Skyla was steaming, magic pouring off of her as she floated in the air.

“Uh-oh,” whispered Pound. “We woke the baby.”

“Not good, not good,” Pumpkin whispered back.

She quickly scanned the area. “Um… the notebook?”

Pound grimaced. “I left it upstairs. I didn’t think we were actually going to have any trouble.”

Pumpkin let out a whimper. “Pound, if we get out of this alive remind me to call you a dummyhead.”

Pound gave a timid nod. “You bet.”

They both began to tremble as Skyla got a little closer to them.

“C-can’t you go get the book?” asked Pumpkin.

“I-I-I’m scared to move,” he replied.

“I don’t blame you.”

Pound looked around again, spying Skyla’s diaper bag. “Um, um… Pumpkin, grab the bag with your magic.”

“Why?”

“Flurry told us she had a favorite stuffed animal as a baby, and I think I spotted one in there before.”

“I sure hope you’re right.” She gulped, hoping that her horn’s glow wouldn’t draw Skyla’s fire.

Instead of pulling the bag over Pumpkin tilted it on its side, causing most of its contents to spill out.

Skyla’s head whipped around at the noise. “QUIET!” she screamed, making both of them flinch.

Pumpkin was slowly panting, her heart racing a mile a minute. She quickly rummaged through the stuff as quietly as she could until she uncovered a stuffed dog.

She lifted it in the air, putting it near Skyla. It took three tries to get her voice to come out as more than a whisper.

Pound was holding tight to Pumpkin, hoping this would work.

Finally, Pumpkin was able to adopt a silly voice as she made the dog dance, hoping that Skyla wouldn’t fry them both once she began talking.

“Oh, Skyla, why so sad?” She began moving the dog left and right, and Skyla followed its progress with her head. “I think someone needs a big hug to make them smile. Smile, smile, smile.”

Both of them waited with bated breath, still shaking all the while.

Slowly, the sphere of magic surrounding Skyla vanished and her eyes returned to normal. She hugged the dog to her as she slowly sank down to the ground, and then started crying.

Pound and Pumpkin sank to the ground, getting oxygen back in their systems.

Pound wiped sweat off his brow. “C-crisis averted.”

“Y-yeah,” Pumpkin replied. “Oh, boy. That was scary.”

Once they caught their breath they returned their attention to Skyla, who was still crying loudly and hugging her stuffed animal.

“We broke our word,” said Pound guiltily. “We said that Skyla would come before our game, but we were both being so immature we woke her up. And now she’s really sad.”

Pumpkin hung her head too. “Well, we made a mistake. Now we can start making up for it.”

They approached Skyla.

Pound adopted a sugary-sweet voice. “Oh, Skyla, I didn’t mean to wake you up. I’m so sorry.”

Pumpkin took on the same tone. “I’m sorry too. We’ll be quiet now.”

Skyla suddenly stopped crying and glared hard at them, freezing them in place again.

She got up, stomping over to them. She lifted the twins up in the air, putting them into separate corners. “You fight. Fight bad! Now you sit in the cornah an’ tink about what you did!”

The twins looked at each other, shrugging. If that was the worst Skyla did to them then that was fine.

Pound turned towards Skyla, seeing her sitting down with both sets of legs crossed, fuming.

It was kind of awkward, being punished by a baby, but neither of them wanted to set Skyla off further. She was definitely cranky after being woken from her nap.

For a few minutes they stood there, staring into the corner, hoping that Skyla would fall back asleep. Or, at the least, calm down.

They got their wish soon enough. They were suddenly floating again as Skyla set the two of them down in front of each other. “Now you say you sorry!”

Pound bowed his head. “I’m sorry, Pumpkin.”

“I’m sorry too, Pound,” said Pumpkin.

“Good!” said Skyla. “Fight bad! No mo’ fight!”

“Okay, Skyla,” Pound said soothingly. “We won’t fight anymore.”

He picked up the filly and began to rock her much like before. “I’m sorry we woke you up.” He nuzzled her face.

Skyla didn’t return the gesture, looking like she wasn’t sure whether she was ready to be coaxed out of her bad mood. She pushed his head away, saying again, “Don’ fight.”

“We won’t.” He threw her up into the air, catching her on the way down. That got a small laugh from the foal, but nothing like the barrel of laughs it got before. He knew his mom had warned him about the dangers, but he had to do something to get her in a happy mood again.

She was looking a little less cranky, at least.

“You want to go back to your nap now?”

“No!” she said, giving him a sour look. “Want to play!”

“Okay, then.” He set her on the floor.

“Why don’t we be animals?” said Pumpkin. She got into a squatting position and began to hop. “Ribbit!” she called out.

Pound copied her.

Skyla watched the two of them for a short while before she got into the same position. “Dibbit!” she said as she hopped, looking a little happier.

She wasn’t used to hopping, and so on her third hop she fell flat on her face.

The twins got panicked looks on their faces.

Skyla got a grumpy look on her face again as Pumpkin lifted her back to a sitting position.

“Oh, no!” Pound said, holding onto her. “You fell down.” He rubbed her forehead, desperately hoping she wasn’t about to have another meltdown.

“No want be frog!”

“Okay, okay!” Pumpkin said quickly, scared of setting Skyla off again. “Would you like to go for a ride again?”

Skyla glared at her for a few seconds before giving a small nod.

Pumpkin helped Skyla onto Pound’s back, and Pound took off.

At first Skyla was stone-faced as Pound trotted around, but as Pound went faster she began to smile, and it wasn’t long before she began giggling again.

Skyla ran the pair ragged. Every time they stopped to catch their breath she would get furious. She wasn’t nearly as cooperative as before, having little patience for not getting what she wanted immediately. They were too frightened of angering Skyla to try and talk her out of her fun.

They began switching off when they’d grow tired, Pumpkin using her magic to quickly swap Skyla between her and her brother.

They were the ones doing all the work now, so any hope they had of Skyla tiring herself back out didn’t seem likely.

Eventually, even their combined efforts proved too much. Pound flopped to the ground with Skyla on his back, exhausted. He was panting up a storm.

“Hey!” the foal complained. “Giddyup! Giddyup! Wanna run!”

“Too… tired.”

Pumpkin tried to lift Skyla up in her magic, but she was pooped too. “C-come on, Skyla.” She lay on her belly near Pound. “We need a break. I feel like I need a nap now.”

Skyla moved back and forth on Pound a few times, still trying to get him to continue running around with her, but he remained immobile.

She pouted as she got off Pound’s back, and went to grab her stuffed animal, hugging it to her. All the running around had gotten her into a better mood now, so she wasn’t as explosive as before.

As she stared at the twins she thought of what Pumpkin had said about needing a nap. Memories of things her mother had done for her surfaced, and she got a little smile on her face.

She set her toy down and walked over to the overturned diaper bag, grabbing a few things.

The twins had been glad for the brief reprieve, but that went right out the window when Skyla lifted them up in the air.

They glanced at each other in a panic, thinking Skyla was about to do something bad to them, but it quickly changed to confusion as Skyla began to gently rock them back and forth in the air.

Pumpkin let out a cry of surprise when she suddenly had a pacifier in her mouth.

Pound did feel a certain sense of satisfaction after the stunt she pulled earlier that started their fight in the first place, but it didn’t last when Skyla pushed an empty bottle in his own mouth.

Skyla began to gently bob back and forth as she began to sing.

She didn’t know half the words and her singing voice wasn’t that good, but they both recognized it as the lullaby they had been singing to her earlier.

The two shared a look. There really wasn’t anything they could do. Skyla was finally allowing them to rest, and they didn’t want to kick up a fuss when they were so tired from the exercise.

Pound pretended to drink from his empty bottle, while Pumpkin absentmindedly sucked on the pacifier, too tired to think about what she was doing.

Her eyes began to droop from the constant gentle rocking and her own fatigue.

***

Cup was feeling refreshed as she walked home. That spa treatment had really done the trick. She just felt so relaxed.

She turned the final corner to her home, and she paused for a moment at what she saw.

Carrot had completed his errands. He had a few things in his saddlebag neatly tucked away. He turned the corner to Sugarcube Corner, and stopped.

“Cup?” he said in surprise

“Carrot?” she responded back.

The two began quickly walking towards each other.

As they reached their front door they stopped, and began talking at the same time.

“What are you doing here?

“I went out for a little while.

“But I thought you were home!

“Didn’t the kids tell you I left?”

The two of them stared at each other for a few moments. “Wait a minue,” said Cup, a rising horror building up inside. “If we both went out then that means that Pound and Pumpkin were-”

They gasped, Carrot grimacing and Cup putting a hoof to her mouth as they realized they had left their children all alone.

Carrot tried the door, finding it locked. He let out a sigh of relief. “Well, at least they were smart enough to do that.”

Cup went into her bag, pulling out her key as she unlocked the door.

Opening the door the two of them went inside.

They started to call out to their children when they stopped dead, confusion and bewilderment on their faces.

They expected to see their kids still playing with the baby. What they didn’t expect was seeing them acting like babies themselves, with the actual baby seemingly taking care of them.

Skyla was levitating them in the air, gently rocking them and, while she didn’t really know the words, was seemingly singing them a lullaby.

Neither of them were sure whether the twins were pretending or if Skyla had done something to them.

Cup put a hoof to her cheek, amusement playing across it now as Carrot restrained himself.

“So who’s the baby, and who’s the foalsitter here?” asked Cup, causing the twins eyes to widen as they glanced towards their parents, their cheeks turning crimson.

Author's Notes:

Welp, their parents came home. How embarrassing.