they’re history, I find that doubtful. They raise the sun and moon daily, and have defeated various powerful enemies. Did they say anything? Perhaps they-“Dr. Stable stopped short. The sound of a crown falling off had drawn their attention to the princesses. The changing color of their manes had extended, and now their entire bodies were changing. They both had begun to actively shrink, causing all their now ill-fitting jewelry to fall off , their magical manes turning to fine, but unremarkable strands of hair, pink for Celestia, and a familiar teal for Luna. Even their coats were changing color now, Luna’s lightening from her usual midnight blue to a softer shade of blue, causing her to now look as she did when they had first met her after the Eelements of Harmony had cleansed her of Nightmare Moon. Celestia’s change was equal; her coat lost the regal luster she was famous for, and she was now the same size Luna had been at the start of the day. “Princess Sparkle, do you think-“

“Yes doctor, I think you might be right, and whats more I think I know why.” Said Twilight, losing a bit of color herself.

“Well shoot darlin’,” said Applejack, “Don’t go makin’ a game of it. Tell us what in tarnation is goin on with ‘em.” Pinkie Pie, however, was more than excited at the idea of a guessing game.

“Don’t listen to her Twilight! We can have so much fun trying to figure it out!” Pinkie was nearly bouncing of the celling with excitement now. “Did somepony sneak poison joke into their tea?! Ooh ooh, what about the curse of the pirate king!? Did either of them go sailing and make a ghotie pirate king mad! GASP!! What if were just getting huge!! Lookout everypony, don’t step on the nurses!!”

“Pinkie! Its not poison joke, and curses don’t exist!” Twilight cut her off, less tolerant in the face of what was really happening. She took a deep breath to calm her nerves and answered Applejack and the others, Dr. Stable included. “I think what’s happening is their experiencing magic deprivation, but on a huge scale.”

“Magic deprivation?” said Rarity, shaking a bit. “I’ve never heard of that darling. Is it bad? Can it be fixed?”

“Magic deprivation is when the source of a pony’s magic is separated, and the pony body starts having mild withdrawals.” Dr. Stable answered her. “Most pony’s experience cramps or fever conditions, but they get over it eventually since magic, while naturally occurring in all ponies to varying degrees, is not essential to life for most of us. The princesses are immortal alicorns, however, and so magic is the most essential component of life for them.”

Twilight nodded to show she agreed and finished the thought for the others “so when the solar eclipse occurred, the light from both the sun and moon was cut off, and so was the source of power and magic for both princesses. Since it’s so important to their life functions, their bodies can’t sustain the larger sizes without it, so they’re getting smaller to compensate until it comes back.” She could tell the others were having trouble keeping up entirely, but each did seem to get the general idea.

Rainbow was the next to speak up. “So, I guess the important question is, how small are they actually going to get?” she motioned to the princesses, and everypony saw that Celestia was the size of the average pony now, and Luna had gone through a reverse growth spurt; she was now barely more than a filly. “I mean, its gotta stop soon, right? Its not like they can jump back in their moms belly or anything.” For a moment, all in attendance took a break from the drama unfolding to imagine what it would look like if they did try it. Only Rarity seemed to completely reject the comedy of the idea.

“No, Rainbow, I don’t think it’ll go that far. Besides, it’s not such a big problem so long as we can separate the sun and moon. If we can manage to do that, they should go back to normal soon enough.”

“Well shoot sugarcube’, that seems simple enough.” Piped up Applejack, seeming to lighten up a bit. “You’re the princess here, so you should be able to do it now, right?” But even before she finished talking, Twilight was shaking her head.

“The alicorn transformation was purely aesthetic for me, just so people would accept a new princess that came out of nowhere. I’m not actually any stronger than I was before.” Applejack deflated a bit, having been shot down so quickly.

It was Dr. Stable turn “But you have the Elements of Harmony, right? Can’t all of you together fix it?” he suggested. They all perked up a bit now, but after only a moment of thinking about it, Twilight had to shake her head.

“We probably have the power, but I don’t know the first thing about the spell to do it, so theres nothing any of us can do. We need sompony who knows how to move the heavens, but the only ones I’ve ever heard of were the princesses themselves.” Suddenly, a light, airy yawn broke her train of thought. The little filly Luna, lying next to her equally small sister, was the first to wake, and bliked groggily. A couple of more blinks, and she was looking at them brightly, despite the hushed, and somewhat dumbfounded stares coming back at her.

“Hello, Im woona-“ she went crosseyed and scrunched up her face a bit “woo-wooooo, lu-lu-… Hi I’m Luna.” She corrected. “Who are you?”

They could have heard a pin drop. They all gaped at the filly, and she started to pout and get teary eyed, not sure what she had done wrong. It was Pinkie who broke the silence thankfully, startling them all, shouting “SHE'S SO CUTE!!” and giving a loud squeal. Knocking the others out of the way, she ran up and grabbed the filly, cradling her like a newborn. “Hi, I’m Pinkie Pie, and were gonna be BEST FRIENDS!!” little Luna was thoroughly confused, and just sat there and took it for lack of a better plan. Pinkie was having a ball, until she seemed to realize something important “well actually, we’re already friends, cuz I helped make mean old nightmare moon turn back into you, plus we had all that fun on nightmare night, and we just had that picnic, though it wasn’t as much fun as that times since you and your sister started fighting and made a solar eclipse, and we were all worried cuz you and her started changing color and getting smaller, and we weren’t sure what was wrong, till Twilight said-“ and Pinkie continued to recount the last five minutes to the filly. Little Luna was thoroughly confused, though still impressed this big pink pony had managed to say all that without taking a single breath to break it up, until her sister started to stir.

“Tia! Your awake! Are you ok?”

Little Celestia took a moment to shake the dizziness of sleep from her head, before giving Luna a big grin. “I’m fine, Lulu, but I can’t remember anything. Can you?”

Luna shook her head. “No, but miss Pinkie" she gestured to Pinkie "says we fought. Were we mad at each other?”

Celestia just shrugged. Just as Pinkie started the whole story over again, Celestia looked at the others, and when she saw Twilight, she gasped loudly and began to hover in excitement, her little wings humming slightly.

“Miss Magenta! You have wings!” she exclaimed. “Your just like us now! Now we can play more right?!”Luna had managed (somehow) to get away from Pinkie, and looking at Twilight, was now equally excited.

“Huh?” Twilight was a little confused, but realized she must look like someone the two knew in their youth, probably their foalsitter or some other caregiving pony. At first, she considered playing along, but thinking about it, that was more likely to lead to problems than anything else, so she went with a watered down version of the truth. “No girls, I’m sorry, I’m not Miss Magenta.” The sight of their excitement dying nearly broke her heart, as well as that of the others. “My name is Twilight Sparkle. I’m a Princess of Equestria.”

“You’re a Princess?!!” Little Celestia’s excitement had returned, and once again her little wings hummed away to mark it. “That’s so neat! Can I wear your crown? Can I see your throne? Can I have a princess cape?!” Celestia was now buzzing around her, excitedly tugging at her tiara.

Wow, thought Twilight, was Celestia really this excitable as a filly? She had always seemed like a happy pony, but she never let her emotions bubble over like this before. The incessant tugging on her wings drew Twilight from her thoughts. “Celestia-“ she started, only the be interrupted by a high pitched squeal from the filly.

“Lulu! She knows my name! A princess knows my name! Did you tell it to her?” Luna only shook her head, just as amazed that this admitted princess new her sisters first name. “ohmygoshohmygoshohmygosh! A PRINCESS KNOWS MY NAME!!” and the filly's excitement finally bubbled over, and she started to run circles around the room, using her wings to push herself down as she ran across not only the floor, but the walls and ceiling as well.

Her excited outburst did not end there however, because when she finally stopped running, Luna joined her on the tarp they started on and they both started bouncing giddily, squeeling over meeting a princess and her knowing Celestias name, oblivious of the large jewelry and crowns they themselves had been wearing only moments before.

Out of the corner of her eye, Twilight saw Dr. Stable giving her a “Well, what now” kind of look, and Twilight could only shrug. What do I do now, Princess? I Definitely wasn’t prepared for this.

Comments

[EquesTRON]

Ohh, this is gonna get ugly. If Twilight thought she had problems before...

I believe Miss Cheerilee does have some comments... Cheerilee?
(**Miss Cheerilee finishes going through the papers and passes them back. There are rather a lot of red-penciled marks.** I think this is everything.)
(Thanks, Miss Cheerilee.)

Okay, let's see... good idea, good plot development... seems like Luna lost her temper a bit more quickly than one would expect, seeing as how she's probably still trying to live down the whole "Nightmare Moon" thing, but that doesn't really detract from the story itself once things get going, so not a serious issue...

However. Some serious problems with punctiation, capitalization, and confusion between homophones like "they're" and "their."
(Home-of-whats-now?)
(Homophones, Applejack. Two different words that sound alike, but are spelled differently.)
(Oh. Them things. Ah always did have trouble with those, mahself.)
(Well, pay attention then, I'm gonna show you a trick to help with it.)

“Hold it right there sugarcube, their both pretty tuckered out ta just drop like that, ‘sides ah don’t think they did it on purpose.”
“Pinkie! Its not poison joke, and curses don’t exist!”
“Miss Magenta! You have wings!” she exclaimed. “Your just like us now! Now we can play more right?!”

Should be "they're both pretty tuckered out", "It's not poison joke", and "You're just like us now".
Here's a good writing trick for dealing with words like this. If you're in doubt about which form is correct, then take the contraction (they're, it's, you're), expand it out to the original words it's made from ("they are", "it is", "you are"), stick those into the sentence, and see if it still makes sense:
So for "their both pretty tuckered out ta just drop like that", when you expand it to
their they are both pretty tuckered out ta just drop like that
since the sentence still makes sense, "they're" is the form you want. On the other hand, if you play the same trick with this sentence:
The sound of a crown falling off had drawn their they are attention to the princesses.
The sentence doesn't make sense anymore, so "their" is correct. (Granted, this doesn't solve the "their" vs. "there" issue, and won't work for things like "too / two / to" or "which / witch", but it's still a useful trick.)

pallet of various pastel colors had taken on a distinct pink hugh

"palette" and "hue". Again, homophones will trip you up every time, and spelling checkers will not catch them, because spelling checkers only look to see if what you typed is a word, not whether it's the right word. Even a grammar-checker can't catch all of them, because you could in fact have a "pallet of various pastel colors" if you were talking about an actual shipping pallet full of boxes of pastel paints, and the computer really isn't smart enough to understand context. Your best bet is to buy a dictionary and keep it right next to your computer at all times, and look these words up. That's what I do.
(Y'all better believe it, sugarcube. Ah've seen his desk. Three different dictionaries an' one o' them thesta.. thesra... dangit, Ah can never remember the name of that thing...)
(Thesaurus?)
(Yeah, one o' them things.)
(He has a dinosaur on his desk? Awesome!)
(*sighs*)
(...what?)

Capitalization and punctuation. The biggest place where you're tripping up on this is in dialogue. The rule is, any time you have dialogue followed by (or mixed in with) descriptive actions of how the speaker said them, the entire thing -- spoken words and the speaker's actions -- are treated as a single sentence. So in this case:

“Hey buddy, I told you we don’t need any introduction.” Said Rainbow Dash to the furious chamberlain, “We’re her friends! We’re the other five Elements of Harmony, so I’m pretty sure she knows us.” She smiled and crossed her hooves over her chest as if it was the end of the argument.

"Said Rainbow Dash" is connected to the first line of dialogue, because it identifies the speaker and who she's speaking to. You then have a follow-up line of dialogue, and then a separate action not connected because it's not describing how she's speaking. So, capitalize and punctuate this way:
“Hey buddy, I told you we don’t need any introduction,” said Rainbow Dash to the furious chamberlain. “ We’re her friends! We’re the other five Elements of Harmony, so I’m pretty sure she knows us.” She smiled and crossed her hooves over her chest as if it was the end of the argument.
Another example (and a spelling correction):
“SurlySurely she is aware that I,” said Luna, “am the only one to ever deal with one, and that was before my banishment?"
Note the extra commas to set off "said Luna" from the dialogue she's saying.

“P-p-present-t-t… p-presenting the R-R-Royal p-Pony S-S-Sisters, th-th-the Regents-s of,of,of… um” before he could continue his stutter fest, a big white snout leaned in and whispered in his ear, and he smiled weakly before restarting.

The action is not directly descriptive of how the chamberlain is speaking, to whom, or how. It's a new action. So:
“P-p-present-t-t… p-presenting the R-R-Royal p-Pony S-S-Sisters, th-th-the Regents-s of,of,of… um” Before he could continue his stutter fest, a big white snout leaned in and whispered in his ear, and he smiled weakly before restarting.
(My word, we do seem to have to explain this an awful lot, don't we. I really must have a word with the Equestrian Education Board about the textbooks we're using these days...)

Other capitalization issues are occasionally forgetting to capitalize people's names (like "Twilight") -- and if you're going to phonetically spell out Applejack's accent, then when she refers to herself as "Ah" instead of "I", capitalize "Ah" so the reader knows this is her using the pronoun, rather than a general "ahh" sound of approval. Just makes it a bit easier to read, I think.
(Wait a minute. Are y'all sayin' Ah talk funny?)
(Well, you do have a bit of an accent, darling.)
(What, an' you don't?)
(My accent is ladylike and cultured. Yours is...well...)
(Are ya sure ya want to finish that sentence, sugarcube?)
(...charming?)
(Nice save, Rarity.)

Also, occasional slips on plural vs. possessive. "laughing at the show ponies misfortune", for example -- that should be "laughing at the show pony's misfortune", since the misfortune belongs to the show pony (Trixie), and Trixie is only one pony, not multiple ponies.
(An' thank Celestia for that. One of her's more'n enough, if ya ask me.)
(Trixie heard that!)
(Trixie was meant to.)
(Trixie does not have to stand here and be insulted, you know.)
(Of course you don't, darling. You can go anywhere and be insulted.)
(...Trixie admits, she walked into that one.)

Aaaand, I think that just about covers everything I see here. Anything else to add, Miss Cheerilee?
(No, I think that's everything. I think if the author just takes a second, more careful pass through both of these chapters, keeping in mind everything we pointed out, they'll do just fine!)
In that case, I believe that concludes this morning's episode of "Pony Proofreading Theater!"
(Class dismissed! Except for you, Scootaloo, I want an essay from you on my desk tomorrow explaining what a "thesaurus" is.)
(Aw, nuts!)

[Brother_William]

Poor Twilight. On the bright side, FILLY PRINCESSES!

[storm the castle]

2666041 I noticed, but my Word file is on auto correct and we all know that bull. I cant turn it off, but thank for pointing it out. i'll fix it quick

[storm the castle]

2665959 if you wanna point it out, id be more than willing to try to fix it. some of it is Words auto correct feature goofin with me

[Sky Hooves]

I only hope they are potty trained... or maybe not (evil grin)

[AJs Favourite cousin]

So cute I feel like Pinky right now tia and lulu losing there composure and being fillys is just adorable to just imagine it what if lulu makes an undated stars show and just be like look tia I did it I made the stars move but then twilight would ask her about the spell even pinky should put on the detective hat and shine thewith a bright light toask questions but the whole time tia and lulu would bekeeping the secret and go chasing the guards and pretending to creep around and then while hiding they find out their really a princesses to and tia after seeing some love starts to hate it you know the mushy stuff so she skips sunsets that'll be funny a young couple from a perfect romantic setting plunges without warning to dark haha and well.......like I said Pinky moment for me

[memphisgurl]

Good story but it is in need of an editor.

[Dragon of Shadows]

discord would certainly like this chaos