Surges. Just about every newborn foal goes through them: episodes where their magic is randomly finding its way into the world, effects appearing with no understanding or control. Sires and dams whose foal matches their own race can usually counter enough to keep the nursery in one piece. But if you're, just for example, the proud (and rather desperate) unicorn first-time parents of a pegasus foal and you really need a night out of the house — preferably one where the house is still intact when you get back — you call on the Surge Protectors! for assistance.
It's assumed that if you were second-time parents, you would have done something intelligent.
Welcome to Simoon Duster's first night on the job. It's probably going to be her last.
Read it here
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Tropes include:
- All There in the Manual: Played for Laughs, in that the plot is interspersed with excerpts from the company's employee training manual. Several clauses and sections have been added as part of the settlement of multiple lawsuits, so that new hires know exactly what they're in for.
- Badly Battered Babysitter: Poor Simoon Duster.
- Continuity Nod: In an epic Brick Joke, the company that hires Simoon Duster turns out to be a subsidiary of Hoovmat, the notoriously shoddy company from A Mark Of Appeal.
- Pint-Sized Powerhouse: The drama of the story revolves around how pony infants have surprisingly powerful magic during the earliest parts of their lives, and the resultant problems that come from putting all that power in the unconscious grasp of an infant.
