Felicity was beginning to have second thoughts about this new position before she had really officially started it. She wasn’t regretting it, but she couldn’t help but feel something strange.

She had decent enough experience in childcare; it was only a few years ago when she worked part-time babysitting jobs during highschool. The young deer remembered many groups of twins or triplets that she needed to wrangle for their dinner or bedtime, so it wasn’t even a matter of how many kids she needed to care for. It’s not like she didn’t not like kids, she thought little kids were adorable! And she had many a dirty diaper change to her name, so no amount of stink could shy her away from toddler care.

No, something about this daycare made her feel particularly strange, not sick, but certainly abnormal.

The central body of Little Wonders Daycare was converted from the first floor of an above-average sized domestic house. The interior was enamored with posters, drawings, and an impromptu crayon mural here and there. Toys, books, games, sleeping cots for naptime, even a changing table on the far wall. This was perfectly normal for any daycare. But what really caught Felicity’s eye was its occupants.
She couldn’t help but find it particularly strange that of the dozen toddlers running around, about a whole third of them were skunks. Not that there was anything wrong with skunks or being one, but the statistical odds of a whole chunk of the kids being of one species was of particular interest. Something else that caught her eye was the only other caretaker in the room: a teenaged raccoon, who waited crossed armed on the other side of the room, noticeably distant from the kids around him.

He was wearing the same uniform shirt that Felicity had worn for her first day, but also several layers of facial coverings around his nose and mouth. The deer became a tad worried, she wasn’t briefed on any health protocol or practices to follow while on shift. Was she supposed to wear a few masks? Last she remembered, there wasn’t any bug or flu going around. She was about to consult the racoon when one of the kids tugged on her pant leg.

“S’cuse me.” It was one of the young skunks. “Rorey needa dipe.”
Felicity bent down to meet the tot. “Hey kiddo! What did you need?”
“Rorey needa dipe.”
“Rorey needs-?” Felicity deciphered the child’s request. “Oh! Someone needs a change?”
“He ‘tinky!” the skunk giggled at the naughtiness of the subject. He pointed in the general direction of one of the other skunks who was busy stacking blocks.
“Okay! Well thanks for letting me know, squirt!” Felicity stood up.

She glanced over at the raccoon attendant who was currently checking his phone. Asshat, Felicity thought. These kids need someone to look after them. I’ll just change this kid before asking him about health protocol. She looked back down at her little informant.

“Let's go get this Rorey cleaned up, shall we?” The kid smiled as he tasted his hand.

Felicity sauntered over to Rorey who was putting the finishing touches on his wooden block architecture. He wore a cute green polo shirt which couldn’t hide the thick, sagging disposable diaper resting under his poofy tail and between his legs. As she approached, Felicity called out to him.
“Hey there, Rorey! Word on the block is you need a change, mister!”
“Nuh uh.” Rorey turned, protesting.
“Well, my little friend here tells me you might be stinky.” Felicity bent down to his level.
“Yea! I like bein’ stinky!”
“Well even if you like it, it doesn't mean others do. C’mon sport let's get you changed.”

As Felicity leaned in to take Rorey by the armpits, she caught the foulest odor she had ever smelt in her life strike straight into her nostrils. She recoiled to her feet and immediately gripped at her mouth and nose as the smell burned its way further into her head. Her eyes watered as she gasped for air, but each breath seemed to bring more of that horrible odor down into her throat. Her dramatic reaction caught the attention of all the kids, especially the little skunks, as they laughed hysterically.

The smell gripped the deer in a way she never knew odors ever could. That burning crept through what felt like every inch of her being as her head began to throb. Something was seriously wrong, this wasn’t just a bad smell. This was confirmed as something in, and around her, began to shift.

Through her teary eyes, she saw the proportions of the room begin to shift. The walls stretched further and further away and the ceiling drifted off out of her vision entirely. A warmness crept down through her neck, wrapping around her body and spilling down her legs and across her arms. As horrible as the sensation felt, Felicity was not alarmed in the slightest. By all means, she should've been panicking, but a strange calm persisted.

She relaxed her arms as they released from her mouth and nose, taking in more and more of that smell. That smell, which struck her so putrid just moments ago, felt somehow sweeter. Bitter it was, as all stinks are, but this stink was familiar. Not from any Skunk named Rorey, but from something else. She couldn’t recall it’s source at all, but that stink slithered into the creases of her memory and searched for her. It climbed through the whole of Felicity’s day, looking for this other lost source. Deeper it went, her week, her month, her last several months.

Lost in a profound trance of memory, the younger deer could hardly notice that warmness oozing in and out of her body as it began to change. Her arms and stomach began to fatten as her bosom and waist receded. Her face rounded slowly as her antlers shrunk and her ears shifted further up her head. Her little tail gained a newfound weight as it started to lengthen beyond what it ever expected to grow, and new denser fur sprouted along it’s end.

The smell couldn’t be placed anywhere in the last few years, so it spelunked further into Felicity’s inner recesses. High school, middle school, and grade school were promptly passed with no sign of any smell akin to the one she was absorbing. It had stayed with her long enough that she began to relish it’s presence. It brought with it a soothing nostalgic euphoria that allowed her to relax, bringing her reasoning and train of thought back to simpler methods of process. It wasn’t about what this smell represented, and it didn’t matter to her where it came from. She liked the smell, and so it made her happy. So she whiffed up more of the air around her through her shrinking nose.

By now, her uniform shirt had tented around her as her small chubbier frame sat in a pool of her now massive pair of pants with a diaper inexplicably around her waist. Her antlers had shrunk to little nubs, and shrunk smaller still as her tail poofed quite largely behind her. Her facial features had also fattened to more of an infant cat than any larger cervine. And her little hooves had traded themselves in for stubby little paws that flexed their tiny toes to feel the cool air between them.

That smell was getting closer to its source. It wasn’t kindergarten, it wasn’t exactly preschool either when she smelt it, but it was just before. Felicity had her epiphany as to when she first smelled this wonderfly home-y smell that she loved so much.

It’s me! She mentally exclaimed. I’m ‘tinky! I love bein’ ‘tinky!

She opened her eyes for the first time since her little mental journey with a big grin on her face. She had remembered what the smell was! Why wouldn’t she? As far as she could remember, she last smelled this earlier today when she needed a change.

As the new little skunk stood to her wobbly feet, one of her other skunk playmates came up and pointed a pudgy finger at her.
“Fessity!” Rorey called. “You’s ‘tinky?”
“Uh-uh.” Felicity responded. But now that he mentioned it, she did have to go stinky!

Felicity knew what to do when she felt that feeling. She crouched down, and scrunching her face up, she pushed as hard as she could. In just a moment, her memories, knowledge, womanhood, and even her breakfast all blew out into the seat of her diaper. She kept pushing as all of the mess of a previous, unstinky life expanded down her backside and pushed past between her legs as her disposable pants sagged. The diaper drooped down to her knees as she made one long final BPPTHH from her behind.

She sighed, the rewarding relief of a job well done overcame her, and she sat back into the seat of her messy diaper with a settling squish. Her mommy would be so so proud of her. She turned to Rorey and with a drooly giggle followed up her previous comment:
“Nowsim ‘tinky!”

The two baby skunks chortled with glee as they stunk up the daycare. The other skunks joined in, filling their pants as Felicity rocked back in forth in her messy diaper in happiness. She wanted to cherish it as long as she could before a grownup gave her a new diapee. She would never understand how they didn’t love being stinky like her!

The teenage raccoon attendant swept past the group of toddlers and picked up the discarded clothing of their previous attempt at a new hire.
“They never tell them, do they?” he sighed under his breath.