Once again special thanks for editing this chapter goes to RegretFearandRevelry.

The light of the morning sun seeps perfectly into your room, miraculously it manages to only beam onto your person as you arise from your slumber.

“Uh shit, morning” you think rubbing your weary eyes.

I was having such a good dream as well.

You gaze at the calendar by your side and sigh.

Ughh, Monday morning, double shit

However your sour mood caused by the rude awakening is not as painful as it once was. You turn in your bed and feel the light caress of fur and feathers clutching your chest.

It’s made up for a lot of awfulness of morning to feel this warmth against you. You slowly reach a free arm over her side hearing the soft clicking and cracking of your joints as you begin to warm them up so to speak, softly you lay your arm around her side causing the griffon to snuggle further into you as she rests her head near your neck, subconsciously fighting for the comfort it brings. You look down at her you notice a small smile on her beak.

Man, I could stay like this all day. You think a soft smile gracing the corners of your lips

Slumping your head back down onto the warm pillow you gaze lazily around your room its simple enough, a wardrobe full of well nothing really, clothes are expensive here in Equestria. Even when you have Shy’s friend Rarity who would give you a discount here and there it still cost a lot of bits, so the most you could really afford was about five shirts and two pairs of trousers that you rotate conservatively. Next to the wardrobe is a wooden shelf dominated with books, mostly medical ones with the odd historical one shuffled round the bookcase, and yes they mostly are about phoenixes and some other animals, however there was currently a steadily growing amount of dragon based books to rival it.

You continue to look around not really focusing on anything in particular simply trying to take your mind off the in-coming wave of issues that chase your thoughts like a pack of hound.

As the fog of sleep leaves your waking mind you decide that you have to deal with them, time waits for no man or in your case slave as you silently tell yourself not really meaning it, it was going to be a chaotic couple of days/weeks/months for the two of you.
You mentally revise the list of objectives that needed to be accomplished.

Step One: Starting today Get Gilda to the hospital.

It had taken a lot of persuading and promises for Gilda to go through with it. The slave metaphor was aptly chosen considering that starting from now till when the baby came that's what you effectively were.

Could be worse at least she won't make me do anything to outrageous... though she does have her kinks, how am I going to find a set of handcuffs for a human in a place like this? you think with a somewhat strained smirk.

Step one was most likely going to be the easiest and that was saying something, you and Gilda would head down to Ponyville general hospital, though that meant you would actually have to go through Ponyville, something that causes you to worriedly bite down on you lower lip, then again, you concede that not having to worry about running into Rainbow and Pinkie who were away at this time made things slightly easier at least. It was still going to suck but it was only going to be a short walk to Twilights house before hand so you wouldn’t be alone. As long as you didn't stop you’re sure it would be fine.

After that came Step Two: Meeting Twilights friends or at least two of them Rarity and Applejack.

As a way of slowly introducing yourselves back into the small village. Twilight had insisted that getting to know the local fashionista and farm pony more was defiantly going to help.

You were not entirely sure about Rarity, true she seemed fine the first and only time you two had come into contact, she was the one who gave you the clothes you were wearing after all.

It had actually been Fluttershy who had introduced you two back in the days when you first arrived. Celestia had left Fluttershy in charge of you after you had told the princess about your profession. Once you two were formally introduced the first item on the agenda was of course getting some clothes. Because as it turned out being quite literally throw into a new world did terrible things to cloth. Either way the mare seemed fine if a bit eccentric but who wasn't in this world?

The later pony Applejack was hopefully going to be a little smoother to deal with you hoped. You had already gotten into her good books after you had helped her dog Winona. When the poor thing had broken its leg and you fixed it free of charge. Of course you always had an affinity for dogs and it never sat right with you taking money for that especially, you wouldn’t charge money to patch up a friend and dogs are man’s best friend after all.

You exchanged a few pleasantries now and then when you were called to the farm on business but that was as far as it went really. Although every so often she let you know if she had made her homemade moonshine which was pretty sweet, that stuff was deadly to the touch so naturally you always made sure to buy a couple of bottles every chance you could.

Maybe I should bring some of that stuff with me; it could really help smooth over the awkwardness. You smirk as you entertain the notion of seeing Twilight and Fluttershy on that deadly concoction that would be a sight to see. You chuckle idly scratching the five o’clock shadow collected around your jaw.

As it happens Fluttershy and Twilight had apparently decided that a picnic on the outskirts of the farm was a good place for the parlay as you had aptly nicknamed it. It would be a nice place to sit down and would be far away from wandering eyes.

If all else went well then you could move onto the third point: Pinkie and Rainbow.

The later was defiantly going to be the hardest as you've been told over and over again. You groan audibly bringing a tired hand over your forehead to lightly caress your temple.

Wasn't the pregnancy hard enough, why do I have to deal with this shit on top of everything else, I would so move my practice if I could.

However that was not a choice you really thought you had any reign over. As much freedom as you get you still had a niggling paranoia that Celestia didn't quite trust you entirely enough to let you simply wander around without her knowledge, based on her interactions with you and the bi-monthly visits. In fairness you could at least rationalise that part, after all you were essentially a meat eating alien from another world or was it another dimension? Who knows? Either way you hardly believe she even allowed you to go anywhere out of her sight to begin with, but still even after two and a bit years you were starting to think that unfortunately her apprehensions would never change.

You feel a bit of a familiar headache coming on as the problems keep piling up, as promising as it could be there was so much that could go wrong and even though it had only been a week you were already starting to feel the effects of the stress. It had even killed your appetite so much so that Gilda had actually forced you to sit down and eat a few times these past couple of days.

It didn’t help when you kept your mind on the events in the back garden the night you found out about the baby. A thought that clouded over all of the other problems leaving nagging questions that clung to your mind why the hell was there a griffon watching you? What did it want? Were there others?

The questions were driving you insane, you haven’t seen anything like that in these past couple of years so why now and what did it want? Either way you know that you weren’t going to rest until you found the griffon, though you weren't sure how you were going to accomplish that part. In all honesty thinking back on it you weren't even one hundred percent certain it was a griffon it was dark and thinking back to the events of last week the memory was mostly a blur. You were so exhausted that day, and you know that it could have been your mind altering events and memories you had read about stuff like that rational people seeing bears in the woods for split seconds and claiming with all certainty that it was bigfoot. The human mind has a habit of playing tricks on their owners like that, but whatever it was it had been the seed of your paranoia for some time now.

You quickly and you do mean very quickly entertained to thought that the Griffon had something to do with Gilda but you dismissed it immediately that was a thought to terrible to entertain even for a second. Just like before it sits out back in the dark recesses of your imagination.

Frowning at the thoughts you feel another bout of rustling coming from your side.

You lean down and kiss her gently on the head as she stirs from her sleep.

"Hmm you’re awake before me? That’s a first." Her tired voice calls up at you with a smirk on her beak before covering her mouth to suppress a yawn.

"Yeah I’m too busy pulling the night shift as your personal pillow." you say ticking the griffon as she smirks leaning against your chest.

"Not my fault you’re comfy." Gilda retorts snuggling against you further.

"Anything for you two" you say caressing the griffon’s side.

"Two?! Wait what do... oh right yeah the baby." Gilda says lifting her head up quickly for a split second before you burst out into a soft chuckle.

“Ha ha, what was that about?” you ask with a bemused look on your face.

“Nothing just thought there was someone else in the room...Shut up I’m tired ok.” Gilda smiles awkwardly as a small blush lightens her face.

"So what are we going to do now." Gilda asks in a slightly embarrassed tone leaning back down on your chest and looking up at you with a glazed expression in her eyes.

"Well firstly we need to get you to the hospital in an hour or so, for the first real check up." you explain eliciting a small grown from Gilda as she moves around your arm somewhat restlessly.

"Jeez, you better not be this much trouble when you’re out." Gilda jokingly threatens lifting up a wing to look down at her stomach.
You smile at her leaning down to stroke her stomach lightly as she shuts her eyes and nuzzles against your chest once more.

"Ha, don't listen to your mom she’s more of a handful than you'll ever be." You lightly tease towards the baby wincing lightly as you wait for a retort from the griffon. Gilda snaps up to you opening her beak to speak until you suddenly feel a soft thud against her stomach. You retract your hand from her briefly in shock before the realisation come to mind.

"Was that?"

Gilda's eyes shoot open as she snaps her gaze down at her stomach and back up to you.

"I think the baby just kicked." She giddily squeals leaning her back against you and holds her hand with yours. You almost want to tease Gilda for the out of character squeal but you’re doing no better in that department as you feel your lips curl into the biggest smile you’ve probably ever worn.

Again after a moment you can feel another soft bump against the front of her stomach eliciting a joyous gasp from you and Gilda. You can’t describe the feeling of euphoria and the slightest bit of shock as the next one hits.

"This kid’s a fighter, just like her mom." you say nuzzling your head against Gilda's cheek as she turns and gives you a loving peck on the cheek.

You stay like that for another few minutes or so as the little onslaught of soft bumps against her side slowly decline in number until finally they stop.

"The kid sure knows how to kick." Gilda teasingly moans, caressing her stomach lovingly still not taking her eyes away from the specific spot.

"At least the baby tires easily must not be a morning person." you jest.

"Huh wonder where the baby gets that from." Gilda retorts looking up at you and rolling her eyes as you both chuckle.

Both still wearing enormous grins you both snuggle closer together peacefully the only noise that comes is the sound of the birds chirping outside and the soft beating of Gilda’s heart against your side as you both bask in the first real feeling of parenthood and for the first time feel just a little of that fear and stress wash away.

Author's Note

Hey guys sorry for the wait and short chapter, but if you read my two recent blog's you'll understand why.

Anyway good news is that I've written two substantially longer chapters one of them awaiting editing right now so it wont be long until at least one of them comes out.
anyway hope you enjoyed this little chapter because its all hitting the fan next chapter haha.

-Cheers
Madness.