Chapter 1
Trinket are you, a witch pony with a lilac and violet mane, and a heart locket cutie-mark obscured in the present. Normally, you’d be sleeping in by now, but instead you’re staring across the room with bloodshot eyes, desperately trying to return to the realm of dreams. Lately, your current predicament has followed you even there. Instead of the nightmare in which your progeny were already better at magic than you, what caused you to awaken to watch the dawn, which you really didn’t want to do, was a massive stirring. Gently, magic pulled the bedsheets off your form; all four legs were curled, inadvertently cradling your womb, with one of three inside taking shifts with keeping you awake. Your coltfriend—husband—Strange Feeling, had already woken up, nuzzled you, and left to make breakfast. Its scent taunted, telling of the goodness waiting, if only you’d get out of bed.
Doing just that had gradually become ever more of a challenge pertaining to this pregnancy’s progression. You could feel your lopsided barrel shift on the mattress slightly with every breath, and, as the foals grew, you slowly approached that size you were on Nightmare Night, with five. Bending those left legs directly on the mattress, you twisted your forehalf into an uncomfortable position that had both forehooves set, but this also shoved that large belly into the mattress, and it felt like two of them had awoken. Slowly, the distended lump shifts from poking out so, to splaying out from left and right. Your hindleg reluctantly acted as a fulcrum, putting an uncomfortable strain on it that has only grown pronounced over time. You’re going to complain to Strange Feeling about not helping you out of bed, after breakfast—after dinner—later. Maybe you should just enchant something.
By Celestia’s—Luna’s—grace, you were now standing on the bed. Getting up was the hardest part, so closing your eyes and locking all four legs up to take a standing break was fine. With the dawn long broken, the light now warmed parts of you it had earlier been unable to touch.
The scent of that food returned to the forefront, and it was time to get off of the bed. Just how to do that was something of a research problem to you. It had posed an issue ever since this pregnancy had begun, all things considered, but it certainly wasn’t getting any easier. Yesterday, you’d jumped out of bed; what had once been something able to be done gracefully after just waking up could now only be done by carefully collecting your hooves underneath, as far as paunch permitted, and on the very edge of the bed, to then jump not even far enough for your rump to avoid grazing the mattress upon landing; it had sent a shockwave through you, and then the foals hadn’t calmed down until after breakfast.
Feeling less adventurous, you had forehooves teetering on the edge, and crouched to reach one to the floor. Your belly was smushed into the mattress, and even sucking in didn’t provide enough space to put hoof to wood. A small step was waiting on that side of the bed, just for this purpose, but too far away. It was trivial to levitate it to its proper position, finally finding proper hoofing, its twin following to meet it. Now you simply needed to get from the step to the floor, but the necessary give didn’t come. You could feel the situation well, but still twisted your head around to get a good look: With how bent over this stance is, you look like a mare begging for it; with how pregnant you are, you look like a mare who got it.
You gave up on doing this gently, pulling back to swing your forelegs out far. Belly free and now swinging, your hindlegs rested stretched out, flat behind you; they were already sore. You walked forward to set hindhooves down one-by-one. You already want to go back to bed, but growling tummy and everything else disagrees. Sleepily, slowly skulking, searching sustenance, you walked from bedroom to dining room, and sat on the floor to rest your muzzle on the table.
Strange Feeling was wearing an apron, and his socks; black and white striped socks gave way to his dark green fur, which contrasted well with his orange mane, a shade similar to your coat. Without moving from his place at the stove, nor turning his head, his eye turned to stare at you; it gave you a strange feeling, and you shivered. You love this stallion, and smooched at him before smiling and telling him so. His eyes returned to the food, but now he had a smile too.
You could smell what breakfast was this morning, but having it set in front of you and seeing it was even better. Several fried eggs were set with jam on toast, hay hash with flowers cut in, and some fruit from the garden. You shifted back-and-forth to magick a pillow underneath your plot, wiggling a little more to get comfortable, before filling your face. You were in the middle of this breakfast when you felt more foal movement, not atypical, but this one adjusted one of the little dears too close to your bladder, and you were faced with the realization you may have to stop eating to take a tinkle. This was, of course, an unacceptable course of action, and you expertly realized a solution, using your magical telekinesis to delve slightly into your body, past your skin, and into your womb, to gently nudge the foal into a more acceptable position. You weren’t going to be standing until you were full. It’s good to be a unicorn.
Strange Feeling didn’t approve of using potentially-risky prenatal magic like that too often, but you assuaged his fears with a tilt of hoof. A skilled unicorn such as yourself had nothing to worry about, and you’d just elide that minor magical mistakes were the reason you were so pregnant to start with, but he knows, and you know he knows, and he knows you know he knows, but you were just going to let that be the end of it if you didn’t need any other excuses. He didn’t continue with it, to your comfort, but only to ask about something even worse: exercising. You were technically a higher-risk pregnancy, considering the triplets, the mistaken magical transplants, the ghost foal, and you weren’t a paragon of physical health before that, focussing more on magical ability. Your plush butt felt more comfortable than you wished it did, under this scrutiny.
After breakfast, a trail of milk which had coincidentally followed the path you’d taken from the bed was noticed. Craning your neck, your fat teats were slowly leaking colostrum, and you’d been too distracted by food and dreading exercise to notice. Leaking milk like this was marely, but in the bad way, and you were glad you’d not walked through town dripping like a faucet. Still, you’d known this was coming, and had a nice means to avoid it.
Pegasi and Earth ponies wore bras to prevent themselves from leaving any puddles, but unicorns with a bit more finesse had a less embarrassing option. Back in the bedroom, a bedside drawer was opened by hoof and two small, light brown objects levitated out and set on top. The pointy little things resembled nipples, and would suction to allow a mare to walk through town without anypony knowing she was wearing such clothing, and without leaking like a dairy cow. You paused to reflect on this vanity. Most dams walked around the village naked, and those whose milk became an issue just wore bras; were you obsessing over a little covering because you were resisting the clothing culture of Canterlot trickling down the mountain to your quaint village, or were you going to wear these because of their practicality, which to most ponies is all clothing, sans hats, were good for?
Your mind wandered to that little dress you once wore so often. You didn’t need to look at the drawer to find it; it had been in the same place for months. It perfectly matched your witch’s hat, being a monochrome deep purple with a single black belt and gold buckle. It slid over head easily, and both forelegs easily went through as well, and then it got caught.
The belt was meant to tighten around your barrel, but that just wasn’t possible now; both halves of the dress were on but a third of your form. You slowly magick your hat on and frown. At least you could still wear your cool hat. The dress slides off easily, having barely been put on to start with, and is shuffled back into the drawer. Your eyes turn upwards, to the pasties sitting on the dresser.
Well, they’ve already been purchased, so there was no point in not wearing them, and your milk drips were an issue. You’d already been subjected to the occasional pumpkin joke, and didn’t want any dairy added to that dish. You then thought about Strange Feeling, and how you could have some fun taking them off, and that settled it. It was easier to use the standing mirror than crane your neck further, so you backed towards it, embarrassed at realizing it was now easier for you to back up than turn around sometimes. You felt less like a pony proudly shepherding foals into the world, and more like a wagon carrying three.
Right was your lucky side, so a witch naturally chooses the opposite. You stuck out your tongue to wet both of the faux nipples, and left one to stay there; it would help you concentrate anyway, turning for left flank to face the mirror. Your tail was moved aside and left hindleg stretched out of the way, giving a decent view of your marehood and teats. You banished the wondering over what your marehood would look like after three foals came out of it, and levitated the first pasty below its proper place and pushed it upwards, trying to match it evenly around the nipple. It didn’t want to stick, and your new effort pushed it in hard enough to invert the nipple, causing more milk to leak from around it. It stuck soon enough, however, and you set your hoof down, away from the newest puddle.
You rotated in-place, again ignoring how that was now easier than a more natural way to do it, to have your right side reflected back at you. Levitating the second covering off your tongue, it went on with less fanfare. Now you could walk around without any clothing, sans your hat, like any good pony. There was just a little milk spilled on the floor and needing to be cleaned up, but that didn’t make doing it any nicer.
You should get a cat.
Your magic opened the door to that old, hollow tree which served as Ponyville’s library, opening it before you arrived and closing it with your walking in. The magic to go backwards in time was difficult to cast, lasted only briefly, and was largely locked away. In comparison, the magic to go forwards in time was much easier for most unicorns to cast, could last hours or even days, and could be found in most any library. It was impossible to actually change the future, since the future would just change to accommodate the magic, but that hadn’t saved unicorns over the ages from going crazy for trying, which ironically always caused exactly that future to come about anyway. In modern times, it was used with less insanity resulting, usually to help a pony find something she’d forgotten, or save parents from thinking of foal names that would work well with expected special talents.
You’d been wondering about foal names, but had more selfish plans for the magic. The librarian was in sight, ever reading, and it was easier to ask her where a book with this was than look for it yourself. The purple unicorn apparently knew where every book in the library already was, because she magicked it off the shelf and hovered it in front of you until magicking it in turn, all without taking her eyes off whatever book she was reading, which was larger than her. Well, there was no need for any further ceremony; the book would probably be returned tomorrow, once you were finished with it. It was laid on your withers as you left.
You stood there in front of the door, not wanting to move. You had somewhere else you needed to visit, daily, but you really didn’t like to. Unable to spurn the destination, and with other ponies trotting to the library spurring as if a true spur, you began walking towards it, spurious smile stuck to muzzle in preparation. Now in front of the house, there was hesitation. You breathed in, knocked, and kept that smile; that mare was quick to answer. You’d been asked to visit the mare whose foal you’d accidentally taken, on a daily basis; of course, it was only accidental in that you’d taken a foal, rather than having burdened her with one of yours. It was always uncomfortable to visit. You got the feeling she enjoyed rubbing her premature freedom in your muzzle, because she usually told you how she did.
She’d stopped lactating by now, although that was nothing stored milk, magic, or you wouldn’t be solving, were it ever an issue. You followed her to the den, having set the book down on a table, and lay on your side at the usual pile of pillows. You didn’t see a wine glass on the table, so it didn’t seem she was going to tease you today; it’s hard to be upset, considering what you did, really; not only did you try to make another mare carry your foal for you, but it didn’t even work. She visited the other mare helping carry those foals herself, but that wasn’t unreasonable. You gently sighed, having been so deep in thought you only now noticed the mare had been feeling you up like she usually did, whispering “Hello little foal, I’m one of yours mommy, maybe.” and similar things at your belly.
Her left ear pressed on the crest of your swell, and she was facing you when she spoke “I’ve been wanting to ask you something; how does a fetal transfer work?”, and you grinned at the opportunity to put your magical prowess on display. You lifted your head and unconsciously put your right forehoof to rest near her ear, “It’s actually just a specialization of normal teleportation magic. A pony’s body is composed of a specific ratio of magic, matter, along with some hope, and this varies just a little between different ponies and the different tribes.”
You had her interest, and you enjoyed this change of mood. “Foals have a higher ratio of magic and hope to matter, however, so they’re much easier to teleport; since they’re not, uh, fully baked yet, there’s no chance anything goes wrong either.” The mare pulled at her bottom lip with her forehoof, “If it’s so easy, then why did you mess it up?”
Well, now you’re back to feeling bad. “I really just wasn’t paying enough attention. I took instead of gave; it’s that simple.” The conversation died down, so you added “I’m sorry.”
“Oh, I can’t stay peeved forever. You know I already forgave you.” she smiled, “In fact, you’re such a good surrogate, I think I want you to carry my next foals!”
Luna help you.
You gently push the front door open and slowly stroll inside. The living room was peaceful, Strange Feeling was at the market, so all you had to do for now is relax. That sofa was awfully alluring. Then something slammed roughly into your right cutie mark, and you screamed before running forward just enough to instinctively buck at it, hearing that something crash through the window. You can’t help but spin around, but now your heart gallops faster than you do to the edge so you may see what had happened. If that were Strange Feeling ...
Oh good, it’s just your lamp lying outside, your glass lamp, your expensive glass lamp, it was your expensive glass lamp, anyway. You let out a breath you realized you were holding. Strange Feeling knew better than to sneak up like that, most ponies did, and those who didn’t could stand taking a buck. Still, how did your lamp bump your rump like that? Slowly calming down, you noticed a gentle but consistent noise, and butterflies in your tummy that felt different than usual. Craning your neck, you saw a gentle stream of telekinetic magic zigzagging in a mostly random path, emanating from your side; you couldn’t help but grin at how consistent the magic was, containing uneven streams and buildups at the edges, but ... now you hear a ripping sound and see how, when it collided with the wall, it tried to tear it down, but only succeeded in destroying the wallpaper. It wasn’t cute anymore.
Your distraction by the foal’s magic has you hear some bedroom knicknacks being knocked around, as your own telekinesis shuffles around the bedside in search of an item, needing to stop so you can occasionally guide the younger magic away from anything else it wants to grasp and sling around. You soon enough feel the magical resistance you were looking for, and start hovering the object towards you, but it’s magic-resistant properties make this harder than you’d prefer it to be. It gets dropped in the hallway, still unseen, so you lazily push it along the hardwood floor until it’s at your hooves.
Plopping down on your rump, noticing well how little you felt that impact, you gently cupped one end of what would appear to the laypony to be a pair of ear muffs to the left side of your swell, then dragging the connecting band across, to cup it on the other side. The stream of magic stopped moving, with that closer to you retreating back into your body, and what remained slowly evaporating into the ambient magic. “No more of that now, little ones.” you say with a smirk at having outsmarted an unborn foal. Well, now you were without something to prop yourself back up with and so trapped by your bump, if you wanted to keep being lazy, as a witch should, anyway. You subconsciously rub your swell with one hoof, while the other comes to your muzzle in thought. You smile at your solution to this problem.
Your magic starts digging around in your basement—dungeon—and returns with a broom. You cast upon it that all too familiar to it “come-to-life” spell. “Alright Broomy, come help me up.” The broom knew better than to try to escape, and silently hovered in front of you, because he can’t talk anyway. You get your forehooves latched on, and almost get to command Broomy to lift upwards, when you notice Strange Feeling was back in the house, just staring at you. It gave you a strange feeling, and not in a good way.
You sigh and let go of the broom, which took the opportunity to fly out of a window; you could hear clattering on the roof, which is where Broomy liked to throw himself to make him inconvenient to use. Oddly, Strange Feeling walked to stop before you, and crouched down to help you up in the same way you were going to do with Broomy. You rested your forehooves on his back, and lifted yourself up until your hindlegs were free enough to move behind you. It was romantic, him helping you like this, with your swollen barrel resting against his flat. You smiled at him. “Let’s exercise now, Trinket.” You stopped smiling.
Your chest was tight, largely trapping the air in your lungs, sans shallow breaths; your barrel was tighter, and still it jutted outwards with nary a shift in appearance, contrasting with the heavy shifting you felt, feeling foals where you didn’t like to, and being poked and prodded by upset little hooves in your most personal spaces; this rearing exercise was hard. Your hindlegs shook as you maintained balance, spaced in a way which would enable more acrobatic ponies to even walk for a few trots.
Your poor, fat flank was so tight underneath its padding. The strap of the magic suppressors had loosened and ridden the slope of your belly, ruffling the fur; it was itchy. You glanced over to Strange Feeling, doing the same exercise with far less effort, so you wouldn’t be singled out. All too late, he lowered himself back down, and you immediately followed, with much less finesse, shock sent through your forelegs, sending jiggling throughout your belly.
You breathed greedily, speaking inbetween gasps. “I suppose—I suppose I really am a lazy little witch. What—do you even see in me?” You couldn’t face him, eyes cast downwards, but you saw his shadow approach, and felt him nuzzle your neck, gently speaking, “I see my family, which I already love with all of my heart.” Turning enough to look at him with a blush, you realize again how he seems to know what needs saying, when he chooses to speak. Thank Celestia—thank Luna—that this feeling he spread throughout your body isn’t strange or alien, but so very familiar. You kiss him on the tip of his snout, hoping to spread your own version throughout him, and the smile you get confirms this.
Your smile matches his, “Well, I’m rested enough, so how many more of those are we doing?”
Thankfully, the pair of you only did four more of those over the minutes. Your hindquarters were sore, but your forelegs hadn’t done much of anything after pushing you from the ground each time. He suggested wearing weighted bracelets on them to correct that while both of you did some walking. There were ponies who would push weights while lying, with the weights aligned in guardrails, and braver ponies wouldn’t use the guards, but a pregnant pony lifting weights like that would be ridiculous, and dangerous.
It wasn’t too difficult, although the bracelets put a noticeable stress on every step with your forelegs, but conversation distracted away from it well enough as you walked around the house in a loop, talking about your plans for the remainder of the day. He was going to start a vegetable soup for dinner, and you were going to take a nap; maybe you’d finish an order of potions before sleeping later tonight.
You’re so tired from all of that mild exercising. Sweat lathers at your leg pits, but you don’t have the energy to care. A yawn befitting such a talented witch relieves you somewhat. That spell can wait after a nap, so you set the prepared spell paper on the table, and awkwardly prepare to get on the sofa. Normally, you’d align your rear and push off with your forehooves to fall back and relax, but that’s too tiring just to sit, so instead you align yourself parallel and awkwardly lay half your hooves on the comfy plush you so wanted, and struggled to drag and push the rest of yourself immediately into a lying position. Your belly rotated out of sync with the rest of your body, poking out from the edge of the furniture after you’d scooched deeper into it. It looked like your belly could fall off, were it not attached to you, but just thinking of that woke you a little by fear; you patted your bump, only slightly to reassure your tired mind it wouldn’t just roll away, and noticed something was off, literally.
The pair of uterine magic suppressors were levitated into your view, having slid off, and you squirmed just enough to easily slide one end underneath your womb, lazily placing its twin by hoof. Then you closed your eyes and drifted to sleep, with some intimate part of your body pinched between the suppressor and the weight of three prodding foals. You never could sleep easily with these on, which would be a major point against them if they didn’t otherwise work so well.
A forehoof snaked between the connecting band and belly, to pull them off. Still, you should probably try to keep them on. One end cups close to you, and the other rests on top. You’ve only felt them lazily shifting around for the past few minutes, so they’re probably asleep, and now so are you.
An out-of-focus view of your den is the first thing you see. Celestia’s sun must be setting, because the light pours in through the window again, and soon it will be entirely out of the way, to make room for Luna’s glorious moon. You shut your eyes upon yawning, but then hear voices, and not one belongs to Strange Feeling. Did the neighbourhood foals sneak into your home again, looking for your cool witchery artefacts? That phylactery you found should still be safe; no foal would think to steal your bedroom doorstop. They could be after your unlucky timberwolf’s tooth again though! Yes, you’ll continue to sleep until they get close enough, and then you’ll scare them. You have a reputation to keep, anyway. You listen more intently as you wait for them to wander too closely.
“... looks different.”
“Did she swallow a bunch of Earth?”
“... hungry.”
“You ... gonna ... her up.”
You tense slightly, ready to jut your head out and scare them as soon as you hear them walking by, and then have your eyelid spread open by a little filly with a lilac mane and purple coat, a little filly who used her hoof too roughly. Instead it’s you who throws her head back and screams; you didn’t hear the foals even make a peep. Rubbing your hoof in your eye, its twin glances over to where you last heard those other intruders; all three are colts: one has a dark green coat and red mane; the middle one has a gray coat and light purple mane; and that last one is far to the side, shivering with a white coat and mane.
Yawning again, you tell them, “I’m too tired for this, just canter on out of here.” and lay your head down before settling back in. Checking your middle, you realize you must’ve knocked the suppressors off in your sleep, but you don’t see them on the ground when you peer over the edge. You don’t see the spell paper either, and the table it was on has been moved several trots across the room. Did these little foals rearrange your den as a prank? You don’t get a chance to ask before the little filly before you retorts, “But you have to help us put on our costumes, ca-cause it’s Nightmare Night!”
You’re fairly certain that exercising wouldn’t make you hallucinate like this. Glancing at the hanging wall clock to verify the time, it’s noticed that the clock has several picture frames which weren’t there before. Did these foals start decorating the walls? Perhaps they were trying to nudge your magical alignment over time through subtle psychological manipulation; that’s the likely explanation. Telekinetic magic grasps one of the frames and carries it closer, and you forget to breathe for a moment.
Strange Feeling and you sit in front of the house, and each of you are holding two foals, foals with the same colours these wear. Your eyes aren’t lying, unless you’ve also been cursed, and these children don’t look like they could stomach doing that; the white one didn’t even have a horn.
Confusion, realization, and dread hit you in sequence; your forehoof drags across your face, “I’m your mother, and this is the anniversary of when you were conceived, I suppose.” That unleashes a barrage of questions from all four.
“What’s conceived?” Just ignore it and the foals will forget soon enough. Mention time travel, that will distract them. “You’re from the future?!” Now you need a cool way to tell them you’re from the past; calling yourself “the pony of Ponyville’s past, producer of you progeny” put little stars in their eyes. You’ve still got it—you never lost it. Now you’re wondering how proficient the three unicorns are with their magic so far. “Why is your belly so big?” It was weird to lecture foals while their past selves were still inside of you; you waver on describing the finer aspects of pregnancy, and elide their production per pregnancy potion, but it’s enough to sate their tiny curiosities.
The little filly trots back up and rests her forebody on the sofa just in front of you, “Nuzzle me, mommy, nuzzle me!” Snorting just a little, you bring your nose to rub against the top of her head, and she giggles all the way before looking up to cover your snout in tiny kisses. One of the colts makes a gagging sound that draws her attention away, and you look on what’s certain to be an amusing scene.
“What’s wrong with kisses?” the little filly stomps her hoof at the very end, glaring in such a cute way.
“Kisses are gross!” the colt, that green one, makes another display of exaggerated gagging.
“Nuh uh! I’ll show you they’re not gross!” the filly starts moving in to give him kisses the same as you received.
“Noooo!” he sits down to push her away with all the might his forelegs can provide him in avoiding the kisses.
The little filly landed on her rump, and tears welled in her eyes at her brother rejecting her kisses. Before the chaos rose again, all four pairs of little eyes turned to you when you snapped at them, the naughty colt in particular shrinking into himself at the glare. Magic gently flowed over the filly from her withers down and levitated her to your forehooves. You didn’t notice the gears turning in her head as she continued looking in that direction, and resisted her wiggling by holding tighter, for a stray hindleg to strike you and free her; smaller ponies can be so inconsiderate of others.
“So you’re really pregnant with us?” the little filly asked. You massaged the soreness out of your face, just humming out your reaffirmation of this fact. “Then I’ll kiss him this way!” and she started peppering your belly with kisses, all short-lived as she moved around the slowly-quickening, lopsided orb. You yelped, and couldn’t think to do anything before her brother leapt up and tried to push her off. She was being gentle but firm in her efforts, and he was exclusively pushing at her. You decided horse hoofling the two older ponies before they accidentally struck you was the best option.
You tried to reprimand them as your horn levitated both into the air and above the floor, simply dropping them onto their rears; all you could get out was a high-pitched gurgling, although it scared them just the same. They looked scared, and huddled up to their siblings, and that made you recognize what you were doing. Sighing with a hoof on your face, “Just don’t do that again, okay?”
Before they climb and fight all over you again, it’s time to get off the furniture. It was a bad idea to get so comfortable you thought you may need Strange Feelings’ help to get up, but you’re still going to keep doing it once this time travel is finished.
These foals aren’t going to be any help you’d want, so you hook your lower foreleg to the edge and start sliding off. Pulling with the corresponding hindleg more would’ve resulted in a cramp, so you were eventually in the odd position of having your belly hanging off with just a forehoof touching the floor. Using that as leverage, the rest of your forequarters follow, followed by your hindquarters, and the foals not yet born are squished against the sofa, being watched by the foals yet born.
Once you get standing normally, your belly starts to return to its basic shape, pressing out from your sides, and then your tummy growls. That vegetable soup is probably long gone, but there’s certainly going to be food in the kitchen. As is usual for a gravid dam so, your belly swings side-to-side as you waddle your way across the room, and you feel it scrape against something that couldn’t be your leg. Looking to your left side, the little white foal has his head pressed against your swell, and you tell him to stop only to hear “But it’s so warm.”
At least the kitchen is still the same, although that’s actually not reassuring in the least. Yes, you still keep the peanut butter in the same place. You clack your forehooves together as the knife in your magical grasp finishes cutting two slices of bread, also still kept in its familiar location, then dumping some peanut butter on it to spread around. Of course, is it safe to eat food from the future; also, wouldn’t that apply to any matter consumption, including breathing? Fairly certain you’d have needed a license to cast a spell that could accidentally end the world, you bring the plate holding the sandwich closer, to notice a much smaller magic tugging on it. “Thank you, mommy.”
His magic was no match for yours, and the plate came to your hooves, but when you glanced his way, the sight wounded you. Sniffles and tears forming on that little face made you feel like a witch, the bad kind. Not at all begrudgingly, the plate was levitated to rest in his hooves, and the horrible sight went away as soon as it had come. You could always make another for yourself. You felt a patting on your flank, and turned to look at it. “I want banana cut on mine.”
The fifth sandwich you make is actually yours. You’re sitting on your rump at the kitchen counter, while they’re laughing amongst themselves and drinking milk with their sandwiches at the dinner table. It hadn’t occurred to you to give them anything to drink, until the gray one nearly started choking on his food. There’s not any milk left, and you don’t want fruit juice with your sandwich. You’re feeling pretty grumpy right now.
Because of this, they actually finish their food first, and crowd around you to ask about their costumes. Stuffing the remainder of your food in your mouth, you ponder on where those could be. If you were you from the future, while you were from the past, then where would you put their Nightmare Night costumes; also, where in Tartarus are you by now? You should remember to not be so irresponsible in the future, although you’ll just forget by now anyway, the future you that is. Their neighing and nickering negates further thought on the topic. “Did I put them on your beds or somewhere?”
To your relief, it seems you had, and they ran off to get them after being instructed to. Now you’re faced with getting up off your fat plot again. You lean back a little and try to use momentum to get back on four hooves, but just squish your poor burdened belly further into the cold hardwood floor, smushing area that hadn’t had the chance to become chill yet; that disturbed the herd.
Most of the kicking isn’t visible from the outside, but that doesn’t make much difference to you, and your humming and gentle rubbing doesn’t seem to be making much difference to them. One little hoof, or maybe it was a head, hits at your stomach; you cover your mouth with a forehoof expecting the worst, but it passes and you only burp. Dealing with your body no longer being personal space with humour always helps, and you poke at the general area next to your stomach to reprimand the little life nearby, “Don’t try get rid of my sandwich. Behave, or I’ll eat something gross, and then you’ll be made out of something gross!”
Leaning back further, and with better form, you’re able to heave yourself onto four hooves, and your belly starts to sag beneath you again. Your internal organs should be fairly safe now, thanks to gravity. Now the little squirms hit your sensitive, itchy skin instead. You returned to the living room, and the foals returned with their costumes soon thereafter:
- a bumblebee
- a flower
- a knight
- a little witch, how cute
It would be easy to magick four little costumes on four little foals, were they to stand still, but four little ponnequins they’re not. Hats or accessories go on easily enough, but heads get caught in outfits, requiring more finesse. After far too long, all four foals are dressed. The sun has set, and it’s truly Nightmare Night, apparently. All you want to do is pass out again, but instead you’re slowly walking to the door, and open it to stare back at yourself. “Hey there, me! Thanks for getting them all ready for tonight; I can hoof it from here.”
Speechless stupor turns to rising rage when she—your alternative self—your future self—just you, says, “I see you’ve decided to dress as a pumpkin this year,” walking up to gently pat your wide womb. Rising rage turns to avid asking, asking of why you’d been left alone for so long, why the table had been moved, amongst other questions. You didn’t answer at first, however, simply watching yourself set your head on your swell, and closing your eyes. “Enjoy it while you can. Believe it or not, you’re going to miss this.”
Getting a closer and better look, your body had changed over the years. Your fat plot doesn’t seem to have ever returned to its old size, and your mane’s been growing out. The observations cooled your attitude a tad. You couldn’t stay mad at yourself just for a joke at your expense. Besides, if you struck her, you’d eventually feel it. “I remembered this when I saw you asleep on the sofa, so I left with Strange Feeling to help set up the village for tonight. Also, this is about where I remember the spell wearing off.”
Being conscious this time, the entirety of the time-travel experience passes before your eyes. There’s a vague sensation of falling, but you can’t move anyway, and you can almost make out detail in the world, sans knowing that it’s moving backwards. It begins to slow down as you get closer to the present, and you’re able to glean some minor details. It seems like you still have that other mare’s foal with you after all, based on what you think was the birth you just saw a glimpse of. Now you’re getting closer to the present, and actually overshoot it. It’s weird to see your body moving around so clearly, so recently, from a different perspective. The world seems to shake back and forth through each side of the present as time progresses infinitesimally closer to it, until your perspective is returned to your body and the spell is finished.
Once the room stops merely appearing to spin, you take note of it. Everything is how you remembered, although that table did look better where it had been, or rather where it will be. Feeling around with magic, the familiar pair of magic suppressors float into view and, with the spell paper used up, you lazily set each cup on top, and try not to move enough to have them knocked off again.
You know Strange Feeling’s going to check up on you, unaware of the magical mishap that was hours to you, and no time at all to him. He pokes his head out from the kitchen to ask you to help. “I’d really love to, but I’m tired, so I’d like to get started on my nap.” You snuggle back into the sofa and close your eyes, but feel a dour dollop of dread build in your chest when he says you’d started napping two hours ago.
That’s just not fair.
You already knew he was going to help you get up and walk back to the kitchen with you, but that didn’t make it any more pleasant. You’re more tired than usual, and you won’t be finishing any potion orders tonight. It will be all you can do to eat before bed. Then a realization strikes.
“I forgot to ask for their names!” You stare angrily at them, not that unborn foals would have any conception of that. “Well, one of you certainly has “Locket” in your name, and the little white colt is definitely something to do with Quietness!” You poke your belly accusatorily. “One of you is bound to be a “Strange Presence”, or an “Odd Feeling”, or something!” Face resting in hooves, you’ll figure it out eventually.
Still, you can’t stop the grin that forms.
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