It was months ago now, when Tsunderplane had gotten the news that she'd be stuck here for good. Since then, we've had to find someplace for her to fit in.

There was a short stint where the Princess of Friendship tried to 'integrate' Tsunderplane into Ponyville. That went over about as well as I would have expected – by the end of the week, Tsunderplane declared that she hated everyone in the town and demanded to be with me again.

I was still doing my tour of duty with the Night Guard, though. And my commander had informed me, on no uncertain terms, that I was not welcome to bring in my friend/lover/interdimensional monster as a permanent guest in the barracks. But then, word came from Ponyville that Tsunderplane was pregnant, which meant I had certain responsibilities – I had to do something about it.

In the end, the solution – aided by a strongly worded letter from Princess Twilight – was to induct Tsunderplane into the Night Guard as well. That way, she could still live with me ... and even go on patrols with me. She wasn't exactly the most disciplined member of the battalion, but then again, she wasn't the least disciplined, either. We made it work, for the most part.

Of course, her pregnancy wasn't making things any easier, either. None of the battalion's medics knew how long the term was supposed to be ... or even what would come out when the time came. It was all mere speculation ... until another routine patrol ended up turning into something anything but routine.

“Are you okay, Planny?” I asked, looking back along our patrol route. It would be morning soon, and she was still lagging far behind. “Do you want me to come back for you?”

“Pfft, why would I want that? How's that supposed to help?”

I shook my head. Some things never changed. Her lagging behind was new, though. Despite the way her fuselage had been swelling larger the last few months, she'd never let it slow her down before. She always few with the same jet-like acuity she'd shown since the beginning, usually zooming well ahead of me.

My own pace slowed ... it would probably make me late for the return from our patrol, but I didn't want to get too far ahead of her. We were supposed to stick together, after all.

I was glad I did when, after looking back to check on her for the thousandth time, the lowering moonlight showed a trickle of something dripping from her underbelly.

Naturally, I rushed back to her as quickly as I could.

She was busy examining her undercarriage. “I... It looks like I'm leaking,” she said quietly.

“Planny! Your water broke!”

“Huh?”

“You're going into labor!”

She quirked her unibrow at me. “What the heck are you talking about?”

Already, I began tugging her back toward the barracks. “Didn't you pay any attention when the medics sat the two of us down for that maternity briefing?”

Tsunderplane shrugged, but she also winced a little at the strange feelings that must have been going on inside her. “I don't know. It was mostly gross 'biological' stuff, so I kind of maybe took a nap during part of it.”

I shook my head. “Come on, we've got to get you back before it really gets going.”

Now when I pulled her, she came along willingly, allowing us to make much better progress ... although it still wasn't as fast as I would have liked. I would have liked to get her to the medics instantly. My heart was racing at the thought that we might not make it there in time, and I'd have to try and assist Tsunderplane myself ... somehow. I pulled her along, heading straight for the barracks now, instead of along our assigned patrol route.

At least this time, when we got there, nopony gave us much hassle at the gates. We rushed in, and somepony must have seen us coming, because the medics were already waiting for us in the infirmary and getting themselves prepped.

By then, Tsunderplane was already whining about how her underside hurt. The medics laid her belly-up on a plastic bed, and they got to work.

I was left standing by Tsunderplane's side, feeling rather useless and wondering what I was supposed to do with myself until the doctor – the same grey unicorn from the first time I brought Tsunderplane in here – told me to stay by her side and try to comfort her, because the birthing process was going to be ... interesting.

I nodded and held Tsunderplane's wingtip with my hoof. I had been paying attention to that maternity briefing, and I'd heard a disturbing amount of 'nopony knows' and 'only time will tell' during it. This was a completely unprecedented procedure, and no one knew what to expect. We didn't know enough about Tsunderplane's biology, not to mention all the unknowns about what the baby itself would be like. They'd tried to do ultrasounds, but those tended to raise more questions than answers, since most of Tsunderplane's internal organs were a mystery to the medics. At one point, they'd thought they found the baby's head ... but it turned out to only be Tsunderplane's singular kidney.

Nevertheless, the medic staff reacted with soothingly calm professionalism. They wrapped a gown over Tsunderplane's lower body, and as they did mysterious things under there, they softly reminded Tsunderplane to do things like breathe, relax, and occasionally push.

Tsunderplane herself wasn't taking it quite as calmly. As things began to advance and she began to feel the pain, she moaned more and more loudly.

I asked the medics if she could have some painkillers, but they said that the combination of Tsunderplane's unknown physiology and the baby's unknown species, they couldn’t guarantee the safety of it, so it would be unwise.

My bringing the concept of painkillers up and being shot down on it was what first turned Tsunderplane's ire against me. “Ugh!” she cried out. “Why do you have to ... have to bring that up? That just makes it feel worse!”

I held her wingtip in what I hoped was a consoling way. “I, uh... I'm sorry.”

“Oh, you're sorry?” She huffed out a few rapid breaths. “You're the one who did this to me. You'd better be sorry!”

“I'm, uh...” I couldn't say I was sorry, not now, but I didn't know what else to say.

She glared at me, just waiting for me to finish that sentence. When I didn't, she yanked on my hoof, pulling my face close to hers. “Next time, I'm going to make sure you're the one who gets pregnant! Then we'll see how you like it.”

There may have been a few details of biological reproduction that Tsunderplane was still unclear about. But after a little bit of deliberation, I decided that this wasn't the right moment to educate her on the subject, so I held my peace.

“Good, good,” the medic underneath Tsunderplane's gown said. “We're getting close now. Just give us one good push, hm?”

Her face scrunched up and turned red as she groaned ... and then there was a squishing sound and a lot of commotion among the medics at the other end of the bed. A moment later, one of them held up the baby.

“You mammals are barbaric, making babies this way,” Tsunderplane commented weakly. “You should figure out how to make them in nice clean, civilized factories.”

I ignored Tsunderplane for the moment; I had something much more important to see. The baby was grey and pony-shaped, hard to make out with all the goo on it and the medics wiping it down. But as I got a better look at it, I saw that it wasn't any pony race I was familiar with – it, no she had wings ... but not pegasus wings or even bat wings, she had wings just like her mother's, and a finned tail to match. She had odd little lines like seams up and down her legs, and when she opened her eyes for the first time, they were bright green, all the way through.

The head medic carried her over to the opposite side of the bed from me. “It's a healthy female, um...” He stared down at the infant for a moment. “Plane pony?” Shaking off his confusion, he held her out toward Tsunderplane. “Congratulations! Would you like to hold your new daughter?”

“My ... daughter?” Without seeming to think about it at all, Tsunderplane reached out her wings and took the baby. She seemed to have eyes only for the baby now, forgetting about my existence entirely ... but the baby plane pony kept staring up at me, and for the first time, even though I knew it before, it really hit me: she was my daughter as well. I was a father!

The look on my face must have been interesting, because the baby's eyes went wide ... and then she stuck her tongue out at me. I had to lean against the bed, next to Tsunderplane, just to keep from collapsing onto the floor.

“Do you know what you're going to name her?” the medic asked.

Author's Note

This story is a commission for Loveless. If you'd like to get a commission of your own done, go to my Patreon page and sign up!

Commissioned by the artist vacuvung. If you wish to read this fiction alongside the illustration, click here to find out how https://www.deviantart.com/vavacung/art/Pay-What-You-Want-SECOND-WORLD-VOL-8-778020712