The Foal Six

by blayzekohime

1. Twilight Sparkle

Maybe getting her mind smushed into an immature brain affected her, because for a moment Twilight had no idea why she was there. Her tiny body was sitting in a high chair, wearing a purple onesie decorated in little blue stars. As she wiggled in confusion, she heard the soft crinkle of the diaper beneath her onesie, the soft padding lifting her tiny body off her chair and making her wobble more.

Thankfully, the high chair had a tray locked around the front that kept her from wobbling onto the floor. The chair sat in front of a rather massive dinner table. Or maybe it wasn’t massive and she was just smaller than usual. Either way, there was a purple-frosted cake with a single candle on top in the middle.

Her mother and father were sitting on either side of her, with bright smiles on their faces and looking somewhat younger too. Shining Armor was on the other side of the table, himself rather small since he was around 3 at the time. Their mother was just intercepting the toddler colt’s attempt to grab at the delicious looking cake, moving it further away from his side.

Twilight slowly blinked as the spell-casting came back to her, and looked around to see if her friends were nearby. They weren’t, at least that she could see, though it wasn’t out of the question that only she was pulled in and they were watching. She at least hoped so; if it wasn’t that, they might be in their own bodies, wherever they were at this moment. What would that even mean for Spike? Dragon eggs could incubate for a long time, and she wasn’t sure when his egg had been laid.

“Aw, she looks so confused,” said Dad in a sweet voice as he telekinetically pinched her cheek, bringing her back to the moment.

“Think she can blow the candle out?” Mom asked curiously. “I guess we can help our little munchkin.”

“Just don’t put the candle within her reach,” Dad chuckled awkwardly. “Remember Shining tried to eat his first candle flame-first.”

As if on cue, Shining crawled up onto the table and grabbed for the candle. Dad quickly intercepted him and put him back into his seat with telekinesis, barely even having to look at him as if doing it by habit. Shining folded his front legs and scrunched up his face in annoyance as he sat back down.

“I want pretty fire…” Shining said dejectedly.

“It’ll burn you sweetie,” Mom said, her voice an octave higher than when she spoke to Dad. “You’ll hurt your widdle hoof.”

Twilight started to panic, but tried to think things through. Regardless of the spell doing something it shouldn’t, the effect was still temporary. That meant that she would eventually be pulled back to her own time safely, so she just had to make sure not to do anything that would seriously alter her timeline.

She’d theorized that time was rather elastic and should pop back into place as long as the changes were small, so that shouldn’t be an issue. She was more worried that her friends might be upset with her when she returned. Regardless, the most important thing was to be a convincing foal. She tried to remember how Flurry Heart acted… then quickly decided to definitely not act like that.

Mom moved the cake closer, eying Twilight as if carefully gauging how far she could reach on short notice, while Dad tightened up the tray on her high chair to make sure she couldn’t easily leap from it.

“You’re pretty quiet today,” Dad observed at Twilight.

Well of course she was quiet! She was still trying to remember what words a one-year-old could say without seeming suspicious!

“Madadama!” blurted out Twilight when she couldn’t decide whether to say ‘mama’ or ‘dada’, holding her front hooves up in a too-dramatic fashion. She then tried to deflect from the word salad with a near-screech. “Uh… uh… cakie!”

Her parents stared at her for a moment as she slowly put her hooves down. Did she do something weird already?

“Wow she’s… really excited about cake,” observed Mom, then smiled and reached over to pinch her cheek. “Aren’t you, you little angel.”

“Especially for having never tasted it,” Dad tapped his chin.

“Are you sure?” Mom said, peering at him, her voice taking a slightly accusative edge. “You didn’t give her cake when I wasn’t around, did you?”

“What? Of course not!” Dad said. While Twilight was relatively sure he was being honest, he really did say it in the most suspicious manner possible, complete with an awkward chuckle as he rubbed the back of his mane with a hoof.

Had she just gotten her parents into an argument? This was a disaster! Especially in Twilight’s mind, which rapidly magnified the insignificant disagreement until she fully believed it might put their marriage itself in danger. She had to do something!

“Waaaah!’ Twilight was sure her crying sounded fake, but it did the job of distracting her parents from their argument. It was surprisingly easy to produce tears as an infant, so at least it looked real.

“Oh no, did I raise my voice?” Dad worried, even though he definitely hadn’t.

“No be mean at sis!” Shining raised both front hooves as if trying to make a threatening pose and stuck his lower lip out. Apparently he was as defensive of her now as he could often be in the future.

“Aw, we didn’t mean to scare you sweetheart,” Mom reached over to ruffle her mane slightly, moving a napkin to dry her tears and rub her wet nose. “Come on, we’ll cut you your piece of cake… which I’m sure is your first piece!”

Okay, imagined crisis averted!

Twilight calmed quickly, which she then realized made the crying look more fake, but they didn’t seem to mind. Instead, they hurried to push the cake closer to her, just out of the reach of her tiny hooves. Twilight reached for it anyway, since that’s what she figured she should do, and it did look rather delicious.

“Happy birthday to you…” her parents began to sing, and Shining did his best to join in, even if he was adorably off key and more or less screaming the words.

Twilight instinctively tried to sing too, but all that came out was jabbering, as if her muzzle just wasn’t ready to make more than simple single words. That was probably best, but at least her parents thought it was cute; they had trouble not giggling at the end.

They all blew on the cake together, and Twilight tried to join in on that as well. Her little lungs produced a lot more air than she thought they would have, but she supposed that made sense since she needed them to make piercing cries to torment her parents. Still, it wasn’t enough to contribute, and her parents ultimately blew out the candle.

“Did you see that?” Mommy giggled. “She tried to help us blow out the candle!”

“That’s our little genius!” Daddy reached over and pinched her cheek again. “She gets that smarts from me, you know.” He was overselling it, but she appreciated the sentiment.

“Sure she gets it from you,” Mommy stuck out her tongue at him. “Says the colt that used to beg me to let him copy my homework…”

“Which I think was a rather genius solution to not having done mine,” Daddy nodded proudly.

“Time to cakie!” Shining dutifully got them back on the very important topic at hoof.

“Oh, right,” Daddy said as he took the smoldering candle off the cake.

Their parents each cut the cake together, as if worried one foal might take offense to being the second one to get a slice. Shining’s horn sparked a little as if he was trying to help them, but toddlers couldn't do much unless they were having a freak magic surge, which he wasn't. So he resorted to smacking the table with his front hooves excitedly.

For Twilight though, they didn’t just hoof the slice over to her. Instead Mommy held it a bit away with her telekinesis, scooping up a tiny bite with a spoon and slowly moving it towards Twilight.

“Open wide!” Mommy smiled. “Here comes the choo-choo train!”

Train? In what way was this like a train? Twilight couldn’t help but pull the saying apart in her mind.

“Go aaaah,” Mommy simplified it for her overthinking.

“Aaaaah,” Twilight mimicked as she opened wide.

She expected it to be tasty, but her eyes widened when the sweet icing touched her tongue. The sweetness here tasted better than anything she’d had. Maybe it was the point of view of a brain that had never registered it before, but it was so heavenly that she shuddered and felt like she might go catatonic from bliss.

Mommy made the mistake of floating the plate a bit too close as Twilight was taking down the first bite, and Twilight grabbed for it. She snatched it with both sticky-hooves and pulled it closer. Unable to contain herself with the willpower available to her immature brain, Twilight dove her face into it and took a huge bite, her mind lighting up with the sweet flavor. She couldn’t stop!

“Um… oops,” Mommy chuckled awkwardly.

“Just let her go at it,” Daddy chuckled. “It’s her day after all.”

“I cakie first!” Shining squeaked, seeing this as a challenge and gulping down his slice within a few seconds, gagging enough to draw concerned glances from their parents, but seeming relatively okay..

By the time she came to her senses, Twilight realized she had more on her face than in it, and blushed brightly at the amused smiles of her parents. Mommy giggled as she gently cleaned off Twilight’s face with a cloth they had nearby for just such an emergency.

Twilight tried to eat more conservatively for the rest, and even got a little ice cream atop that. It was all delicious, though her tummy felt a little gurgly as Daddy lifted her from her high chair and walked back to her room with her.

They didn’t bother to actually wrap her gifts since it wasn’t like she could open them anyway. Instead, she was simply presented with a number of toys. They were mostly block games and things that made annoying sounds that they would probably regret giving to her, but one gift stood out among the rest.

Twilight’s eyes lit up when they presented her with the final gift, a gray plush pony in blue shorts with white polka-dots. It had stringy hair and button eyes and looked a bit cheap, but Twilight recognized it immediately.

“Smarty pants!” Twilight exclaimed, then immediately went silent realizing what she had done. She wasn’t sure how discernible that garbled attempt would be to her parents.

“Arty ants?” Daddy tilted his head as he put Smarty in the crib with her.

“I think it was just jabber,” Mommy giggled. “But it did kind of sound like Smarty Pants, and that’s a pretty good name since it comes with a little quill and notebook.”

“We’ll give her the small parts much later,” chuckled Daddy. “But sure, we’ll name it that.”

Twilight awkwardly grasped Smarty and pulled her close into a hug, eyes slightly wide at what she’d done. Still, helping her parents name her foalhood plush wasn’t the worst damage she could do to the timeline. It’d probably work itself out, but her brain couldn’t help but worry a little that she’d get back to the future to find an epic pony war for some convoluted reason.

Come to think of it though, this made her think maybe she should ask Big Mac to give it back to her in her time. He’d borrowed it for too long.

“Uh oh!” Mommy said, and Twilight looked up at them to see them holding their noses. Now why were they… oh. Oh no.

Maybe it was her excitement, or just the fact that babies have no control in that area, but Twilight hadn’t even noticed she did it. She hadn’t even remembered that she was wearing a diaper, though she wasn’t sure how since it was thick enough to raise her more than an inch off the floor of her crib. She flushed as she started to smell it too. Maybe that cake had done a number on her.

“I got it!” Daddy said, picking her up out of the crib and working her out of the cute little onesie she had on to get at her crinkly diaper.

“I’ll get a bedtime story to read to her,” Mommy said. It was then that Twilight noticed the small bookshelf on the table where Daddy lay her on her back.

She tried to politely ignore the grueling task that she’d accidentally allotted to her poor father. Instead she looked at the small bookshelf. It was mostly very basic foal’s books, though there were strangely a few more advanced books. Had they put them here for good luck hoping she’d end up smart? Maybe it worked.

Twilight squeaked out a sneeze from the baby powder that her father used on her, eliciting an synchronized ‘awwww’ from her parents, but tried to get a better look at the books. She locked onto one titled “Ancient Arcane Arithmetic”. A first edition copy of a book she’d been looking for forever! In fact, she’d tried to find it again recently for the benefit of the very spell that put her in this condition!

“Book!” Twilight shouted as loud as she could, tapping her tiny hoof frantically against that book.

Her parents stared at her, as perhaps that word had come out a lot clearer than the others. Not to mention she probably hadn’t demanded a particular book before.

“Her first words are often different than I expect…” Daddy commented as he wrapped up her tushie in a fresh diaper, then chuckled.

“Well, I guess it doesn’t matter since she won’t remember either,” Mommy put back the book she’d chosen, and pulled out the arcane book instead. “I’ll read some of this to our little genius.”

Twilight couldn’t have been more excited, even if they probably wouldn’t read enough to her for it to solve the issues with this spell. Still, her parents never threw away books, so they probably still had it lying around; to think a book she’d been searching for was available all this time at her foalhood home!

As she was put back in her crib, she started to feel sleepy immediately, and realized that she’d likely wake up in her future body. Still, she was sort of glad that her spell failed so spectacularly. Not only had she got to relive cute moments that she’d long forgotten, but she’d be able to search for the hidden book treasure at her parent’s house in the future.

As Mommy read the book to her, her young mind couldn’t quite process the information, but somehow it still felt soothing as Twilight drifted off to sleep.