The Magician and the Golden Child

by JD McGregor

Two Unicorns, a Dragon, and a Baby

“Okay, now just relax, concentrate, and try not to burn the castle down.”

The Great and Powerful Trixie turned to her friend Starlight Glimmer with a pout. “You should have more faith in me,” she said, turning back toward the pot of water on the kitchen stove in front of them. “You told me yourself that I’ve gotten really good with my spells.”

“I do have faith in you, Trix,” Starlight replied, glancing at a worn and ancient spellbook laid out on the counter to the side. “I also know that you sometimes get a little, you know… Excited.” She looked back at her occasional student in advanced magic. “And this spell requires a bit more subtlety than you usually show.”

“I still don’t see the point in learning this,” Trixie said, studying the pot. “I already know spells for pyrotechnics. Look.” She glanced at Starlight as her unicorn horn glowed with mana. A tiny spark detached itself from the tip and described a curling path toward Starlight’s face, exploding into a tiny flower of flame with a pop as it reached the tip of her pinkish-purple snout.

“Ow!” Starlight rubbed her nose. “Careful with that!” Starlight’s own horn glowed as she moved the most certainly valuable spellbook away from the stove. “I know you can do fireworks just fine. But this spell can be really useful. You’ll be able to heat things up precisely.”

Trixie huffed, tossing her white and blue-streaked mane. “And how exactly will that be useful to me?”

“Well, suppose you’re on the road, headed for your next magic show, and the weather turns bad. You can heat up a meal in your wagon without having to build a campfire outside.” Starlight’s brow furrowed as she considered other uses. “You can also use it for potion-making, I suppose. For precise heating and stuff like that, although I’m hardly an expert…” Starlight trailed off as she cocked an ear. “Do you hear that?”

“Hear what?” Trixie also stopped talking and listened carefully. A faint, uluating cry could be heard in the distance. “I think so.”

“It sort of sounds like a siren,” Starlight mused.

“You mean like one of those creatures that hypnotizes you with singing?” Trixie asked.

“No, I mean like the things on top of fire wagons.” Starlight shrugged. “Maybe there’s a fire in town. Anyway, this is a useful spell to learn.”

“Oh, certainly,” Trixie replied dryly. “I’ll be sure to precisely heat things with it every day.” A sly smile crept onto her face. “Although I’ll bet even Princess Golden Girl will be impressed with me if I learn it.”

Starlight sighed. “Trixie, you’ve got to get over this rivalry you have with Twilight. It isn’t healthy. Or realistic.”

Trixie’s eyes narrowed. “Oh, you’re saying I can’t impress her with magic?”

“I’m saying it shouldn’t matter. Get better at spellcasting for your own sake, not hers.” Starlight cocked her ear again. “Okay, that sound’s getting louder.”

The two unicorns turned toward the kitchen door. The cry they’d heard before did indeed seem to be approaching them.

“You know,” Starlight began. “Call me crazy, but—”

“Okay, you’re crazy,” Trixie replied with a smile.

Starlight playfully slugged her friend’s shoulder with a forehoof. “Stop that. I was just going to say that noise sounds like… Like a baby crying.”

Trixie listened silently. “Sort of,” she finally said. “But it’s mixed with something.”

The cry was gaining in both volume and clarity, and Starlight could hear what her friend had meant.

“...aaaaaaaaarrrrrrr….”

“Aaar?” Trixie pondered for a moment. “Are there any pirates in the castle today?”

Starlight rolled her eyes. “None that I know of,” she replied. The cry had shifted slightly.

“...liiiiiighhhht….”

Starlight started. “That’s sounds like Spike,” she said. “That sounds like Spike calling for me!” Her horn glowed as she telekinetically opened the kitchen door. “Spike?” she shouted. “We’re in here! What’s wrong?”

A moment later, a small green and purple dragon appeared at the doorway, his eyes wide with terror. On his head, he wore a bowl as a makeshift helmet, and in his arms he carried a screaming infant foal. Spike stared at Starlight and Trixie, struggling and failing to say anything. “Twilight!” he managed to finally blurt out. “Baby!”

The two unicorns stared back at him, not quite able to process what they were looking at. “Spike, what happened?” Starlight shouted over the baby’s wails. “Where did that baby come from?!”

Spike’s ability to form complex sentences appeared to have crumbled under the child’s sonic assault. “Twilight!” he repeated. He held the baby out for emphasis. “Baby!”

“Oh, my goodness,” Trixie said. “Twilight Sparkle’s had a baby. What a scandal!” She squealed with excitement. “Who’s the father? Wait…” Trixie’s eyes widened. “That would mean she’s not a virgin anymore. Oh, fizz!” She stamped her hoof. “That’s another thing she beat me at!”

Starlight sat on her haunches and pressed her hooves to her ears to deaden the screaming. “Twilight didn’t have a baby,” she shouted. “She isn’t pregnant. I would have noticed!”

“Maybe she just hid it really well,” Trixie shouted back, magically grabbing a couple of dish towels from the sink and stuffing them around her ears. “Have you noticed her standing behind furniture a lot for the past few moons?”

“No! And she doesn’t have a boyfriend, either. It’s not her baby!”

“Come on, it’s clearly hers,” Trixie shot back, pointing at the screaming child. “Look at it! It looks just like her!”

“Okay, yeah, maybe!” Starlight replied. She took a close look at the foal. How, she wondered, did something that small produce so much noise? “It does have her coat color. And her mane color. And wings, just like her…” Starlight gulped, as an impossible thought crossed her mind. “Spike?” she shouted nervously. “Where’s Twilight?”

Spike once again held the baby out toward her. “Twilight!” he shouted insistently. “Baby!”

Starlight shook her head, wondering if this was some sort of bizarre nightmare from which she could wake herself. “Are you telling me that foal is Twilight?!” she asked. Spike nodded.

The two unicorn’s mouths both dropped open as they wordlessly turned first to each other, and then back to Spike and the now baby Twilight Sparkle. A crooked smile appeared on Trixie’s face that finally crumbled into a sputtering howl of laughter as she collapsed onto the floor in hysterics.

Starlight glared down at her friend, her hooves still clamped over her ears. “Thanks, Trix. You’re really helping.”

“I’m sorry!” Trixie gasped, “But… But… How did this happen?!”

“That’s a good question,” Starlight replied, turning back to Spike. “Spike, why is Twilight a baby?”

“Pinkie Pie!” he shouted, his brain still not quite up to the task of forming complete sentences. “Zecora! Allergy potion! Side effects!” He held up Twilight again. “Baby!”

Starlight closed her eyes, attempting to massage her temples while keeping her ears covered. She failed, and found herself wondering about the choice between an earache and a headache. “You know,” she said wearily, “it’s a testament to how long I’ve lived in this loony bin that that actually all makes sense.”

“Oh?” said Trixie, giggling as she regained some of her composure and sat up. “Could you translate for a visitor, then?”

“Pinkie Pie went to Zecora to get a potion to cure Twilight’s allergies, and the side effect was that she turned into a baby?” she asked Spike, who again nodded. “How long is this going to last?”

“How should I know?!” Spike replied, his higher speech functions returning. He held Twilight away from him, vainly hoping for some relief from the ear-splitting racket.

“Can you get her to stop crying, at least?!” Starlight shouted back.

“No! And I tried! That’s why I came running to you!” Spike held Twilight out to Starlight. “You get her to shut up!”

“Right…” Starlight uncovered her ears and levitated the baby out of Spike’s grasp, awkwardly grabbing it under its foreleg pits and holding it far out in front of her. She gulped. “Hey, Twilight, um…”

The baby continued to shriek.

“Look, Twilight,” Starlight began. “Are you maybe just a baby on the outside and still a grownup inside, and you’re just screaming out of a general sense of existential ennui…?” She paused. “No, I’m not buying it, either.”

Baby Twilight stopped screaming for a moment, and looked at her former student with her large violet eyes. Starlight’s heart leaped. Maybe Twilight really was still there inside. “Twilight? Can you understand me? Nod yes if you do!”

The baby looked back silently, then took a deep breath and began to shriek again.

Starlight sighed. “Okay, I’m gonna go out on a limb here and assume that she’s just a baby right now and there’s no reasoning with her.” The sound of sniggering drew her attention back to Trixie, who sat next to her on the floor, looking mightily amused at her friend’s efforts. “I’m glad this is so funny to you!”

“You’re terrible with children, aren’t you?” Trixie laughed.

“I’m not good with babies! They freak me out, to be honest!” Starlight glowered at her friend. “I suppose you could do better!”

Trixie sat up, folding her forelegs across her chest as she raised an eyebrow. “Let me have her,” she said quietly.

“What are you going to do with her?” Starlight asked, a note of concern in her voice.

“Just let me have her,” Trixie replied, her voice even as she held out her forelegs. Starlight and Spike exchanged a nervous glance before Starlight floated the foal into Trixie’s grasp. Trixie immediately held her close and began to gently bounce her and rub her back, pressing the baby’s ear to her chest.

“There we go,” she said softly. “Just relax and listen to the sound of my voice.” Twilight’s crying lessened almost immediately, as Starlight and Spike looked on in amazement.

“This must be awful for you, Twilight,” Trixie continued, her voice lilting and cooing. “You can’t make a speech about it, because you’re just a dumb little baby now, and can’t talk!”

“Um, Trix, can you maybe not bully Twilight while you do that—” Starlight began, before her friend shushed her.

“Let me do my thing,” she hissed. She continued to coo and bounce the baby princess. “And you can’t read a book about it, either, because you’re a little dumb-dumb baby and can’t read!” Baby Twilight’s screaming faded to a soft sobbing as Trixie continued. “I’ll bet if you saw a book right now, you’d just try to eat it. Because you’re a little moron!”

“Seriously, Trixie, she’s just a baby—” Starlight managed to say, before Trixie put a hoof to her lips and glared.

“You can’t think of anything, and you don’t care how ridiculous you look now,” she continued with a huge smile. Starlight and Spike both sighed, but watched in fascination as Twilight finally stopped crying and began to happily coo. Trixie looked up at them with a smug smile on her face. “Ta-daa,” she said quietly.

“How did you…?” Starlight began to ask before trailing off.

Trixie scoffed. “When you’ve played as many children’s birthday parties as I have, you’ve seen your share of baby brothers and sisters who need to get shushed. You learn a few things.” She smiled down at Twilight, bouncing her gently. “It’s all just keeping your voice low and even, letting them hear your heartbeat, and a little bouncing and back rubbing.” She looked back up at Starlight and Spike with a sly smile. “And when you make it part of the act, you get to slap on an extra foalsitting fee at the end.”

“That is devious and unethical and I could kiss you right now!” Starlight heaved a grateful sigh of relief and then turned to Spike. “Okay, what did Pinkie say when she gave Twilight the potion?”

“Nothing!” Spike scowled. “She just did that usual Pinkie Pie thing she does.” He began to bounce around on all fours, lilting his voice into Pinkie’s hyperactive squeak. “Hi, Twilight! I have an untested potion for you! I know it might have side effects, but I won’t mention that till after I feed it to you! Oh, you’re a baby now? Wow, too bad! Gotta go! Wheeee!” Spike landed and dropped his Pinkie impression, glaring in the general direction of Twilight’s bedroom, where Pinkie had last been seen wreaking havoc.

“Yeah, that sounds like Pinkie Pie,” Starlight sighed. She suddenly paused as a thought occurred to her. “Wait, she just left? What did the other girls say?”

“Nothing,” Spike replied, a note of fury in his voice. “Rarity shoved Twilight in my arms and they all just left me there.”

A shocked silence fell over the kitchen, broken only by an infantile gurgle from Twilight. Trixie shifted her hold and looked down at the baby alicorn. “You have awful friends!” she said brightly to her. Twilight responded by blowing a raspberry and chortling.

“I’m going to agree with both of you there,” Starlight said. “Although, to be fair, the last baby alicorn we all dealt with was Twilight’s niece, and she nearly destroyed the Crystal Empire by accident. Maybe they were just scared.”

“Of course they were scared,” Trixie laughed, looking down at Twilight. “Look at how scary the stupid little baby is!” Twilight smiled and cooed at her vaguely abusive caretaker.

“Okay, Trixie, that’s enough.” Annoyed, Starlight turned to her friend. “I know you’ve got your weird rivalry with her, and she probably can’t understand a word you’re saying, but knock it off!”

“Just a dumb little pee-pee head,” Trixie continued, bouncing the chortling baby. “You can’t do anything now! All you can do is eat and sleep and… and…” Trixie’s words died in her throat as her smile began to transform into a horrified rictus.

Starlight and Spike both looked at each other, confused, before turning back toward Trixie. “Trix, what’s wrong?” Starlight asked.

“Um…” Trixie began, then swallowed. “She’s, um…” Trixie looked down silently at the gurgling baby in her grasp. Everyone in the kitchen could now hear the sound of liquid dribbling onto the floor. Her face collapsed into a grimace of utter revulsion as she turned this way and that, as if searching for some escape from what was happening. “Gross!” she yelled! “So gross…!”

Starlight couldn’t help but chuckle. “Well,” she said. “I guess you really did get her to relax.”

Trixie glared at her friend, then held Twilight up in front of her. “You did that on purpose, you gross little monster!” she hissed.

“I doubt she can do anything on purpose right now, Trixie,” laughed Starlight. “And it serves you right for picking on her.” Starlight smiled at her friend’s consternation, then suddenly snorted.

“What?” asked Trixie testily.

“I was just thinking,” Starlight replied, a gleam in her eye. “I hear there are clubs in Manehatten where they’ll pay you to let them do what she’s doing to you right now— Ow!” Starlight rubbed the spot on her shoulder where Trixie had just slugged her. “What’s the big idea?!”

“You keep that nasty talk to yourself!” Trixie huffed, then covered Twilight’s ears. “There’s a baby here!”

“Oh, yeah,” Starlight laughed. “You’re a moral paragon.”

Trixie sniffed, holding Twilight close, then remembered what she was covered with and held her away. “Can we do something about Princess Pee Pants here? Before something even worse comes out of her?”

“Yeah, we clearly need some baby stuff right now. Diapers especially,” Starlight agreed.

“Guest room!” Spike blurted out. Starlight looked at him quizzically. “The guest room she keeps for when Cadance and Shining Armor visit,” he explained. "It’s full of baby stuff for Flurry Heart. You know, like a crib? Changing table? Diapers?”

“Well, that’s convenient,” said Trixie.

“And kind of plausible, too,” Starlight added. “Okay, first…” She levitated a dish towel and proceeded to swaddle Twilight in it. “That should help keep her from making a bigger mess. Now, Spike, you lead the way.” She turned to Trixie. “Let’s get both of you cleaned up and hopefully Twilight back to normal. Otherwise…”

“Otherwise…?” Trixie asked.

“Otherwise, I may need your foalsitting services for the next 10 or 20 years,” Starlight replied.

She was only half-joking.

Comments

[Scythe]

“That would mean she’s not a virgin anymore. Oh, fizz!” She stamped her foot. “That’s another thing she beat me at!”

Nice job so far with this story! It really felt in character and was pretty funny. I can't wait for the next chapter!
Have a moustache!

[Eroraf86]

Salty Spike is salty. Honestly, I don’t blame him.

[JD McGregor]

9524776
If I were Spike, I would be raging across town. Yeah, Twilight had just finished randomly enchanting them with magical sneezes, but they noped out of there in no time at all.

I am treading on dangerous ground here, because this is an age regression story that mentions that babies are kind of gross. I have to be really careful not to make it a fetish fic.

[Starlight Nova]

It mainly arose from a random comment I made on Derpibooru

Really? What was that comment?

[JD McGregor]

9524912
It was just something I said to Eroraf86 for a posting of the scene of Twilight turning into a baby. I said that having Spike, Starlight, and Trixie taking care of her practically wrote itself. He replied along the lines of "Story. Now!" and I said it would be something where Trixie would start out being very sarcastic and teasing Twilight, and end up being very protective at the end.

I like age regression stories, but mainly as a way for characters to explore aspects of themselves that they might not be able to as adults. In this case, it would be Trixie suddenly being thrown into the position of being a caregiver for a helpless Twilight and confronting her general inferiority complex.

[Lord Xaos]

“That is devious and unethical and I could kiss you right now!”
-Starlight Glimmer, directed at Trixie