“Guess who brought dessert!”
Flam nosed the door open, keeping the oil-soaked box of donuts balanced just above the curve of his dock. He had put on his best smile---the one he’d often practiced these past few months---and told himself not to let it falter if he saw his fiancée sulking, something she was doing with increasing frequency.
Trixie was sprawled out on the scratchy hotel couch amid a pile of crumpled tissues. She didn’t lift her head, or peel her face away from the polyester pillow. Only a twitch of her ear indicated that she’d heard him at all.
“Only the finest glazed treats for my beloved sugarplum.” He levitated the box over to her and placed it by her head, close enough that she should be able to smell it. “You like the grape jelly filling, right?”
She turned her head just enough to bare one angry, bloodshot eye. “You didn’t get any coconut, did you?”
“Of course not.”
With an irritated whinny, she pulled the pillow back over her face. “Good. Coconut is like eating stale pubic hair.”
He eased the door closed, his smile now beginning to feel a bit forced. “I’m not sure if I want to know how you know that.”
Without moving to face him again, Trixie let out a little whine, and one of her hindlegs twitched up, baring her thick, swollen teats. Her distended belly paunched out a bit, and Flam felt the back of his throat constrict, if only slightly. “Ow,” she said sullenly.
“Did it kick you?”
She shot him a poisonous look, rubbing her hoof over the offending spot. “What do you think?!”
“Come, now.” He gingerly sat down next to the couch. “You’ve been moping all day. Why don’t we try t---“
“No.”
“Trixie.” With as gentle a gesture as he could, he nuzzled his snout up against her cheek. “Why don’t you eat a donut, hm? It’ll cheer you up.”
“No.”
“One little bite?” he needled. “Then we can go out for dinner.”
She turned her flushed face away from him. “I don’t wanna.”
Undeterred, he pressed his muzzle into her mane. He could smell the ginger-honey hotel shampoo, but it barely masked the musky, autumn-leaf-mold odor she’d been exuding ever since she’d first ‘caught’. No matter how many times he reassured her he loved her strange new scent, nothing could stop her from trying to scrub it off her body. Sometimes he wondered if that wasn’t the only thing she wanted to rid herself of.
“Come on, sugarplum. Life is short---eat dessert first.”
“Why? So I can get even fatter than I already am?!”
Flam closed his eyes. Here we go again. “You’re not fat.”
“Yes I am!” With a concerted grunt, she rolled over on her side, and Flam felt a lump rise in his throat. The visual changes had been slow to start, but in the past few weeks, it seemed like they’d all tumbled together at once: Trixie’s face was puffy, her cheeks were ruddy, her coat thick and wiry---and even in the dim light, he could see silvery stretch marks shining through it. She must have noticed him staring at her gut, because there was a new tightening in her voice. “See? Look at me! I look like a prize pig! Go on, Flam, just admit it, you could paint me pink and win a blue ribbon!”
He placed his hoof on her belly. “This,” he said, gentle but stern, “Is not fat. This is our foal.”
“I look horrible!” She pulled her arm over her face, and the pillow on top of both. “I’m not going out tonight! In fact, I’m not going out ever again!”
Flam watched her ears fold and unfold. “We have reservations in an hour.”
“I don’t care!”
He wanted to remind her that it was her idea to go to that restaurant in the first place. He wanted to inform her of how much hoof-greasing it had taken to get the reservations. In fact, if he was going to be honest with himself, what he really wanted to do was throw the box of donuts across the damn room. But instead, he took a few deep breaths, and began to stroke her hair. Trixie deserved better than his pettiness; after all, she was the one carrying most of the load. “You know, Trixie, just the other day when we were in the market... well, when you went to the Mares’ Room, a stallion approached me and told me he wanted to shake the hoof of the ‘luckiest stallion in Equestria’.”
Under his hoof, he felt her jump a little. “You... you’re making that up.”
“No, I’m not.” Well, he had exaggerated it a little---’Wow, buddy, your wife’s hot. No wonder you knocked her up’ wasn’t something he wanted to repeat to Trixie in her current state. “You still turn heads.”
He noticed, with some relief, that her knotted-up shoulders had begun to relax.
“You know... you know I still think you’re beautiful, right? Even when you’re having an attack of diva-tosis?”
Even though she had her snout tucked in the crook of her foreleg, he still heard her snort of laughter.
“That’s my girl,” Flam chuckled, and after a few tender rubs against the tense corded muscles in her neck, Trixie peeked out from under her foreleg. They both smiled, but he could tell the storm hadn’t quite past yet.
He levitated the box over to her. “How about a donut?”
“Can’t be any worse than that wheatgrass smoothie you whipped up,” she muttered, picking out something covered in toxic-looking sprinkles.
Flam winced. One sip of that smoothie and she’d burst into tears---and after tasting it himself, he couldn’t really blame her. “You’ve been taking your folic acid, haven’t you?”
“Yes, mother, I’ve been taking all my supplements. You don’t need to be on my case all the time.”
He made a noncommittal sound, not wanting to mention just yet that the one-month supply he’d bought two months ago still had some pills left in the bottle.
After crunching her way through the sprinkles, Trixie lifted a berliner to her mouth. The first bite sent a blob of purple squooshing out the side, so Flam flicked it off the corner of her mouth with his hooftip.
Trixie’s sour expression quavered as she watched him lick the jelly off his hoof. The memory hit her with a pang: on their very first date, the top scoop of her ice cream had fallen to the ground, and before she could react Flam had plopped the rest of his sundae on what was left of hers. She’d kissed the flecks of strawberry syrup off his upper lip, and from that moment on she’d known he was the one for her. “Um...” Daintily licking the frosting from her lips, she glanced aside, a hint of a blush on her cheeks. He’d been trying so hard these past few months, and she’d been nothing but miserable... “Thanks for the donuts, pookie."
He gave her a wan smile, and she bit her lip. That's not enough, Trixie! "And, for, um..." She looked at the ankles she'd folded over her pregnant swell. "And for... cheering me up.” Or trying to, at least. Then she flashed him a smile, as genuine as she could muster. "You really are my knight in shining armour."
He opened his mouth to reply, but was cut off by a loud CRACK from across the room.
“Celestia!”
Flam lept to his hooves, but Trixie didn’t even flinch. He stared, horrified, as a couple of glass shards fell from the fresh fissure in the window. “Wha---Trixie, what happened?! Did you see? Did a bird fly into it?”
She thinned, and then licked, her lips. “...No.”
He didn't seem to notice her hesitation. “Oh, jeez, the front desk is gonna ream me halfway into next week for this!” He took a tentative step forward, but flinched back when a breeze from outside blew another wave of splinters into the room. “Unless... unless we claim we got injured from it.” His eyes lit up as the plan began to form, and he excitedly turned back to his fiancée. “Yes, that’s it! We’ll tell them it happened when we were out, and one of us got cut on the glass! They’ll give us the room for fr...”
The visions of bits dancing in front of his eyes were swept aside when he caught sight of Trixie’s expression. Normally she loved playing a part in his schemes, but now she was just staring at him with a kind of sick, wrung-out hollowness.
“Trixie?” he said, his voice low. “Is... there something you want to tell me?”
She nodded, and ducked her head a little, a few strands of hair trailing across her horn and over her face. Flam squinted, but he couldn’t read her lips.
“Sorry, sugarplum, what was that?”
“I said...” Lifting her chin, almost as if she was trying to look braver than she felt, Trixie look a moment to clear her throat, and then fixed Flam with her stare. “I said, that---that---was the... the f-foal.”
Flam gawked at her, his lips parted. Behind him, another piece of glass fell to the floor with a quiet tink.
“The foal?”
“Mm-hm.”
He flung a hoof over her shoulder, pointing at the decimated window. “The foal did that?!”
She nodded, a hoof on her swollen belly.
It took him a moment to realize what that strange cackling sound was---he was laughing. No, not just laughing; he was roaring with laughter so hard that he’d fallen backwards onto his haunches.
“The foal!” He was on his back before he knew it, kicking his hindlegs up at the air, his forelegs wrapped around his barrel in a side-clenching hug. “The foal did it! Hahahaha! Of course! The foal did it!”
“Flam, I’m serious!”
“So am I!” After rolling to his side, he crawled his way to the sofa, still laughing. There were tears prickling under his eyelids---so much so that he didn’t notice the same was true of Trixie. “Oh, sugarplum,” he chortled as he propped an elbow up on the cushion beside her head, “Isn’t it wonderful? It’s casting already! Pre-natal casting! This is amazing!”
Then something hit him, and he spoke over her: “Wait. Trixie, do you realize what this means?”
“Yes, it---”
He hopped to his hooves, bouncing in place like an eager little colt with a new toy. “When Flim and I were in utero, one of us always slammed doors, whereas the other would crack glass. We never figured out who did what---until now! I must have been the glass-cracker!”
“Flam---”
“Trixie, the foal takes after me!” He punched the air, and then dropped back down to plant some wet, smacking kisses against her belly. “Yes! Yes! My baby takes after me!”
With a hoof on his horn, she managed to peel him off of her. “Flam.”
“What do you think it’ll be?” he went on, still staring at her abdomen. “You’re a little on the big side, so it’ll probably be a colt---”
“Flam, will you shut up for two seconds and listen to me?!”
Sitting upright, she grabbed him by the shoulders and shook. “This is wrong, Flam! It’s all wrong!”
He clapped his hooves against hers to still them; she was stronger than he was by far, and he wasn’t in the mood to let her rattle him into a concussion. “What?”
“It’s all wrong, Flam!" Now there were shining streaks of tears in the creases under her eyes. "It shouldn’t be like this!”
“Wh... why not?” he said, watching her as she slumped back into the cushions. Her earlier sulk had been annoying, but this seemed... somehow more primal than any other frightening emotion he'd seen cross her features. “Isn’t this what you wanted, sugarplum?” he murmured, not sure if he was ready for the answer.
“Yes, but...” She was moving her forehooves around, as if trying to grope her words. “But no! Not like this!”
As carefully as he could, he tapped the end of his muzzle against hers. He could smell the hot salt of her tears, fresh and dangerous over her pregnancy musk. “Why not? The foal’s a unicorn for sure, now! And it’s healthy! Isn’t that something to be happy about?”
“You don’t understand, Flam,” she whispered down to the carpet. “Glass has been cracking all afternoon, but... You just don’t understand what this means!”
“Sugarplum, I’ve read the same pregnancy books you have. I understand what pre-natal casting means. It means the baby’s horn is forming.” He gave her a lopsided smile. “It means our baby’s a unicorn.”
“Actually, Flam...” She finally looked him in the eye. “It means only one of them is a unicorn.”
Author's Note
So... how do you think Flam reacted to that?
Those who have read Three Steps Back will probably understand the more ominous undertone here of why Trixie has negative feelings towards non-unicorns, Earth ponies in particular. But I was curious to see how this held up as a one-shot. Thanks for reading!
