This Time, Done Right

by PerigeeTheBat

Born Again

It was dark, the room dimmed now that the midwife and new mother had realized that the newborn was half thestral, sensitive to light. To them, it must have been weird to see the filly who, instead of crying or fussing like normal foals tended to, just looked at her little hooves.

Little Perigee was staring at her hooves, holding them really close to her eyes. She was a horse of some sort. No, she was a pony. It was like that show that she watched in the past, although, like with every other thing with a unique name, trouble came when trying to identify it, so she just stopped trying. She was mesmerized with her little purple hooves, dark grey fur covering her legs, tiny fetlocks already beginning to grow. She wouldn’t be able to see it yet with its small size, but her mane was a mixture of pink and purple, her tail all the same. She had a little pair of wings, them only having tiny grey feathers for now, extra fluffy as well.

She’d be roused from her interest in her own form by the mare she was laying on. “Hello, Perigee,” she said, gently rubbing the filly’s cheek with her hoof. She was a unicorn with a dark grey coat, the same shade as her daughter’s, and her hooves were white, matching her white mane and ear-furnishings. The mare had purple eyes, the two beautiful orbs looking over the young filly. “I’m your momma.”

Perigee managed to understand that, her eyes widening and little ears laying back as she was through into a state of shock. It was all clear now to her. She was a newborn foal, and this mare had just given birth to her. Everything began to make sense before coming close to overwhelming her. She felt like she was going to have an anxiety attack, but then she felt her mother begin to stroke her soft back fur, the filly instinctively laying her head down. On one hoof, little Perigee wanted to talk and explain that she was actually too old, but on the other, she just couldn't the only sounds coming out of her mouth being coos. She also adored the affection. She felt so much happiness that outweighed her want for independence, if only for the moment. It didn’t help that the logical side of her little brain was telling her that she’d need the mare to survive. What affected her most was the love that she felt in her mother’s gaze. She knew the mare was watching her without judgement, only wanting to protect her and love her. It wasn’t exactly fair though, in Perigee’s opinion, that her own instincts were driving her to do the same. It felt fake to an extent; loving somepony else only because her mind was coded to do that.

A couple more moments passed before the filly lost her ability to think of anything else, sleeping from the loving contact given to her from her mother.

“I’ll leave you two be, Starwhirl,” The midwife said, waving at the new mother and giving her a caring smile. “Congratulations, again. Perigee is very beautiful.”

Starwhirl was exhausted, but she couldn't help but stay awake to watch her newborn foal. She was a first time mother, but even she knew that this wasn’t the way foals normally acted, not that she’d love the filly any less for being a special case. She fell in love with the filly upon first having laid her eyes on the little bab. What a happy moment for the new mother, her heart filling with warmth as her fears and doubts were washed away. The mare, who was once worried that she wouldn’t love the little one she created, was now in peace. “What a pretty little filly.”

She took great care to embrace this moment, only having a couple days of rest ahead of her before she’d have to go back to working. Just the thought made her heart drop, not wanting to leave this filly without momma for even a moment.

---

Perigee woke with a yawn, still feeling the comfortable, soft form of the mare under her. She opened her eyes, and she felt like crying, but held it off. Only an hour had passed, and she felt the pang of hunger in her belly. She let out a whine, unable to put the words together to voice her need. She had already put the ideas together that she was a baby pony, yet she was still embarrassed and frustrated with the idea that she could only communicate like one. She didn’t want to cry, as that would be her submitting to the fact.

She’d feel a bit of comfort as her mother pulled her up, a soft pair of lips pressing on her small forehead. While she knew she’d have rejected that in her previous life, she felt the need now to press into the muzzle's kiss, if only to let out another soft whimper. She wanted food. It took a few moments, though, for her to process what was happening as she was taken and brought down under the covers of the hospital bed. Into the darkness she went, not afraid, but just confused. After the short movement, she’d feel her little muzzle brush against, oh…

‘Wow,’ The foal thought. ‘I’m nursing, and I can’t even stop myself.’ She felt a bit awkward and even a bit frustrated with herself as she fed on her mother’s milk. It was all so strange, and she closed her eyes as she let her instincts take control for the moment.

And soon enough, the moment was over, her little body pulled up to be with her mother. Inside, she was shocked. Why, if she had so many memories of a previous life, and the mind of an adult, did she allow this mare to feed her?

Of course, if she tried, she couldn’t escape in any meaningful way. If she tried, she’d probably stumble right onto her face, these little limbs being too weak to even crawl across her mother’s form.

Her eyes widened. ‘Did I just think of her as my mother?’ She hadn’t noticed until now that her brain was reprogramming itself, recognizing this strange mare to be her mom. It could only add to this strangeness.

This brought up yet another quandary to the foal’s mind, though. She was an adult! She had experiences and skills. She had her own memories and… friends… family. Family; they were gone, all left in the world she was taken from. Why didn’t she feel her missing family? Her mind was being warped, but why was it warped like this? If she were to live as a foal, why was it not wiped? Why did she have the instincts to feed and cuddle, but not the basic emotional state of a baby? Why could she think like an adult while only being able to talk as a foal? It was almost torture to the poor filly, all of these thoughts permeating through her little skull.

To help push the anxiety away, she decided to do a little exercise she often did in her past life. She wanted to look to the positives. ‘Well, for one, I’m not dead. Two, I’m probably very cute. Three, I’m basically fursuit incarnate. Four, my mom is very soft and very cuddly. Five, I’m a girl… I’M A GIRL!’ She didn’t know how she didn’t realize this under that moment, letting out a squeaky, foalish giggle as a result. She was a girl! Not born male but born female! She remembered the nurse having announced it a few moments before.

Her excitement would be interrupted as her giggle was quickly noticed. She heard the familiar voice of her mother speak.

“What’s making you giggle so cutely?” The mare said, her voice still eerily comforting to the foal. Starwhirl was now close enough for the filly to see her with detail.

Perigee didn’t know how to respond, her grinning muzzle turning into the slightest of frowns, her ears laying back, and her eyes a little wide. She had so many emotions as she saw her mother in such clarity, her purple eyes watching closely and dark-grey muzzle so close to her own. The conflicting feelings had her stuck in this state while the mare took notice of the change.

“What’s wrong?” Starwhirl asked, her own ears laying back now, her pupils shrinking with anxiety. The birth had done a number on her emotions, and this sudden change to her foal’s previously-happy expression was doing the same again.

Perigee saw this, watching her mother go from having a happy face to one that looked a little sad. It even tore her little heart as she watched tears begin to well in the mare’s eyes. Why did she look like this? Was it…? Little Perigee only noticed right now that the mare was reacting to what she was doing.

‘How had I forgotten about her? Has my time in… in her… has it made me selfish? She’s giving me so much care and attention, and yet I just repaid it by frowning at her…’ She knew many mothers in her past life, and there was one surefire way to get her new momma happy again.

Starwhirl giggled as she watched the filly stick out her little tongue between her lips blowing a raspberry at her. “Oh, what an adorable little girl…” The mare pulled little Perigee up, holding her close under her neck and leaning in to gently kiss her on the forehead.

Perigee, all the while, welcomed the kiss and the tighter hug, happy to have made the generous mare just a bit happier. Not to mention that kiss made her heart flutter a little bit. She had always wanted more affection before. Her ears lay back at the sudden thought of never having gotten to meet her boyfriend. She had gotten over it during her time in the womb, but missed opportunities were exactly what they were: missed.

The filly let out a soft squeak as her mother shuffled her up a little bit. If she’d the ability to be honest with anybody, she’d have admitted to being just the smallest bit embarrassed for making such a noise. Luckily, the only response her mother made was a little giggle.

Gosh, it was so warm and comfy, her little form curled up with her head gently leaning into her mother’s neckfur. Soon enough, she’d be out once again, her belly full of warm milk and her head full of happy thoughts.

Starwhirl, upon receiving a statement from her insurance that she had fifteen minutes left in the hospital before she’d have to cover a significant percentage of the remaining bill, was being wheeled toward the exit with her foal in her hooves and a scowl on her face. The nurses couldn’t blame her. She had just given birth only a few hours before, and she had to move her sore body home already.

Once reaching the outside, she made sure her jacket was on before she was wheeled out. She held the little foal, now bundled in a warm blanket, once having been Starwhirl’s own foal blanket, sitting there in the cold for a few moments. It was dark, like always, the city’s bright lights keeping everything lit up, the massive buildings towering far above. Using her magic to carefully move the filly into a foal carrier against her chest, she stood up shakily and began the trek to the bus station.

“Please don’t wake up, baby… I know it’s loud out here, but it’ll be nice and quiet when we get home.” She told her sleeping foal this as she trotted to the bus stop, waiting next to several other ponies, none of whom were interested in any other pony’s existence. For the moment, the unicorn was glad for this, sitting down and gently laying her head over the foal’s while taking a look at her holoTab, a small square chip that extended out into a magical, holographic phone-tablet.

Soon enough, the bus would be here, and the sore mare climbed aboard, standing while holding onto one of the rails on the side, swaying with the movement of the bus as she kept her head laying over her foal’s, her concentration on her tablet as she used her nose to move through and between apps. She wasn’t given her undergarments upon leaving the hospital, so she didn’t trust sitting on these seats. She was lucky to have a horn so that she could stand comfortably like this.

It was during the bus ride that she began to think about her daughter. Her midwife was very helpful, but she couldn’t explain why the foal wasn’t looking around. Why wasn’t her little one curious about the world? The most curiosity she noticed was when the foal looked up at her, but she thought that it looked more like fear, but the midwife said it was most likely confusion. ‘Foals never fear their mother,’ Starwhirl thought.

It was a short bus ride, Starwhirl trotting off onto the side trot and into her neighborhood. Of course, the term for such a building was far from correct, consisting of several interconnected skyscrapers with tens of thousands of apartments rising high into the sky.

The lobby was a large, open room, several help desks lining each side of the room with three hallways branching off from the end. Each hallway went straight, having rows upon rows of techno-magical portals. She’d hoof down the left hallway finding the twenty-eighth portal on the left and trotting through. It was an instantaneous, and she was now on her floor, the filly still comfortably sleeping in her little carrier, unphased by such a strange, magical way of travel.

The portal landed her in a T-shaped intersection of a hallway. Picking her path, she counted the rooms until she finally made it to her door. Placing her hoof on a little scanner, the door opened, and she quickly trotted in, closing the door behind her. She was hungry and in need of sleep.

The apartment was warm and cozy, the ceilings lower than other buildings but perfectly sized for a small mare with a similarly small foal. On the left of the front door was the kitchen and on the right, a little storage room. Straight ahead was the living room, and behind that, a single master bedroom with a bathroom and lovely closet.

The first thing the mare did was trot into her kitchen, opening her fridge and pulling out the leftovers of a ‘plant-based meat’ burrito. While it would be strange for ponies to ever want an alternative for meat, certain groups of gryphons had crafted it to sell to the large pony consumer-base, and it caught on quite well, especially for ponies like Starwhirl. She placed it into the flash-oven, an oven-like appliance that would very quickly back or broil whatever was placed into it without the need for radiation like a microwave.

While the burrito flash-baked, she went right over through her living room. The couch and a liquor cabinet graced the side of the apartment adjacent to the kitchen while a mounted TV sat on the wall above a long coffee table on the opposite side of the room. Starwhirl trotted between, opening her bedroom door, and trotting into her cozy bedroom. Her queen-sized bed lay in the back-left corner of the room, a bedside table next to it with a lamp upon it as well as an alarm clock. Closer to the front of the room, adjacent to the bed, was the closet door. The right side of the bed had a desk with a nerdy computer setup next to the bathroom door.

Placing the filly on the foal station, she watched the automatic station change the filly and clean her up more efficiently than the mare ever could; not that she couldn’t. She already demonstrated that she could at the hospital, but she got the station because she was very bad about waste. It also helped that the cloth diapers would be automatically fed into a cleaning machine within the device, replaced by a freshly cleaned, dried, and warmed replacement.

Hearing a beep, she scooped up her freshly-changed foal and placed her on her back, trotting over and retrieving the burrito. On any normal night, she would have gone and snoozed on her comfy couch under a blanket and silly movie. This wasn’t a normal night, of course, being her daughter’s first night of life. She carried the burrito in her magic, eating it while laying down on the bed, her magic careful not to let any crumbs fall as she did, the small foal being floated to lay right infront of her. She ate the burrito with hums of delight as she watched the filly sleep, the young foal’s little hooves held close to her small form.

As the mare finished her burrito, she balled up the wrapper and set it aside on the bedside, using her moderate skill in magic to feel around her backroom for her toothbrush. After a few moments of effort, she managed to water it, squeeze some toothpaste on it, and bring it over. While she brushed her teeth, she watched her little foal, smiling at the little one would occasionally twitch or move a little. To such a new mother in a technologically advanced world, it was almost comforting that, instead of being on her holoTab, computer, or another device, she could just watch the life she created be peaceful and serene.

A short moment later, she used her magic to clear all of the toothpaste out of her maw, globbing it up and sending it to the sink and her toothbrush to the counter. After she was finished concentrating on that, she realized her baby girl was awake, looking up at her sparkling horn with wide, amazed eyes. “D’aww… my little Peri is fascinated with her momma’s magic?”

Little Perigee was in awe of her mother’s magical appendage, having remembered seeing it in that show from her old world, but not quite thinking it’d work just the same. She had trouble not trying to communicate with the mare. She looked so happy, but her newborn filly communicating in a semi-intelligent manner like nodding with her would surely ring red flags, right? Little Perigee didn’t want to break her new mother’s happiness.

It'd take only a couple moments for the foal to realize why she did wake up, and she whined and let out some more weak coos, wanting to feed. Within moments, her mother would allow her to nurse. Even though she sometimes felt like she was violating her mother, being an adult in a foal’s body, it only felt right. She was hungry, and the mare was happy to feed her. It was only natural, right?

After she was done, she felt drowsy, leaning her head into her mother’s fur as she was pulled back up. Due to the cloth diaper, she didn’t even notice she had anything on, her only attention being on the warmth and comfort her mother’s hooves provided. It was as comfortable as a snuggie on a cold winter day while watching movies on the phone in sync with her friends.

She turned her head up, it laying flat on her mother’s chest as she saw the mare looking back down at her. This time, she smiled at the mare, who smiled back with a bigger smile. The mare’s horn glowed, and little Perigee’s mouth turned into an o, her eyes widened as she watched the small chip of the holoTab open, snapping a picture from behind her mother’s head under the control of her mother’s magic. As the magic went away, the filly exhaled, letting out the breath she held while watching the little show of magic.

“You have magic, too, Perigee. It’s in your little wings…” Her mother said, gently brushing her hoof over the filly’s little wings, earning her a coo from little Peri as she looked back into her mother’s eyes.

After a few more moments, Perigee would feel herself being pulled up, her head gently nestled against her mother’s neck as the mare lay her head over her daughter’s.

Within moments, Perigee found herself falling into a slumber, her mother following suit.

Author's Note:

Thank you for reading so far! I am really enjoying writing this story, and feel free to ask about the setting if you are at all confused!

Comments

[Melody Song]

Awww, so precious!!!

And yes, I would like to know about the setting!

[Golden_Reflection]

So it seems to be a rather technologically advanced Equestria, potentially all magi-tech?

Cool, is it far in the future of the show then?

[PerigeeTheBat]

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11488764

Well, it is very, very far in the future. I won't go into detail about when exactly it is, but the story takes place in a small district of a planet-wide city. The show is canon, but it is so long in the past that the only things that still hold up are a couple different traditions.

[Melody Song]

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Ooh, cool