Saturn Sized Stripes and Stretchmarks

Chapters

Chapter 1
Chapter 2: Saturn-Sized Stripes and Stretchmarks
Chapter 4: Split Personalities
Chapter 3: Saturn Sized Stripes and Stretchmarks

Chapter 1

Chapter 1

His dreams swirled. Something big, something round, something covered with stripes! He was just about to nuzzle it. To feel the warmth press against his snout and bury it into the tautly pulled fur when...

“Eddie? Eddie, wake up my sweet or you won’t get your treat.”

The grayish mass turned into rippling smoke and pulled away from him. Thoughts and consciousness slamming back into him as he woke with a start. Bleary eyes opening slowly alongside a moan objecting to the interruption. “Zecora? Oh sweet spirits what time is it?”

“Do not worry about that. Clear the sleep from your eyes and enjoy what I’ve made.”

Eddie blinked a few times. The fog clogging his vision began to clear and he saw the table he fell asleep on last night. A few other things coming to light as he was already feeling the stiffness in his neck and the drool falling from his lips. Thankfully better things began to fill his senses, the smell of something warm and buttery for one. When his eyes finally caught up to his nose he could only utter a single phrase, “Did I ever say how much I love you?”

She smiled, “I think I've heard that before, but it's never a true bore.”

Now it was Eddie’s turn to smile. He leaned forward to grab a few pancakes onto a plate. Butter and syrup already nearby, ready for ample application. A curiosity taking hold of him as he chose to speak before digging in, “This really is a great surprise Zecora. Here I thought all you knew how to make was soups and leafy salads.”

Zecora raised her eyebrow at that comment, but let it slide. “Hopefully they hold up. I got the recipe from a friend of a friend.”

“Oh really?” Eddie opened his mouth and eagerly bit down on the first pancake. Moments later his eyes went wide, his irises shriveled, and the stark white of his striped muzzle gained a sprinkling of sickly green.

“So, did I get the recipe right, or is that a look of disgusted fright?”

Eddie looked at Zecora’s face. It had a mixture of hope and fright on it. He didn’t have the heart to tell her that the gift tasted like crusty cardboard, “Well, I think it's *urp* an acquired taste.”

Zecora watched him suppress an open gag with a broad smile, then sighed, “I suppose pony food still escapes me.” She grasped the plate with the offending food upon it and sauntered over to the trash bin and toppled it all in, setting the plate aside before going back to Eddie and giving him a small peck on the head, “But I’ll get it one day.”

He smiled through the mild discomfort in his belly, “Either way, it's not a bad way to start off a Sunday. You still wanna head into town later and go to that farmer’s market?”

“That sounds lovely dear, but the market is not on until tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow? But it’s Sunday.”

“No, it’s Saturday.” She retorted with a chuckle.

“S-Saturday?” Eddie’s pupils shrank. The color, once green, faded from his face until only his stripes colored his face. In a panic his hooves flew to his cheeks, “I’m gonna be late for work!”

He practically flew towards the door. Then stopped, turned, took a few hurried strides toward Zecora and gave her a kiss on the cheek. “Sorry hun, see you tomorrow!” And just like that he was gone.

Zecora was left alone in her hut once more. Then she just sighed. “This is what you get for dating someone half your age… still,” she went over to where he was seated, at the half finished letter that had some drool on the cover, “he is very sweet.”

()()(1)()()

A stallion tapped his hoof on the ground in a steady rhythm. A heavy sigh escaped his nostrils as he checked the Ponyville clocktower for the time. The time he read, eleven minutes after nine, did not amuse him. “Edward...” The name made a deep groan rumble from the earth pony’s throat.

Moments later a figure came careening around the corner of the street. Kicking up a cloud of dust there was a zebra panting as his mane twirled in the wind. Upon seeing the pony standing in front of the shop he gasped and screeched to a halt, flecks of dirt lifting from the ground where his hooves dug trenches into the street. “Mister Davenport!” He tried to say with all manner of respect beneath the horrified surprise.

For a time the two just stared at each other. One bearing a nervous smile and the other holding onto his barely standing patience with a furrowed brow. Eventually the elder of the two began to speak.

“Edward,” Davenport started with a small adjustment of the nametag on his blue vest, “I would very much appreciate it if this lateness of yours ceased to be a habit. This is the third time this month.”

“I’m sorry Mister Davenport, it’s just that time got away from me and I forgot which day it was and-”

Davenport interrupted with a raised hoof, “Don’t apologize to me Edward, apologize to your co-workers. They’ve been unloading sofas all morning one body short.”

Eddie’s nerves visibly twitched as his body shot to attention, “Oh geeze, Saunter is gonna be so mad!”

Davenport allowed the nerve wracked zebra to hurriedly trot past him into the store. Watching him make his way to the back where the break room and employee lockers were located. The earth pony sighed, “How that zebra landed a marefriend I’ll never know.”

()()(2)()()

In the back room of Sofa & Quills herds of ponies milled about. Setting aside various forms of furniture and bundles of literature utensils to make their way to the break room entrance. For the first part of their long work days had finally come to a close. Now all that was left was stocking their loads onto shelves and filling up the show floor.

At least that’s how it was for most of the teams that had worked their morning away. An earth pony, big and broad like the finest farm hand, was still lugging heavy deluxe half-bed sofas and sectionals to their place in the loading dock. After one particularly heavy, and quite gaudy, sofa was set down the pony heaved a sigh and took a seat on his former cargo for a moment to catch his breath and wipe the sweat from his brow.

Before long a voice familiar to him busted through the backroom doors, muttering curses under its breath. “About damn time...”

“Saunter!” Eddie blurted out as he hurried over to loading bay four, “I’m sorry. I’m just… so sorry. I went over to Zecora’s, I forgot what day it was so I stayed up late trying to write the letter that would go with my anniversary gift and then-” He paused with palpable fright shivering through his stripes, “The letter! Oh horse-apples I left it out on the table! Great now the surprise is ruined, i’m late for work, and-”

“Eddie!” The silver stallion shouted to drown out the striped one’s babbling, “For Celestia’s sake dude, calm down.” Saunter was already rubbing at his temples, “I don’t need a headache this early in the morning.”

“Sorry Saunter it’s just that-” This time his speech was ended with a hoof pressed against his mouth.

“Please, no more, just start grabbing loveseats. It’s all that’s left.”

Eddie was obviously taken aback by the action itself. Though he did find his wits eventually and went to work putting heavy, leg shuddering, loveseats onto his back and hauled them out onto the loading bay floor. After about the fifth one had left him short of breath and wobbly of leg he found Saunter coming over to him with a quizzical look on his face.

“You really are mad for that mare, aren’t you?”

Eddie looked at the face that held not a playful smirk but a genuine expression of concern. It led the zebra to sigh in defeat. “Y-yeah.”

“You need to get a hold on those feelings then. It’s not just work you’re getting messed up at.”

Eddie banged his head against the armrest of a loveseat a few times, “Yeah, I know. It’s just that… I don’t wanna mess this up. This is the first time, like ever, that I've ever felt a serious connection with somepony. I mean it's not my first time to make a connection, but this time I feel like-”

“She’s the one?”

Now Saunter had a smile on his face. One that brought some comfort to Eddie’s beleaguered mind. He nodded and added, “Hard to believe it's already been two, no make that almost three years going now.”

Saunter grunted as he hefted a loveseat onto his back with far greater ease than his friend had. “How did that all start anyway? Doesn’t she have like almost a decade on you? All I remember is you being all distant whenever you came back to the cottage for like… a month, before you finally told us you were dating the only other zebra in town.”

Eddie squeezed his eyes shut tight, “Ugh, don’t remind me of that period of time.”

“What? The part where you were distant or the part where Flaunter thought you had found out you were gay and had a colt-friend right before you told us the truth?”

A long groan echoed in Eddie’s throat gave him his answer.

“Oh, um, right...” Saunter set down another loveseat and helped Eddie unload his own before he spoke again, “So, my original question.”

“Right.” Eddie shook off the swelling ache of manual labor, taking a moment to seriously think before opening his mouth, “You remember that time when I’d been barely moved in a year and you asked me what Hoofrica was like? The zebra homeland. To which I could only tell you was that my parents, my pony parents, adopted me when I was like five and took me to Equestria. So I didn’t know much about Hoofrica at all.” Eddie received a slow thoughtful nod in response. “Well all that got me thinking about trying to learn more about Hoofrica. Sadly most of the books the town had on Hoofrica were lost when that crazy ass centaur guy tore the old library a new one. So I just had a few odds and ends at best. Then… well then some nice old stall clerk asked me if I was related to Zecora. I asked ‘who?’ and got told about the only other zebra in town. Heck maybe in all of Equestria!”

“And you just, what, asked her out?”

“What? No-no-no, I wasn’t looking for a date when I found out about her. I was just… ugh,” Eddie’s eyes scanned an invisible horizon, “All I wanted to know was more about my homeland. About the place where my parents, my birth parents, were from. To learn maybe what happened to them. To figure out my place in this weird world of ours.”

“Sounds like an existential crisis to me.”

Eddie snorted, “Maybe, but the truth is I just wanted to talk to her. Though I have to admit, the tales of ‘the zebra potion master of the everfree’ had painted a slightly more… haggard picture in my mind.”

Now Saunter snorted, “I’ll admit when I met her for the first time she did look rather young for her age. She could’ve shaved seven years off what she told me and I would have flat out believed it.”

“My first meeting of her was sort of the same.” Eddie said with a tinge of blush on his face, “She was pretty, but I remembered why I originally sought her out. I’m not sure why but… I still remember how she looked kind of… worried, when she opened that door to greet me.”

“Afraid an old stalker from Hoofrica had found her trail?” Saunter earned a little shove for that comment, a shove that made the behemoth of a pony barely budge an inch.

Eddie continued, unabated, “as I began to explain myself the worry seemed to ebb away. I was just some curious colt looking for some information. So she let me inside, set on some tea, and out the questions rolled. They tried to anyway, I didn’t know enough to really ask the right questions. So instead Zecora started telling me a bit about herself, and that led to me telling her about myself. I was adopted by well meaning missionaries of the Celestial Emissaries. She was the daughter of a shaman, something akin to being the daughter of a noble she said. I grew up in Haytriot, she in a village by the name of Ahn’boo. Apparently it was rather well populated, had a daily marketplace and even a few districts of somewhat permanent structures, but she always described them as lacking proper care. I told her about how when I finally grew up that I wanted to move out and find my purpose in life, and she… well she glossed over when she finally grew up and what made her come to Equestria, she simply told me that her venture for purpose was much the same. She told me she had found it during her spirit’s journey through the ancestral weave. The way she spoke of it, I immediately had to know more.”

Saunter nodded knowingly, “So that’s when it started.”

“Well, yes and no.” Eddie sat on his haunches and twiddled his hooves a bit while he thought, “we didn’t start dating after that first night. In fact it took well over a year before we got to that point. No, at that point I’d say the spark was ignited. We went from strangers to friendly acquaintances that night. The next time we met was actually in town. At a farmer’s festival. She was buying up herbs and other such things for her brews. I asked her what for and she started to explain how some of them were from Hoofrica itself, or at the very least were substantially good substitutes for what she needed back at her home. She offered to have me over to make a few brews and talk about Hoofrica some more. We began talking and I asked her about this ‘spirit journey’ and what this ‘ancestral weave’ was.” Eddie giggled and clacked his hooves together a few times at the memory, “She chuckled like I was some excited foal asking her about what magic was like.”

Saunter hefted another love seat from the back of the carriage and set it aside with the other. He eyed it for a bit and rubbed a hoof against the cushions for a bit before he finally asked. “So what is the ‘spirit journey’ and what the hay is an ‘ancestral weave’?”

Eddie had to bite his tongue for a moment as he thought, “Well the spirit journey is sort of like that cutie mark celebration ponies do, except for a zebra. You inhale a fume from a specially made brew of plants only found in Hoofrica and you have like… some kind of experience that takes you to the land of the spirits where you find out who you are. Then BAM,” Eddie enthusiastically jabbed a free hoof into the bare white space on his right flank, “your destiny marks your flank with its purpose.”

Saunter raised an eyebrow rather high, “They put colts and fillies through this?”

Eddie’s eyes went wide for a moment before he threw up his hooves defensively, “What? No-no-no, this happens when you’re like twenty...ish. Sometimes a few years earlier, sometimes later.”

At this point the final love seat was unloaded and Saunter was dedicating his full attention to getting information from Eddie, “So you heard about this ritual and got it in your head that you needed it to feel complete.”

Eddie grumbled a bit in reply, “Look, I know, it’s kind of pathetic, but look at it this way.” He trotted over and tapped Saunter’s flank a few times, “What if you never helped your dad haul that trolley full of stuff for his freight company when you were ten and found out you loved helping other ponies get settled and make their home their own? What if instead you were abandoned and hauled off to Celestia knows where to a place that never even heard of cutie marks. What then?”

“Whoa now, Eddie I didn’t mean to hit a tender spot.”

Eddie squeezed his eyes shut and placed a hoof over his face with a grimace across his mouth, “Yeah, I know. It’s just… some stuff I think about too much. I already went through that moody teenager phase where I hated my parents for adopting me. Sweet Celestia I am so lucky they never threw me out.”

“They love you dude, I know. Based on how they acted that one time they visited.”

Now the zebra was blushing fiercely again, “Please not that Saunter. The revisit embarrassment would end me. W-where were we about Zecora before we got side tracked?”

“Um, I think I was gonna ask what the hay a ‘ancestral weave’ was.”

“That, right. Easy one actually. It’s basically fate. This thing in the next world where your soul intertwines with every other one and forms this ever growing weave of fate that tells of your life and where it will lead.”

“Ah, so you basically learn of your destiny, where it will lead you, and I'm guessing what talent will lead you there.”

“Yep!” Eddie said with an excited clap of his hooves, “On that subject though. I’m not sure why Zecora’s mark is a sun. She never told me why it's that when all she seems to do is brew potions. You’d think it’d be a beaker or an herb or something more alchemically inclined.”

Saunter hmm-ed and huh-ed a bit before saying, “A fair point. Is it a tender spot for her as well?”

Eddie nodded, “I think so. She dodged my questions the few times I've asked. I figure she’ll tell me when she’s ready, or thinks something better of me I'm sure.”

“So when you find out she’s the princess of the sun in disguise you won’t go running back to mom and dad?”

Saunter earned himself another nudge from his friend, “Yeah, sure. Whatever it is though I won’t leave her over it. Things are too good to let something as little as that get in the way.”

“You sure? Could be a pretty big thing that sneaks up and bites you on the butt.”

Eddie shook his head, “Nope, I'm in this for the long haul. Ain’t nothing gonna stop me.”

“Wish you two luck then. Sister’s know I'm too busy with my dream to go chasing plots.”

Eddie went to comment when suddenly a sharp whistle echoed through the backrooms of Sofa & Quills. A sound that made the zebra groan, “We just talked our way through our entire break didn’t we?”

“Yep.” All Saunter had to say.

“Well guess i’ll get back to haulin-”

A hoof blocked Eddie’s way before his friend spoke. “I got it, not that many left. Just gotta work double time to catch up now I guess. You head out to the show floor and help Flaunter restock before his pink plot gets in a twist.”

Eddie snickered, “You know, i’m gonna tell him you called his plot PINK.”

Saunter rolled his eyes, “Whatever gets you your kicks Ed.”

The zebra left the back room floor and made his way to the front. Grabbing a cart full of quills, inkwells, and parchment punchers on his way. Leaving his friend to unload the remaining sofas before he would be needed on the delivery line to haul carts to the homes of ponies in need of new furniture. All seemed well with the world.

()()(3)()()

Zecora idly hummed to herself. Checking supplies and making notes on what she would need to grab during the market on Sunday.

“Let’s see. One bundle of grunt-weed, two ounces of merry feather clippings, two pouches of-”

The sound of a steamy whistle caught her swiveling ears. Looking up from her list she checked on the noise. Following it to the kitchen where a tea kettle was idly fuming atop her stove. She gave a short smile and turned the magically powered flames off. Her gaze turning towards a clock that had been gifted to her by one of her best friends, a friend due to arrive in…

“Three, two, one.”

Zecora’s gaze then turned toward her front door. Where the sharp pop of magical power snapped into her ear. Followed shortly by an eager rapping upon the door.

In short order the door was opened, and a smile was strewn across Zecora’s face, “Twilight! You remembered to knock this time.”

Twilight Sparkle, Princess of Friendship, unicorn who ascended to alicorn-dom, blushed fiercely, “Hehe, well at least I didn’t teleport directly into the room that one time.”

Zecora’s look softened as she spoke once more, “Eddie and I understood the importance of your interruption, eventually. To be honest though Twilight, it’s been too long since I've been able to see you alone.”

The purple alicorn smiled deeply, “You can say that again. I can’t remember the last time we just sat around, had some tea, and talked for awhile.”

“Yes, there is much to discuss. Something… important has crept up in my mind recently.”

Twilight’s feathers ruffled slightly, “Oh? What about?”

Zecora gestured for her friend to come inside, “I think it would be best if it was talked about over tea. Come Twilight.”

She did as the host asked. Allowing herself inside and sitting on a cushion, one of many strewn about the den area of Zecora’s home, and levitated a homemade tea bag from a bowl over into her waiting cup. “So what did you mix together this time?”

Zecora brushed her way past the curtain hiding the kitchen from view of the more common area of her hut. She placed the steaming kettle of hot water down upon its plate, a gift from a pony of more eloquent tastes. “You’re in luck. I managed to find an herbalist that was selling bits of Gumroot and smashed leaves from the Goodano tree. You’ll be tasting an old Hoofrican favorite of mine.”

“Hm, sounds earthy. I’m more for a sharp spice kind of tea, but I relish the chance to taste something authentic from your homeland Zecora.”

Hot water was soon passed out. The two friends idly playing with their tea bags to pass the time between questions and quips to one another about the weather in the ever free or how princess duties were coming along. All things seeming well and good until finally the first sip of tea was had.

Twilight’s eyes twitched open wide for a moment before she let her teacup rest back down on the table, “Wow, that certainly is something!”

“Do you see now why I had been perusing the markets for months to find my ingredients?”

“Yeah! I’ll need to get the recipe from you so I can hunt down the ingredients myself. The girls would just love this stuff!” Her excited exclamations punctuated with a happy clapping of her hooves.

“Good to know my batch came out well, hopefully Eddie will find it just as swell.”

Twilight took a second, slightly greedier, sip. “How have things been going for you two anyway? I have to admit I still feel a tad surprised whenever you tell me how old, or rather, how young he is.”

Zecora held a hoof up to her lip as she chuckled lightly, “Yes it is a tad silly that he is just past half my age.” She let her hoof fall away so she might take another sip of her favorite tea, then spoke in a slightly more earnest tone. “Though I have to admit things have been… rather well. Actually. Eddie is kind and sweet. He, haha, he remembers all those little things about me that even I forget. His words they touch me so dearly at times I almost forget he is so young...” Her head was held downcast as she gazed through the floor towards her own thoughts. “Twilight. Am I being foolish? Somepony, some zebra, so young. Am I just grasping for straws in my old age?”

Twilight drew a look of deep concern. “Zecora, I don’t think I ever know very many ponies who are as wise as you are. You can have your doubts, sure, but remember what made you say yes to him that first time. How you wanted to take that happiness you felt together with him and go as far as you could together. I dare to say that I've never known you to be happier than you are at this time in your life. I say go for it, go as far as the two of you can go and just see where you end up.”

Zecora smiled, a few tears welled up in her eyes that she brushed away. “Thank you Twilight. Sometimes that wiser side of me argues with itself and I find myself with questions.” She held up the letter she had found on the table that morning, half-finished as it was she found herself full of questions as to what Eddie was going to ask her which was implied by the incomplete message. “But I think I know what I'm going to do now.”

()()(4)()()

Flaunter easily floated a handful of six inch quills into a container upon a shelf. Filling it to capacity and straightening it slightly with some magical manipulation until it looked just as neatly packed as the ‘easygrip’ earth pony pencils next to it.

“There, perfect!” The unicorn’s ears swiveled slightly as they heard the telltale squeak of a supply cart approaching. He turned and was greeted with a familiar sight, “Eddie! My word, I thought you’d be in the back all morning trying to help Saunter catch up.”

Eddie gripped the handlebar in his mouth and gently pulled the cart full of supplies to a halt. “I almost was, but Saunter said he could take it from where we left off. Besides,” Eddie began again with a sneer, “he didn’t want your pink plot to get in a twist.”

Flaunter’s eyes shot wide and his lips twisted into his mouth as he bit down on his lips before almost shouting, “It’s not PINK its Mauve, which is technically a subset of purple and I swear that pony has no concept of color theory. His coat is SILVER and he feels fine calling it gray.” The mauve unicorn huffed and puffed a few times before producing a comb from his uniform and began briskly weaving it through his blonde mane until it was almost perfectly straightened. “When will that pony learn proper colors?”

Eddie was fighting back a fit of snickering, “Probably the same time you don’t go off on a tirade whenever someone gets some colors wrong.”

“Is it really that big of a deal for some ponies to learn proper color theory,” Flaunter scoffed and rolled his eyes, “I walked past the high school the other day and you should see the color combos that those foals are trying to pull off. I swear, in some cases dyeing your coat and mane should be outright banned!”

“Yes King Flaunter, anything King Flaunter.” Eddie said with a little bow before his oh so benevolent overlord.

Flaunter idly floated over a few more quills and began to bundle them up together, “I better get that massage at three sharp.”

“I’ll make sure we send up the strongest, burliest stallions just for you my lord.” Eddie then began to take his time sorting the supplies out so he could begin stocking at an even pace to Flaunter.

Flaunter snorted at his comment. “Think you can buy your way back into your lord's good graces with fantasy do you?”

Eddie wore a smirk, “It worked before didn’t it.”

“Okay, it did, but in my defense I was very drunk and mad about my ex at the time. So I didn’t really mean to act the way I did that night.”

Eddie shrugged, “The kiss was kinda nice.”

Flaunter visibly groaned and let his head fall against the shelf with a resounding bang, “Did you have to remind me that I did that? Ugh, I can barely forgive myself as it is for trying to get a rebound so soon after a breakup, but to make the move on one of my friends? Double the disgust.”

Eddie grimaced slightly, “I didn’t mean to prod that hard. Sorry.”

Flaunter straightened himself and looked toward his friend with a small smile, “Ah, it's all okay. That stuff is water long under the bridge by now.” Flaunter then began to rub his chin in idle thought, “Though, speaking of old gay stuff. You remember when I had you pegged as gay that one time before you came out that you had a M.I.L.F.?”

Eddie grunted a little, “Zecora isn’t a M.I.L.F. she’s just… well aged.”

“She’s almost got fifteen years on you dude.”

“Okay fine, what of it?”

“Well,” Flaunter began with a click of his tongue, “how did it start? Not like, how you first met. I mean how did you go from being that zebra history teacher you were flaunting over to full on date material?”

It seemed it was Eddie’s turn to grimace as his face turned to one of worry, “Alright, but you gotta promise you won’t laugh.”

An enormous grin rested on Flaunter’s face, “Oh this is gonna be good.”

“Promise!”

Flaunter began to go through the motions, “Cross my heart and hope to fly,” he then made a dumb show of sticking something sweet and delicious in his eye.

Eddie glared at his unicorn friend and his looming grin, but eventually relented with a long sigh. “Alright so, I'd been seeing Zecora for awhile, as a friend. We would get together every other weekend or so and talk more about Hoofrica and how the Zebras fit into that place. At the same time we would work on potions together. She would show me old brews for everything from mending and healing to food flavoring and preservation, it was all really neat to learn. Even if I couldn’t tell you half of the recipes she showed me. Spending time with her just felt… good. I was always happy to be over there.”

“Aww,” Flaunter started, “so you asked out your teacher and it all went better than planned?”

“Pffft, I wish it happened that way.” Eddie’s eyes shifted about as he groaned once before speaking again, “Basically, one day, I was over at Zecora’s again. We were going to try and make a very delicate potion that you would boil down into a sort of gel that worked better than any glue you would ever know. Works very good for construction and crafts I’m told.”

“Buuut...” Faunter preempted, with a sly smile.

Eddie just glared at him for a moment, “But I was distracted. We were making this potion, Zecora was talking while handing me ingredients and bottles to hold. All the while I was thinking of how much I liked to be with Zecora. How it felt better than the time I spent with my ex from high-school. Then I started to wonder if I was attracted to her. If it was genuine or if it was just because she was a Zebra. I mean come on, I was twenty-four at the time and she was thirty-six and we were probably the only zebras around for miles in any direction.”

Flaunter was squirming a bit with anticipation, “Come on then, what happened, what happened!”

Eddie hushed him slightly, he didn’t want a manager to overhear and get a strike for talking so much on the job, “Well, I had this bottle of… I forget what it was, but I had it in my mouth. My eyes wandering around the floorboards trying to figure out these feelings when suddenly Zecora says something to me. I look up from the floor and I see this spider dangling down in front of my face. Needless to say I jumped-” Eddie stopped as he saw Flaunter about to bust a gut, so he reiterated, “his wasn’t some tiny spider that you get in Ponyville, no this thing, this monster was a beast of the everfree. I mean like, this thing was huge, it was in my face, and it was almost the size of my face. So when I say I jumped, I jumped!”

Eddie did a little mock hop without realizing it and only made the snickering from Flaunter all the louder. He continued regardless, “The bottle I was holding soared out of my mouth and plop, straight into the boiling vat we were mixing. Thankfully the demonic spider of tartarus fled the scene but the damage was already done. Zecora tried to stop it but the cauldron was already bubbling over. Next thing I knew the whole hut was rumbling and suddenly there was a bang and a thick smog was coating everything in sight.”

“And what? You bumped into her, accidentally kissed, and revealed your true feelings for one another?”

“Would you just!” Eddie grumbled a bit more before he continued, “I heard a latch get pulled, and moments later the smog rushed out a window that Zecora had opened. I asked Zecora if she was alright, and she said the same to me. We seemed fine, felt fine, and looked fine. For all intents and purposes we just smelled like a botched potion… that was until the feeling crept up.”

Eddie glared at Flaunter, but he held his tongue. So he went on, “It was like that tingly feeling in your coat when you’ve got too much static electricity clinging to me. Except it was about ten times that. Suddenly, with our coats and manes looking frazzled and on end, our bodies just slid towards one another until BAM, we were joined side by side by some kind of weird electrostatic force… It kinda sounded like Velcro every time we tried to split but we never managed more than a few inches before we slid back together again. So eventually we stopped trying and tried to figure out what happened and what to do.”

“L-like Velcro, snrrrk,” Flaunter sputtered out, tears welled up in his eyes, hoof going to his mouth to try and muffle the sounds it was making. The effort failing spectacularly as spittle burst from his lips in waves. “Oh sweet celestia I can-haha-I can see it. Your silly curly q on the tip of your soft mane sticking out like a javelin while the rest of it is on end like some Neighponese anime character!”

“I thought you wanted to hear how Zecora and I got together?” Eddie said with a blush of embarrassment at the sadly accurate estimation of his appearance that night.

“Okay f-finish it,” Flaunter said between miniature giggle fits, “I am already dead.”

Eddie just did his best to talk over the quieting snickers of his friend, “Zecora eventually guessed that the potion to make a cohesive gel instead sparked with the magic of the liquefied root I had accidentally tossed into the pot. Making something still cohesive, but utterly different in its manner of manifestation. I asked her what we would do about it. She had no manner of supply to create something that could reverse the effect applied to us. It was close to night, and the Everfree is quite dangerous at night, especially for two zebras who were essentially glued together. The best thing she could come up with was wait. At least until morning. So we did.”

“Wait,” Flaunter interrupted once more, “when did you pop the question to her then?”

“I was about to get to that.” Eddie interjected of his own accord before waiting for his chance to continue again, “As you can imagine this could be a very boring span of time. We had a whole night to kill. So I started with an apology, after all if I hadn’t flung that potion in there none of this would have happened. She took the apology, but she didn’t seem to be very mad about the whole incident. She must have had an almost endless patience to deal with me, but anyway. Things then got rather quiet as I wondered what I could do to make things better, to break up the monotony and silence when suddenly it was Zecora who broke the bubble first. ‘I was rather worried’ she began, ‘that I was going to lose a friend for a moment there’. I asked her why, she told me it was because that was a Midnight Widow that I saw. Their bite can kill you in seconds. Usually they stay away because she sprays an herbal mixture around the area of her home to keep them away. She was a few days late doing it that year it seemed.”

Eddie took a drink of some bottled water he kept in his uniform’s pocket and continued, “Anyway, she went on to say she really valued my company and enjoyed how eager I was to learn from her and be with her.” He smiled at the recollection and let the arm feeling bid him onwards, “I said ‘even with all the mistakes’? She told me that, even though I had made mistakes it was the fact I kept coming back to improve and try even more that garnered her respect. Then, with that still fresh in the air, I had to ask. ‘Zecora, do you think we could ever be something… more?’ She looked at me with such a wild confusion. She wanted to know what I meant by more. So… I told her.” His eyes seemed starry, looking off into a far off burning horizon, “Zecora, will you be my marefriend?”

Eddie looked back down to earth from his cloudy high with a smile still plastered on his face, “And she said yes.”

“Wow, that is so-” Flaunter twitched as a third pony suddenly butted in to their little talk.

“Now I don’t know how long you two were jabbering, but I want these shelves presentable for inventory by the end of the day. Am I clear!?”

“Yes, Mr.Davenport!” The duo said in unison. Their work beginning again in earnest as their boss wandered away.

“With a story like that,” Flaunter whispered under his breath as he set about rebundling yet more quills, “you better get her a stellar anniversary gift.”

“Heh, you knew it was coming up soon?”

“I have my strengths.”

“Well don’t worry, just a few finishing touches and i’ll have the best gift yet...” Eddie frowned a bit to himself, “I hope.”

The two then began to work furiously like termites sent against a log. The thought still looming in Eddie’s head about the gift he wished to give. Hoping it would be enough, hoping it would show just how much he loved her. He would give the entirety of Saturday to it, that much he assured himself would be enough for it to be ready the coming Sunday at the market with Zecora.

()()(5)()()

The great day had finally come. Farmers, salesman, and all manner of pony with a trade or trinket to sell had gathered around the Ponyville square proper. The farmer’s market was on, even if it would be better to call it a Bazaar of sorts. Not much of a matter to the fine ponies looking to peddle their goods to every passerby.

This matter of even less importance to at least one in particular. A zebra in fact. He worked his way through the mild crowds while glancing around. It looked like most of the town had turned out. A good showing this month it seemed. Either way he still had something to do before he ran out of time.

“Let see was it on first street or second?” Eddie said aloud to himself, “Wait! It was two doors down from that one bakery. What was it? Sugarball Junction? Ah, whatever, but it's on the way to my stop and that’s all I care!”

A loud series of BONGS rang out over the town as Eddie looked eastward towards the town clocktower.

“Ah hay bales I gotta pick up the pace!”

The zebra went from a merry trot into a near gallop as he excused himself past various crowds of ponies towards his destination. Past a few stalls, around two corners, and one long apology to a mare he nearly knocked over he had arrived. A store, aged but not quite decrepit, greeted his stare as he walked through the door and was greeted by a loud chime.

An old voice called out from the meagre store’s backroom, “I’ll be up front in a minute!”

“Gonna have to ask for a slight rush today Miss Stitcher!”

“Eddie? You have good timing I was just finishing up your order.” An aged unicorn came from the back. her face marked by age with wrinkles and lines that told of a happy smile filled life. Floating a white box tied up with a black bow no bigger than a dinner plate, “you still sure you don’t want me to… fix it at all? I haven’t made many in my day, but if you gave me a day or two I could get a few of the, uh, kinks out.”

The zebra she talked to gave an idle shake of his head, “Don’t worry about it. I know it's not very pretty, and i’m not just cheaping out on some quickie idea. I went through several others just trying to get it to look right. As long as you sowed in the picture I gave you, I know it’ll be good enough for her.”

Miss Stitcher smiled, “Then I guess you don’t need to hear me prattle in your ear today to not be a foal and mess this thing with your honey-poo up.” She gave him a little wink and placed the box on the table.

“Thanks.” Eddie moved to take the box from the table, but was soundly stopped by a dusty hoof clopping down on the top and holding it steady.

“Are we not forgetting of a certain transaction when one of profession helps one without?”

Eddie gave a nervous smile and then began to feverishly rummage through his saddlebags for his bit-sack.

Meanwhile, at about the same time, a few streets down…

Zecora looked up at the clocktower. The hand passing the five minute mark into the hour. Time was running thin for her errand.

“Where is that pegasus, I thought I hired a professional!”

A shadow suddenly whooshed overhead. Moments later the resounding clack of hooves touching down were caught by her twitching ears. An adventurous looking brown pegasus, complete with an arrow hole punched cap and vest, stood before her.

“Sorry for being late,” A silver medallion swung from his neck while he took off his helmet and lightly dusted it with his wing, “but certain parties didn’t want to quit after I told them no.”

Zecora was slightly disturbed at hearing such a boast, but did her best to remain on the task at hand. “Did you get it? Were they where I told you they would be?”

The pegasus with a greyscale man and tail grimaced slightly, “Sorry lady, place was abandoned, although when I looked around-” one of his wings rummaged around in a saddlebag he had and produced an intricate wooden box, “-I found what you were looking for anyway.”

Zecora took the box she was handed and gazed inside. A smile crested on her face, but a pang of sadness remained. “Truly there was noone there? Not even a trace?”

The pegasus shook his head, “I’m sorry no? Did you know the ones who lived there?”

Zecora placed the box in her bag, a frown on her face, “A lifetime ago.”

“Well,” The pegasus looked toward the sky, “I need to get going. Kind of on a timer myself these days. You take care of that artifact now, something like that belongs in a museum.”

“I have a far better plan Daring Dude, excuse me, Doo. I will use the artifact for its intended purpose.”

“Daring Dude? Hmmm, not bad.” He made a move as though he were about to take off, “Oh and tell Dash this counts as the adventure I owe her!”

Daring Doo made a move to take off once more, when suddenly his silver necklace began to vibrate and chim. He pressed it against his ear and plainly spoke. “Quickie? What is it dear i’m about to head- woah woah slow down you’re how big? Okay don’t worry I’m on my way home now. No, I promise no side adventures on the way home this time.” He let out a long groan as a voice gibbered into his ear, “Well where is Teddy? What about Finch!? Oh for the love of… just sit tight. Yes I know all you can do is sit in a room that size when you are that big, just sit tight and don’t touch it and for the love of Graveeda don’t rub it!”

Zecora then watched the stallion zoom off to the southeast. Unsure as to what was happening in his life at that moment. Tossing the pang of sympathy aside she made her way towards the town proper where her little date was set to occur. All she had to do was hope that Eddie would appreciate the gift she was going to give him for their three year anniversary. That and continue to wonder why he had chosen such an odd venue for their date.

()()(6)()()

Eddie straightened out the cloth he had lain out on the ground. This was perhaps the fifth time he’d done this while waiting. Still not quite sure what was keeping Zecora and still amazed he was the one on time for once.

“Eddie my dear,” the voice made him swivel his head to meet the source, “I am sorry, but I was delayed by a circumstance that was out of my control.”

“It’s alright Zecora.” He leaned his head forward and nuzzled her snout before speaking any further, “Just gave me the extra time needed to make sure our picnic will be perfect.”

Zecora watched as Eddie set himself down on the picnic cloth, and did the same herself. Picking a spot just next to him so she could feel the warmth of his body against her own, “Eddie I truly must know, why make a picnic here though?”

He politely reached out a hoof to point skyward over the southern hills of Ponyville. “See those rainclouds over there?” Indeed one could, they were a rather grey sore spot nestled together into one large patch over the place that had been pointed out previously. “Well the weather team had to schedule a few cloudbursts to make up for the slight drought this year. They’ve just finished doing the last run by with them and now it's time for them to be-”

Before he could finish the show had suddenly started. A team of pegasi flew straight toward the rainclouds and smashed straight through them, causing a portion of the collected clouds to burst open and shower a sprinkling of water into the air. In the next moment colors started to form in the air, and a majestic rainbow spilled forth from the clouds and hung in the air. Gently shimmering in the even sun’s light.

Zecora simply marveled. Content to lay there and watch the show with Eddie, but moments after the second eruption and sparkle of color occurred her own body let loose a low rumble. She had in fact almost felt it tickle the skin of her belly and fought back a smirk, “I seem to have forgotten to bring a snack.”

“Don’t worry, I got us covered!” Eddie reached over the picnic cloth and grabbed his somewhat sizable saddlebags he had set aside. “Now if I were a chef-ie type I would have brought mashed potatoes with some butter and pepper. Maybe even some gravy imported from the griffon kingdoms...”

Zecora shot Eddie a curious look as her belly growled a little deeper, “Must you always tease me with images of food before we eat?”

“Can’t help it if it’s fun,” Eddie jabbed with a quick shot of his tongue from his mouth. He rummaged through his saddlebags and produced, “Peanut Butter and Jelly sandwiches! served on toasted bread.”

His marefriend snorted slightly, “Still the aspiring chef of great excellence I see?”

“But wait there’s more! These delicious delicacies served with,” He rummaged some more and produced a bottle and some plastic cups, “some five-star apple juice straight from S.A.A.!”

“S.A.A.? Oh! That is what you and your friend Saunter call Sweet Apple Acres. Correct?”

“Yeah, me and the guys have been calling it that for years now. Guess i’ve been using the term enough for you to catch on after three years huh.” Eddie quickly unwrapped one of the toasted sandwiches and gave it to Zecora.

Zecora smiled at the mention of ‘the guys’ she remembered from the handful of encounters she had with them. “You have such good friends.”

While he opened the bottle of high quality apple juice he remarked, “You’re just saying that cause their names are so easy to rhyme together.”

“Perhaps...” Zecora said, taking another bite of her sandwich and flushing it down with a sip of apple juice. She had to admit that she wasn’t one for apple juice, but her friend from Sweet Apple Acres seemed to have outdone herself with this batch.

The two of them continued that way for a time. Watching the spectacle of the clouds burst into colors and sheets of shimmering water before it would drift down to the hills below. They were not the only ones to think of this activity, a few other couples and families were also milling about the park with their eyes southward to the free show set before them.

This lasted until the sun was well into its afternoon cycle. A pony could see from where they were seated the Ponyville clocktower, its hands nestled rightly at the four thirty mark. At which point Eddie spoke up.

“So...” His hoof traced a few small circles before him, “What’s your opinion on arts and crafts?”

A warm chuckle stirred in Zecora’s throat. “That depends. Are we going to make something together?”

Eddie cursed under his breath, that would have been a good idea for a date as well. He mentally saved it for later and continued, “Well, no, but I think you’re going to like it.”

He rummaged around in his bags until he finally found it. Producing the white box tied with black ribbon he gave it to her with a slight hesitation apparent on his face.

“Happy Anniversary!”

Zecora looked at his nervous smile and suppressed a giggle. He didn’t know how cute he looked when he got like that. She set about to untying the ribbon, removing the lid and…

“Oh, Eddie...” She dipped her hoof in and picked up the object to get a better look at it. A large circle of wood, a few interlacing circles of wicker woven messily criss crossing within, with a trifecta of white and black tails of fur trailing off the bottom. All of that surrounding a sewed in picture of two familiar zebras, their faces blurred by masks created just last year, greeted her memory warmly.

“I know its not the greatest craftmanship, and its probably not a surprise if you read that letter I forgot at your place two days ago.” Eddie began, “but you mentioned dreamcatchers that one year and it got me thinking. So I did a little research and found out that Buffalos and Zebras make them mostly the same way. I took a few classes and while i’m not great at it I made that one all my own. I hope the picture’s not too much.”

Zecora held a deep warm grin on her face and pulled Eddie into an even warmer embrace. “I will cherish it my dear, now sit back and get ready for my special gift.”

Eddie did as he was told. Laying back and watching Zecora as she shifted a hoof down under her robes and produced a small wooden box.

She placed it on the ground before him and began to speak, “When every Zebra comes of age, mare or stallion, a gift from the artisans of the great weave is bestowed upon them. Eddie,” she effortlessly opened the lid and bore the offering to him, “this gift of your Zebran ancestors is yours to have.”

Eddie almost couldn’t believe what was happening. He had always wanted to go to Hoofrica and experience the culture of the Zebra's first hand, and now a small piece of it was laying before him. He gently leaned forward and picked up the ornate thing in his hooves. An engraved silver collar of sorts was balanced in his grasp. All of its designs and emblems drawn toward a single point, a sapphire jewel embellished directly into the metal. Merely holding it was enough to instill a greater sense of awe in the stallion.

“Zecora I… I think you won this year!” He fought back fits of nervous laughter, “this blows my gift out of the water.”

Zecora drew herself closer to him, “Don’t discount your gift just yet. I don’t think you realize what you said by giving a mare a dreamcatcher.”

Eddie’s eyes went wide, “What?”

Zecora gave a devilish smile, “You were wishing our unborn foals to have many a happy dream while they grew inside me.”

“WHAT!?!?” Eddie nearly lept into the air from his sitting position, “But we never… how could… why?” The now loud chuckling drowned out his panicking as he layed back down with a hot blush on his face. “Okay, haha, I made a fool of myself… again.”

“It’s still a very sweet gift Eddie.” She leaned in and gave him a quick peck on the cheek, “I’ll cherish it, foals or no.”

Desperate to change the subject, Eddie turned once again to his gifted collar, “So what do these symbols on it mean? I don’t really recognize them.”

“Hmmm,” Zecora took it and looked at it deeply, “my ancient Zebran is not the most well versed, but I recognize the symbol for Steccar. I think this may be a matter for the books in my home. Shall we? Before the day grows too old?”

Eddie stood up and gave a few stretches of his aching legs, “After all this sitting a think a quick trot to your home is just what the doctor ordered.”

The two Zebras set about cleaning up after their picnic. The basket attaching easily to Eddie’s oversized saddlebags. He gestured for her to lead the way. To which Zecora neatly accepted. All the while Eddie’s mind wandered to other matters he wanted to discuss, but probably best left for the correct moment. After all, he didn’t know how excited Zecora would be to hear he the idea he had been brewing since the day they’d started dating and Zecora was still wondering just what important thing he had yet to ask.

()()(7)()()

The light within the ancient tree hut brimmed against the gathering dark of the evening hours. Within a pair of figures huddles around a few glowing candles and a book, a silver necklace layn before them.

“Here it is,” Zecora finally said after endlessly scanning the tome in front of them, “A son of Steccar, one with the might of our fathers.”

“Hmm,” Eddie started, “that sounds like quite the blessing for someone as ordinary as me.”

“It is actually a rather common one, for stallions anyway. Warriors would usually wear multiple things signifying much the same thing.”

“So jewelry is rather common in Hoofrica?”

Zecora ran a hoof across the multiple rings she wore around her neck, not to mention the few that dangled from her hooves as well. “One could say such a thing.” She then watched him clumsily fasten his collar around his neck.

“So, does it look good on me?”

Zecora gave a throaty chuckle while eyeing the silver collar and its blue gemstone on the stark white and black of Eddie’s coat, “I do not have an eye for fashion, but I say you are rather dashin.”

“Okay now you’re just stretching for those rhymes.” A thought then crossed Eddie’s mind, “Say, backing things up a bit. Speaking of Hoofrica. Do you ever think about going back?”

The question seemed to send a slap across Zecora’s face, “What?”

“Well it’s just that,” Eddie positioned himself a tad closer to his marefriend and spoke in a clearer tone, “I’ve been saving up my bits, and it's taken a long long while to do so mind you. But I think that I’ve finally saved up enough.”

Now Zecora was more confused than she was the moment before, “Enough for what?”

Eddie beamed as he said, “Enough for two tickets to the Hoofrican Savannah, and enough left over for some meager accommodations as well. It would be great! Like a homecoming and a vacation at the same time! Right?”

Zecora looks at his face. The way it held such an adamant joy and hope to finally reveal this gift he wanted to share with her. She knew how badly he had wanted to learn more about Hoofrica, the land of his people, but to take her along on his quest. Her heart… drops, knowing that she can’t say yes.

Despite that she can’t bear to say no, not in this moment, not on this day. “I will have to think about it.” Is her answer.

Eddie’s mood sours slightly. “Oh.” But it brightens in a moment of perceived understanding, “well, I guess I can’t expect such a big question to get answered right away. I still don’t even have a date planned for when we might go. Not that we have to make up our minds quick or anything.”

Zecora let her gaze run over Eddie. Her thoughts wondered about him, about herself, about her past. These thoughts led her to questioning things. Was she in a relationship with him for the right reason? Did she truly enjoy him and wish to be with him or was he just a fleeting glimpse of her past that she wanted to keep lest she lose some final shred of her history. How was she supposed to tell him all of the things swirling in her head?

At that point Eddie could easily make out the distress on his marefriend’s face. “Zecora is everything alright?”

She looked back to him from the long horizon of her thoughts, an air of confusion on her face, “Everything is… fine, what makes you think otherwise?”

Eddie took his time before he spoke, for he wasn’t truly sure if he should breach the subject he was thinking about, “Is this about Hoofrica… or about the reason you left?”

Zecora sat there. Still as could be, her eyes slowly shifting about. Then she gave a long sigh. Her mind made up. She owed him an explanation, after three years she most certainly did. At least as much of an explanation as she was allowed to give, “I can not go back Eddie, and I am afraid I can not tell you why.”

Eddie opened his mouth to protest, then stopped himself. He thought about her, about all of the things they had done together and all of the wonderful conversations they had had about Hoofrica and the Zebras together. It all slowly built up into a feeling that made him take up a very calm and collected voice as he spoke with confidence.

“Zecora...”

She flinched slightly as he was now before her, holding one of her hooves tightly in one of his own.

“I just… I want you to know that I love you. I don’t know if I really understand why you can’t tell me about your past, but I want you to know that I’ll still love you even if I never know. Because I don’t care about our pasts, that’s not what this is about. To be honest I don’t know how much I care about Hoofrica right now, since I have you. I just want you to know that. Okay?”

Zecora feel a warm flutter in her chest. Her sight grows misty as she soaks in his words. In that moment she feels like the luckiest mare alive to have a stallion as patient as Eddie for a coltfriend. She felt herself wanting him now more than ever. This colt who was of the Zebra like she was. Perhaps a gift from the spirits, a reminder of home. Maybe it was a little wrong of her to think such of him, but perhaps it was all a gift of fate. She squeezed his hoof tight and grinned brightly.

Her face then brimmed with a sly look, “Eddie… Come with me.”

Eddie chuffed slightly when she walked past him and brushed her tail in his face, “Um, okay.”

The poor zebra, and his mate, both completely unknowing of what was about to begin…

()()(8)()()

Eddie took a moment to get up off the floor. This gave Zecora a somewhat decent lead to wherever she was headed. Despite this he followed at his own pace. When he saw her push past the elegant curtain which divided the den from the bedroom he paused. He didn’t say a word however, for his curiosity which had stirred before was now peaked.

When he sticks his head in past the curtain to look within his eyes widen and his mouth almost falls open. There, laying upon the bed on her back with striped legs in the air, was Zecora bare in all her nakedness that she could be, teats and all. Now ponies may have not normally worn clothes, but they did wear a special form of enchanted underwear to cloak their naughtier bits. Zecora had picked up on wearing one as well after spending some time in Ponyville. This piece of clothing was now cast on the floor, still magically mimicking the greys and blacks of her rump that it had been worn against just moments before. So to see her exposed in such a way was an intimate affair to say the least.

The implications of Zecora being in such a state ran through Eddie’s mind like a wildfire, burning a hot blush onto his features, “Z-Zecora what… are you? Do you really want-”

She interrupted him with a calm voice, “Eddie… I want this, I want you. Come be with me.”

Eddie isn’t sure what to do, but his body eggs him onwards. He approaches Zecora, seeing her body more than ever before. The many slithering stripes that roll over her body in great numbers, the rings of black that coil over her legs and sharp lines that dart across her chin. Even the blackness of the tip of her muzzle stands out to him now more than ever. He can only think of what she sees in him and his mostly white appearance, his stripes mostly on his back and rump with a few on his face. Surely she must have chosen him for more than his supposed looks.

When he finally crossed the room to her he could only take her in more. The beauty of her curves as he nervously clambered over top her body. The rich smell of crushed plants and peeled roots greeting his nostrils as he nuzzled her chest on the way to her face. What little he could say as he gazed into the beauty that was her deep blue eyes was lost to him. Their gaze peering into his own as he leaned forward and gave her a long kiss that felt more inviting than it had any right to be.

Eddie slowly broke the kiss, feeling a fluttery warmth already kicking up in his gut, “How do you want me?” He said alongside kicking off the underwear he was wearing, letting it join its company on the floor.

She responded with a few heavy breaths, then spoke. “Slow, so I can give you all that I am.”

The couple, now more eager than before, resume their kissing. Each planted smack getting more intense as they begin to huff in each other’s scents. After breaking one of their longer embraces Eddie moves his head lower and begins planting rows of kisses on her neck. With his position lowered Zecora makes her move and grabs at one of Eddie's long ears with her mouth.

He winces and Zecora pulls back, “No,” He leans into his words and says, “more like that!”

Now Zecora is the one that winces as she feels her plot getting grobbed harshly, the plump flesh wrinkling against the hoof that fondled her bum so tightly. She wraps her front hooves over his shoulders and pulls him in close, planting a few playful love bites along his neck before kissing him square on the mouth.

Eddie can feel the blood rushing to his ears, and other parts as well, as he grinded his body against the mare locked beneath him. Every moment a certain something sliding longer and harder out of its hiding place to squeeze its way between them until it nearly traveled all the way up their bellies. At that moment, when he could no longer bare the foreplay any longer, he broke their kissing and spoke plainly.

“Zecora, I never wanted you so badly in all my life.” He grunted as his now raging hard on twitched hard against Zecora’s belly and matted the fur with a small spurt of pre.

She squirmed heartedly as well, for he wasn’t the only one fully heated and ready to blow, “Then take me Eddie, take me.”

He says not a word more. Eddie then brings himself into position. Pushing himself up and away from her as his hips move more in line with her own. His member twitching as it rolled over her teats and pressed against her inner thigh. Luckily enough they had been making love on the edge of the bed to begin with, so getting himself the rest of the way was easy. Soon enough his tip was waiting outside her warm nethers.

Eddie remembers what Zecora had told him earlier and takes it slow. Pressing the head of his cock against her hood and spreading it open, the warmth making him flare reflexively and spread her all the more. Carefully dipping himself in further until a good inch of his modest member is buried inside her sex.

Then he begins to pump. Pushing his hips forward to bury a few more precious inches of zebra cock inside her walls. Pulling back he has to fight against her initial winking to get any of it back. Then he presses in harder, grunting as he does so.

“Zecora-” He huffs out, “you’re so tight!”

Zecora shudders and feels her body clamp down on him again, “And you so thick!” She mutters while feeling warm shivers coursed through her body as his meat begins filling her with its presence.

Eddie’s medial ring pressed against the entrance for some time. Several thrusts necessary to finally let it pop inside. Much to both of their enjoyment as wetness poured from her hole and Zecora shuddered into a small climax. Eventually the rest of his nearly foot and a half length pushed into her body until with a satisfying thwap his hilt landed against her hips.

Then their passion could truly begin. Eddie ramping up his thrusts into a steady rhythm of slaps. Zecora herself losing it time and again as her nethers would clamp down and pull on him time and again. Unable to stop herself from moaning alongside his increasingly deep grunting. Eddie having to fight the ever tightening grip of her cunt until he felt like he was losing a battle of attrition trying to tug himself out of her so he could hilt into her just one more time.

This lasted for a time until Eddie felt something tick inside his body. A pressure building up in his hilt as his nuts seized and pressed up against his body. He realized what was happening all too soon as Zecora’s body seemed to sense the impending flood and tugged all the harder on him.

Amidst the burning passion that was locking up his muscles as the climax neared he shouted, “Ugh~ It’s time. Zecora, it’s time!”

Zecora could swear she felt his cock bulging inside her with its load as pleasure overwhelmed her. She shouted back in kind, “yes Eddie, yes! Let me feel your warmth inside me!”

His face burning with hot red need Eddie began slamming into her all the harder. Every motion making his entire length buzz and shiver with need. Getting ready to cannon its load directly into her womb. When the final thrust finally came he couldn’t stop himself from roaring and shouting like some animal in a barn. The embarrassment melting away into pure enjoyment as he felt the first spurts coating her walls get sucked straight out of his cock by her winking walls. The act of their lovemaking drenching her insides with his seed.

Zecora is lost in the act mostly the same. His warmth cannonballing into her depths untils she feels it nesting somewhere deep in her core. The sudden invasion of thick heat enters a place near her belly, but in a place much more intimate and sensible. Before she could do more than puzzle at this strange feeling a sudden pressure pushed outward from her core. Where that heat had emanated now a gentle glow took hold, all the while a gentle sparkle illuminated inside her eyes. Before she had time to do more than grunt and twist her head about in pleasure something else happened.

Eddie suddenly felt Zecora’s body clamp down on his shaft and pull. Then suddenly, as if his cock were a tear being suckled on by a yearling foal, more heat burst forth from his buried tip and straight into her womb. The glowing thing that was in her belly beneath him warbled and bloated once more. Now even brighter than it once was. Then her sex tugs on him again, and again! Each time Eddie would shudder and scream as his eyes sparked with light at each climax. Loads of his cum bursting endlessly from his shaft into her halls. Feeding this strange event to ever greater heights.

The glowing sphere in her body now the size of a grapefruit. It growls deeper than it did before and shakes suddenly. Zecora’s voice letting out a roar of pleasure as she feels it stretch and tighten inside her until a basketball is now sprouting from her body. Then gain it rumbled, and again Eddie screamed as warmth ejected from him into her womb. The beast rising slowly until an over ripened melon now settled and danced inside her skin. The duo locked in climax, unable to think through the pleasure until there was another warble from the beast, this one even lower and more bestial than ever. It hungered for more, more than it ever had before.

Eddie’s hips uncontrollably jerked forward into Zecora’s, unleashing a massive wad into her waiting womb. The moment it hit there was a satisfied rumbling from the behemoth that made it shudder and shake, the entire taut surface prickling with ripples of motion. Then it began to throb. Punching and pounding with a beat all its own as every ripple was punctuated by a grumble of noises. All of it making Zecora wail in ecstasy and Eddie scream in constant climaxes as it pulled cum from him harder and harder. The twitches coming closer and closer together. A sudden constant stream of them making her thrust her belly into the air, screaming in climax as a magical glow erupted forth from it all in one grand display. With a guttural roar it bloomed to nearly half again its own size. Spreading taller and wider as a tight linea nigra split it into two bulbous halves on her body, the apparent border of her split nation capped with a small fleshy outpost of a nub that had once been her belly button. Zecora’s belly now the size of an over inflated beach ball, split neatly into two rounded halves.

This sight still glowing as her intense thrust had for some reason left the two of them floating in the air. The glow of the thing made her grey coat look white, quite the standout from her black stripes. The aura of it seeming to grab the two of them and gently place them down on the bed together as they huffed and puffed. Coming down from what had been perhaps the most intense session of pleasure either of them had ever experienced in their lives. The glow too seemed to need time to die down as it slowly receded into the depths of Zecora’s belly and stayed there.

Eddie is the first to come out of his stupor. Feeling the vice like grip on his now rather sore cock loosened he pulls himself free. Worry overcomes him as the dizzying haze of pleasure washed away. All that he can see of Zecora is her lower half and her swell of a belly, the sight of it made him awestruck to say the least. It was wider than her, wider than him, and so deep she could probably have fit multiple melons within it. He had to race around the edge of the bed to the other side just to see her face. Thankfully she was awake, but seemed to be in some sort of daze.

“Zecora. Zecora!” He shouted as he gently touched her body and tried to shake her carefully awake.

Slowly she rouses, the mist clouding her eyes clearing as she groans and her limbs reflexively stretch into the air. ‘Eddie?... oooh… what… what happened?“

Zecora suddenly shivers when her belly does something remarkable. It shudders gently. Then… it begins to move ever so slightly. Little bumps and pushes coming from inside the seemingly confused mass. This show going on and on as the two of them watch in what could only be described as worrisome awe.

“Zecora… what is… are you okay?” Eddie says with worry in every word.

Zecora puts a hoof to her mouth as realization finally strikes her mind. Then slowly her hoof falls away in disbelief until she lets out the words. “Eddie I think… I think i’m pregnant.”

As if to confirm her words her precious cargo shifts harshly. Stretching out one side of her belly and rolling its wave of motion into the other side. Making the gravid zebra shake and shudder trying to keep her balance so she doesn’t roll over or fall off the bed. The two Zebras looking to one another soon after as their foal continues to rock about, both of them unsure of what to do or what to say.

End of Chapter 1

Author's Note

Hoorah, I'm back! Not sure when i'll get to pumping out the next chapter but i hope you all can wait, cause things will only be getting BIGGER from here

Chapter 2: Saturn-Sized Stripes and Stretchmarks

Saturn Sized Stripes and Stretchmarks

Chapter 2

Eddie about bolted out of the bedroom. His thoughts racing. “W-we gotta get you to a hospital, now!”

Behind him another figure slowly waddled her way out. The swell of her barrel taking up most of the space in the doorway as she squeezed her way through. She hitched her breath slightly as her belly twitched once more and set off the fluttering occupant into a panicked race of prodding once more. The striped surface racing with lumps that showed as little bumps or long sweeping arcs of moving flesh that stretched her belly further in one direction or the other. All this motion making her over inflated beach ball look to be in the middle of a very intense match of volleyball.

“Eddie,” Zecora began, “we can not go through the forest at night, a place i should not be while such a sight.”

“Then what do we do? Wait!?” Eddie scoffed before he continued. “This is nothing like a botched potion Zecora this is something in your body. We can’t just wait and hope nothing happens!”

“Why must it always be a problem with you? You do not know what this is, what this means! Neither of us do, so let us calm down and-” Zecora’s gut clenched and brought a sudden shudder all over her body. “And-” Her gut clenched again, harder, the skin prickling with heat that moved down into her nethers. Her breathing started to hasten and heave just a little harder as she looked toward Eddie with a spark of panic in her eyes, “The foal… is coming!”

“W-What?” If color could pale from a zebra’s face, Eddie’s was whiter than a ghost at his grave at that moment.

Zecora grunts again as her belly clenched tight. A warmth billowing up in her gut as she has to let her rump fall to the floor in order to sit. Her front hooves going to her waist in an attempt to ease the growing tension with some tender rubs. Zecora’s striped belly shuddering again as it seemed to lift upwards a full inch and compress ever so slightly in a shaky pull inwards. Then it relaxed alongside a warm wave of relief that made her release the tense breath she had held in her chest. A part of her wondering if her beach ball of a belly had gotten a little wider, a little… heavier.

It had to be a trick of her mind, she mentally told herself, a sign of her labor making her muscles tired… and it had surely only just begun. Thankfully in the time it had taken for her to have her little episode of contractions it seemed Eddie had sobered up a smidge.

“What do you need me to do?” Some bit of color seemed to be back on his face as well.

“I’m not sure but-” Zecora grunted as her belly convulsed again, the warmth reaching a degree where she could positively feel it on her hooves. “Go get some towels, and warm water!”

“Okay.” Off he ran to collect the items. Leaving Zecora alone in her den to try and collect herself a little more.

Another pulse of force rippled through her gut. This time the sensations making her lean back until she was splayed out on her back. Her head left to look up at the mound of life quivering in her belly, her hind legs just barely seen poking up over the swell of her rounded girth. The only thing that the sight brought to her mind was the sensations coursing through her body, and that only made her say.

“Why does it feel so good?” With a slight pink blush to her face. For she was no expert in the matters of pregnancy, but she was fairly certain that the act of birth was filled with a fearful tension, not a longing want for more.

Her belly began to quiver once more. Not from the life within, but from the muscles getting nervous and starting to tighten up. Surely enough, Zecora was left to feel the tickle of pleasure racing all over her swollen beach ball. Every moment it grew closer to tightening making her body quake and shiver with need. Her fur alive with tension as she could feel the strengthening pulses rock her belly about more and more.

When the contraction finally hit Zecora outwardly moaned. Stronger than the others this pulse made her gut visibly clench and shake, sending the occupant into a flurry of kicking and squirming that only made Zecora’s drum tight sensitive skin alight with more sensations. Then the warmth struck and it burned with a pressure that pushed outwards. Her girth biting down in tandem with the growing force that rumbled in her core and made her squirm and flail her limbs about in a helpless tantrum of rising pleasure.

A gentle glow began to take hold of her rumbling belly. A gentle sound of growling guts emanated from her core. Zecora’s muscles across her body tightening as something massive was taking place in her womb.

“E-Eddie!” All she managed to moan out before the heat in her belly exploded outwards and her clamping muscles released. Her belly suddenly a sight of grand motions as the force pushed outwards. Warping her belly into odd shapes and motions as every wave was followed with a grumble or a growl from her billowing gut.

Every second of this made Zecora moan and almost scream. Her eyes unbelieving as her belly jumped up higher and bloated out wider. The sight of her stripes getting thicker enough to make her eyes open in stark disbelief. Slowly though her view was devoured with the sight of her grumbling gut as her back legs began to disappear from sight.

Then her belly began to grumble loudly. The skin shaking slightly from the force of it. Then it complained louder, and louder. Every jostle making Zecora’s nethers twitch with pleasure. The zebra mare throwing her head back and moan as a lance of wonderful sensations punched through her gut. Out of her mouth she screamed in ecstasy, “Eddie!” as in the next moment that lance seemed to pop the gathering pressure free. Her body thrusting her belly upward as that gut began blossoming outward, inches of thick girth appearing in mere moments, and more than a little juice flowed from between her tightly pressed together legs.

Eddie appeared a moment later with a towel over his neck and a bucket of warm water held in his teeth. Only to be witness to the aftermath of the tumultuous event. To say the least his reaction of going slack jawed and dropping the bucket all over the floor was more than understandable at the sight of a large striped cider barrel attached to his marefriend’s stomach.

“Zecora!” All he was able to say as he trotted past the wet spot on the floor and went to her side.

Zecora’s eyes could only flutter slightly at what she saw as she whispered out, “Eddie.”

Eddie followed her eyes to the rather intimidating sight of her taut paunch and shook. Watching as it twitched and squirmed with more life than before. “Did we just-?”

“Become parents to twins? I think so.”

The coltfriend in the rapidly growing relationship bit his lip and finally asked, “So what now? Do we just wait for sunup or...”

Zecora took her eyes off the rather thought provoking sight attached to her body and looked around the room trying to think until her eyes fell across an opened package by her note taking desk. A hoof went to her forehead as she exclaimed, “Ugh, I am such a fool, the parchment on the stool!”

He followed her pointing hoof right away and found the parchment she spoke of. At least he thought he had found it, the paper seemed burnt slightly and in rather poor condition. “I don’t think express mail will help us all the way out-”

“Eddie!” She shouted, “For once just focus and listen to me.”

“Alright, sorry, you’re right.” He gripped a finely sharpened quill and dipped it in ink, then spoke in a practiced manner of one with something in their mouth, “What do you want me to write?”

“Just write ‘help’ or ‘emergency’. That will get her to come right away. Then burn it!”

Eddie didn’t question, he followed her order and wrote down both words. He trotted over to the smoldering pit of coals in the center of the room and cast the note in. The paper sat for a moment on the coals, seemingly inert. Then it gained a greenish hue and was consumed in a sudden vortex of green fire that engulfed the entire firepit in a similarly glowing flame. Then just as soon as it happened the fire and its heat vanished.

He waited for a moment to speak. Looking over at his marefriend who seemed far too alone at the moment given what had happened. His desire to see her happy again drove him to lay down next to her head, and give her cheek a little nuzzle. “Do you want a pillow? Maybe get you back up on the bed?”

She shook her head slowly. “No I...” One of her hooves slowly went to her belly and carefully touched it as though it would vanish from the disturbance. All it did from her attentions was continue to shift and toil under her hoof. “I’m afraid if i try to get up i might hurt them.” She let out a few low chuckles as she continued to rub her tummy.

“Zecora?”

“Oh Eddie look at me,” She grasped at her womb with both her front legs and found it difficult to barely get it within her grasp, “Prodigiously pregnant in such a monstrous fashion and already i worry for them.” She slowly shook her head, “I do not know if this is a miracle or a curse.”

“Maybe… a little bit of both?”

Zecora looked to her coltfriend and his perplexed face. One that spawned a short smile on her own, “Maybe my young lover, maybe.”

Eddie simply sat nearby with hope that his presence was enough for his marefriend. Just as the two of them seemed ready to calm down from the events of the recent few minutes the air near the front door began to swirl with nebulous purple energy.

“Right on que.” Zecora flatly said

In the next instant there was a loud zap that sparked in the air. Eddie’s ears twitched from the deluge of magical energy filling the air. Now all that purple energy filled into a single blinding white point. Moments later that point exploded and let air rush through the room.

*POOF*

Eddie’s eyes simply went wide as he watched a mare of living legend appear in his marefriend’s living room.

“Zecora, i got your message. What’s the emer-” Twilight let out a loud gasp, “oh my goodness what happened?”

Eddie opened his mouth to answer but was cut off before he could answer.

“Potion or magic!” She shouted down his throat.

“What?”

“Po-tion or ma-gic.” She stressed.

“I don’t know this all just sort of happened.”

Twilight groaned, “Okay then we’ll get her diagnosed, luckily i know a reliable prenatal doctor who is in town that specializes in magically augmented pregnancies. Now stay still both of you.”

The aura around her horn glew brighter. A supernova of energy erupting around the space and making itself cling to the gathered zebras with a prickly purple glow. When the aura touched Zecora’s belly it made the entire mass grumble and shift as the foals were enveloped in extra energy that made the womb dimly glow from within.

“Five to teleport? You got twins in there?”

Zecora grunted a little as her womb began to shift and squirm, “How big do you think foals are Twilight?”

The all knowing book pony blushed slightly and closed her eyes. Pushing all thought from her mind she lifted her head up and cast the spell. WIth a prompt zap that made wind rush through the space which knocked knick knacks from their places the entire group vanished.

()()(1)()()

The air of ponyville general was one of pleasant boredom. For there was nothing that the receptionist loved more than an excuse to relax and do some paperwork between the bouts of insanity that was a medical emergency. To her experienced mind she felt that perhaps they were overdue for one, or perhaps two, at the current time, but she didn’t want to jinx it by thinking about it too much. Just as she was beginning to think about pulling out a book and catching up on her reading when the papers on her desk began to sparkle and swirl about in the air before her.

“What the ha-” Her words stolen from her as there was a blinding flash in the center of the waiting room, chairs pushed back to make room by the expanding purple nova of energy. Before she could brush the blinding light from her eyes there was a purple pony in her face from across the desk.

She blinked a few more times, “W-what?”

“Is doctor Megal still in?”

The receptionist finally managed to get her vision back and addressed the unicorn head promptly, “Dr. Megal is currently unavailable, his office hours stopped about three minutes ago so-”

“Well call him up and tell him he’s working overtime, Princess’ orders!”

“Princess?” She leaned forward and over her desk to get a better look at the purple pony and who she was rushing to help up. She gasped when she saw the wings, but what made her gasp twice was the sight of two zebras, one struggling to get up with a massive womb under her, stark naked with their junk showing clear as day. Before she could do more than work up a holler for them to get an underveil out of the supply closet they were already moving down the halls toward the doctor. She grumbled and grabbed the phone and called up the doctor to give him at least some form of early warning.

()()(2)()()

A well aged yellowish unicorn with a flowing white mane and tail sighed deeply, “Yes I understand I’ll see to them promptly.”

The white aura that grasped the phone quickly hung it back up on the hook.

“Princess’ orders, hmph,” He straightened his coat a bit and tidied up his hair in a mirror to look good for the arrival of royalty, “Probably that student of hers again, just had another scare from her experiments with her traveling magician friend.”

He heard the gallop of hooves down the hall and turned to meet the approaching pony. That which entered through the door made his eyes open in mild shock. “Princess Twilight Sparkle? In the flesh?”

She seemed to barely hear him, “Doctor Megel, I’m here about a friend. I think she has a serious case of S.F.G.S.”

Megel smiled, “Sudden Fetal Growth Syndrome? Miss Sparkle,” he almost couldn’t believe he was talking down to a princess but she sounded like every other worried self-diagnosed case he heard every day, “that typically only happens during the first trimester when the womb has plenty of room for growth. Even then it’s uncommon. Chances are your friend is only feeling some mild discomf-”

His smile was wiped from his face as he watched Zecora waddle into the room. Her massive width brushing the edges of the doorway slightly in a way that made her eyes bulge for a moment as she realized her own girth. The stallion trailing close behind was another unimportant matter entirely as his eyes never left the sight in front of him.

“Perhaps… I should hear this from the start.”

Thirty minutes later…

Megal placed the stethoscope on another part of the exposed grey womb in front of him. Zecora having gotten up on the bed and lay on her back as asked earlier. He stowed the medical instrument and let his horn glow. The white aura suffused the rather massive womb in front of him and a moment later two small lights floated above, gently pulsing in time with their tiny heartbeats.

“Well the facts seem to back up the story,” Megal began, “and you’re sure there was no magic involved. No hubby felt inadequate so he had a unicorn friend try a virility spell?” He looked at Eddie with a discerning eye, whom vigorously shook his head to the question, “and no potions either? No attempt to jump start the family unit with a tempting tonic?” Zecora swore on her honour that this was not the case either. Megal simply sighed, “Then this will take a few more tests, and alot more time.”

“Is there any way i can help.” Twilight finally butted in, “I am the element of magic after all. I just wanted the eye of an expert before I started doing my own tests. I’m sure if we worked together we can narrow down what is causing this.”

Megal smiled slightly, “Yes, i’m flattered by the esteem you seem to hold in me my princess. We can set about a few more delicate tests but first...” He turned to the only other stallion in the room, “Eddie was it? I have seen my quota of dicks for the day and would like to stop seeing yours out of the corner of my eye every other second, would you kindly go down the hall to the supply closet and get yourself an underveil. One for your marefriend too for when you two are ready to leave.”

“Oh um, yes of course.” Eddie shyly backed away and trotted out the door then down the hall.

“That was a little, harsh.” Twilight stated.

“Yes, but the young stallion has been on the verge of a freak out since he got in here. I figure a good scream in the supply closet is just what he needs to set his nerves straight.”

“You could tell that just by looking at him.”

Megel laughed, “My dear princess I’m the first and last line of defence a stallion has to finding out if he is the father. That supply closet has seen more freakouts than the sisters have seen souters.”

()()(3)()()

The door closed neatly behind Eddie. Then, calmly, he took in a nice deep breath…

And began to scream.

His utter panic took the shape of a rather emasculate sound that thankfully didn’t ring all the way down the hall to the room that held Zecora and the curious magical testing that preoccupied the two talented experts of the room. However it did catch the attention of one nurse who trotted down the hall, whom it garnered a small smirk that said ‘shoulda worn a condom bro’.

The sounds of his long labored declaration of panic soon passed into near hyperventilation as he sat down with his back against the door. His hooves going over his eyes as he tried to collect himself.

“What is even happening right now?”

Collecting his thoughts, specifically of that last few minutes, was about all he could do. For a moment, back at the hut, he remembered being almost at peace. Something about Zecora being so calm about it all, lent some air that it was going to be okay, but now that there were other ponies involved. Important ponies that held some air of expertise in magic and those same ponies being concerned. It just felt like it was falling apart again.

Then the worst part. He felt it twitch again. Between his legs, ever since they got to the clinic and he had to walk behind her. It wasn’t the fact that she was naked, it was the fact that she was just so…

“Pregnant...”

It was all in the way she carried herself. Of course she wobbled a bit, unsure of all that weight between her four legs, but the look of her womb gently swaying from left to right with her gait. It was enough to drive him mad, and her stripes. Stretched so far, easily twice their natural width, and not just on her gut. Her plot in his face, thicker, he knew it had to be thicker. There was no way it had such mass when last he had gazed upon it.

The thoughts sending butterflies into his stomach. Swirling in a mass that tickled his loins until-

“N-no, no!” His hooves went over his groin, “Not here, not after you almost got stiff in the hallway watching her back end move back and forth with every-”

The image was stuck in his mind. The curves of her rump, the sway of her hips. The mare he loved somehow even more beautiful than she had been before. He just wanted to mount her and-

All the butterflies in his stomach abruptly changed direction. Surging downwards into his lower reaches as suddenly the warmth in his groin doubled in intensity. He began to unsheath, and no amount of childish rejection was going to stop it. He shuddered as he leaned back against the door and watched it climb, but something was off.

It wasn’t until it had almost reached full mast that he noticed it. His medial ring, it was nowhere in sight. The second he was aware of that oddity he felt a hot pulse all over his cock. A tickly tingle that shuddered into his body and he felt oddly… bigger. His eyes resting higher than they were a moment before. That sensation bouncing off his body and surging back into his dick.

Eddie’s eyes going wide as his foot and a half mast erection stiffened, throbbed, and then pushed even higher out of his sheath. His unbelieving mind frozen in place as it shuddered and throbbed, spitting upwards a few precious inches and getting noticeably thicker too. Even his balls were feeling heavier, growing bulbous and tight in his sack until it seemed even they ignored what was possible to be held within, almost tripled in size. This all happening time and again, each time the sensation bouncing around his body. The pounding in his cock getting harder and harder, Longer and longer until it crested three and a half feet in height. So close he could tickle it with his snout. A single strong vein running from base to nearly the tip. Everything tensing, growing tighter, he needed release. He needed-

“Zecora…” His voice so deep, it didn’t sound like his voice. He didn’t even fully realize it, nor did he fully notice that his head was scraping against the top of the door frame, neither did he register the width of his ass filling up more space on the floor. All he wanted was to-

“Seed.” He grunted and twisted as his balls curled close and began to pump, the base of his cock starting to swell.

“SEED.” He hugged his own cock and started to pump his forelegs across the length, the touch like lightning across the entire girth, muscles flickering with even more tension as the swelling cum started to climb. Pre racing up the length to bubble and spit. His cock a warming volcano firing off at the tip. The deep rasp of massive lungs heaving and sighing with passion as he sped up, nearing a finish.

“SEED!” His voice pinching at the finish. Crying out in a primal fashion for the gathering storm to finally crash into him. His entire length starting to throb, twitching and smashing into his chest time and again as the gobs of cum raced up the length from the sheer force of his muscles clenching down on the bomb in his body. The bubbling and spitting of his cock’s tip replaced with racing rivulets, and then tiny ropes, until finally his flare started to bulge. His entire length filled to bursting, one last twitch, one last groan, one last involuntary squeeze of his groins cum firing muscles.

“AAAAAAAH!”

The bulged flare opened up and a rope easily the size of his foreleg shot straight up. Plastering the ceiling with a layer of white, but that wasn’t the only one. Rope after rope, his orgasm rolling onwards again and again. His chest heaving as sweat rolled down his body. His mind filled with an image, an image of his love being plastered in his seed. Her womb twitching and shaking as he frosted her tummy from grey to white. Every blast filled with that passion to make love to her, grunting and gnashing his teeth as his cock wobbled and sprayed every corner of the room with some amount of his copious amounts of cum. Then as impressive as his orgasm began it inevitably started to end.

His rock hard pole started to limp, and impressive ropes turned into gobby spurts splotching the floor before him. Eddie himself feeling oddly weak, and weaker by the second. Everything starting to feel a tad more familiar to himself as he watched his meat recede into himself. Stuffing itself neatly back in place, not seemingly any worse for wear.

“Ugh.” He started when his senses started to come back to him. “What?”

Before he could think to say another word a glob of something hot and white splotched off the ceiling and landed upon his head. Clearly covering nearly half his face as realization suddenly hit him. Looking around the utterly annihilated and tightly packed supply room what had happened came flooding back to him.

“Oh sweet sisters,” He looked down at his package, clearly larger than it had been before, easily requiring a slip three sizes larger than he had worn just a few hours prior, “What is happening!?” At the very least the rest of him seemed unchanged from what he was before the odd episode of… whatever that was.

Then he heard a humming. A strange almost silent noise, but it seemed to reverberate with power. The air of the supply closet grew dim and began to glow with a blueish light. Eddie could feel the hum in his chest and he looked down, astonished as he saw the collar he had been given was the source. Specifically the blue crystal in the center of the device.

“No, nononono, no more magic, no more weirdness, no more-” Before he could finish the light of the collar sparked brighter. Little motes of light shooting out from it and into the scattered cum around the room. Eddie didn’t know what to think about the light show, but then suddenly all the cum started to float off the floor, ceiling, and walls. Moving with a purpose directly towards him. He braced, sure his future was a musky sticky nasty mess. Instead he felt the hum of the collar grow stronger, the globs of cum soaring towards him making a bee line for the crystal embedded in the collar and then…

It just started sucking it all up. The gallons of cum sprayed across the room just disappearing into the blue gemstone, even the stuff glued to his face coming free with little effort. By the time it was all done and ‘cleaned up’ he was left with even more questions.

“No!” He reached for the clasp for the collar behind his head, fiddling with trying to find it, “It’s you its gotta be you. Some curse, some magical THING!” He kept trying to find the clasp to no avail, “Where did it go? It was right there!” The panic in his voice starting to grow, “Please all this weirdness it has to stop, IT HAS TO STOP!”

His voice trailing off, unheard outside the supply closet as a dimly glowing blue barrier sound proofed the room.

()()(4)()()

Zecora simply stared at the ceiling. Lost inside her own thoughts as she tried to meditate on what was happening. She didn’t truly understand what was going on with these tests and magical measurement that were going on, more than a half dozen runes scrolled across her womb with a magically sensitive paint. Something about a depth of magical power here, a complexity of spun life magic there. All she really knew was that she was relieved, truly relieved, to hear them speak of how healthy the foals were and how healthy she was. Apparently her skin was thick, or specifically had thickened to support the sheer amount of pressure her womb exerted outwardly. She was in no danger of ‘rapid expansion strain’ which she was very grateful to hear. Now, as the two mages bickered about possible magical sources, Zecora was neatly touching her womb. Feeling her foals toss and turn about inside. The sensations still so wonderful and new to her, still feeling that desire somewhere deep inside her as she had when the second one had become real. A wish for…

“More...” She whispered under her breath. Not sure why she wanted such a thing. This surprise motherhood would be monstrous to so many, but to her it was simply… wonderful. The time spent being prodded and touched by Twilight and the doctor merely gave her more time to process what had happened to her. The presence of the twins merely being in her womb making it feel so warm and full. The way they would gently prod and poke. Sometimes even fighting with one another for more room, if she had the room she would gladly give it but alas they would need to struggle against her ready walls.

“Maybe it’s some kind of magic of the everfree forest? A ley line shift?” The doctor questioned, grabbing Zecora’s attention.

“No, can’t be. All the Ley lines run around Zecora’s hut. Most of them ending at the Sister’s Castle or where the tree of harmony was planted. An alignment shift of the ley lines of the scale to move through Zecora’s hut and cause this sort of reaction would give every unicorn for miles around a really nasty headache alongside the more easily applicable arcana tests showing results almost instantly.”

“What about plantlife. Spores or something less pure magic and possibly bio-arcanicle, like poison joke.”

“Zecora knows the ins and outs of every plant around her hut. If anything she probably knows the most out of anypony in Equestria about what's in the Everfree, with a few surprises notwithstanding. There was nothing like that in play, not potions either if your tests tell it true, although I might pop over to the hut later to run more intrusive tests on the property. Thankfully your tests ruled out something parasitic. No i think this was magical. We just gotta figure out the source, and what triggered it.”

“I do understand the need to find out the source but we must also focus on what it has done to Zecora’s body, like if this growth has caused-” Mengel’s counterpoint inturrupted a long drawn out note, rumbling and needy, loud enough to gently shudder the grey mass is came from, “-a deficit of caloric need.”

Twilight was first to her old friend’s side. “You hungry Zecora?”

Zecora looked about as if it was obvious, but added, “More than hungry i do feel beat, but i could stand a bite to eat.”

“Please tell me the the clinic has something more than vending machines at this hour.”

Doc Mengel laughed heartily, “We’re not a hospital, but there is a staff kitchen. Come with me I’ll let you in. Though i believe it best for your Zebra friend to stay here, rest is probably her best treatment at the moment.”

Twilight nodded then spoke one more time to Zecora before leaving, “Be right back, nothing will happen I promise.”

The pregnant mare watched them go. Left alone in the room on the bed by herself. The monument to her apparent fertility rising over her the only company she had besides the lights overhead. She watched her foals twitter about, a gentle motion, but something else weighed on her mind.

She had lied.

Not a big lie, not by a mile. It was just that, when her belly rang aloud, it was not food she wanted found. It had merely growled, and stirred the two passengers into more kicks that she now gently massaged at in hope it would calm them down. In truth the growl had… tickled, but not in the way that made one laugh. It was a fluttery feeling, down deep in her core. A warm kick in the fullness of her belly that made everything feel… heavier, fuller…

“Bigger...” The word danced on her lips. The thoughts and images it conveyed for even the briefest of moments made her blush crimson. Did she really want that? Did she really wish for this entire situation to grow even stranger?

No sooner had the word left her lips than something happened. With her hooves outstretched on the far reaches of her womb she felt it in her core and on her hooves. A long drawn out yowl from her gut made her wince and then start panting slowly.

“You’re not hungry are you?” She said to it, leaning back in the bed, taking the entirety of it in the scope of her vision.

This time the growl was so loud every inch of that grey behemoth shuddered. The feeling so strong she swore she could feel her womb stretching outwards by centimeters, pushing and swelling so intimately with her senses. Already the feeling of heft and tightness making her squirm.

“You want to *huff* grow don’t you?”

Her womb stretched, distorting its shape from left to right. Starting to roar as the need to be fuller started to consume her thoughts.

“Then grow, GROW!”

Her grey mass quivered. Quaking with might as the heat from before shot through her womb and made her foals kick all the harder. Everything working together to stretch their mommy, to try and make her grow. She panted and groaned as her hind legs seized up and craned outwards her spine bowing as she shoved her womb toward the sky. The grumbling, kicking, and stretching making her body feel on fire. Then there was a punch, a burst from within, a force that made her womb widen to the left, then to the right, swelling the cider barrel to a point where it would burst until it finally kicked straight up. Zecora shouted in pleasure as the heft of her womb grew to the point where she was beyond just a single barrel.

“T-three?” She said when her body landed once again on the bed, the additional set of legs kicking up a storm with its brother and sister. After a few heavy breaths Zecora uttered a word, “More…” her belly grumbled, a heavy chirp of noises, excited noises, “More!”

Her shout making her belly lurch. The weight tossing itself around on the bed as Zecora latched her legs onto what she could find to try and keep herself steady. Heaving and panting as every jostle and motion tickled her insides. A rising heat building deep in her core, getting ready to fire, getting ready to- “Grow!” she commanded, and with that word her womb burbled the loudest it ever had and it ballooned outward. Her womb seemed to commit mitosis, her single rounded barrel splitting down the middle and growing. Pushing one half larger than the other, then in a motion like breathing the other caught up. Getting almost impossibly wide and frightfully tall. Two twitching kicking bloated cider barrels rumbled to fill her vision with a monument to her own fertility. The heat and the noise slowly, SLOWLY, winding down as Zecora just twitched and shook from the passion that made her hips quite wet.

“F-four. A nice start… *huff*”

While she lay there, recovering, the sound of conversation outside the room caught her attention.

“-and that was when i realized she wasn’t an evil enchantress and-” Twilight turned her head and gasped. The plate of greens she held with her magic clattered to the floor.

“Great cantering colts!” The doctor next to her said in similar surprise.

Zecora wasn’t entirely lucid when they came up to her. Barking questions at her addled brain, but she was aware of an object being pressed against her womb, a crystal of some kind.

It went from colorless to a blinding silver radiance in a matter of moments.

“Sweet Celestia,” Doctor Megal’s jaw almost dropped, “That should have taken fifteen minutes not fifteen seconds.”

“What does it mean doctor?”

“It means your friend is rife with life magic, the potency must be almost pure its suffusing every part of her… I want your friend to be as close to this clinic as possible.”

“Is she in danger?”

“I don’t know, I need to run some tests that will take a few days. Meanwhile you have to keep her close in case… in case this happens again. An additive sudden fetal growth syndrome is one thing, but multiplicative? It’s completely impossible, infeasible, yet… I’m staring right at it.”

Twilight tapped a thinking hoof to her chin a few times, “Well i could keep her at the castle. I just need some time to move a few things and give her a proper space, but where can she stay while I-”

The door opened one more time. A zebra stallion huffing and puffing as he looked to have all the energy drained from his body, a feminine underveil in his teeth. When he looked up however his eyes turned to pinpricks and some of that energy seemed to flow back into him. He dropped the underveil and trotted over to Zecora.

“Are you okay?”

“I’m fine just a little… stuffed.”

He smiled, “you look fit to burst.” His eyes going over the womb that looked like two cider barrels tied together, she would be lucky if it didn’t touch the floor when she got out of that bed.

She smiled back, and her belly gave a little auditory grumble while a few streaks of fetal movement coursed along the tight surface.

“Eddie,” he looked toward Twilight, “would you be comfortable with keeping Zecora at your place in town for a few days. I’ll have better accommodations in a few days but i have this diplomatic meeting at my castle for a good portion of the foreign rulers and i’m afraid space is beyond premium right now.”

“Yes, of course, anything, just… is she going to be alright?”

Doctor Mengel butted in quickly, “While this situation is unprecedented i will go on record to mention there has never been a single fatality related to Sudden Fetal Growth Syndrome, and while your friend here is certainly trying to break her own anatomical limitations,” He placed an instrument on Zecora’s womb, it blinked a few times then turned green, “hmmm, a little thicker than I expected. Anyway while she is in no danger of bursting. It seems whatever is making her fetuses grow and multiply is also keeping everything else in check to see to it that she is able to carry them. In fact I’m not quite sure if i’ve seen a healthier mother.”

There was an entire room of relieved sighs. Followed by a few more quick tests, then the portion of trying to help Zecora out of the bed. The doctor had to call on two nurses and recruit Eddie and Twilight’s help as well. Gently, carefully turning her over, the bed lowered to touch the floor. Zecora then trying to find the width she needed to plant her hooves on the floor before she heaved and lifted herself up. It felt a tad easier than she imagined it would, were her legs getting stronger, was it all in the hips like the doctor said… were her hips getting bigger? She looked over her shoulder twice and tried to gauge it, but the sight of her womb jutting so far out to the sides was too much. She would need to turn the hallways into a one way road just to leave the building.

Twilight went out of the room first and watched as Zecora approached. She moved with some confidence, even if her gait had a bit of a waddle to it, but when she grunted due to the sides of her womb becoming planted in the doorway she looked to her friend with a pleading pout.

“It’s okay, i got this.” Her horn alighted. Moments later the door frame glowed purple as well. Then in one simple motion, the wood seemed to breath and it stretched. Zecora sighed some form of relief and waltzed through.

Eddie chimed in, “I think we’ll be good at my apartment. Saunter is a big pony and we got an apartment with big doorways as well.”

“Good,” Twilight however looked toward Zecora and said, “don’t worry I'll take some time and make an amulet… or maybe a neck ring that will have the spell in it. You’ll be able to walk through tight doorways all you want… but not hallways, i don’t think i could pump that much magic into a device and have it be safe.”

“It’s alright Twilight, we all do what we can.” Twilight continued to lead the way as Zecora made her way down the tight hallway on her own.

While they went out Eddie took a moment of privacy with the doctor.

“Say doc, can that sudden fetal whatever syndrome affect stallions?”

The Doctor shook his head, “No the magic is strictly femanine in nature. The only way it would affect you would be if you were pregnant as well… are you?” he said with a curious eye that bordered on a fanatical desire to hear him say yes.

“No-no, no.” The doctor turned around and explained he must be going, packing up his instrument and taking extra care with the glowing silver crystal he had, leaving Eddie by himself, “Then what’s up with me?” He suddenly remembered his absurdly pregnant marefriend and almost galloped out of the room, his much larger than normal slip riding a little tight to remind him that all that happened in the supply closet was indeed not a dream.

End of Chapter 2

Chapter 4: Split Personalities

Chapter 4

Eddie rested. His head lay over the shoulder of his mare. All around them lay four sleeping foal's. The fresh air filled his body with a calmness that was not shaken by one of his colt's snoring. Beneath the shade of the tall tree's vibrant boughs nothing seemed to be able to disturb them. Until Zecora squirmed slightly against Eddie’s restful spooning.

He awoke in a tired fog, "What's the matter hun?"

She breathed deeply a few times, “I think I feel them, closer now than before.” Her eyes went to the starry sky above them, a few choice stars twinkling from her gaze. “There.” She announced with a point to the sky.

Eddie looked towards the groups of stars she singled out. Slowly, easily, four specks of light seemed to drift down from the heavens. Closer they came until their place of landing became clear, out in the tall grass where all the others had come from.

Zecora could already hear the frightened sobbing of her foals amidst the calming sounds of night. “Eddie-”

“Don’t worry, I’ll go get them.” He stated like he had done for all the others.

When he rose the sound of his hooves against the earth awoke the slumbering colts and fillies, but their mother kept them close. She did not want them to wander off after their father. Eddie ignored their questions to their mother, about where he was going, about the crying in the fields. He stopped at the precipice of the grass that grew taller than the obstructing field, then closed his eyes and took a deep breath. He still wasn’t used to it, to the feeling of a split mind, but something to focus on made it easier. When he took that step into the grassy forest it felt like his head went in four directions at once, yet at the same time he moved towards only one. The farthest one, the weakest one.

To him it felt like a straight line. A knowing where this new one lay, even as it panicked and cried. He found where it had started and followed its path of bent grass deeper into the thicket. By that time he could hear it, a filly by what his ears told him. She sobbed and sniffled until at last he found her. The form obscured by grass and darkness of night, but unmistakingly one who would be his daughter.

The poor thing had yet to notice him, and he had no intention of sneaking up on her, “hello little one.”

She jumped, her head snapping to face him. Big brown eyes pleaded with him as she just stared. “W-who’re you?”

He grinned, she was already taking to words, “I’m a friend.”

“That’s a good thing, I suppose.” She sniffled and rubbed her muzzle on her arm, “Where am I? All I remember is waking up and feeling lost.”

Eddie put a hoof to his chin, none of the others asked quite so many questions, they were drawn to him, drawn to Zecora. “I’m not quite sure myself. We are in a place between, a place of preparation and learning. A place of… family.”

“Family.” She rose to that word, like she knew it, tried and true, “Are you my family?”

Now he couldn’t help but smile, “Yes, me and many others. Are you ready to meet them?”

She didn’t seem to hear the latter half of what he said, instead looking at herself, “But. But I don’t look like you.”

She stepped forward into the moonlight and Eddie’s eyes went wide. She had the basics of the zebra down, the equine form, the mohawk, the tail, but her stripes. She didn’t have stripes. Instead there were splotches of brown smeared over her face, her chest, her haunches, and in those splotches of brown were dozens of white dots.

Eddie just looked at her for a time. For so long in fact that she started to frown. He caught himself in time before any waterworks could commence and shrunk himself down then trotted towards her. He wrapped a hoof around her and held her tightly to his chest, “you are mine, and we will always know that. Never doubt that everyone here is your family, and your family loves you no matter how different you are.”

She buried her head against him and wrapped her hooves around what she could of him. Grateful to no longer be alone.

“Now, you need a name,” he loosened his grip and looked her in the eye, searching for one, until it stared him straight in the face. “How about,” he lifted a hoof and booped her right on the nose, “Dot.”

{}{}{}{}{}

Eddie slumbered atop a living mattress that thankfully wasn’t squirming. The owner of said mattress dwarfed him at a ratio of about two to one without said mattress that was attached to her body. All was right in the world for the expectant couple as Eddie smiled and mumbled out a word.

“Dot.”

The peaceful smile on his face was attacked a moment later as his alarm went off, fully blaring that the real world had come calling for its tithe. He shouted slightly as his eyes popped open and he lost the careful balance of being on Zecora’s belly. Sliding off the side and flopping onto what was left of his old mattress laid carefully on the floor for just such an emergency.

“Crap crap crap,” He muttered as he went over to the alarm to turn it off, when he looked at the time he sighed a small bit of relief, “Oh i thought that was my second alarm, thank Celestia.”

He turned around when he heard Zecora waking up as well. The sight of his massive matriarchal mountain of motherhood staring at him from around its prodigious girth was something to say the least.

“Work already?”

He nodded. “Gotta earn my bits if we’re gonna keep feeding ya.” Then he muttered, “and maybe a raise or five if you’re gonna keep eating half the haul like you did yesterday.”

She pouted as she lay on her side, rubbing what she could of her womb, “The kids are going to miss their favorite hot water bottle.”

Now he smirked, “Is that all I am to you, an object for your girthy pleasure?”

She smiled at him, “Well it got them to stop kicking last night, and you seemed to pass out just fine compared to that mattress on the floor.”

He trotted over and smooshed his head against her womb, feeling the warmth of it that had sapped the aches out of his body last night, “You are one heck of a lay Zecora.”

She grinned with pure self-satisfaction, “I could say the same about you.”

He could feel it building in him already, “Do you have any idea how badly I wanna… wanna just-” He grunted as his necklace shimmered blue and he sprouted half a foot in the air.

There was a knocking at the makeshift ‘door’ to his room. A shower curtain hung over the blown open hole. The moment he heard it a cold shock ran down his spine and Eddie shrunk almost immediately. Thinking to himself why couldn’t he do that on purpose.

Saunter then poked his head in, “Hey Eddie, you gettin ready yet? It's the Luna-palooza sofa sale today and we gotta head in early to unload the extra wagons.”

Eddie groaned like a child told to eat his greens before dessert, “forgot about that. Thanks Saunter I’ll be right out.”

Saunter let the curtain fall shut, then immediately opened it again, “Oh yeah, before I forget.” He trotted inside and placed a letter on Zecora’s outstretched hoof, “An… owl… dropped this off. Marked for you and all that.”

Saunter left the room shortly after. Letting Zecora read the paper over herself.

When her eyes went wide Eddie opened his mouth, “Everything alright?”

She put the scroll down carefully, and spoke just so, “The summit at Twilight’s castle has been convened early.”

“Oh, well that’s good news. Get you a bigger pad to crash on, heheh.” He looked into her eyes and didn’t like the way she was looking back at him, “It is good news, isn’t it?”

“Twilight herself called for it to end early. For there was an emergency she felt was more important. She was called in the night by Doctor Megal who told her that something was wrong, very wrong. She is coming over at first light to move me into better quarters within her castle.”

“What… What, does that mean ‘wrong’? Is she going to quarantine you? What’s going to happen?”

“I don’t know,” Zecora’s eyes grew slightly misty, “I hoped to have a few more days with you before all of this started but it seems fate doesn’t want us together.”

“No, I won’t let that happen,” Eddie said with a confident stamp of his hoof on the floor, “I’ll be damned to tartarus before I let her split us apart. I’m staying with you through all of this and that’s final!”

“Eddie...”

Saunter then shouted out from the living room, “Yo Eddie hurry up you got like five minutes!”

Eddie looked at Zecora, so sure, so steadfast in his decision.

She hated to, but she had to say it, “Then who will help Saunter pay for the damages to the apartment?”

“Huh?” He said back as her words struck him.

“Who will help him pay rent? You cannot abandon your friends just for me Eddie… we have to let things happen as they are… Go to work Eddie, it’s where you are needed.”

“But… What about… I can't.”

Saunter shouted for him again while Zecora just looked at him heartbroken. His head hung low, and he turned to leave. One last goodbye over his shoulder as he went out of the room.

In the living room Saunter fussed with his work vest and looked at Eddie. “Woah, bad news?”

“You could say that.”

“It’ll work itself out, don’t worry about it. Now come on we got sofas to move.” He went for the door as Eddie opened the coat closet to grab his vest.

As Eddie was putting it on he felt himself stopping, “Hey Saunter you go on ahead I forgot something.”

“Alright.”

The door shut behind him as Eddie went to the center of the living room, looking towards the hallway to the bedrooms. “I’ll stay.”

He took two steps towards Zecora until her words hit him again and he cringed, looking back towards the door, “I’ll go.”

His heart slammed in his chest as he thought of the last time seeing her being that hurt face, “No, no, I should stay.”

His brain overpowered his heart and listed reason upon reason why he couldn’t just throw away everything he worked for just for this, “But...”

The warmth in his chest he felt for his foal bearing lover burned inside him, “I have to...”

His rump planted itself on the floor as his hooves went to his aching head, a war of feelings and logic storming about in his mind as he grunted as if in pain. In one eye he saw his friends, his life, all slipping away as he and Zecora were washed away down the crazy river of fate. In the other he saw her and a hundred thousand faces slipping away from him to be locked away and forgotten. All the while the air around him hummed, the necklace at his neck pulsed. His eyes opened, lighting arced down his back and sparked upon his plot, irises shining bright white.

“I NEED TO DO BOTH!”

The shining light in his eyes enveloped his entire form, lifted him into the air, scattered junkmail flying around in the air as a vortex consumed his body. Then in a blast of energy two bodies were thrown to either end of the room. One into the closet, another behind the sofa.

There was silence, for a time. Until Saunter poked his head in the front door. “Yo, Eddie, you coming or not?”

A moan came from the closet.

“Eddie? Dude what are you doing in there we gotta go, like now.”

“Oh geez, my head feels like I got bucked and hung over at the same time.”

“Not to be mean dude, but we gotta go, come on.” Saunter trotted over to the closet and fished his friend out of it. Dusted him and his work vest off, and looked his head over for a moment, “Probably just need a little water, I'll buy you one on the way, but come on we can’t dawdle anymore.”

“Right. Ugh,” He trotted after his friend who held the door open for him.

When it slammed shut a noise came from behind the couch. A moaning that trailed on as he fought to get himself out from behind the piece of heavy furniture.

Eddie pulled himself out eventually and groaned, “Why was I?”

The voice of Zecora came from his room, “Twilight was that you? I thought I heard the din of magic in the air.”

He looked around in confusion. What was she talking about? He got himself up and gave his body a good shake to dust off the blurry feeling in his head. Without a word he trotted over to the curtain that led to his room and halfway crossed it, the light of the hallway shining over his body as he looked a concerned Zecora in the eye.

“I’m staying Zecora.”

Why he felt so sure of himself, so resolute and confident that the other decision was handled, he wasn’t sure. All he knew was that he was with the mare he loved and that was all that mattered.

{}{}{}{}{}

“You want a what?” Saunter said with disbelief.

“Just… just one, to pick me up. Ugh I feel like I’m running at half a tank.”

“Did you get enough sleep Eddie? Or were you and Zecora getting to know each other half the night?”

A bit of annoyance shot across Eddie’s beleaguered forehead, “No. I slept well, really well. By tartarus it might be the best night of sleep I ever had but come on Saunter you know I have some level of self control.”

“Right. Like the last time you asked for a coffee and I turned around for five minutes to find out you had five and feel great. Then two hours later it hits your guts and you were debating on taking a sick day.”

“Okay ONE time, but MOST of the time i’m good. I’ll stop at one I promise I just need… I mean I want one.”

“Fair,” Saunter said as he placed the order for Eddie’s coffee alongside his own on their morning stop at the coffee shop before work, “I just mean. Once you start to get to know your marefriend, it's kinda hard to stop spending such quality time with her. Especially if you’ve had a dry spell for a few years.” He finished with a pair of wiggling eyebrows.

“I’ll have you know Saunter I was plenty satisfied in that department before me and Zecora… well, you know.”

“Slapping doesn’t count.”

Before Eddie could retort, the call out for their order came from the counter. A cute little barista, with a visor and apron, placed a disposable coffee cup tray for Saunter to take up in his mouth. He brought it over in short order and Eddie took his cup in hoof and sipped at it, a little too greedily, and then cursed as he pulled the cup back.

“Really?” He said before he began rubbing at his tongue for a moment, “how did I forget how hot this stuff is when it's fresh, ugh, gonna have this burnt feeling on my tongue for a week.”

“Not your day today huh?” Saunter said as he popped another creamer into his travel mug.

“Yeah well it better turn around. I still gotta figure out how I’m gonna pay for everything we’ll need.”

Saunter hummed for a moment, “Is it really that expensive?”

“Saunter, the food we bought yesterday? That might last to the end of today at the rate Zecora eats. I usually have to blow a third of my bits on feeding myself over the month, but now Zecora plus eight growing foals in her tum? I’ll need like, ALL the overtime in the world working at Sofa and Quills just to make due. And that’s until she grows again!”

That last bit made Saunter’s brow raise slightly, “What makes you think she’ll grow again?”

Eddie bit his lip knowing he had said too much, “W-well you know. My luck and all.” He took another long sip of his coffee and winced, “Agh, dammit! This is why I don’t drink coffee.”

“You know maybe if you waited and let things cool off a little it might go a little better next time.”

“Yeah I know, I’m not five and touching the stovetop… wait are you doing that thing with the advice layered over other advice?”

“Maybe, come on we’ll be late enough as it is,” He placed his travel mug coffee hat on his head and slurped deeply from the straw, “Also try iced coffee next time if you’re so impatient for a quick fix.”

“Ha ha,” Eddie replied in a stale tone as he awkwardly held his mug in a free hoof and tried to trot on three legs without spilling anything.

[][][][][]

“Are you sure you are okay Eddie?” Zecora said with her head dipped out of the hole that led to his room.

“Yeah just,” he jammed another ice cube in his mouth, “Just felt like someone dipped my tongue in hot soup all of a sudden.”

She thought for a moment as she watched him work the ice cube around in his mouth, “Do you think we should bring it up to Twilight and the Doctor?”

His eyes went wide, “No no no, the less weird they think this all is the better. I probably just bit my tongue or something.”

“Eddie.”

“Don’t use that tone-!” He stopped when he realized how much he was yelling, then sighed, “Okay, okay, we can bring it up, but what if it’s something to do with the magic between us? What will they do?”

Zecora looked downcast, her silence spoke well of what she was thinking.

“Zecora, do you really think we can keep this a secret?”

Before either of them could speak there was a bright purple light at the front of the apartment, followed by a series of short polite knocks. Eddie wasted little time in going for the door and opening it. Before him stood Twilight Sparkle, alicorn of legend.

“Oh, Eddie. I thought you’d be at work.”

“I took the day off to look after Zecora.”

That set a tad bit of worry into the purple alicorn’s face, her wings ruffling slightly, “is everything okay? The doctor sent me some worrying news this morning. If it's accurate then we’ll need to have Zecora under tighter watch than before.”

“Tighter watch?” Eddie said with a slightly defensive tone, “she’s not some prisoner of tartarus out to do wrong. She’s just pregnant.”

Twilight sighed, “I guess that is a bit of harsh language. It is precisely because she is pregnant that she needs to be moved somewhere that she can be watched over more closely. For her safety and the foal's safety. If the doctor is right, sometime last night the amount of magic in the sample he took from her system nearly doubled. She might be close to another growth event and if we can monitor her while she has one we might be able to pin down-”

“Well I think you’re a little late for that.” Eddie said not entirely meaning to interrupt.

Twilight’s forehead furrowed, perplexed, then realization dawned on her face, “Do you mean she?”

“See for yourself.” Eddie said while standing aside.

Twilight did her best to not gallop inside as she called out, “Zecora!?”

“Back here Twilight, I’m afraid I am a tad stuck in here.”

“Stuck?” Twilight called back as she trotted towards Eddie’s room, “A-are you mobile? Does anything hurt? Are you feeling overly stretched?” A half dozen other questions grinding to a halt as she peered into the demolished doorway to Eddie’s room and her head craned back and back to meet Zecora’s eyes. The zebra mare standing almost taller than the alicorn of the sun with a barreled belly that could be mistaken for a bed cushion royalty would lounge on. “Sweet Celestia...”

Zecora waited for her to say something, but the longer the gawking went on the more aware of herself she became. She just had to break the silence, “I feel fine, if you are concerned.”

The first words of the purple pony stammering out, “H-How… but… where...”

Eddie slowly came up behind her and then stood at her side, “Well I get the awe, but what’s so amazing about it? I mean her belly doubled and then doubled again at the clinic. What’s the big deal with her putting on some inches?” Doing his best to downplay what the magically inclined alicorn was gawking at.

She rounded on him almost immediately, “Do you have any idea the amount of magic that is necessary to alter the physical state of any given pony?”

Zecora did her best to cut in to try and calm her down, “Twilight, if I remember well, when you became an alicorn you grew a few inches.”

“Yes!” Twilight almost shouted, “and do you have any idea how much raw power accumulates within a pony before they ascend? It all combusts in the act of ascension and all we get is a horn or wings or a couple of inches to our stature. The rest takes years, decades even, but you!”

She trotted forward and placed a hoof on one of Zecora’s legs, casting a spell with her horn that glimmered deep inside Zecora’s leg bones, when it bounced back and displayed information in a series of runes floating in the air Twilight’s jaw almost dropped, “You didn’t just grow Zecora, you… but why would… unless.” Her horn shimmered for a moment and a notebook appeared seemingly out of thin air along with a quill and inkwell, “I need you to tell me exactly how this happened. We need to start predicting these sooner rather than later.”

Zecora was silent trying to think, then Eddie spoke up out of nowhere, “It started when we came home from the buffet.”

“Buffet?” Twilight said as she took down a note.

“Yeah Zecora’s womb started acting up, all the kids kicking, then she said she felt butterflies and was getting warm all over then-”

“Eddie.” Zecora said curtly, “I believe I am a tad better qualified to tell the tale than you.”

Eddie stopped and looked a tad embarrassed for a moment as he chewed on an ice cube. Zecora went forward from there, adding a few more embellishments to the tale. Such as how the doorway was damaged and a somewhat truthful recounting of what the growth was like. Even if Twilight’s insistence on every detail made the zebra go slightly red in the face as she told her every rather juicy tidbit.

The quill swirled as it finished a word and then harshly stabbed the paper as it punctuated the end of a sentence.

“Okay.” The notebook and supplies vanished back to whatever pocket dimension they were pulled from. “I can compare notes with Doctor Megal when we get you to the castle, but the initial outlook seems alright to say the least.”

“So she’s okay?”

“Well, yes and no Eddie. From what I can tell the intake of calories after a given threshold translates to a massive spike in some form of magic. The exact magic I am not sure of. There are several related to growth, and a few dozen beyond that related to fetal growth not to mention this rapid multiplication and growth of fetuses. For her to garner all that from just some cheap buffet food… I need to do more research but at this point I would garner we might have to limit her food intake to prevent anything more from happening.”

“L-limit?” Zecora said with a pout, as her tummy gave an ornery rumble that visibly shook its surface and sent the occupants kicking the surface in a tantrum.

“At least until we can pin down more accurately what is going on and I can’t do that from here. I need my facilities and I'm sure Doctor Megal would like to have some instruments from his clinic brought up as well.” She then trotted her way past Zecora and faced the outer wall of the apartment. “Say Eddie, what’s on the other side of this wall?”

He looked confused for a moment, “Just the alleyway, why?”

“Would it be big enough for Zecora to squeeze through?”

He scratched at the back of his head, “Maybe? What has this got to do with anything anyway?”

“Too much danger to teleport with that much fetal life, so...” Twilight planted her hooves down firmly and closed her eyes for a moment. When her eyes opened they flashed white and an intense aura flared around her horn, the air billowing from the power building, “we need to take a slower route.”

Eddie’s eyes went wide, “Wait, what are you-” his words unable to be finished as Twilight pointed her horn at one corner of the wall and a beam of pure arcane energy shot out. The wood of the wall sizzled and crackled as she started to cut an archway into it with her spell. Eddie meanwhile just screamed in horror as he bellowed out, “My Deposit!”

Zecora looked toward the destroyed doorway and felt it was a little late to be worrying about that. Twilight continued to form an archway that left a burning purple trail of energy in the wall while Eddie fell to his haunches and wailed to the ceiling about his savings. When the shape was finally cut Twilight let the beam fizzle out and sighed some relief, before she had to blow out the sparking sizzle at the tip of her horn.

She looked at Eddie, “Oh don’t worry, it’s just a dimension door. If I had known Zecora was this big before I came over I would have set up an exit at her room so I could cut the entrance here. But as it stands it’ll just pocket the wall section for a few minutes so we can pass through.”

With a flick of her head, and a snap of magic from her horn, the magically cut wall shimmered. Then in no short order a portion of it vanished to reveal the still somewhat dark alleyway to the assembled trio.

“Okay I’ll go in front just in case we have to bend some physics to make this work.” She trotted forward and out the hole that shouldn’t be, then turned to Zecora as the cool morning air rushed into the room, “whenever you’re ready Zecora.”

The zebra in question looked toward the magically created doorway. Ample room made for both her height and width. She took a deep breath then trotted forward only to find that once she exited the apartment things got a little tight in the alleyway.

Eddie followed close behind as they moved forward. The transition into the alley was thankfully easy, but Zecora couldn’t do more than slowly step her way forward. Whenever she moved too fast her womb would bob to the left or right and slap against the wall of the two buildings she was almost sandwiched between. Eddie almost did not believe how big she seemed to be from behind. Her stature that of a mature alicorn already making the buildings seem not made for her, but the fact her womb almost stretched the width of the alleyway that four ponies could stand shoulder to shoulder in was almost too much to believe. It only reinforced how utterly full of life he had made her, and he knew, deep down, that she wanted more. It sent the oddest flutter through his skin and a want in his loins that he had to curtail before things got… big.

He licked his lips and cleared his throat the moment she cleared the alleyway, swearing he heard a wet pop when she did so. Was she still growing? He picked up his pace as he managed to get around her as she seemed to visibly stretch now that she was out of his confining room. A part of himself knowing he had to be somewhere he wasn’t directly looking at her elsewise that hunger in his body was bound to grow. He had something to ask Twilight anyway and she was taking the role of parade lead as it seemed anyway. Everypony down the street gawking at Zecora and her sway.

When he got around to her she was standing in the street seeming to be taking mental notes on Zecora’s physiology as the mare stretched and her womb swayed.

“Twilight.”

“Hm?” She said in a half listening tone.

“I was wondering, I know your castle is private property and all, but will I be able to actually see Zecora at all when she’s staying there?”

“Of course. I wouldn’t dream of separating you two.”

Eddie tapped his hoof a few times, then decided to press his luck, “For any reason?”

“Any at all.”

“Promise?”

Her brow furrowed, “What are you getting at Eddie?”

He stiffened and then slinked away, “Oh, um, nothing just uh, you know insecure. First relationship in a few years. Gonna be a dad, haha, all that. Oh, would you look at that… welcome mat!”

Her eyes burrowed into him as he trotted away and she made a quick mental note, “Never get a coltfriend.”

Not one to waste time she decided to get the train moving. She had Zecora lead as she wanted to take some notes on her movements. Which Zecora would probably find weird coming from any other pony than Twilight. When everyone was settled into an even trot, which took Zecora a few moments given how her bulk had more than doubled since the last time she moved. Not to mention if she heaved her weight too harshly her womb would bounce and almost touch the ground. This went on for a good while, but by the halfway point things were moving somewhat smoothly.

It was at about this point that the silent march was punctuated by something other than a gasp by a passerby. Twilight spoke up, “She’s marvelous isn’t she?”

Eddie almost tripped, “What?”

“Zecora. All this change and she just soldiers on through it. Not to mention her gait. Look how she has the swing of her womb in step with her trot so it doesn’t impede her balance.”

Eddie did his best to look at his marefriend through the eye of something other than a lover. But all he saw was the curve of her plot, the plushness of her flesh, and the pure unadulterated fertility of her womb bulging out to the sides of her body. Impossibly big and daring anyone to outdo her. He couldn’t see her as anything other than the most beautiful thing in all of Equestria. He almost forgot himself in that moment, he felt the rush in his body, the press of his flesh trying to expand. He caught himself moments before he almost let loose.

“Yeah, she’s amazing.” He said while looking off in a different direction. A question then built up within him that he dared to ask, “Say Twilight, whatever is happening to Zecora. The magic. Is it possible it could… affect me?”

Twilight looked at him, carefully yet thoughtfully, “That depends. I don’t really know what we’re working with yet so I couldn't say for sure. Best I could do is guess based on any symptoms you might be showing. Assuming you’re having some?”

Eddie bit his lip and thought for a long moment, “Well, earlier this morning my tongue started burning, on two seperate but closely timed occasions.”

Twilight thought for a long period of time, “Well there are magics that could cause that but… you haven’t been sticking your tongue anywhere, um, on Zecora have you?”

For once, even though he had given the action great thought, Eddie could answer truthfully, “No.”

“Then you’re probably in the clear for interacting with Zecora, but if anything else happens like that let me know. It’s not probable but it could be some form of voodoo spell. Best to nip those in the bud.” She finished with a wink.

He felt the need to ask since the topic was there, “On that note, being with Zecora. If there is something… wrong. Will I still be able to see her?”

“You mean if whatever this is becomes dangerous?”

“More or less, yeah.”

Eddie watched as the Purple alicorn seemed to take on a more regal bearing, a seriousness to the way she held her head that spoke to the legend that she was, “You know. I’m not like my sister-in-law Cadence. I don’t know love very well, but I do know friendship.” She looked at him, and suddenly he felt very small, “I know that love is kind of like friendship. A doorway to something greater than what we can be on our own. So I promise you Eddie. I will do everything in my power to keep you two together.”

He felt like a colt, big eyed and given the world on his birthday, “Really?”

She smiled, the warmest smile he swore he had ever seen from a pony that wasn’t his love, and she said, “or I'll put a cupcake in my eye.” giving a wink and a playfully stuck out tongue in response.

Eddie pronked, only about five times, but it was perhaps the happiest he had felt in the last 24 hours. A load of worry lifting from him, for the time being, and letting him just be free of it all for a few precious seconds.

[][][][][]

He was smiling. Unsure of why the world seemed to have just faded away for a moment. All cares, all worries snuffed as a smile graced his lips.

“Eddie! Equestria to Eddie snap out of it we still have eight trucks to unload!”

“Huh?” Suddenly it all came flooding back, his name, his morning, the immense workload and tight time schedule of stocking the shop in preparation for the post holiday consumer frenzy on the shop. “Sorry, I don't know what came over me I just-” a crate full of quills came soaring at him from the back of the truck and he barely caught it in time before it hit his snout.

“Less sorry, more move-y, half of us took the frickin day off and left the other half of us with twice the work to do. Pull the anchor off your plot and get that stuff to the stockers!”

Eddie left his reasonably upset co-worker and grunted as he hauled the crate on his back. The amount of oomph he had to put into each step feeling wrong. He did this sort of thing all day most days of the week and now he was feeling tired before it even got started. He was sure he was coming down with something, probably a flu-bug. Just his sort of luck.

He went out into the store proper with it. The aisles were still empty as no business was allowed to open before noon on the day after the celebration. He found the aisle where his product went and was at least glad to see a friendly face. Flaunter was using his magic to gather up groups of quills, of varying length and plumage, and sorted them neatly in rows. When he looked over and saw Eddie coming he sighed graciously.

“Oh thank goodness, I was almost out and the last thing I want is idle hooves in front of a team lead on today of all days.” He smiled and watched as Eddie shuffled toward him mindlessly then grew a frown, “Eddie, are you alright?”

“I’m fine, I just, I need a minute.” He plopped down the crate, rather loudly, in front of Flaunter then sat on his haunches and huffed a few times.

Flaunter just looked at him for a moment, concern growing on his features, “Eddie. Do you remember that promise we made yesterday?”

Eddie grunted as he stood back up, “You’ll have to refresh my memory, sorry, head’s been a little… weird this morning.”

Flaunter eyed him, the worry in his heart growing, “Do you remember at Rosa’s when you were… feeling all big and strong? How you said you’d get some help if anything happened? Well, I think this is anything.”

Eddie scoffed, “How could… that be related to this?”

His friend frowned slightly, “I’m no mage mister, but I can guess. And I guess that whatever bulk up trick you pulled yesterday is hitting you today. Like a bodybuilder the day after weightlifting, you went all the way and beyond and now you’re footing the bill.”

Eddie just frowned and looked away. It made some bit of sense and he hated guesswork at the best of times. “So, what then? Take a sick day? I won’t get my holiday pay if I do that and you saw the way Zecora eats. I need to make this money or we’re going to be in deep trouble.”

Flaunter’s eyes dipped, and then closed. “I’m not telling you what to do Eddie. I’m just saying you need to start making smarter decisions. You’re going to be a father. You have to think about more than yourself.”

“I am thinking about more than myself, didn't you hear me!”

Flaunter turned on him and stared daggers into his sneering face, “By hurling yourself at a wall when you have a growing family that loves and needs you? Dammit Eddie I’m saying you have to consider more options than just handling it yourself! Zecora is counting on you to be there, your unborn foals are counting on you to be there.”

Eddie grimaced, groaned, and turned away. His head held low as the heat flared in his nostrils, then he spoke, “I’m sorry. I’ll… I’ll consider taking a sick day, but they need me to be here. I have to try.”

Flaunter watched Eddie trot off towards the back rooms to fetch another thing for the store’s many bare shelves. He idled for a time, long enough for a wandering team lead to notice him.

“Something wrong Flaunter, not like you to be idle.”

“No I’m fine it's just-” then an idea struck him, “Actually I wanted to run something by you. It’s about Eddie, the zebra who works here.”

[][][][][]

“-and this is where you’ll be staying, the east wing guest hall.”

The large double doors meant more for grand vanity than simple function swung open with a veil of purple energy around the ornate handles. All Zecora cared about was that it seemed ample in the department of width, easily able to withstand a girth twice or more her current size with plenty of headroom to boot. What greeted the eyes of the Zebras after they took in the sight of the doors was a massive hall, reconfigured from one meant to hold a feast or ballroom dance to that of a more homely interpretation. Furniture was sparse, and it was hard to shake the sense of it being a large castle hall, but there was definitely a possibility for improvement.

“Now I know it doesn’t look homey, but it's the best bet we have since we don’t know how big you might get. That and we can set up Dr.Megal down the hall in one of my spare labs.”

Eddie looked at her in disbelief for a moment, “You have SPARE labs?”

Twilight shrugged, “Eh, it's a big castle and sometimes I like the view of the mountains to the east while I run tests.”

“Twilight?”

She turned toward the above average sized mare, “Yes Zecora?”

“I remember you mentioning something about that crystal from the other day, the one Megal used to measure whatever latent magics are affecting me, and I was wondering what exactly happened with it that made you so concerned.”

Twilight bit her lip for a moment before speaking, carefully, “I don’t want to alarm you but all i could garner from him, without running my own tests, is that the magic in the crystal sparked high and then settled at a higher natural hum than before.”

“Who in the what now?” Eddie said.

“Basically, the density of magic in the crystal, and by extension Zecora, Spiked high then settled back down to a higher baseline. Whatever this is, it's… growing stronger.”

There was a silence in the hall, then Zecora spoke up, “But… what exactly does that mean?”

“Well that’s just it, it could mean several things if we can’t pin down what’s causing it to get stronger and figure out what we are dealing with. There’s so many academic hypotheses on how the ursa evolved to grow so large and well… this sounds close to several of them.” She continued before another question was asked, “So I guess what it means is that if we don’t figure this out we might have to carve a home for Zecora out in the mountains somewhere. That is if none of the other possibilities are true.”

Eddie didn’t like the way she said that last bit, or the way she looked away when she spoke of them, “So… how bad can this get then?”

Twilight shook her head, “We’re not going to worry about those until I can confirm them as an actual outcome, which is why I wanted Zecora here in the first place. When Doctor Megal gets here we can do some more accurate testing to rule out the nastier possibilities and I might be able to sleep again.”

A new voice broke out into the echoing halls of Twilight’s castle, “Hey Twi you back yet!?”

Twilight groaned and yelled back, “Yes Spike, didn’t you get my ping when I got back!?” She grumbled under her breath, “I swear that dragon can keep track of every note I've made for the last decade, but I give him one utility spell gem and it poofs in under an hour.”

A small purple and green figure appeared around the corner at the doorway leading into the hall, “Sorry Twilight i think i left it in the west wing dining area when i took a snack break… or was it the north wing? Anyway, how are things going with zecor-AGH!” The adolescent dragon’s jaw dropped into a shout as he saw the stretched blimp of a zebra standing in the center of the hall that looked like no more than a master bedroom to one her size, “Uh, she’s not going through some kinda puberty thing like dragons do and is turning into a rampaging monster is she?”

Twilight rolled her eyes, “I can’t rule anything out because I have yet to test anything, but since she isn’t trying to hoard anything I think we can safely say no.” The alicorn then alighted and landed near her attendant dragon so she could stop speaking at a tone that made an echo in the rather barren chamber, “Speaking of those tests have you heard from the doctor yet?”

“Oh yeah,” Spike pulled out a small piece of paper and analyzed it quickly, “To sum it up, over the phone he said he should be ready around four for the move, assuming you still want to do a dimension door hop from his lab to our lab.”

Twilight nodded, “I do, a little hop across town by bending space time is nothing to make sure Zecora is alright before the end of today.”

Zecora frowned, “Twilight, you do not need to overexert yourself on my behalf.”

“No, I want to do this, Zecora. Time could be a factor and I am going to take advantage wherever I can.”

Spike, not entirely taking in the seriousness of his friend’s tone, gained a wry smile and interrupted, “Hey Twilight, you’re never gonna guess who just showed up.”

Twilight turned about with an eyebrow raised, “Who?”

Spike took a few steps forward and gestured grandly to his entrance.

A clydesdale bigger than Princess Celestia herself, sporting a beard of champions, wandered through. “Hello little lassie, may i come in?”

{}{}{}{}{}

Eddie did his best to let the crate slide off his back, but it hurt to bend his legs while lifting such a weight. He hadn’t felt so eager for the day to be over since the end of his first week of endlessly lifting sofas and crates of quills just a couple of years ago. He took a load off for a moment and just sat on his haunches trying to not breathe too heavily. It was an odd sensation, like a weakness deep in his muscles, like had gotten a few months off work and was just… less than he used to be.

“Eddie?”

He almost jumped out of his skin as he scrambled to his hoof tips, “Clipper, oh i’m sorry i didn’t mean to sit down on the job i just-”

“That’s enough Eddie. You know we try to keep things like family here at Sofa and Quills and well, the family has been talking about you.”

Eddie swallowed hard, this sounded like the beginning of a speech someone gave before they offed someone from the company. “I’m sorry Clipper I just… I didn’t get enough sleep last night”

“Eddie, please, let me finish.”

“Yes, Clipper, sorry.”

“Word of a certain… situation has reached my attention, and I brought it up with mister Quill himself.”

Eddie’s eyes tried not to bulge too obscenely at mentioning the head cheese himself.

“Now you know mister Quill is quite the family stallion. Four already and a fifth on the way, so he knows what it can be like for a newly expecting father trying to get affairs in order before the big day, and well he believes some special exemptions are in order to help you along.”

Eddie’s eyes looked about in confusion trying to piece everything together, “Wait, what are you saying?”

“Mister Quill is willing to give you a week off now, and additional time off as needed in anything pertaining to you and your marefriends unique situation.”

Eddie felt like his heart should have soared to hear such a thing, but instead he was flabbergasted, “Wait you… and he actually believes what is happening to me and Zecora is real?”

“Eddie, I don’t know how long you’ve been in ponyville, but it's something of a hotspot for strange things. Ever since Nightmare Moon all those years ago it seems like trouble and mischief made a home for themselves here. A story of a pair of zebras going from lovers to expecting four foals overnight isn’t that far fetched around here.”

Eddie laughed nervously, “I think it's about eight now sir.”

The team leader’s eyes betrayed not a hint of surprise, instead he just lightly chuckled, “And I expect we’ll have a brood of newborn foals to put the parasprite swarm to shame before it's done.”

The zebra just tried not to sweat too profusely, “Please don’t joke sir I’m barely holding it together as it is.”

The pony just grinned, “Don’t fret too much about it, these works of mischief seem to have a way of working themselves out around here. Now the paperwork is already in order if you want to take time off.”

He sighed deeply, “That sounds good, at least for today and probably tomorrow.”

“If you need more let me or the big bossman know, he’s a family man and understands what it’s like for young stallions. Just consider all of this… paternity leave.”

Eddie smiled, "that sounds really nice actually." He looked around slightly before speaking once more, "so could I clear out now? Zecora, my marefriend, got moved today and I want to go see her."

The stallion speaking with him held out a hoof toward the door, "go ahead with all the blessings of the alicorns."

Eddie wasted little time and was off with a quick, "thank you." Somewhere deep inside him he knew of probably one other to thank, but right now he had to get home and find Zecora.

He fired out of the front door of Sofa and Quills so fast he didn’t see the mountain of a clydesdale that was patiently waiting outside and it felt like ramming into a magi-steel wall.

“Oh, sorry laddie didn’t see ya coming.”

Eddie slid off of him like some cartoon tomato thrown at the face of a prisoner of a stockade. He rebounded and apologized to him first.

“No, no sir, I’m just in a hurry I have to-” When his eyes opened fully and the stars disappeared he gasped audibly, “R-r-rockhoof! The pillar of strength!”

“Ah so you do know me.” A few hearty deep laughs leaving him over and over again.

“How can nopony know who you are!? You faced down the pony of shadows with the elements of harmony and-and… Oh it's an honor sir but I have to get going. I need to be with-”

“Zecora?”

Eddie froze, “Yes… how do you?”

“Oh uh…” He rubbed his chin for a moment, mumbling to himself, then smiled, “Got a message from Twilight Sparkle. I was in town after sensing a uh… need to be here. Sort of a Pillar thing that sixth sense. I think Pinkie Pie has it too, but that’s besides the point. Something has come up and we… uh they need you with Zecora pronto, little laddie.”

“Oh no, what’s wrong?”

Rockhoof smirked, “Well it seems somepony might be about to grow again.”

“What!? Oh geez if twilight sees that happen she might-”

“Do nothing!” Rockhoof sternly snapped at the worried little zebra, “She’s not that kind of pony. I know that for a fact, now come on, we don’t have a whole lot of time. And uh, I think you’re gonna wanna be there for this one.”

They started to leave and Rockhoof just followed at a distance, “Oh it's so good to finally find somepony like me. You were right, Starswirl, I just had to wait and see.”

END OF CHAPTER 4

Chapter 3: Saturn Sized Stripes and Stretchmarks

Saturn Sized Stripes and Stretchmarks

Chapter 3

Saunter yawned, the brightness of Celestia’s morning sun having woken him from his slumber. He groaned and scratched at an ear as he mentally prepared for a Monday filled with moving sofas. Then he remembered something that made him smile.

“I love holidays.” He debated on going back to bed, but there was an important meeting of the minds to have this morning. “The sun and moon celestial celebration.” To most a sacred day, to him and every other worker in retail it meant a day without dealing with picky ponies.

Out of his room he went, doing his best to not let the door creak too loudly knowing how late Eddie usually kept in bed. He cleared the doorway and made his way to the kitchen - a cup of coffee sounded excellent. The bedrooms were located on one end of the apartment that shared a hallway. Said hallway opened to the dining room and kitchen, across from that was the bathroom. Yep, all a pair of fresh out-of-the-nest stallions needed to survive. However when he made it out of the bedroom hallway he stopped. Something was off, in fact a lot of something was off. Every moveable item between the bedroom hallway and the bathroom was not where it should be.

“What the...” He looked back toward the bedrooms, specifically at Eddie’s door. It was shut. That zebra never kept his door shut. Saunter trotted over and gave a few knocks. “Hey Eddie, can I talk with you for a minute?”

Saunter heard the sound of somepony stirring. In fact it sounded like more than one was stirring. Then he heard a voice muffled by the door, “No, no I got it just stay as you are, I’ll be right back.”

On the other side hooves hit the floor and lightly clopped their way over to the door. It opened, partially, and a slick mohawked head squeezed through.

“Hey Saunter, what’s up?” Eddie managed with a yawn.

For the moment his friend forgot about the furniture as a more pressing concern hounded him. “Do you have somepony over?”

His eyes darted about. “Um, yeah. It’s just, uh, Zecora. We were out kinda late in Ponyville and she wasn’t in any shape to go back to her hut in the dark and--”

“Wait...” Saunter’s thoughts ran deep, to all the times this hadn’t happened before because his marefriend was a perfectly capable mare able to navigate the Everfree blindfolded on her own. Then it hit him, the moved furniture, the overnight stay... “Oh my sweet Celestia you two fucked on the carpet didn’t you?” His voice began to rise, “I swear if I find stains and you expect ME to clean them up when you two had a perfectly good bed to ruin I’ll, I’ll--”

A tired voice from within the bedroom spoke up, “Eddie, is everything alright?”

“Y-yes, Zecora, it’s fine,” he leaned toward Saunter, taking a step or two as well to get close enough to whisper - unbeknownst to him the door was slowly swinging ajar. “I swear we didn’t do the dirty here. It all started over at Zecora’s and… and… oh sweet Celestia, Saunter, the last twelve hours have been so messed up.”

Saunter was a tad concerned, doing his best to cool off after he almost flew off the handle. He had never heard his friend sound so fearful. “Eddie dude, simmer down, whatever is up, we can--” His eyes wandered to the figure that was visible in the opening doorway, what he saw almost made his jaw fall slack. “--talk… about it.”

Her breaths were making it rise and fall in a steady rhythm. While laying on her side the width of the belly he saw was only made all the more monumental as it was nearly taller than your average stallion, not to mention girthy enough to probably fit one inside her. The struggling and kicking within however was not nearly rampant enough to be one. The sight of it all combined however made him see what was truly there. A womb.

“Eddie what-- how--” His words failed to find themselves until he settled on a single thought. “But she was empty when we met that one time at the market three months ago. How is she--”

“That’s what we’ve been trying to figure out. It’s some magic something-or-other - I don’t know half the stuff the doc and her were talking about. I have no idea what's going on. I just want it to stop.”

Zecora was up now, or as ‘up’ as she could be with the load she was carrying. Laying on her side, craning her neck around the bend of her belly, concern apparent on her frowning face, “Eddie, calm yourself, all we know points to me being fine. There is no need for such alarm.”

He knew she was right, but what had happened to him still poked at his mind. Something was happening, to both of them. He loved her, he wanted her more as well ever since then, but why did he have to be the only one freaking out about it. Surely it was worthy of some alarm, of some level of worry.

“Eddie!” The voice of Saunter pulled him out of his mind, “Those foals in there, they’re real right? No tomfoolery magic stuff yeah?”

Eddie nodded, but his ears were still pulled down out of stress.

“Then come here.” Saunter pushed his way deeper into the room, over to the bed where she lay. “Zecora, do you mind if I--” He gestured a hoof over her womb.

“Go ahead,” she said while getting a tad more comfortable on the bed, letting her mountainous belly stand tall enough on the bed to just barely lay higher than the stallion standing before it.

Saunter put a hoof to her womb and felt it a little bit. He motioned for Eddie to come near. “Alright, now just gently put your head on it.”

Eddie looked at him with some concern. However Saunter’s look gave him little leeway to argue, so he obliged.

“Now I want you to listen to her, listen to her breath and just feel that warmth for a moment.”

The sound was strange to say the least, but the pressing of his cheek and ear against his lover’s belly was somewhat nice. The sound of her breathing slowly becoming entrancing, pulling him in, the warmth of her tummy almost making him feel sleepy. Then he felt something, the tiniest, weakest, bump against his cheek. It was almost enough to knock him out of his trance, almost.

“You felt that, didn’t ya. I saw it in your eyes. They lit up for a second, I swear. Now now, don’t come out of it just yet. I want you to think about it, realize it, make this thought real in your head. I’m going to be a father, and she’s going to be a mother. The two of you, working together, have made something, and that something is growing inside her, right now, with every breath and every heartbeat she has.”

Eddie was in a different place. The voice of Saunter like a distant dream. All he could hear was Zecora’s heart, her breathing, and the touch of the foal against his face. Then there were more kicks, more heartbeats, all gently tickling his ears as he floated inside his mind. The sounds pulling him deeper until suddenly he was standing in a field, beneath a tree, Zecora at his side with not a thing wrong with her, but there were others. Other little things prancing amidst the grass. Four of them, happy and free. Then one of them ran up to the two of them, wobbling on three legs, holding up her fourth leg that had a little red bruise on it.

Zecora leaned down, kissed it, and the wound went away.

“Mommy’s kisses are the best!” the little filly of schooling age said before running back off into the field after the others.

“Now be careful Zenna we don’t want to make this a habit!” Zecora shouted after her.

Eddie just smiled as Zecora then buried her head under his. “They’re so cute, just like their mother.”

Zecora chuckled and looked out over the fields, at the four foals playing and rough housing with one another, then looked Eddie in the eye, “I want more Eddie.”

He smiled, “Then you’ll have more.”

The world was perfect in that moment. No worry, no fear, just him, her, and the foals in the field. That was until a tremendous tremor shook the earth with a noise that blasted straight into his ear. His eyes blinking back into reality as the guttural burbling and groaning of Zecora’s tremendous gut filled his head. He actually had to pull his head off her furry belly and witness the beast quiver slightly from the force of its own yowling.

“I think someone might be a tad hungry,” Saunter stated.

Eddie picked up on that clearly enough. “I think we have a nice bowl of oats with your name on it Zecora.”

She smiled. “That sounds nice.” However a part of her doubted that a single bowl would be enough to fill her. She felt absolutely ravenous. The near-constant tummy rumblings not helping her patience.

Eddie left the room. Leaving Saunter alone with Zecora and her vocal gut. Between fits of hunger pangs she spoke up.

“You have a way with words, Saunter.”

“Huh? Oh, that stuff I said to Eddie. Yeah, those weren't my words, they were my mother's.” He smiled. “Yep, good old worried father speech number six. She had something like forty different speeches she thought up while she worked at the foaling ward. Most of them were nonsense but she had a keeper or two.”

“She must have been excellent at her job.”

“She is. Managed to do it and raise me until I was old enough for school. I grew up around pregnant mares. Still kinda like the look of a good healthy momma-to-be, and boy howdy Zecora do you ever look healthy.”

A smile grew on her face. “Thank you.”

At about that time Eddie's head peeked in, “Hey Saunter, did you go shopping yesterday? I ask ‘cause all we got is ramen in the pantry.”

The roommate then clacked a hoof over his face. “Ah, buck my head clean off I forgot. Don't worry I still got your half of the grocery tab I just gotta figure out what I did with that shopping list.”

“It’s alright, or it will be alright we just gotta hit up the market, maybe throw in some more bits on my end to account for Zecora then... ah crap, we gotta cancel the brunch at Rosa’s meet and eat.”

Saunter's eyes suddenly lit up. “Wait a minute, no we don’t!”

“Huh?”

“Eddie, haha, Rosa’s is a buffet, an all you can eat buffet. For ten bits she can stuff herself into a food coma!”

There was a sudden ornery, borderline cantankerous, growl from the tumbling womb that made it visibly shake.

Saunter laughed. “Come on, let’s head out before she brings down the house.”

()()(1)()()

Flaunter tapped his hoof against the ground. He wasn't particularly mad, just a tad impatient, the three of them hardly ever showed up on time for anything. There was a simple question in his mind of what could have gone wrong this time.

About the time his wondering started he saw Saunter around the bend and sighed some relief. “Finally, time to eat.” Then he saw what was following Saunter and his eyes squinted in disbelief. Followed by his jaw dropping in utter amazement. For swaying down the road with an awkward gait came an impossible sight and the closer it got, the less believing Flaunter became.

When they finally stopped in front of him all he could say, to Eddie in particular, was, “by my great granny's ghost, Eddie, are you firing cannonballs or something?”

Eddie blushed and Zecora simply laughed.

“I’ll tell you over a hot plate of food.”

Zecora’s belly grumbled in approval of the idea. So the four of them went inside the oft spoken of Rosa’s, thankfully the establishment recently added double doors so Zecora could get through without much incident. Even if everyone had to let her go through by herself so that no one was pinned between a wall and her womb.

Inside they were almost immediately greeted as the first patrons of the day. Partially anyway, the hostess pony gaped halfway through her greeting at the striped whale in the room. Her professionalism won through however, and after a mere ten seconds of silent gawking she returned to reality. She asked, “Booth or table?”

Everyone agreed to a booth, at first, but when it became apparent that not everyone was going to fit they opted for a nice table with some pillows for easy sitting arranged around it. A few extras brought over for Zecora to make sure her womb rested on a nice fluffy throne in front of her.

Menus were brought around, but the smells already made up everyone’s mind. “Bruncheon Munching Eat ‘n’ Luncheon buffet” rolled off one pair of lips after the other. The final call ending with an impatient grunt from Zecora’s belly. She tried to rise with the rest of them to go to the buffet but Eddie stopped her.

“I can get you a plate, what do you want?”

She sniffed the air and looked at the buffet, fighting to keep her cantankerous gut under control. “Some carrots, a salad, and one of those scrumptious-looking… oh, what were they called again. Oh yes, baked potatoes.”

He gave a stern salute. “By your order, my queen.”

She giggled and gave a playful swat at him, a look of ‘oh stop it’ on her face. He left with a guilty smirk plastered on his mouth.

To the buffet he went without further word. Going over straight to where the plates were kept. He saw Saunter grab the handle of a bigger plate in his mouth, while Flaunter levitated a more meager sized one in his magic. Eddie would come back a second time to fill his own plate, for now he made a move to grab a regular sized plate, then stopped.

You know… if she had some leftovers that would help everyone out, his mouth going for the built in handle on the larger plate that was almost the size of a carriage wheel.

He took Zecora’s massive plate over to one of four islands of heat lamp equipped buffet tables. A handful of places available to set down one’s plate so one could more easily fill it, unless they were a multi-tasking pegasus or unicorn of course. Anypony of a ‘lesser caliber’ had to make due with a mouth guard and a ladle to scoop their food. A mouth guard being a clear plastic washable ‘glove’ for one’s mouth. It covered the teeth and tongue and nothing more so one might still breath, an irksome but altogether hygienic measure to keep the health inspectors at bay.

Eddie started by grasped a few, rather large, steamed carrots. Followed by a very sensible, if rather overloaded with bread cubes, salad. Before he could make a move toward the far island to get the baked potato he heard a voice say. “Maybe some chicken for my salad.”

He looked back and saw Zecora watching him fill her plate. He just guessed she was shouting a few words his way so he didn’t have to make too many trips. So with a shrug he went over and scooped some chicken bits into her salad. He made a move to once again leave for the next island when he heard Zecora again.

“Some dressing, perhaps?”

Oddly enough it didn’t sound like she was shouting, it was like she was just speaking into his ear. He thought it strange for a few more seconds and shrugged it off. He grabbed some thousand island, her favorite, and drizzled it on. Before he could put it back he heard her ask, “More?” So he obliged, giving her a rather heavy salad to deal with when he finished with the bottle.

Off to the far island he went for her baked potato, but he kept getting stopped by her voice. “Is that daisy lasagna I smell?” He quickly set the platter down and scooped her a slice. Before he even had time to put the scoop back he heard her again. “Maybe a pickle or two?” On and on this went, a slow and constantly interrupted march to the baked potato. Radishes, ravioli, meatball spaghetti, pizza, and more.

When Eddie finally got to the island with the baked potato his neck was aching from hefting the overloaded plate. Still he pressed on, grabbing the tongs with his lips and plopping the biggest heaviest baked potato he could find onto her plate. He would dare say it was as big as his own head. The more he looked at it however the more he could hear Zecora saying, “It needs some filling."

Eddie looked about the island and saw the perfect ingredient. He wasn't sure why he knew it was perfect, but nonetheless he grabbed a knife, split the potato open, and began to scoop grand helpings of mac and cheese into its opening. At the final spoonful that left the potato utterly gorged on noodles and cheese Eddie heard a rather loud guttural growl from the table Zecora still lounged at.

For whatever reason, he felt it a summons, so he replaced the spoon and made a move to heft the plate full of food. However for all the trying he did he couldn't get it to budge an inch into the air.

He heard her call to him, asking if he needed help.

“No, I got it,” he said back between bared teeth, “just need to be a little stronger, a little…”

His amulet sparked and suddenly Eddie started to feel a little, heftier. His skin tightened, his chest barreled ever so slightly, the craned shaking neck that desperately heaved against the plate's weight bulged thick with knots of muscle and suddenly everything felt a little lighter.

Eddie barely noticed a thing. Effortlessly lifting the plate and without an ounce of struggle he trotted his way over to the table. By the time he set the plate down both Saunter and Flaunter had returned from their own trips.

Saunter eyed Zecora's plate and his own. “Oh ho ho, someone about to challenge my title as the group gut?”

Zecora paid his challenge no mind. She was merely trying to lean forward enough over her womb to get her mouth at that pile of tummy-quieting sustenance. Eddie noticed this plight of hers and rectified it. He picked up the platter and placed it atop her tummy, where it rested quite nicely for a matter of moments before Zecora started to dig in. The first thing to go? The baked potato, all shoved into her mouth that seemed to stretch around its mac-filled goodness. She closed her lips around it and swallowed. A solid lump of delectable food chugging down her throat, nearly popping the clasps of her three neck rings, and landing with a satisfying heft in her gut. While she licked her lips of cheese and potato, her gut let out a happy purr.

Flaunter meanwhile was eyeing up Eddie. Something about his striped friend seemed off, he just couldn’t tell what. He paid more attention to his own plate before Eddie went off to fill his own. That was when he saw it. To be more clear, that was when he noticed Zecora eyeing up Eddie’s toned flank for a moment.

“Wait a tick, Saunter does Eddie look a little--”

Saunter cut him off between mouthfuls. “In a minute, gotta uphold my title.”

Flaunter just groaned. He started picking at his own food while Saunter gorged himself and Zecora didn’t take a moment to pay attention to anything other than the food on her massive plate. He did his best to not stare at the two gluttons destroying their platters, but it was hard to ignore between the slapping of lips and grumbling of Zecora's much happier-sounding tummy.

By the time Eddie came back Zecora was done with her first plate. He set off immediately to refill it despite her objections that he should eat first. He insisted that she needed to fill herself on the foals’ behalf. Saunter played catchup and went galloping off to fill his own large platter with more food. Leaving Flaunter and Zecora to themselves as the zebra mare idly rubbed her still unsatisfied belly.

Flaunter took the opportunity to make conversation between petite bites of eggs and waffles. "So Zecora, how many are you expecting?"

Zecora licked the last of the crumbs from her lips and answered, “As of right now? Four, but I have a feeling that is not going to be the final count.”

His brow furrowed. “What do you mean?”

“Let me put it like this.” She closed her eyes for a moment and stroked the jittering womb that was still grumbling for more. “Sunday night I was expecting one, halfway through I grew another, and by morning I had filled to twice that number. To put it bluntly, Flaunter…” She leaned over her womb as much as she could, eyes half-lidded, her voice filling with want. “...I’m due.”

A chill ran up his spine as he looked to her swollen belly. Amazement or terror, he wasn’t sure which was filling him as Eddie came back. The platter filled to the brim with waffles, eggs, hay bacon, crustless daisy sandwiches, and a plethora of heavier foods. Flaunter, still so floored by Zecora's declaration, didn't even notice the bulging muscles under Eddie's skin, the fact he was now tall enough to give Zecora a little peck on the lips without straining his neck to reach, or the slight goatee he was now sporting.

Eddie was actually able to eat something this time around. A smirk on his face as he watched his stallion friend trying to keep up with his lover's voracious appetite. He looked over to Flaunter, who had paled.

“Everything okay, Flaunter?” He said without even noticing the deep tone that came from his throat.

“I’ll get back to you on that one.”

Eddie didn’t have time to ponder what that meant. For no sooner had he asked the question than had Zecora finished her second plate. He didn't even hesitate in grabbing her plate to get her a third helping. Saunter meanwhile was huffing and groaning as he got up a few moments later.

Flaunter tried to stop him with a few concerned words, but all he got was, “She’s running outta steam, can’t quit now,” in reply.

Flaunter severely doubted that statement as Zecora’s belly seemed to protest for every moment that she wasn’t shoveling food into her maw. He just watched her in silence while she stroked her belly, what little of it she could reach anyway. The taut-looking mass that stretched her gut wider than a pair of cider barrels being prodded and pushed at from within.

The food returned. Another wave placed atop the fertile altar to be offered to the grumbling goddess. She accepted the seemingly meager tribute graciously and with a bit of burping.

Meanwhile Eddie enjoyed his own food. By the time he finished he felt the urge for a second plate. When he left to fill it Zecora urged him to hurry, she was almost done once again. Saunter through, no matter how hard he tried, couldn't finish the second half of his third plate. He just grumbled as sick protests came from his gut, his face turning green.

“You, urp, you win, Zecora.”

She looked up from her plate that rested on her belly and swallowed the wad of mixed dishes. “Won what?”

“T-the challenge.”

She seemed confused. “What challenge?”

Saunter groaned as he cradled his complaining stomach. “Ugh, she wasn’t even trying!”

She just shrugged and went back to her plate with renewed zeal. By the time Eddie returned she had finished. He held a small smile toward his tummy ached friend and took Zecora’s plate once again.

This time when he left Zecora did not take a passing glance at his plot. Instead she eyed the half-done plate that Saunter had before him.

“Are you going to finish that?” She said with hope in her voice and a gurgle in her belly.

Saunter shook his head. Then Flaunter, ever the noble one, levitated the plate over to her. She went to task quickly, so much so that she hardly noticed Eddie swap out the empty plate when he returned. This new one so stacked with grub that it was nearly spilling over the sides.

By now he was nearly the size of Saunter. Muscles bulging under his striped hide that looked capable of solo lifting the largest sofa’s his job had to offer and never tire. His friends had ceased to notice anymore as all they did was watch Zecora gorge and gorge and GORGE some more.

One platter of food after another went down her throat in mighty bulges that made her neck rings nearly snap. Eddie having to move almost constantly, opting to fill one platter while another rested on his lover’s hungering womb.

After about the fifth go, the help started to take note. Waiters and waitresses gawking at her size and when hearing how many she had put away jaws would hit the floor.

At the seventh plate the owner of the store was involved. “What? Do we have a party of twelve on the floor?” Her words soon turned to wide eyes as she saw Zecora up end a plate to slurp the gravy off the latest meal. Her girth starting to press against the table it was getting so full. That appetite still going strong as a severe dent in the buffet was noted. The owner scrunched her nose and tried to think how she could stop this behemoth’s eating frenzy.

Zecora however did not slow down, no matter how many ponies looked on and gawked. If anything it was just making her more voracious. Eighth plate down with a grumble from her gut. Ninth licked clean and sent down to her kicking foals. Then finally she began to slow, eating more like a regular pony now with some chewing and talking in between. When she put the last of the deluxe omelet hash special in her mouth she swallowed it with a sigh.

“Want me to get another?” Eddie asked as if he had to hear her say something aside from licking her lips and patting her tummy.

“Hmmm,” she thought, “No, I think I’m full.”

There was a sigh of relief from the owner and a few muffled hurrahs from waiters who had been placing bets. Then in that moment of relief for the food staff involved there came a burbling from Zecora’s gut. At first it was nothing, a tiny noise one might hear all the time, but them it began to grow. Gaining a bass thrum to it as it began to roar. Her gut starting to tumble and shake as Zecora groaned.

“O-oh my gosh, Zecora is it happening, a-are you growing?”

“Growing!?” both Saunter and Flaunter shouted at once.

Zecora grunted as her belly lurched a few inches forward, pushing the table away from her in one forceful motion. The tumbling of her pony sized gut joined by frantic kicks and strokes by the foals within.

“Eddie, I feel so full. Like I am going to…” she grunted from another hard push of her belly expanding in every direction at once. “...going to explode!” she managed to finish.

There was an immediate yelp of WHAT from several ponies around the restaurant. Some ran for cover while others could only stare in terror or disbelief. Even Eddie was left stunned.

Her belly continued to growl and moan, limping up twice more until it looked capable of swallowing even the mass of Saunter or the chiseled flesh of Eddie. Then it contracted, fighting to force the swelling down. Once in an audible shudder, twice the muscles flexed under her wombs skin, tightening a noose around the force inside her thrice and then…

Zecora felt something rising inside her, something looking for a way out. Her eyes went wide moments before her mouth opened wide and out from her lips burst a massive, “BWAAAARP!!!” The windows rattled, but were too quiet to be heard over the cantankerous release. Nothing like it heard by anyone since that Ursa Minor roared into town all those years ago. The intense belch lasted at least a good ten seconds before it tapered off and the blushing cheeks of Zecora were finally allowed to close. Leaving the restaurant in shocked silence, and filled with a smelly cocktail of various brands of brunchy foods.

At least half of Eddie’s hairs were standing on end before he spoke. “Is that… are you okay, Zecora?”

Zecora gave her thankfully back to ‘normal’-sized tummy a little pat that elicited a minor glurp from its depths. “I think so…” Her gut then grumbled rather loudly as she looked over her shoulder at the nearly decimated buffet. “...maybe one more plate before we leave?”

Eddie smiled and trotted off to fill her plate once more while other ponies came from their hiding spots or angrily tossed won bits back at their bookees.

The last of their stay at Rosa's was thankfully uneventful. They all chatted peacefully before the now slumbering womb. When all was said and done Zecora made a move to stand, and found herself floundering to do so. It took Eddie with the help of Saunter to heave ho her back to her hooves. An air of dignity returned to Zecora as was no longer stuffing her gullet. She thanked them both and made her way toward the exit, her tremendous girth of twin overstuffed cider barrels bobbing and swaying with every step. If one looked closely, the tautness of her gut was apparent thanks to the reddish tinge to its crest, and small collection of veins here and there.

The three stallions who joined her followed in kind. However Eddie was stopped by none other than the owner of the restaurant herself, Rosa. An earth pony with a culinary hot plate filled with mac and cheese on her flank.

“Now i’m a fair pony, i like to think, but some things need to be said.” She looked over her shoulder at the utterly decrepit state of her buffets, “if you bring her back here I must insist her bill to be a little… steeper next time. I’m sorry but I can't afford to get my restaurant utterly destroyed on a regular basis. Luckily her hunger stopped before I had to get the second wave of food out before lunch but well… some ponies are going to have to wait now because of what she did.”

Eddie followed her eyes to the Door. A group of perspective buffet goers having to stand aside to let Zecora squeeze her way out the double doors, her belly that once cleared it by inches now tightly hugged on both sides. The fact that she had widened merely… excited Eddie, somewhere deep deep down… in his loins. He shook the thought out of his mind.

“I understand, sorry we didn’t mean to-”

She put a hoof up, “Don’t mention it, always made the business to get ponies happy and fed, and looks to me like she needed a mighty big feeding for her and your foals. Assuming those are your foals in there.”

Eddie blushed and rubbed the back of his head, “Yep, hehe, all uh mine.” Why did saying that fill him with a sense of pride, while also giving him a longing for Zecora’s-

“Yo Eddie, gonna pay your half the tab?” Flaunter called from the cash register up front.

He quickly said a polite farewell to Rosa and went to Flaunter’s side. While he fished his bit purse out of his saddlebags he could feel Flaunter’s eyes on him. It was making him feel a tad uneasy, then Flaunter spoke.

“Hey Eddie, you told us Zecora got pregnant because of some kinda life magic stuff… are we sure it didn’t affect you as well?”

Eddie felt a rush of fearful heat wash over him, “what makes you say that?” he said as he finally realized there was too much muscle under his skin.

Flaunter sighed, “nothing, but promise me, if something happens just… tell somepony before you get in trouble okay?”

Eddie didn’t look him in the eye, but he did his best to say something heartfelt, “I promise Flaunter, but please don’t tell anyone just yet. Okay?”

The mauve unicorn gave his zebra friend a little bump shoulder to shoulder, “Okay.”

After the bills were paid and the group met up again outside of Rosa’s a plan was formed. Saunter wanted to walk off his meal, and Flaunter wanted to see about some shopping. So they offered to do the forgotten grocery run for Eddie and Zecora, which was happily agreed to as Zecora wished to rest. She claimed to not yet be used to all the foal weight, yet she didn’t show any sign of fatigue. At any rate the group split up, with Eddie having given the rest of his bits to Flaunter to help pay for anything extra deemed necessary to keep his lover fed.

The lazy trot home was thankfully uneventful. Which gave plenty of time for thought. Thoughts that Eddie did his best to tamp down by not trotting behind the luscious rump of his lover. However the distance he had to stay away from her after a few lessons in her wider personal space thumped against his body he found himself still thinking of her in ludicrous ways. Most of them involving himself toppling her over and using her massive womb to steady himself while he plowed her-

"Eddie?"

Her word snapped him out of it, "y-yeah?"

"Have you been experiencing anything strange since last night?" Her eyes flicked over him, mainly to look up at the stallion she used to look in the eye.

His snout scrunched slightly as he about tripped over one of his hooves, "no, t-thank heavens no. I'm a-okay, no weird growth problem, none at all."

Suddenly there was weight being shoved against him and before he knew it his body was pinned against a wall by Zecora's considerable heft.

She spoke, slowly, her eyes trailing over him, "I'm not blind my love. I knew you were acting strange last night at the hospital, but at Rosa's I was sure of it. When I noticed my favorite little plot was becoming, chiseled. Now I am curious as to what else has gotten… larger."

Eddie felt his under veil grow tighter. He had to look away from her deep blue hungry eyes lest he fall further into the thoughts they conveyed. "You're not worried?"

"Do I sound worried?" In all honesty he thought she sounded hungry, she continued, "please tell me Eddie, can you get any… bigger?"

That word seemed to crawl into his skin, play with his mind. Thought of the supply closet entered his head and before he knew it the hide pulled taut over knots of muscle started to stretch, his limbs popping, chest barreling wider, bulged seams of his under veil snapping. He couldn't help but start to pant and hope this private little side street remained that way.

When his growth beleaguered mind returned to the world he had to fight not to feel dizzy. He was taller now, taller than Saunter, and probably twice as 'equipped'. Not only that but everything felt bulkier yet lighter than before.

"Oh yes," he looked at her, down at her, "momma likes." She placed her head against his chest, which hammered like a massive piston, and rubbed her face against the tight shifting muscles.

The contact was, nice. To feel his immense body be touched by her was filling him with a certain need. The fact that he was probably the biggest equine in town now wasn't helping matters. He always had a few slaps here and there about being bulkier than Saunter, even bulkier than that one red farmhand at the apple orchard on the edge of town. Not to mention the heft between his legs that felt like he could 'outrank them' at half mast. Speaking of that he had to say something before the creaking of his under veil got any louder.

"Zecora we-" he stopped for a second, his voice that rumbled deep in his throat so full of power compared to his lesser self stunning him for a moment, "we can't do this here. Some pony might see us," and hear us. A primal part of his brain said with a hot snort of his nostrils. "The apartment is only a few blocks away if we hurry-"

"-we might make it before your cock decimates your poor under veil?" She finished with slow movement of her head under his body, moments later Eddie let out a whine as her snout nuzzled his aching loins and another seam popped loose.

"Please." All he managed to say in return.

Zecora smiled, "alright, but you're taking the front, I want to enjoy my view."

Eddie barely registered what was said, he merely bolted into a fast trot while Zecora did her best to follow behind. Her eyes watching the muscles and plumpness of his plot flexing and pumping with every stride.

"I wonder how big he can get." She muttered under her breath.

()()()()()

The door was thrown open, the hinges screaming as the handle careened into the wall. Then the doorframe meant for a draft stallion shuddered as a forehead smashed into the tip top of the frame.

"Ah!" Eddie said, more out of surprise than pain which there seemed to be none at all as he gazed upon the crack formed in the thick wooden doorframe. Then he shuddered and gasped, "I'm going, I'm going." The word leaving him as the tingle still tickled his balls. Three times between where they were and home she had nuzzled him. Each time because he stopped at seeing how big he had become.

When he entered his home fully he immediately started to almost tumble and fall. Everything felt so much smaller, the ceiling lower, walking spaces tighter as he knocked over an end table.

"It feels so odd doesn't it?" Zecora said to him as she grunted and managed to barely squeeze herself through the entrance, "how the world around you doesn't 'fit' like is used to. How it must change to accommodate you now."

He had turned to face her, slowly backing away knocking over knick knacks until his plot went thud against the far wall.

"There's only one problem though," she continued as she closed the gap between them, "nopony is allowed to be bigger than me."

She launched her front half up with all her might. In one smooth motion she wrapped her front legs around Eddie's trunk of a neck, letting her womb dangle in the air, and planted a long kiss on his lips.

Eddie… started to kiss her back. Mashing lips, tasting tounges, feeling the electricity and heat rise between the two of them. Their kiss ended for one hot moment as he whispered to her, "then I will make you bigger."

"You better," she interrupted herself to give him another peck, then a nip on his neck, "now get on the bed, I want to see how big you really are."

It took little in the way of encouragement to get Eddie going. The doorway to his room was almost bucked off the hinges from the force of his shoulder ramming into it. He crammed himself through, and when his toned plot got stuck he felt her teeth pulling his under veil down low. Just enough to let his seed makers show themselves. A long low grunt escaping him as her nose pressed against them and her hot breath washed over the tight skin.

He let loose his strength without realizing it and cracked the doorframe clear out of the wall. The poor wooden effigy hanging onto his plot like a yoke.

"Oops, didn't mean to-" he stopped as he looked behind himself and saw Zecora fanning herself with a free hoof, then he got a stupid idea, but the testosterone in his head bade him onward. With a smarmy sneer he grunted and flexed his hindquarters. His muscles bulged and with a long creak of resistance that led into a loud snap of the doorframe popping off into two neat halves. His apparent strength giving a prideful swell to his ego as he flexed his barreled chest.

Zecora's body was hot with a need. She headbutted his rump and bade him onward, "enough of this bravado, momma wants her meat!"

Eddie was quickly pushed toward the bed until he was told to sit against the headboard and splay his back legs open wide. His underveil was already completely undone, tossed to shreds somewhere on the floor it no longer mattered in the slightest. What was on display would have ripped it apart three times over. A shaft that sprouted all the way up to Eddie’s snout with the tip giving his nose a little boop in time with his racing heart, with a pair of balls at the base that could double as an industrial canister of milk each.

All this show did was spur Zecora onward. She waddled her way onto the bed and planted herself before his pillar. Her snout burying itself between his balls and giving them a sniff and gentle kiss. Then another kiss, and another. Each one sending a pleasured jolt through him as her snout climbed as high as it could. Her need made her whine as she could only reach the medial ring halfway up.

“I want it Eddie, I want it in me.”

He frowned slightly, “Z-Zecora I don’t think it would fit.”

“Then you will make it fit!” She said in a stern tone.

He watched in disbelief as she started to try and turn around, “But… it can’t possibly be safe!”

“Eddie, today i ate and ate and ate until I cleaned out a whole buffet. A regular pony would at best be in coma yet here I am having eaten all of that and still i feel so breathtakingly empty.” She huffed a few times, the heat apparent on her face as Eddie got a good look now at her aching sex, “Please Eddie, I am so empty right now it almost hurts. I want you inside me, I need you inside me.”

Eddie couldn’t exactly argue with her logic. In fact he wasn’t sure why he brought it up in the first place, perhaps his desire to not escalate things. Who was he to think so anyway, he had so many knots of muscle bundled up inside of him at the moment he felt about ready to explode, and here was a willing mare ready to take that explosion straight to her foal factory.

He got off his plot and leveled out his spear. He didn’t mount her so much as just enveloped her under him slowly as he neared her entrance. With a careful prod he grinded his tip against her marehood. Apparently that was all it took to elicit a long moan out of her as he felt marecum ooze out of her and smear all over his flare.

“I hope you can last longer than that if you really wanna fill that emptiness dear.”

She huffed twice and bluntly replied, “Just shut up and stick it in you Gwar’la Temptata.”

Eddie chuckled, he didn’t know what that was but he heard her use it to describe a certain bullheaded pony she met one day that had set her off for the rest of the evening. “Dial it back or you might not get your treat tonight.”

He gently shifted and ground his hips into her. The sound of his tip shlicking against her entrance filled the room as Zecora tried to hold in a rolling moan that turned into an animal shout. More and more marecum gushing out of her until it started to ooze down his shaft and dribble onto the bed. Now was the time. With one of his forelegs wrapped around her frontside he grunted as he thrust against her with a ginger amount of force.

“Harder!” She demanded.

It took little to provoke him. The urge to seed his foal carrying wife was oddly strong within him. He pushed his rod forward while gripping down intensely on his marefriend to keep her steady. Nothing, but it didn’t stop him. Again and again he kept up the rhythm while Zecora was a mess of noises. Then all at once he angled his whole body forward while practically trying to push Zecora onto his dick.

SCHL-POP!

The sensation of his tip being enveloped in tight mareflesh was enough to now make Eddie moan like a whore, but he didn’t receive a moments reprieve. Her marehood winking and pulling on him the moment it was inside as Zecora shouted “Yes! Yes! More!” over and over again. He provided little resistance to her wishes. Doing his best to pump and thrust without getting too energetic, not wanting to harm her or the foals, but it seemed the more he held back the louder she would scream, “Harder, harder!”

So indeed he did as she commanded. Eventually going at such a hard rhythm that the entire bed was creaking and swaying, the headboard even smacking against the wall in time with the creaks. All this and he was barely a third of the way inside her. How much was she going to take, how much of this until her body was fulfilled. He had an inkling, a feeling swelling deep in his groin, that he knew what she wanted him to do. That feeling slowly crawling through his skin until it hit his brain.

When it finally collided with his conscious mind something in him snapped. He stopped trying to be careful with her, let go on her, planted his hooves on that bed that he didn’t care one single cent about and he started to FUCK his love. The bed went from creaking to screaming as the headboard was starting to put a dent into the wall. His hips slammed forward with such gusto he could feel her quiver from the force, but instead of shouts of fear or whimpers of pain Zecora was screaming. Animal noises that made no sense to anyone save Eddie in that heated moment. Her cries a primal pleasure to his very flesh as he rutted her raw, harder and harder as that need building in his groin was starting to gain in pressure very very quickly.

Even in that heated moment, thrusting into her like he was trying to break her in half, some semblance of a civilized Eddie peeked through, “Zecora, I’m gonna- oh great gods I’m gonna-a-A-AGH!”

“Fill me Eddie! Fill me up until I can’t move!”

Her words were the final crack in the dam. He thrust forward and didn’t pull back. His dick burying itself into her almost to the medial ring before it slammed against a muscular barricade deep in her cunt. His tip poised right at the edge, ready to blast the doors off and straight into her womb.

First he felt his balls clench, slam up into his groin. Then the building explosion started to barrel down his dick, the further along it went the less control he had over his muscles as they spasmed and pushed it along harder and faster. The wad visible within his dick charging forward, unyielding, unheeding to the lesser size of his partner. With one final yell he stopped trying to protect her from his love, he flexed every muscle in his body and launched his wad into her. Feeling his entire dick convulse and twitch as her body engorged itself on his cum. Again and again, every wad he splurted into her was seemingly absorbed into her doorway cramming girth, not a drop spilling out of her.

It was like his very strength, his essence, was flowing into her. Again and again making his toned legs quiver and quake more and more. After a point, when the last wad was pumped into her, his legs failed him and he slowly collapsed on top of her. She didn’t seem to mind, in fact she seemed to not be minding anything at all. Eddie looked at her, still tense and trembling despite everything that had just happened.

“Zecora?” He said with a heavy breath.

“So many.” She said between a visible tension in her girth, a guttural sound emanating from it as it lurched inward and outward, breathing, “So many butterflies!”

Her eyes opened and they were gleaming silver orbs of light, “I need to grow for them, grow for my babies!”

Still buried in her Eddie felt her body grow warm, then warmer still. Her belly became a tumultuous engine of noise and flexing as Zecora squeezed her eyes shut like she was somewhere between meditation and masturbation. Her womb acting up between every clench, the kicks getting stronger and more fervent with every pull. Then suddenly, she swelled.

Her girth that could almost jammed itself in the double doors of Rosa’s doorway pushed outwards to almost span the width of the bed. In that moment of utter disbelief Eddie felt her cunt pull in more of his cock. Taking him a few moments to realize that Zecora herself was getting bigger as well. Slowly he was rising on top of a bed made of his love’s own body and womb. The belly filled with life stretching all the way to the edges of the bed and not stopping. All while her hips connected with his groin, thick heavenly soft plot to match her engorging form brushing the inside of his thighs. Now locked atop her she still continued to rise, her womb growing and swelling until it almost absorbed the entire mattress beneath its glorious rise. Just when Eddie felt his back hit the low ceiling of his apartment was he grateful that it had stopped before he was squashed before her unceasing advance.

There was a great creaking after the massive growth spurt. One that made Eddie utter a small ‘oh crap’, right before the legs of the bed finally gave out and dropped the two zebras a handful of inches into the ground. The landing doing little more than make the womb jiggle and shake enough to upset its occupants into a visually striking display of many limbs tossing and turning within their mother.

It was enough to make Zecora’s eyes flutter open, when she gazed down upon herself all that came out of her was a little, “Oh.”

Eddie, still weary but not without his own voice to the matter, spoke up, “Oh? Zecora you just doubled in size, you can now lay on your gut to rest whenever you want, and all you got is oh?”

She barely seemed to register him as she looked over herself, “A little more than I expected, but it is as I thought it might be.”

“Expected? Wait, are you telling me you knew this was going to happen?”

Now she finally seemed to register his presence, “Eddie? Sorry my mind was wandering. Yes, I knew, or it would be more accurate to say I guessed this might happen.”

Had he the energy he might have stormed off for the moment, but as he was he just lay there on top of her as he huffed out a, “How in the world do you guess this is going to happen?”

She looked at him, her jewelry barely fitting her neck and ear, “How do you guess that you are to grow? Look at you Eddie, and look at me, we have… evened one another out.”

He did take a moment to gather himself and look at themselves. Two zebras, probably bulky enough to push Celestia herself aside and rule in her stead. Silly thoughts to be sure but that was what he felt like saying to himself at the moment.

“Okay fine, but does this mean you know what causes-” Then it hit him, “Oh sweet Celestia its whenever we have sex isn’t it?”

“What gave you that idea?” She said with a snarky smile.

He visibly shuddered under his muscled skin, “Alright, so we tell Twilight and the Doc and they can figure out why-”

“No.”

Eddie blinked a few times, “What?”

Zecora pulled into herself, closing her eyes before speaking, “Eddie, what is the first thing they will do when they find out we are causing each other to grow.”

His ears flattened against his head, “They’ll separate us.”

“And if our condition is permanent, if there is no way to reverse it.”

“Zecora you can’t be sure of that, Twilight is the princess of Friendship she wouldn’t-”

“She is also the crown princess of Equestria when Celestia and Luna retire the throne. The safety of her own country demands she take every measure necessary.”

“And we should just, what, endanger everypony because we’re in love?”

“No!”

“Then what Zecora!”

“Time!” SHe huffed once or twice, “Time… all i want is time. Time to figure this out, time to explore some ideas, and time...” She looked at him, her eyes watery, “with you.”

Eddie softened immediately, “Zecora” he leaned forward and wrapped his front hooves around what of her neck and head he could reach.

“I have these dreams Eddie, where i see them. The foals growing in my womb I see them frolicing in a field and we’re watching over them on a hill. I want us to be that i just don’t know how we get from here to there.”

“What do you want Zecora, just tell me and I'll make it happen.”

“Like i said, Time. I-if i get too big or things get to dangerous then please, tell them, but before then please.” She rubbed her face up against his, “don’t leave my side.”

“I promise.” He tightened his grip around her, and neither of them noticed the gem on his necklace flash twice.

“Now, is there any way for you to… shrink? We can simply tell them that I grew after I ate all that food but if you are like this...”

Eddie shrugged to her initial question, “It just sorta… happens after I, well with what we just did. I don’t know how much longer I’ll be like this. But what about you. Do you… shrink?”

She thought for a moment, “I think if I did it would have happened a while ago.”

He waited for her to say something else, but instead found a pregnant pause in the air punctuated by her looking at her womb and rubbing at it idly.

“So do you know how many we have now?”

“Eight. Before you ask, no, I don’t know how I know, but its eight.”

There was another pause, but Eddie felt the emotional rush of their conversation waning as the weariness reared its ugly head, “You uh… up for a nap?”

She nodded and shuffled herself slightly under him.

Eddie just looked down at her, even in his bigger form his legs would still be a few inches off the ground if he stretched out, “Never thought I'd get to use my marefriend as a bed before. Heh.”

The thought made her smile, “I would dare to guess that our futures will hold many ‘never thoughts’.”

He smiled in return and gave his zeeb a kiss on the cheek, “sweet dreams Zecora.”

She gave him an eskimo kiss in return, “Goodnight Eddie.”

Then just like that, the two giants drifted off to sleep atop one another, as their burgeoning progeny kicked and prodded the afternoon away.

End of Chapter 3