The Foal Six

by blayzekohime

4. Applejack

Applejack tended to be the sane one reacting to others' insanity, save for on the rare occasion where all roles were reversed. Because of this, she was both the most suspicious going into the experiment and the least surprised when something went wrong. At the same time, she was also willing to roll with the situation, figuring that even if Twilight couldn't fix it, someone would notice the time portal over the map table and have Celestia fix it.

Much like Pinkie, she awoke in a crib, though in a different situation. The crib was in the back of a wagon, as if she'd been taken out to the orchard so her parents could work and watch her at the same time. She assumed this was one of those times that Granny was away, and gods forbid her parents actually stop working to watch a foal; no they'd just take the foals with them and do both at once. They even had Big Macintosh out here with them, though he was toddling around their hooves. Her younger sister Apple Bloom was not yet born, so it was just the two of them.

The effect of her mind being shoved into a foal's body was so abrupt that it took her a moment for the full implications to dawn on her. She had been so young when her parents died that she had no memory of seeing them outside of photos, but now she was with them in the flesh! There was no telling how long the spell would keep malfunctioning, so she had to get their attention fast and spend some quality time with them before it was too late!

Of course her first instinct was to just shout at them. She struggled to her feet, wobbling over to the edge of the crib, and smacked into the side softly as she didn't quite have as much control over her legs as she'd like. She struggled to prop herself on the edge, her tightly wrapped cloth diaper causing her difficulty by keeping her hind legs awkwardly spread, and she bellowed at them.

"Momma! Dadda!"

Or she tried to, at least. What actually came out was a syllable salad that didn't have a single sound in common with what she wanted to say, as if moving her muzzle to talk was suddenly an impossible task, and her vocal cords cut in and out like a busted microphone. Dagnabbit! She couldn't talk yet! All she could do is jabber incoherently in their general direction.

Mommy and Daddy glanced back from their tree-kicking duties and smiled when she made noise, but didn't seem to think too much of it.

"She already sounds like she's really tryin' to talk," Mommy giggled.

"It's no wonder, she takes after tha smartest mare I know," Daddy smiled, walking past Mommy and swishing his tail to smack her behind before moving to the next tree.

"Oh you," Mommy laughed and turned back to her own work.

As arguably adorable as it was, this wouldn't work at all. She wanted to get them to come over to her, but at the same time she didn't want to be bratty about it. Applejack tried to think of a legitimate excuse to cry that wouldn't seem too dramatic, which probably made her bad at being a foal.

She flopped back onto the soft mattress in her crib, grabbing hold of a large plush apple and promptly throwing it over the edge of the crib, out of the wagon, and onto the ground. Perfect! Not only would crying because of the dropped plush not seem unreasonable, it'd be really cute too!

She decided to work up to it, so started to whimper quietly, trying to think of all the saddest things she could think of to get herself to cry, like losing friends, having to leave home, and being forced to eat non-apples. That seemed to bring tears to her eyes, but before she could work up to something that would be audible to her parents, her plans were foiled by none other than her big brother.

Big Macintosh spotted the plushie fall, and immediately toddled over to it. He dutifully picked it up, an extremely proud smile on his face as he did, and managed to toss it back into the crib from the ground.

"Mac protec lil' sis!" he said before toddling off to look at something else.

Dagnabbit times two! Of all times to do so, why did he have to be such a weird big brother! A normal brother would have grabbed it and ran off to play with it himself, possibly in spite of her, only working into her plan. She had never been more frustrated by how implausibly decent her family was!

What's more, she was starting to feel the slightest pressure in her tummy, and realized that she probably needed to use her diaper. On one hoof, this would be a very convenient way to get her parents' attention and a legit reason to cry. But on the other hoof... it was uncouth even by Applejack's very low standards. She might be in a foal's body but she had her own mind and couldn't imagine ever humiliating herself like that.

Unfortunately for Applejack, her long thought train about avoiding humiliation far exceeded her physical self-control, and she felt warmth in her diaper before she even finished thinking about it. The accident was so abrupt that it was almost like it teleported into her diaper. The crying that followed was just as unstoppable, bursting out like a dam bursting before she could consider how to go about it.

As uncomfortable as it was to not have her normal emotional control, the squalling worked alarmingly well. So well that as her parents rushed over, she had to put her forehooves over her own ears because of her loud squalling that she couldn’t stop.

“Oh you poor dear,” Mommy’s said, though AJ couldn’t see much through her own sudden flood of tears. It was a little shocking to her to find she ever had this level of emotional output.

“Are you hurt?” Daddy asked. “Oh, I think she made a mess. I’ll take care of it.”

“No I’m fairly sure you took care of it last time, I’ll take care of it,” said Mommy.

“Oh but I don’t mind…”

Her parents went back and forth for a bit more before Applejack was finally lifted out of the crib and placed on a small table also in the cart, so at least they were prepared when they took her with them to work. It took her a few moments to dry her eyes enough to see it was Mommy, though it seemed they had compromised by putting Daddy on make-silly-fakes-at-the-foal duty.

It was attention of a sort, so she’d definitely take it over nothing, but still not the sort of bonding she had been hoping for. Applejack attempted to complain as her diaper was removed, only to find herself giggling uncontrollably at Daddy sticking his tongue out at her. It seemed her lack of emotional control was going to make this a challenge in more ways than one.

She absolutely hated having to be cleaned like this. It might end up being her most mortifying memory as an adult since she mercifully forgot it the first time around. For a mercy, her current brain somehow didn’t share this opinion and she continued to spend most of the time laughing and squeaking at Daddy’s ridiculous faces.

By the time she got herself to stop giggling, she had already been wiped down and powdered up with Mom using suspiciously pear-scented baby powder. To her dismay, her parents immediately placed her back in the crib and left her there again, pulling Mac in the back of the wagon two and moving to pull this and another cart full of harvested apples back towards the barns.

At this point she was too frustrated to even try to contain her emotions, and was worrying that she’d never get in a proper cuddle with her parents while she still could, so flopped down in her crib and immediately started wailing again. She would definitely never think of crying babies as annoying anymore now that she knew what they felt like.

A series of ‘aws’ later, Daddy picked her up again, carrying her around to where he was pulling the cart. With some kind of supernatural balance, he carried her with one front leg, holding a bottle in the other front leg as he walked on his hind legs to pull the cart.

Having the bottle shoved into her muzzle was more annoying than not, but did make it rather impossible to cry as she instinctively started suckling on the mixture within. She suspected it was actual breast milk rather than formula, and that her parents were just efficient enough to have some already on hoof so Mom wouldn’t have to stop what she was doing to nurse. Dagnabbit their efficiency!

Granted being nursed or bottled wasn’t the sort of cuddles that she wanted still, and mostly just embarrassed her. Applejack could do nothing but quietly suckle as she blushed bright red from nose to all four hooves. She simultaneously wanted better cuddles while also not wanting to be pampered or treated like what she was.

In the end, it seemed Applejack’s efforts just caused them to take longer to get back home, not that Mommy or Daddy complained. Of course that just made her feel worse, but she still wanted her cuddle! This wasn’t a chance that she’d ever get again so her distress was at least a bit justified.

It seemed like forever before they got home, where she hoped that she’d get some attention that didn’t involve pampering or cleaning up after her. Her father took a moment to pat her back after the bottle feeding, resulting in a loud belch that definitely shouldn’t have come out of any creature her size, then she was summarily placed back in a crib, this time in her and Mac’s foalhood room.

Mommy and Daddy ran off hurriedly, and Applejack assumed it was to get the apples they just harvested into the proper storage location for processing or packaging, minus the ones that would serve as most of their own meals. Mac followed them right at their ankles in an attempt to help them in a likely counter-productive way, but AJ was stuck here without the ability to even try.

Worse, the bottle feeding had made her sleepy, but she didn’t want to go to sleep yet. For all she knew, going to sleep would end the experience and send her back to her own time. She leaned against the crib bars again, standing herself up on her hind legs, trying to hold her eyes open the best she could with her hooves at the same time.

She must have looked even sillier than Daddy when he was making faces, because the next time Mommy passed her room, she broke out into laughter after one glance into the room to check on her. AJ was again mortified but kept doing it if it got her any amount of parental attention.

She heard more hoofsteps, Daddy moving to the room door to see what Mommy was laughing at. As he did, Mac came behind him, running face first into a hind leg when Daddy suddenly stopped laughing. Daddy did his best not to join in, but soon snorted and started to snicker as well.

“What in Equestria is she doing?” laughed Daddy.

“I can’t even begin to imagine,” Mommy said, trying to stifle her own laughing. “I’ve never seen her do that before.”

Mommy turned to give Daddy a quick kiss on the cheek, then headed into the room as if to get a closer look. Daddy followed her after returning the kiss, while Mac toddled over to a toybox in the corner and started awkwardly tossing some wooden blocks from it onto the floor nearby. AJ supposed it made sense that he liked to build things even back now.

“What ya doin’ sweet Apple?” Mommy asked when she got closer and AJ continued with the display, unsure of what else to do as tired as she was getting.

“Is she… trying to stay awake?” Daddy seemed to get the idea.

“But why?” chuckled Mommy.

Honestly, even if it wasn’t cuddles, it felt good just to hear their voices talking to each other about her. She’d long forgotten what their voices sounded like, as she barely even remembered them at all.

“Maybe she just wants some attention before naptime?” mercifully, Daddy got more of the idea.

“Aw you poor thing,” Mommy said. “We’ve been so busy with the harvest lately, haven’t we?”

Mommy reached in to lift her out of the crib again, placing her on her back and holding her there. As Mac seemed happy with his building blocks in the corner, they left him to it and walked her out of the bedroom and into the living room instead.

They sat on the couch together, snugged right up against one another, and then Applejack was placed between them, their warmth covering her as their dusty but soft coats cradled her between them.

“There, there, we’re here now,” Mommy told her sweetly.

“We may get busy, but we never forget you,” Daddy added.

As each moved a hoof to stroke her mane, Applejack couldn’t have been happier. It had gone from the most awkward moment in her life to the happiest she’d ever felt, cuddled between the parents that she missed so much despite having remembered almost nothing about them. She took a deep breath, pure bliss spreading through her as she settled down and finally allowed her eyes to close.

This was what she had been wanting: a tender moment with her parents that had been lacking from her adult memory. She could feel the warmth of their love as they cuddled her between them.

As happy as she ever had been and likely ever would be, AJ finally drifted off into a sweet sleep between them.

Comments

[Reily]

Dawwwww

[StarzGecko]

Applejack has the best chapter!

[blayzekohime]

11543869
Well she had the best reason to go back!

[blayzekohime]

11543726
no u

[blayzekohime]

11543852
I am actually aware and added that in defiance

[PlagueDoctor2035]

Cute but dad how she did not get to embrace her parents in her adult life

[blayzekohime]

11883828
Her parents canonically died before she got to know them well. They had a whole episode where they were learning about their parents because they never knew them well.