Unexpected Changes

Chapters

Chapter the First: Hoofball Practice
Chapter the Second: A Gut Feeling
Chapter the Third: Sent Home Early
Chapter the Fourth: The Herbalist's Shop
Chapter the Fifth: Guided Treatment
Chapter the Sixth: Returning from Camp
Chapter the Seventh: Back to School
Chapter the Eighth: Curriculum Guide
Chapter the Ninth: Recess
Chapter the Eleventh: Delightful Conversation
Chapter the Twelfth: Frozen Yogurt
Chapter the Thirteenth: Starting the Weekend
Chapter the Fourteenth: Borscht
Chapter the Fifteenth: In a Panic
Chapter the Sixteenth: Surprise
Chapter the Seventeenth: Pregnant
Chapter the Eighteenth: How Parents Come to Be
Chapter the Twentieth: The Library
Chapter the Twenty-Second: Hooves-on
Chapter the Twenty-Third: Private Demonstration
Chapter the Twenty-Fourth: Full Contact
Chapter the Twenty-Fifth: The Tryout
Chapter the Twenty-Sixth: Goals
Chapter the Twenty-Seventh: Confrontation
Chapter the Twenty-Eighth: The Big Game
Chapter the Twenty-Ninth: The Bump
Chapter the Thirtieth: Reclusion
Chapter the Thirty-First: Reunion
Chapter the Thirty-Second: Father and Daughter
Chapter the Thirty-Third: The Morning After
Chapter the Thirty-Fourth: Leaving
Chapter the Thirty-Fifth: The New Neighbors
Epilogue: Let Out Early
Chapter the Tenth: Out of Reach
Chapter the Nineteenth: How a Foal is Made
Chapter the Twenty-First: Independent Study

Chapter the First: Hoofball Practice

"C'mon, Lily! Kick it!"

Lily Blossom slid down, compressing her small filly body to take up as little room as possible to build up a bit more speed, launching the hoofball past the goalie and into the net.

Her friends all jumped and cheered and hugged her. They were back in the lead.

A whistle rang out across the pitch and the stallion watching them called "Reset!"

Lily picked herself up off the ground, twisting her body slightly to see the bright green grass stain that now marred her otherwise spotless coat. She rubbed her hip a bit, wondering if she'd earned her cutie mark, but no such luck. Oh, well.

As she moved back to position, one of her friends; one of her teammates, walked up to her. "Hey, Lily. Look."

Lily turned her head to where her friend had indicated. The opposing left forward had gone to the bench and was filling her bottle with sports drink.

"She's rehydrating, Daisy," snorted Lily. "What of it?"

Daisy Delight leaned in closer. "We've been here half an hour, and her legs are clamping together. She has to pee. There's a weakness on their left side. We just have to make sure that we drive the ball that way."

"My legs are clamping together," argued Lily. "I have to pee. Does that make me a weak central forward?"

"No, but that's because you're really good at this."

Lily sighed. "Look, I can't drive the ball anywhere if I don't have it, and they know I'm the best. They're going to keep the ball away from me as much as they can. So, try to steal it for me, 'kay? Then I'll consider going down the left side."

As they returned to their positions, the stallion tossed the ball in, giving it to the other team. Their center forward bounced it off of her chest to the left forward, who started to run it toward the goal. Everypony's eyes were on her as she ran forward, tripping a few metres in and sending the ball out of bounds.

The whistle sounded, and Daisy ran off to grab the ball before it rolled into the trees.

"You alright?" asked Lily, offering her hoof as she approached.

"Don't touch me!" shouted the fallen filly, smacking her hoof away.

"Hey, now!" called the stallion with the whistle. "That's uncalled for!"

"She tripped me!" shouted the filly. "I saw her and her friend talking about it before the ball came back in!"

"She was nowhere near you," assured the stallion. "Nopony was."

"But she did!" argued the filly. "I felt her kick me!"

Lily took a step back. She didn't want to be involved if she was going to be blamed. Luckily, the stallion wasn't having it. "You can return to your bunk and stay there until dinner."

"But then we won't have enough team members to play!" argued the center forward for the other team. "We don't have enough players, now..."

The stallion sighed and looked around. The only filly left on the bench was the one making sure that both teams were hydrated, and she was wearing a cast on her left wing. She couldn't play.

"I guess the game's over, then," he sighed. "Blue team wins by one point."

"That's not fair!" argued the center forward. "The rest of us were playing by the rules! Don't punish my other teammates because one of us tried to lie to you, ref!"

The stallion shook his head. "I'd like to see the game finished, too, but there simply aren't enough players. Even if I let the game go on, the blue team would have an extra player, and that's an unfair advantage."

"So kick Lily," he argued. "Five on five. That's fair, right?"

The ref sighed. "Blue team, huddle up." As they moved into a huddle, Daisy came back with the ball. "Do any of you volunteer to step out to keep the game going? We only have ten more minutes, so decide now."

"I'll go," answered Morning Glory, the right defender. "I prefer watching, anyway."

"Alright. Daisy, you're moving to take Glory's position. To your posts."

Daisy did not return to her post; rather, she ran off the field to where the ball went out of bounds and held it up, ready to throw it back in to resume the game. On the whistle, she tossed it to Lily, who took it and ran with it, rushing it over towards the opposite goal. There was a weakness on their left side, but the same was true for her own team's right side, as their right forward had just been sent to right defender.

The rest of the game went off without a hitch, with Lily scoring two more goals and the other team not being able to score one. At a final score of eleven to fourteen, the winner was the blue team.

They cleaned up the pitch and brought everything back to the shed, which the stallion padlocked.

"You really should hit the showers," urged Snapdragon, another of Lily's friends that had been playing goalie for the yellow team. "Wash off that grass stain before it sets."

"Yeah," huffed Lily, looking back at her hips. "That's probably a good idea. Can you tell the councillor for me?"

"We'll join you," volunteered Daisy, pulling Glory in as well.

Snapdragon rolled her eyes as the other three trotted off towards the shower and approached the stallion. "Excuse me, sir? Lily, Glory, Daisy and myself are feeling dirty and sweaty after the game, so we're going to go clean ourselves up before dinner, if that's alright."

"That's a good idea," he nodded. "Okay, fillies, listen up! Good game today, you all did a wonderful job. I saw some good hustle, and great exercise. And because of that, we could all use a good cooldown. Everypony, to the showers!"

"Even me?" asked the filly with the injured wing. She hadn't been exercising, but her cast wasn't supposed to be wet.

"Yeah," sighed the stallion. "Even you. But let's wrap up that wing to keep it dry first, hm?"

As he and the filly departed to the kitchen for some cling-wrap, everypony else headed off toward the shower house, a cabin offset from the main bunkhouses and cafeteria. Not a single one of them would argue against cleaning up.

Chapter the Second: A Gut Feeling

"It's not coming off!" shouted Daisy.

"Well, scrub harder!" shouted Lily back.

With a shrug, Daisy put the brush right up against Lily's thigh and really ground it in there. "How does Snapdragon do this?"

"Maybe we should ask her?" suggested Glory. "She's standing right behind me."

"Hm?" Snapdragon turned around from washing her mane. "What's going on, dear?"

Lily turned her hips to show the green streak in her coat. It was too big to be a cutie mark. "We're trying to remove this grass stain, but it's not coming out."

Snapdragon looked closely, then rifled through her collection of soaps. "I know you all think it's crazy of me to have twenty different bars of soap, but who's laughing now?"

Glory looked around "I don't hear anypony laughing..." She put her hoof up to her ear. "Wait, I think Sparrow might be laughing at Lark a few stalls down! That counts, right?"

Rolling her eyes at Glory, Snapdragon grabbed a fresh washcloth, wet it, lathered up her bar of soap, then slapped the rag over the stained area. "Let that sit for a moment, then scrub lightly. Just the rag, no brush."

Lily sat down on the shower bench. "Let me know when it's done," she said, pressing her hooves against her abdomen.

"So, you don't need a scrub brush to take out those stains?" asked Daisy. "My mom's always using a brush to remove them."

"No offense, Daisy, but your clothes are pretty much ruined."

"That's just normal wear-and-tear," argued Daisy back. "They just end up damaged because I keep active, and they can't handle it."

"No, darling, they're falling apart because they routinely have to be bleached, and that damages the fibres."

"Oh, yeah? What makes you so sure of that?"

"The fact that your workout shorts turn brighter every time you go to hoofball practice," smirked Snapdragon.

Daisy raised her hoof as if to take a swing, but Snapdragon just kept grinning. She knew Daisy didn't have it in her to hit another filly.

"Can we stop fighting?" asked Lily. "I don't know if I can stop you right now..."

They all turned to Lily. Usually, she was the strongest of them, and had broken up fights between Snapdragon and Daisy on multiple occasions. It was only now that they realised she was clutching her stomach.

"Did you hurt yourself?" asked Daisy, walking up to her. "Let me see."

"I don't think so," answered Lily, moving her hoof. "It's on the inside."

"Maybe she's just growing older?" suggested Glory. "My Nana says that her body has strange aches that come out of nowhere all the time. Maybe it has something to do with your age? It could be arthritis!"

"That's ridiculous," snapped Snapdragon. "It's probably just a stomachache."

"Yeah," sighed Lily. "That's probably true."

"So, you won't be joining us for dinner?" asked Daisy.

Lily looked down at her stomach. "I don't know. I'm really hungry; I know that. But I'm weighing that against the churning sensation in my tummy. I don't know if I'd be able to keep it down."

"Maybe we should tell one of the councillors," suggested Daisy.

"Good idea."

By the time they finished their shower, the feeling had gone away, and as a result, they forgot to ask the councillor about it. Lily was clean now, the green stain now her normal orange coat with little red speckles. It wasn't until about halfway through her enchilada that the feeling came back, stronger than before.

"Darling, is everything okay?" asked Snapdragon. "You're sweating. Is the food too spicy?"

"No, just... Feeling really warm all of a sudden."

"Like a fever?" asked Daisy.

Hearing the mere suggestion that one of his wards might be sick, the councillor trotted over to them. "Who thinks they might have a fever?"

Lily raised her hoof. "And I had a churning feeling in my tummy after the game."

He rounded the table and placed a hoof on her forehead. "You do feel a little warm. How's your stomach, now?"

"It feels fine, but... I don't know. I might be able to finish dinner; I'm still hungry, I just think there might be something wrong with my tummy."

He reached down around her midsection. The instant his hoof touched her abdomen, her whole body tensed up, and she let out a loud gasp.

"I need you to hold still for just a moment," he instructed, and she nodded. He touched her again, and she had to resist the urge to pull away. For a moment, his face showed confusion, but that immediately melted away into realisation as her shoulders gravitated into his chest.

"Am I sick?" she asked as he pulled his hoof away.

"Well... Yes and no. You're certainly going to feel some symptoms, but it's nothing too dangerous. Just to be safe, though, let's go find one of the female councillors. They can help you better than I can."

She climbed over the bench and followed him, panting, despite not having done anything exhausting since the game. She wasn't panting on the way in, but now she was.

He led her into the kitchen and had her wait by the door while he went to talk to the young mare by the sink. She was washing dishes, and continued to do so as he approached. They spoke in hushed tones, so Lily couldn't hear what they were saying, but she couldn't pay attention, anyway. Her head was swimming with tangential thoughts about things that she couldn't comprehend. She was seeing images of long tubes, of eggs in bags, and of big hoses spewing milk. None of it made sense to her, and she couldn't keep track of any of it.

She suddenly remembered where she was as a damp hoof touched her abdomen. She yelped and jumped back, but the hoof pressed against her again, and this time, she remained still.

"Looks like I owe you an apology," sighed the female councillor. "You were right."

"What do we do, now?" he asked. "I don't recall seeing anything in the manual about this."

"That's because this isn't supposed to happen," answered the mare. "Not this early. I'll take care of it. You go make sure her chair is clean, then pull out the mop. Send the rest of the kids to their cabins right after dinner. Games are fine, but they can't stick around in the cafeteria, and they can't come to the councillor's cabin."

Chapter the Third: Sent Home Early

Lily spent half of the night tossing and turning, not in her own bed, but in a cot in the councillor's cabin. They had set her up there because they didn't want the other fillies running in and waking them up every ten minutes with updates as to Lily's condition. It was easier to just passively watch her for a bit with instructions and then let her try to sleep, even when sleep wouldn't come.

Before going to bed, they'd sent an urgent message to her father. She was having a medical problem, and while they could deal with her at the camp, it was best if she saw her primary care pediatrician right away. That would be better than a trip into urgent care.

They'd told her that what she had was not dangerous, was not contagious, and would not be harmful to her or her friends, but she had to sleep on a cot covered in towels, and with as much sweating as she was doing throughout the night, it was pretty easy to see why. Her entire body felt like it was on fire. The councillors had called it "heat," and she could definitely see why. She was burning up, constantly needing to shift positions to let the air cool her sweat-soaked body.

The next morning, she woke up exhausted, and the councillor that had brought her to the cabin escorted her to the showers to wash up. Every step sent shockwaves through her body, so she was glad for the assistance. She definitely needed help, as every touch, every caress set her whole world alight. She was so sensitive that, had she gone in alone, she wouldn't have made it through washing her back legs without collapsing to the floor.

When she came out wrapped in the softest towel they could find, her dad was just slipping out of his wagon harness, having rushed over as fast as he could. She waved to him, and he smiled and waved back as they made their way into the councillor's cabin.

"Heat?" asked her father. "She's too young to be going into heat!"

"Well, I did think we should have a second opinion," answered the councillor that had found her at dinner. "It's certainly odd, and definitely early, but that's what it seemed to me."

"I can confirm that," answered the councillor that had just helped her through the shower. "From my admittedly limited knowledge, it's either a really early heat, or there's something horribly wrong and she needs to see a doctor right away."

"I'm certainly going to seek a doctor," her father almost growled. He put up his hooves. "Sorry, I know it's not your fault, I'm just upset."

"Reasonably so," nodded the male councillor. "Either way, we recommend going to see a doctor. Do you need help packing up her things?"

Lily had passed out on her way back home twice. The road was bumpy, and she was jostled every which way. Yet somehow... it felt fantastic. She couldn't explain it, but every bounce was causing small jolts of happiness to blitz through her mind until everything became too crowded, and she went dark. She thought it might be because she hadn't slept well the night before, but when she told her doctor about the experience, she looked like she knew what was happening.

"Well," she sighed clicking her pen, "That's all there is to it."

Her dad looked up from the entirely-too-small chairs in the corner of the room. "You mean...?"

"She's in heat," confirmed the doctor. "Now," she turned back to Lily, "this is a normal part of life for us ponies. Specifically, for mares. It's perfectly natural. I'd have told you about it already, but usually, it doesn't happen for another year and a half. I would recommend that you stay home while this passes, because from the sounds of it, the effects are hitting you pretty hard."

For some reason, the word "hard" had caused Lily's insides to twist, and she had to lean forward to try to stifle the burning wave coursing through her.

"Is there anything we can do to make it easier?" asked her dad. "A medication, a treatment, anything?"

The doctor rubbed her chin. "There is an apothecary just up the road. I know it's strange to hear a doctor prescribing herbal medicine, but the owner is licensed. There's no official medication to aid in this, but maybe he knows something that can help. Otherwise, I suggest bedrest. Keep her comfortable, keep her hydrated, and make sure she eats and sleeps okay. And one more thing; you really need to keep her up on her hygiene. Other than that, all I can do is give you some pamphlets or send you to the library to look this up on your own time."

"Thank you, doctor," he sighed, standing up.

"This could be a good thing," she offered. "Since she's an early bloomer, she doesn't have to sit there and wonder when it's going to happen. A lot of fillies try to force it to happen when they're later than their friends. It's no fun being the last one to bloom."

"It's no fun being the first," groaned Lily. "Why do I have to go through this?"

"It's part of growing up, dear," smiled the doctor, placing a comforting hoof on her shoulder. "It's just like your cutie mark showing up or graduating from elementary school. It's something that happens when the time is right, and sometimes, that's either earlier or later than what you might expect." She reached up and brushed Lily's mane out of her eyes. "Don't worry over it too much. In a few weeks, you'll look back on this moment at full health and realise that it was silly to be worried about it."

With another round of thanks to the doctor, Lily and her father walked out of the hospital and returned to their house via their wagon. As soon as they arrived, Lily was sent straight to bed to wait while her dad made some soup for her for lunch. She'd skipped breakfast, and this would keep her hydrated while he went out to seek the help of the apothecary. It was times like this that he wished that her mother was still around. A young filly like Lily would benefit greatly from the guidance of a good mare in her life.

Chapter the Fourth: The Herbalist's Shop

Once Lily was tucked in and resting, her father took off down the road toward the apothecary. As much as he didn't want his daughter to be going through this, he knew that it had to happen. He couldn't stop it, and he'd have to accept it eventually. He just wasn't wanting it to be required so soon.

The bell rang as he stepped into the shop. There were more than just herbs in the place. Dazzling crystals hung from the ceiling, as well as various bottles of unknown liquids that glowed in various colours. The air smelled absolutely foul, and it was coming from the back wall, where behind the counter, hundreds of small drawers were crudely marked with strange symbols he didn't recognise.

"Can I help you?" asked a hissing voice from behind a table. He looked, but he couldn't see them through the large stack of candle boxes. "Hello?" the voice asked again after a few seconds. "Isss sssomeone there?"

"Y-yeah, sorry," he answered, his voice slightly muffled by the hoof covering his nose. "I'm looking for some medicine."

"We have much of that. You're going to need to be more ssspecccific..."

"I'm looking for... Hang on a second..." He moved through the various tables and displays until he was able to circle the one the clerk was hiding behind. "I don't want to keep shouting across the room and around displays. I'm Cloverleaf."

The dragon reorganising the crystals extended his claw for a shake. "Sssalazzzar."

"Pleasure to meet you." He shook his claw. "I'm looking for something to help with heat."

"I can whip up a treatment for that, but you can find variousss ointmentsss of Aloe Vera and Menthol at mossst drug ssstoresss that'll fixxx most burnsss."

Cloverleaf furrowed his brow. "You'd turn away customers like that?"

He shrugged. "Cussstomersss are cussstomersss, and coin isss coin, but it'sss obviousss that you don't like the sssmell of my ssstore."

Cloverleaf lowered his hoof, though he wished he'd lift it up to hide his embarrassment. "Sorry. I don't mean to insult you or your store..."

Salazar chuckled. "I forgive you. It ssstinksss in here. That isss the ssstench of the cabinet of herbsss in the back. If you ssstill want it, I can put together a bottle of your burn cream."

"Hm?" Cloverleaf blinked a few times, then shook his head. "No! Sorry. That's not what I wanted. It's not for burns, it's for heat."

Salazar tilted his head to the side. "I'm confusssed. Isss it not a burning you were hoping to avoid?"

"No. No fire. Just heat."

He scratched his chin for a bit, then it dawned on him. "I sssee, now. You're venturing into a warm environment, and don't want to sssuccumb to exxxhaussstion. Isss it a humid placcce, or a dry heat?"

As Salazar began slithering back to the counter, Cloverleaf noted how very long his body was. "No, that's not it, either. I'm not going anywhere for a little bit."

Salazar once more looked confused as he coiled himself behind the counter. "I have no idea what it is that you want."

Cloverleaf took a deep breath, instantly regretting it because of the smell. "I have a young mare at home. She's gone into heat."

Salazar's eyes instantly lit up. "Oh, essstrusss! I underssstand what it isss you mean, now!"

Cloverleaf sighed in relief. "So, can you help me out?"

"Cccertainly!"

Grabbing a large bowl from underneath the counter, Salazar uncoiled his body, barely ever moving his bottom claws as he darted from drawer to drawer, grabbing clawfuls of powders, dusts and dried leaves, little chunks of dried fruit and some shavings from some weird, woody-looking root. He brought all of this down and set it next to a small machine, poured everything into a chute, and flipped a switch to turn it on.

"Thisss will jussst be a minute or two," he said, patting a claw on the machine. "Now, there are a few other itemsss that can add to the effectsss of this brew, if you're interesssted?"

Cloverleaf nodded. "Anything that can help her. As long as it isn't harmful."

"Of courssse," promised Salazar. "Your young mare will exxxperienccce no pain at all."

Salazar wandered the shop, pulling down crystals and charms, small bottles of prepared ointment, various candles with a multitude of colours and scents. He occasionally asked a question, but they were odd questions. "Doesss her window faccce eassst?" "Doesss ssshe usually wake up early?" "Doesss ssshe play any inssstrumentsss?" Cloverleaf was quick to answer, but was definitely confused by the end. Still, he trusted that Salazar knew what he was doing, as this was the address his doctor had recommended.

When the machine let out a small chime, Salazar returned to it and grabbed a large box of paper filters, dumping the mixed powder by spoonfuls into the bags and then sealing them with staples, in addition to a string that was attached to each bag. "You know how to brew tea, yesss?"

Cloverleaf nodded. "Pour boiling water into a cup, drop in the bag, and when the water has cooled enough to drink, remove the bag and add honey. Stir it up, and enjoy."

"Indeed ssso," smiled Salazar. "Thisss sssolution isss much the sssame, and while not all of my herbs work well with honey, thisss particular brew will sssuffer no ill effectsss from itsss addition. Hang the cryssstalsss from her window and let the morning sssun ssshine through them into her bedroom. Hang the charmsss where ssshe ssspendsss mossst of her time, the ointmentsss have inssstructionsss on the bottle, and are for her hygiene, ssso thossse go in the bath, and the candlesss have a calming effect. Two cupsss of medicine per day; one in the morning, and one in the evening. And if ssshe'sss nervousss, it'sss perfectly sssafe for you, asss well. I've even included a few exxxtra bagsss to make absssolutely cccertain that you can lassst through her entire essstrusss cycle."

"Perfect," smiled Cloverleaf as he pulled out his coinpurse and paid for the supplies. "I must say, I was a bit skeptical when I walked in, but you've been very helpful. This was actually less expensive than I thought it would be, too."

"It isss my pleasssure to asssissst the pony folk," Salazar smiled back. "Tell your little misss that I wisssh her the bessst of luck."

Chapter the Fifth: Guided Treatment

Cloverleaf followed the instructions to the letter. Six crystals were given, and they were clasped to normal strings of twine that made little loops. The loops were attached to the east-facing window via small hooks on rubber suction cups. These would only be effective in the morning; that was listed in the instructions. If it has been a west-facing window, it would only be in the evening, if it had been south-facing, only at noon, and not as strong. A bronze mirror would help in that case, and would be required if it was a north-facing window. This was all because the sun had to catch the crystals and refract light into the room. No sunlight, no effect.

The charms were a little bit... macabre. They were bits of what looked like bone, with circular runes carved into them. He wasn't sure what they meant, but he was meant to hang one over her head, and then one more at each corner of her bed. They were small enough to not detract from the aesthetic she'd wanted, and even seemed to match her favourite colours. The only one that looked out of place was the one he had to hang from the ceiling. It was awkward to put up, as she was still sleeping as he drove the little hook into the ceiling, but he managed to hang it without waking her.

The candles had to wait until she woke up. The infused oils were only flammable to a certain temperature, meaning they would stay lit for an hour and no longer. He was to light two at a time in a safe location, then have her sit in that room until the candles expired. She didn't need to sit, per se, she just needed to breathe in the fumes being released. She could be playing with her dolls, eating dinner, taking a bath... as long as she was in an enclosed space with two lit candles once a day, they'd do their job.

Next was the ointment. It was pretty easy to use. A few drops onto her shower pouf mixed in with any soap, bring it up to a lather, and give herself a good scrubbing, then rinse. Alternatively, if she used liquid soap that wasn't aerated through the pump, she could mix the whole bottle with a litre of soap, shake it up, and not have to worry about mixing it further. It would also soften her skin, which she might not actually like. She took some pride in her resilience, so softening up may rub her the wrong way, but she could toughen up again if she needed to.

Once all of that was done, he started making dinner. When she was sick, he always made waffles for her. She wasn't sick now, but she did need a bit of special treatment to make her feel better. There was only a week and a half left of camp, and she'd be out of commission for the next two weeks, so she'd be unable to participate in the hoofball finals. He knew how much she loved to play, and she was going to be very upset that she was now unable to lead her team to victory. She could use a pick-me-up.

He heard the doorframe creak as he poured the last ladleful of waffle mix into the press. "Good morning, Lily."

She rubbed her face. "It's morning? I slept through dinner?"

"No. I'm just teasing," he chuckled. "Sit down."

She dragged herself over to the table and climbed up into her chair. "I'm starving. I haven't eaten anything all day."

"You had soup for lunch," he reminded her. "Just before I left. And thanks for putting your bowl in the sink, by the by."

"Oh. Yeah, I guess I did. Still hungry, though..."

"Well, you're in luck." He picked up a platter of waffles and brought it over to the table.

Her face lit up, though she was very much trying not to open her eyes. "Yay!"

That put a smile on Cloverleaf's face, too. His daughter was happy, and while her exclamation of joy sounded like a weak whine, it was evidence that he could still make her feel better, and that was what every father wanted.

He brought out the butter and some warm blueberry syrup, and she started prepping a plate for herself. She still had an appetite, which was good. The councillors had told him that she'd been concerned about keeping food down, and he was hoping that by now, she'd realised that she wasn't going to suddenly lose it all.

As the last waffle came off of the press, he added it to his own plate and sat down across from her. "Did you sleep well?"

"No. I had some really weird dreams, and then when I woke up, there were these... things... hanging over my bed."

With a nod, he explained to her all of the various things that he'd done to fill out her medications. She listened closely while eating, occasionally taking breaks to hold her abdomen as the pulsing pain in her gut swelled, but then went away a moment later. She described it as a hot, burning, throbbing that radiated out from her core. As it passed, she waved for him to continue and resumed eating.

"Finally, There's one more thing that we can do for you." He picked up her empty plate, as well as his own, putting the rest of the waffles in the fridge for later. He could reheat them in the toaster. "I have some medicine for you to take."

She stuck out her tongue. "Do I have to?"

"Do you want to keep having that abdominal pain?"

"...No..."

"Then yes, you have to."

"You know I have trouble taking pills."

"This isn't a pill, sweetheart." He walked back to the table with two cups of tea and a bottle of honey.

"This is the medicine?"

He nodded. "All you have to do is drink what's in that cup. I'll even go right along with you."

She looked up at him. "Are you going through heat, too?"

"No, honey. Stallions don't go through heat."

"So why would you take heat medicine?"

"To show you it's safe."

As heat was essentially an increased libido, this medicine would calm his sex drive. Since it was already pretty calm, what reason did he have to be afraid? He raised his cup, clinked it against hers, and they both took a large swallow of the herbal medicine.

Chapter the Sixth: Returning from Camp

Daisy stared out over the railing as Glory's mom pulled their wagon. They'd lost the championship because their best player had to go home early for a medical problem. She wasn't the biggest fan of hoofball, but she liked it well enough. But Lily... Lily loved hoofball.

Snapdragon nudged her. "Something troubling you, dear?" she asked. "You've barely touched your juicebox."

Daisy sighed. "It's Lily. How are we going to tell her that we lost?"

"Like this!" squeaked Glory. "Hey, Lily! We lost the championship, by the way. Did you throw up yet?"

Daisy shook her head. "That's too blunt. We need to ease her into the idea. She'll be devastated."

"That's why we need to change the subject right away!" explained Glory. She was waving her hooves so much that she almost leaned back too far and fell out of the wagon.

"Glory!" called her mother. "That's the third time you've almost fallen out. You need to sit down."

Flopping down on the bench, Glory put on her best pouting face. "Fine..."

"I don't know if tonal whiplash is going to be a good idea," continued Daisy. "Since she's sick, we probably should try to keep the news light."

Glory's mom looked back. "If she's sick, I don't know if you guys should be hanging around her."

"She's not contagious, mom!" insisted Glory. "The council said so!"

"Oh? What did the council say she had?"

"The counsellors said she had a fever, or something," corrected Daisy.

"A fever." She took a deep breath. "Yeah, that sounds contagious. Best not to risk it."

"But they said it was safe!" argued Glory.

"I'll talk to her father and find out..."

"You can do that while you drop me off," suggested Daisy. "I live, like, right next door to her."

The cart came to a stop in front of Daisy's house. They all looked up and saw that there was movement in Lily's window. Somepony was up there, and doing more than just sleeping She was awake, and she was active.

Daisy's parents came out to help her bring in her stuff, and to chat with Glory's mom, but Glory's mom was more interested in talking to Lily's dad. "Did you know Lily was sick?"

Daisy's parents had heard, as they'd talked to Cloverleaf about Lily's condition. While they did inform her of the specifics, Glory's mom continued to insist that she go and talk to him.

It took just shy of a minute for Cloverleaf to answer the door. He was sweaty and panting. "Oh. Yeah, sorry, I forgot to tell you; Lily had to come home from camp early."

"I heard," she nodded. How is she?"

"Oh, she's doing much better."

"Why are you all sweaty?"

Cloverleaf looked back into the house. "I was working out. Desk jobs aren't great for your health, so I need to make time for it when I can."

"Ah."

Back around the side of the house, Daisy was standing in her yard, about to throw a tiny rock up to Lily's window when she poked her head out. She was also really sweaty, but she looked to be in a good mood. "Oh. Hi, Daisy."

"Hey. How are you feeling?"

"Oh, just wonderful..." As she sagged on the windowsill, Daisy couldn't tell if she was being sarcastic.

"So, do you still have a fever, then?"

"It's called "heat," and yeah, I still have it."

"Oh. So, you're not doing well?"

"No, I am!" she insisted. "I still have it, but the treatment for it is..." She waved her hoof as if throwing a dart. "It's just the best..."

"So, you're in a good mood because of your meds?"

She nodded vigourously. "Yep!"

"So, what's the treatment?"

Lily looked around her room. "There's some crystals and charms, some ointment, and some tea. And then-- hang on..." She ducked back in and came back with a box. "This is that tea. It tastes really good, too!"

Daisy tilted her head to the side. "It is medicine, right?"

"Ya-huh!"

"So, I probably shouldn't be tasting it..."

"Well, not yet, but my daddy says that all fillies go through heat. It's part of becoming a mare! And if yours is as aggressive as mine, then you'll need this tea, too!"

Just then, Daisy's mom came out through the back door. "Daisy, you need to come put your stuff away."

"Hi, miss Delight!" shouted Lily from her window, waving vigourously.

Daisy's mom smiled and waved back, ushering her daughter into the house. "Come on. If you finish up early, you can go over and see her in her house, rather than needing to shout through the second-floor window..."

Hearing that, Daisy rushed through her tasks, and within the hour, ran over to Lily's house and knocked on the door. By then, Lily had cleaned up, and was wearing a towel around her mane.

"It's safe to come in, right? The doctors said it wasn't contagious?"

Lily chuckled. "Of course it's safe. Come on."

They made their way up to Lily's room. Usually, Lily kept it pretty clean, but this time, there was a lot of stuff tossed around haphazardly. Her bedspread was all tousled, there were a lot of damp towels on the floor in need of washing, and of course, the crystals and charms were hanging as mentioned. There were also several candles, some of them melted, some half-melted, others intact. There were a few spots where the wax had dripped onto things and stained them, but Lily didn't seem to mind. Which was odd, because she was usually against any damages to her things.

"Wow. This is... Wow."

Lily waved. "I've been a bit overwhelmed. But I'm crystal clear, now, so I would start on the washing, except my dad's in the shower, so I have to wait for the water to heat up again, first."

"Your dad's in the shower?"

Lily nodded.

"Why? It's the middle of the day."

"Because he's all sweaty, of course!"

That made sense to Daisy. While she'd never seen him use workout equipment, she knew they had it. Lily had a weight set, but they were on the lower end. It wasn't the kind of weight that would make a stallion sweat. He may have had full gear for himself, but Daisy had never seen it. And she'd been away all summer, so of course she wouldn't see it if he'd just brought it in.

Chapter the Seventh: Back to School

The next week went by with little interaction between the four friends. They had to do their shopping and prep for school, so the only time they would hang out together was when they would bump into each other out in the world. That is, when they would see each other while shopping, or taking a break from shopping to eat.

Daisy, in particular, took note of her mom's shopping habits, noting that she would buy multiple backups of her hoofball uniform, as if she expected that it would be damaged. Perhaps Snapdragon had a point?

The week came and went, and they all made it back to school, being picked up by Glory's mom on the way to her job at the mayor's office. She'd be pick them up to go to school at the beginning of every day, just as she had for years.

Most times, they were too tired, having to wake up early to go to school, to talk to each other, but the first day was always different. On the first day back, there was much more excitement in the air, so they were peppy and chipper. This was most evident when Daisy and Lily jumped into the back of the wagon, and everypony immediately piled onto Lily, hugging her tightly.

"You look wonderful, darling!" gushed Snapdragon, the first to leave the hug to wipe away the sticky crumbs on her shoulder from Glory's toast with jelly. "I take it you're no longer sick?"

"Not at all!" smiled Lily. "The goopy ointment fixed me right up!"

"Settle down back there!" called Glory's mom, waiting for them to all sit down so she could go.

"Sorry, ma'am!" called Daisy, ushering everypony to their seats. "So, Lily, tell us about this fever, again?"

"It's not a fever, it's called "heat." It's something every filly has to go through to become a mare."

"So, we're all going to go through it?" asked Glory through a mouthful of breakfast.

"Why?" asked Snapdragon. "What's the point?"

"According to my dad, it's to prep our bodies for adulthood," explained Lily. "Like, we'll be doing normal stuff one minute, and then we can start to experience cramps, then muscle tension, chills, a mild fever; but it's all okay, because the first one is always the worst. After that, it's way easier, he says. That's why most mares don't all become absolutely crazy all the time. Can you imagine if they had to go through what I just did every three weeks?"

Daisy shrank down in her seat. "It happens that often?"

"Mostly during the summer," calmed Lily. "I'm only supposed to have one or two more before I go dormant for winter."

"So you're going to hibernate?" asked Glory. "Like a grizzly bear! I bet if you grew out your coat a bit, it'll keep you real warm!"

"She's not going to live in a cave, Glory!" snapped Snapdragon. "She can hibernate at my house. I'll even give her a warm blanket so that her coat remains untarnished."

"How would she even go about growing out her coat?" asked Daisy. "It seems to me that if we could do that, we could skip out on needin' scarves an' hats."

"If you did your mane up perfectly like I do," taunted Snapdragon, "you would already know that hats are unnecessary."

"So, if the first time is so bad, what's the second time like?" asked Daisy.

"Don't know," shrugged Lily. "I can probably tell you in a week; that's when it's supposed to hit again."

"So, what are your plans to counteract it if it ends up really bad again?"

"So, the burning sensation I was feeling was right around here." Lily rubbed her hoof over her abdomen, just grazing her breasts. "My dad had this special ointment that, when he rubbed it in, it really doused the flames, and I wasn't burning nearly as much. If I have another bad reaction, I'll just tell him about it, and he'll probably tell me to apply more."

"Does it hurt?" asked Snapdragon.

"It does at first, but after a few days, it stops hurting, and then it's kind of nice. I actually kind of miss the burning sensation, a bit."

"Maybe it cooked your brain a bit?" suggested Glory.

Lily shook her head. "I think I just grew accustomed to it, and now that it's gone, there's just this empty, gaping hole where it used to be. It's kind of lonely."

"Hearing how much you complained about it at camp, I thought you'd never want it to happen again?" thought Daisy aloud. "You mentioned feeling like you were going to be sick."

"Well, I wasn't sick. And that means that I can eat all of the enchiladas I want and nothing bad will happen!"

"Not all of the enchiladas you want..."

They all turned to Glory's mom, who'd just chimed in from the front. "What's that mean?"

"I'm saying you can still eat enchiladas, just don't eat and eat and eat until your stomach is at twice its capacity. That'll make you sick for real, regardless of your estrus cycle."

"What's estrus?" asked Daisy.

"It's another name for heat."

The fillies all sat back in their chairs. "Anyway," continued Lily, "it wasn't my stomach that was the problem. It was something else. My dad showed me pictures and stuff."

"So, what was it?" asked Glory "It certainly looked like you were rubbing your tummy earlier."

"Well, there's, like, a lot more organs in there than you realise. There's the stomach, and then there's the bladder, but there's this coil-y thing that's called an "int-a-stein," and a pair of kidney beans, and a whole mess of others, and they all do different things. Not just when to eat or go to the bathroom, and they all have different ways of telling you what's wrong, and they all have different cures. The only problem with that is, sometimes, it's hard to tell which one is saying what, so heat cramps feel kind of like your stomach turning. That's why I thought I was going to be sick; because the organ that tells me I'm going into heat was sending out cramping pain."

"Huh..." noted Snapdragon. "I didn't know that."

"Neither did I," admitted Daisy. "So, what organ was it that told you you were in heat?"

Lily pointed to her abdomen again. "I think they're called "test-sicles...""

Chapter the Eighth: Curriculum Guide

After all of the students arrived and took their assigned seats, in accordance with the instructions on the blackboard, the teacher walked in. "Good morning, students."

"Good morning, Ms. Mayberry," they answered back in unison.

"Oh, come on, we can do better than that. Good morning, students!"

"Good morning, Ms. Mayberry!" they shouted.

"That's more like it." She trotted up to the board and scrawled her name on the left side over her desk. "Now, we have two new students, as I'm sure you've noticed. Everypony, please give a warm welcome to Top Story and Gusty Gale!"

The whole class turned to one of the two seats and clapped for them. It was odd, but it was normalised in their minds at this point.

As the applause died down, Ms. Mayberry started writing on the board. "Before we begin on our first-day assignments, let's quickly go over the curriculum, starting with mathematics."

This year, they would be studying the next two branches of arithmetic. They'd covered addition, subtraction and multiplication, and this year, they'd be working on two different concepts instead of one: division and integers. It had taken a whole year for them to memorise their multiplication tables, and Lily still couldn't belt out the answers in less than three seconds. She was usually right, but she was slower to answer than most, and had only barely passed because of that. She really wished that she was graded on accuracy, rather than speed, but she didn't make the rules.

For language arts, they would be learning how to turn sentences into paragraphs. They had their final exam outlined already, writing a whole three-page essay on language arts and why it was important. It was going to take so much effort to write out three whole pages' worth of words...

Spelling was spelling. They'd learn how to spell some of the most advanced words they'd ever heard, like "anti-inflammatory," and "grandparent," and "intercontinental." There was no telling when those words would show up on their spelling lists, but they would, and even seeing them written out on the board was intimidating. Anti-inflammatory was particularly scary because it had a hyphen. Words could be spelled with hyphens, now, instead of just letters. This was going to be a difficult year.

Their science class, however, brought up an interesting point of discussion. They would start off with biology and anatomy and learning about animals and plants and stuff, then that would go into plant reproductive cycles, then animal reproductive cycles, and then pony reproductive cycles, which they would need signed permission slips from their parents to take part in.

Daisy's hoof shot up.

"Yes, Daisy?"

"Did you say that heat was a part of the reproductive cycle?"

"Yes, but it's not the kind of heat you're thinking of, where things are physically warm, like a fire or a stove."

Daisy shook her head. "It's that thing where your insides feel like they're on fire, right?"

Ms. Mayberry was shocked. "Uh... Yeah, I suppose that's pretty close to what the sensation would feel like. Yeah, we'll be talking about that in the fourth quarter."

"Can we move it to the first quarter? I have a lot of questions about it."

Ms. Mayberry shook her head. "We'll come around to it in the fourth quarter. Don't worry about it too terribly much; none of you are going to be going through your heat cycles until then, anyway. Some "early bloomers" might have their first cycle while we're talking about it, but it's not something you need to worry about right now. Rest assured that, by the time we start to discuss it, you won't be going through it yet."

"Oh, it's not for me, it's for--" she spotted Lily a few desks over, shaking her head vehemently with her eyes very wide. She already was made fun of for not having her cutie mark yet; she didn't want everypony to know that she was going through her heat cycle early. "It's for somepony close to me. They're going through heat, and I'd like to know more about it."

"I see..." Ms. Mayberry sighed. "Unfortunately, there's not much to be done about it. It's possible to mitigate the effects, but that's far more advanced than what you'll be learning. So just wait a bit, and you'll be fine."

It wasn't much longer, going through the rest of the curriculum, and then they set into their first-day projects. It was the same thing every year. They had to use coloured pencils to make a "poster" that they would then use to introduce themselves to the class. Most of them already knew each other, and the new students had seen fit to introduce themselves before class even started, so this project was mostly just a formality, with a little bit of updating their teacher and classmates on what was going on in their lives. These would also be hung from the front of their desks to show who sat where without needing the seating chart.

After that, it was time for lunch, and they'd present their projects after that. Some of them had used gel pens and glitter glue, and some had even used paint. Waiting until after lunch allowed everything to dry, at least a little bit. Plus, they were to wash their hooves and faces before eating and after crafting, so having both tasks running back-to-back just meant that they'd have every reason to wash up right then and there.

There wasn't much to lunch. There never really was. They would go to the tables, pull out their lunch containers, be that a pail, a paper bag, or a box with a famous character on the front, and then they all had something to eat. It was exactly as it would seem.

Except, there was something strange at the table. A smell that ripped through the air as an audible pop reverberated off the walls of the room louder than the crinkling of paper bags. It wasn't a terrible smell, but it definitely turned several noses away and upset some of the weaker appetites. And yet, Lily was licking her lips at the prospect of what she'd just opened.

Snapdragon approached cautiously, her nose covered by her hoof. "What is that?" she asked, her voice muffled.

Lily stuck a fork into the glass jar and pulled out a soft, yellow-orange ovoid. "It's a pickled egg."

Chapter the Ninth: Recess

Right after lunch, there was a period of recess. This would allow their projects a little bit more time to dry, and would allow the kids to burn off more energy, and digest their food a bit. The jungle gym was strictly off-limits, because with everypony stuffed full of food, hanging upside down was a bad idea.

Normally, Daisy would go play with her friends, but there were a few mitigating factors today. For one, Lily still smelled like pickled eggs. More importantly, however, there were two new students that she'd barely introduced herself to this morning.

Top Story was the center of attention right now, displaying for everypony his favourite toy; a spinning spindle with bumpers on it. He called it a "battle top," and when he launched two of them into a basin, they spun around, knocking into each other and grinding in such a way as to smack each other away and bounce around. He was explaining the rules and mechanics of the game; that if one of the tops stopped spinning, it was out, and if it ended up in one of the pits on the outside of the arena, it was almost always going to bounce itself to a stop.

"The part that makes this the most interesting is the shape of the arena," he said as she approached. "All of the official arenas are basins, with some variation. The red one has a sizable divot in the middle, which can be a trap for the more balanced tops, and it has teeth on the outside rim that can make the unbalanced tops with the wide arcs crash more often. The blue one has the center elevated to throw the tops away from the center, which can make it so that only the unbalanced tops can move around. The balanced ones are just going to hobble in place. The green one has no wall bumpers, so it's easy to be tossed out of the ring, but it also has lips protecting you from just hopping out of the arena accidentally."

Some of the kids left during his demonstration, but he didn't seem to mind. He was playing with his favourite toy, and if they didn't find that interesting, that was their problem.

Daisy kneeled down across from him. "Can I try?"

"Sure." He put together a few pieces for her, clicked it into place, and then set it on the ground in front of her. "Before we set to the battling part, though, how about we see how you do solo? If you don't do it right, it's easy to lose the match."

With a bit of instruction, she managed to hold the launcher correctly and pull back on the ripcord, launching the spinning top into the arena. It almost sounded like a saw as it spun around, which was apt, considering the fact that the outer ring at the top of the device looked like a sawblade.

"Very good," nodded Top Story. "That's the right way to do it. We can definitely have a match once this thing stops spinning."

"Shouldn't we try to stop it?"

"No. It'll stop on its own after, like a minute. It's not a good idea to just grab it, though. It could hurt your hoof when it's going that fast." He looked up. "So, are you friends with that filly that had the pickled eggs?"

"Lily? Yeah, we're neighbors. She's about a month older than me."

"Does she always eat stuff like that?"

"No. Usually, it's more normal stuff. Nachos, macaroni and cheese, ratatouille, ravioli, stuff like that. She just had a weird craving today, is all."

"So it'll be better tomorrow, I'm guessing?"

"Probably? She's been acting a little bit weird, lately."

"Like, weird, how?"

Daisy thought about it for a moment. "You know, I'm not one to gossip. I probably shouldn't say much about what exactly is strange, but I can tell you this; she had this problem with her tummy a few weeks ago, and that's when it all started. So maybe it's the lasting effects from her being sick for a bit." As the battle top wound down, she grabbed it and put it back on the launcher, preparing for the match.

Top Story grabbed his own and prepared for his own launch. "So, even if she says something weird in the next few days, it's just her being a little bit sick, still?"

They launched their tops into the arena and they bounced around for a bit before settling into a circular chase. Top's was moving a bit faster, and would catch up to Daisy's soon. "Yeah. That, or the change is actually permanent, in which case, she's just as new as you."

"Huh," noted Glory, making Daisy jump. Last she'd checked, Glory was over with Lily.

"What?"

"It's funny. Now that you mention it, she did suddenly become different. Do you think her dad was actually a disguised changeling, and he kidnapped her and replaced the Lily we know and love with an impostor?"

Daisy gasped. "Glory! What a terrible thing to say!"

"It would explain her changes," she shrugged.

"Maybe she was replaced with a doppelganger," suggested Top. "I saw it in a comic book, once. The king of Prance was replaced by his twin brother, who'd been taken away at birth and locked in a dungeon for his whole life behind an iron mask. You had to pay attention to their speech bubbles to tell which was which, because they looked exactly the same. Does she have a twin sister?"

"No," answered Daisy. "She would have told us."

"What about a twin sister that she doesn't know about?"

"If she didn't know whether or not she had a sister, how would we figure it out?"

Top just shrugged. "No idea."

"You know, when my mom was pregnant with me, she changed a lot of her behaviour, too," offered Glory. "Or at least, my dad said she did."

"Yeah, but she can't be pregnant," argued Daisy. "She's not married."

"Oh, yeah," chuckled Glory. "I forgot about that part."

"Or maybe she is," offered Top. "If she's a doppelganger or a changeling, she could be secretly married, while the real Lily is locked up in a dungeon somewhere, wearing an iron mask."

"Speaking of iron faces," offered another colt, "Maybe she was replaced by a robot. Have you tried sticking a magnet on her yet?"

Chapter the Eleventh: Delightful Conversation

Glory's mom was still at work for the next two hours, so the girls had to walk home. Rather, they walked to the nearest place where they would all gather, which would often be either Lily or Daisy's place, as they were right next to each other. Snapdragon lived further out, and Glory lived just outside the city limits.

Today, they were going to Daisy's house. Lily's was closer, but since her dad wasn't home, they didn't all want to be under the care of a sitter. Lily excused herself to go talk to the sitter, to let her know that she was going to be next door, then came right back, as if it weren't a problem at all.

"So, do you like your sitter?" asked Daisy, walking into her bedroom.

"I mean, I barely know her," admitted Lily. "She's a little strange, but she's kind of sweet, and very earnest."

"If you needed a place to stay, darling, you could have asked," shrugged Glory. "I'm sure my parents wouldn't have minded."

"I know," answered Lily. "It's fine. She knows what I need, so it's not a problem."

"It shouldn't be too much for my parents to figure out. My sister already went through heat, so they should know what to expect."

"Yeah, but... My dad's going to be gone for a few months."

The room fell silent as everypony turned to stare at Lily.

"I'm sorry," chuckled Daisy. "Did you say... months?"

"Yeah," answered Lily. "He left a few days ago, and he said he'd hired a gryphon lawyer to look into something with him in addition to his normal business. Honestly, it's kind of strange that he told me that much. But when the sitter arrived, she said she'd been hired to look after me for the next few months."

"So... There are no parents at your house?" grinned Glory. "That's prime party time!"

"She still has a sitter, though," scolded Snapdragon. "That means there's still a responsible adult over there."

"Plus, what kind of wild party would we throw?" asked Daisy. "It can't be too wild; Lily still has to live there the day after."

"I guess you're right," sighed Glory. "I don't even know what kind of party to throw for an alien changeling robot's evil twin."

This time, when the room went quiet, all eyes shifted to Glory.

"What?" she asked. "That's the rumour that's spreading on the playground."

Lily raised her eyebrow. "The rumour is that I'm an alien changeling robot's evil twin?"

"That breathes fire," nodded Glory. "I specifically turned it around to give you fire breath."

"Why?"

"Because I thought that "heat vision" was a little too much on the nose. Which, if you have heat vision, and you cross your eyes, that's going to burn your nose. I wonder how those guys in the comics do that and still manage to breathe? I find it more difficult to breathe when it's hot outside, so if I had, like, these burning things right next to my nose all the time, I have to wonder... Would I just have to hold my breath until I was done with my laser beam thing? Oh, wait! How do I even turn it off! Do I have to have my eyes closed to breathe?!"

As she squeezed her eyes shut and started to hyperventilate, Lily grabbed her by the shoulder. "You can breathe just fine, Glory."

"Lily? I'm going to need you to be my eyes, so I can continue to breathe."

"No, you don't. You don't have heat vision."

Glory opened one eye, and seeing that the house wasn't on fire, she breathed a sigh of relief, then clasped her hooves over her mouth in panic.

"You don't have flame breath, either," grunted Daisy.

"Yeah, that's me that breathes fire," joked Lily.

"I knew it!" shouted Glory.

As the others rolled their eyes, Snapdragon turned to Lily. "So, tell us about this sitter. Is he cute?"

"She's an old lady. An old, hairy lady with a really weird accent."

"Maybe your sitter is the spy?" offered Glory.

"Don't be ridiculous," scoffed Lily. "She's not a spy. Who would she even be spying on? Me? I'm not exactly difficult to keep tabs on."

"Your dad's in a lot of business deals," offered Snapdragon. "Maybe she's spying on him?"

"I don't think so."

"But you don't know," warned Glory. "Because they programmed you to not remember!"

"That's enough," sighed Daisy. "Look, it's still Lily, she's just acting a bit strange, that's all..."

Lily's jaw dropped. "I'm acting strange?"

Daisy glanced to her friends, who were now turned away, pretending to be inspecting the ceiling. "Look, I don't mean anything by it, but you have to admit that you've been a bit... different... today. I mean, a whole jar of pickled eggs?"

"I was hungry!"

"For pickled eggs?"

Lily scrunched up her face. "No, I wanted a sandwich with popcorn and salted peanuts. Yes, for pickled eggs! Why else would I have brought pickled eggs?"

"Since when did you like pickled eggs? You have to admit, that's pretty weird..."

"Is it weird to eat eggs?"

"No."

"Is it weird to eat pickle relish?"

"Not on a hayburger, but--"

"So why is it weird to eat pickled eggs?"

"She has a point," noted Snapdragon. "I mean, we don't think it's too weird that Glory eats orange slices covered in chocolate."

"Yeah, we do," argued Lily. "But we accept that Glory is weird, and we like her anyway. We think it's weird, but we like Glory more than we think it's weird to mix chocolate with oranges."

"We still like you," countered Daisy. "It's just, you've never showed any interest in pickled eggs before. We didn't know you liked them."

"Well, neither did I until I tried them," Lily snapped back. "Have you tried them?"

"Well..."

Lily shook her head. "My sitter said she needed a snack when she arrived, because the trip was long. She had a jar of eggs, and they smelled tasty. So I tried one, and they were. Apparently, she makes them herself."

"Admittedly, I've never tasted one, myself," pouted Snapdragon. "Who knows? They might actually be really tasty. I'd be willing to try one, I think."

Realising that she was overstepping her bounds a bit, Daisy put her hooves up. "Okay, okay... I'll try one, too. Maybe you're right. Maybe they are delicious."

"Me, too," Glory nodded. "So, how often does this hairy old lady lay a pickled egg?"

Chapter the Twelfth: Frozen Yogurt

The rest of the week went on with little incident. Lily brought back the paperwork, and they started in on their curriculum, going over the first part of any school year, testing to make sure that they retained the knowledge from last year, seeing if they already knew the material for this year, and if so, how much. Lily scored particularly high in anatomy, though not high enough to excuse her from that section. Still, it was worth finding out what she already knew.

When Friday rolled around, they had a special routine. If they'd been good all week and did all of their schoolwork, their parents would give them some pocket change and they could have some frozen yogurt on the way home. Since it was impossible for them to have homework yet, and difficult for them to have a failed test that actually counted, as only the retests could count as being failed, they just had to behave themselves. And other than talking about anatomy in the wagon on the way to school (which could easily be excused because it was something they were supposed to be learning about that year and Lily's body was going through changes that she was obviously curious about), there was no bad behaviour.

"I'm just glad that rumour fizzled out," chuckled Lily. "You'd think that they'd know I wasn't a robot, what with me eating eggs. What kind of robot eats eggs?"

"An egg-powered robot," scoffed Glory. "Duh."

"And how would an egg-powered robot even work?" shot Snapdragon. "Explain that to me."

"Easy," answered Glory. "Eggs go in through the fuel intake valve, and then they're converted to power, and any waste is expelled through the exhaust chute; sometimes as a gas emission, and sometimes as a solid lump."

"Gross," sneered Daisy. "You're going to put everypony off of their appetite."

"She asked!" scoffed Glory. "All I did was answer her question."

"It was a dumb rumour," sighed Lily. "Can we just grab some frozen yogurt, already?"

They went up to the counter and made their selections. Glory insisted on going first, picking a chocolate and banana swirl with gummy worms, sprinkles, cookie crumbs and fizzler candies. Daisy went next, with a simple cup of strawberry yogurt with dried banana slices. Lily opted for a coconut yogurt pop, and Snapdragon picked out a red velvet and strawberry swirl, with only red sugar sprinkles.

They picked out a table and sat down to eat their snack. "Just a yogurt pop?" asked Daisy. "You know, they let you put toppings on it if you put it in a cup."

"Yeah, but everypony's been complaining about me eating weird stuff lately. I thought it might be beneficial to do something normal."

"But normal's boring!" complained Glory. "I thought we were celebrating our differences?"

"Apparently not," shrugged Lily. "Besides, it's coconut. Ponies already think that's a weird flavour."

"Do they?" asked Daisy.

"Regardless," waved Snapdragon, "If you picked up your normal berry blast cup, we wouldn't question it. That would seem more normal to us. Picking a pop is what seems odd."

"Yeah. You normally have the berry blast with chopped nuts. That's what we're used to seeing."

Lily sighed. "I was just... I was feeling like coconut today. And then the attendant looked kind of busy, so I thought I'd make it easy on him."

"It's his job," responded Snapdragon. "If a customer wants berry-flavoured yogurt with chopped nuts, then his job is to make that happen. That's what he's paid to do."

"Well, I paid him to give me a coconut yogurt pop. What's the big deal?"

"The big deal is--"

"It's melting."

On Daisy's alert, Lily looked down at the pop and noticed that it was, indeed, melting. Before it could drip, she spun it in her hoof and placed her tongue at the base, slowly pulling it up the side to catch the creamy white liquid on her tongue, swallowing it in a big gulp, then going back down to lick the other side, running from the base to the tip.

"Huh..."

Lily looked at Glory. "What?"

"Most ponies start at the top and eat their way down."

"Yeah, well, it was melting, as Daisy pointed out. And rather than letting it drip all over my hoof, I thought I'd clean it up with my tongue. Weren't we just saying it was okay to be different? Why the sudden change in attitude?"

"You're fine," urged Daisy. "Eat your popsicle however you want. And you," she turned to Glory, "stop making her feel bad about the weird way she eats frozen yogurt."

"Worse than you for calling her "weird?"" asked Snapdragon. "Honestly, it's not even all that strange, and she had a good reason for doing it that way."

"I told her to eat it however she wants!" argued Daisy.

"Yes, and then you said it was weird."

""Weird" doesn't mean "bad!"" growled Daisy. "Just because it's odd doesn't make it wrong!"

"But it makes her feel bad when her you call her weird!"

"No, I'm the one that called her weird," volunteered Glory. "And it's dripping again."

Lily groaned, licking up the shaft of the pop again. When it was clean, she noted that none of her friends had reached for the napkin dispenser to help her wipe up the mess, so she reached over and grabbed it herself. Unfortunately, the napkins were stuck, so she needed both hooves.

Taking the tip of the pop into her mouth, she tilted her head back and slid the whole popsicle into her throat until just the stick remained, which she clamped between her teeth. Everypony could see the bulge in her throat as she pulled a few napkins from the dispenser and cleaned up the spillage.

Once it was clean, she wrapped one more napkin around the stick, then slowly pulled the whole popsicle out of her throat, sucking on it to make sure all of the drippings stayed in her mouth, rather than spilling out onto her face and chest, where she'd just have to clean it up again.

When it was all the way out, only a single white strand connected between her lips and the tip of the popsicle. she swallowed, then gasped, as she had to do the whole thing without breathing.

"How'd you do that?" asked Daisy, incredulous.

"It's not that hard," Lily shrugged. "My dad taught me."

Chapter the Thirteenth: Starting the Weekend

As they finished their frozen yogurt and disposed of their cups and spoons (or in Lily's case, her stick and napkins), a question came up. "So, whose house are we going to, today?"

They all turned to look at Lily. They'd been to Daisy's place twice, then Snapdragon's and Glory's. Did they even want to go to Lily's place? They'd be stuck with the sitter, who would probably be more strict than their parents. Sitters usually were.

"What are you all staring at?" Lily asked. "Did I not clean my face well enough?"

As she ran off to the washroom to wash her face in the sink, Daisy sighed. "We can't just avoid her house forever."

"We're not going to," eased Snapdragon. "Just for a few months until her dad returns. Once he's back, we'll be fine with going over there."

"I'd be fine with going over there now," waved Glory. "I'm only against it because you two have suggested not going over there."

"Glory!" scolded Snapdragon. "You're not supposed to say it out loud like that!"

"I never said anything against it," clarified Daisy. "I've just been making sure that all of our options are laid out."

"All of our options except going over to Lily's house..." scolded Snapdragon.

"Shut up. You were actively saying we should go to your place. I was just not mentioning hers."

"What's the matter, Daisy? Scared of the sitter?"

"What's the matter with you, Snapdragon? Selfish?"

"What's the matter with both of you?" scowled Lily. "Why are you both being so mean today? I'm perfectly fine going to either of your places. Celestia knows I don't want to bring you home to meet my sitter right now. She'd write her update to my dad and say "Oh, Lily's doing fine, but her friends are so rude! Does she have no better options?""

Daisy and Snapdragon eased back, lowering their gaze to the ground.

"Now, if you can promise me that you'll be nice, I'll have no problem bringing you over to my house. The only one that's been to see it since we left for summer is Daisy, and she's only seen it once. But if you're going to be mean, let's go to your house, where your parents can hear."

"Your house will be fine, dear," sulked Snapdragon, lowering her head and flattening her ears.

Daisy lowered her head, as well, but remained silent. She felt shame, but would make no promises as to her behaviour.

"Okay, then," answered Lily. "Let's go to my place."

The first few minutes of the walk was spent in relative silence, with the only sound either being their hooffalls on the pavement or Glory's humming. As they rounded a corner, Daisy finally worked up the courage to speak up. "Can ya tell us about this sitter before we arrive?"

"She's a very nice old lady," answered Lily. "She's been very polite to me, and she's good at cooking. Like, really good at cooking."

"Oh? What does she cook?"

"Well, the pickled eggs, for one. If that weren't enough, she also has some dishes that, apparently, I'm not pronouncing correctly, so I'm not going to say, here."

"Like what?" asked Snapdragon.

"I just said I always pronounce it wrong..."

"Well, what's your best try?"

Lily sighed. "Borshd."

They all had a chuckle at that. To be fair, it was a funny word, despite Lily insisting that it was a real word; the real name of a real dish that was being mispronounced by her. Even if she'd said it right, which wasn't too far off, it would still have sounded funny.

They arrived, and Lily walked in first. "Granny, we have guests!" she called out.

Daisy turned to look at Lily. "She's your grandmother?"

"No," scoffed Lily. "She just prefers to be called that because I remind her of her granddaughter back home."

"But with biiig appetite!" laughed a yak as she walked into the room. "You must be friends of Lily! I am Granny. You are staying to dinner, yes?"

The three of them said nothing. Despite Princess Twilight incorporating other tribes into Equestria, they'd never seen a yak in real life before.

After a solid minute of awkward silence, Lily turned to Granny. "Yes, they'll be staying for dinner."

"Yes," answered Granny. "Good. I make Borscht."

As she turned around and disappeared into the kitchen, everypony began to unfreeze from their shock.

"That was a yak," noted Daisy.

"Yeah," nodded Lily. "Yaks can be sitters. Why couldn't they be? What's wrong with that?"

"Nothing, I'm just..."

"Upset? I can send you home. It's very rude to not answer her when she asked you a question, and you promised me that you weren't going to be rude."

"No! No, I was just... It surprised me, is all."

"It surprised me, too," admitted Snapdragon. "I've never seen a yak before, and I thought you were just making up a funny-sounding word when you said she had a meal called "Borjd.""

"Borscht," corrected Granny from the kitchen. "Is soup."

"It's really good, too," nodded Lily emphatically. "I wish I could figure out how to pronounce it right, but it ties my tongue all up in knots." She turned to Granny. "We'll be up in my room. We have a little bit of homework, but it's not that much."

"Hokay!"

They made their way up to Lily's room, and unlike the last time Daisy was here, it was clean again. The crystals and charms still hung from the bedposts, ceiling and window, but the candles were brand new, having not been lit yet, the box of tea was set off to the side, with a fresh box right beneath it, still sealed shut by a sticker. The bed was made, the carpet was free of any and all stains, and everything was put back in its proper place.

"You cleaned up," noted Daisy.

"She always does," scoffed Snapdragon.

"No, it was a huge mess the last time I was up here."

"Yeah, that was the heat," explained Lily. "My dad was in here all the time, constantly coming in and going out, and I was always exhausted, and he kept telling me to take stuff that made my body calm down, and I was a wreck. There were times that I could barely walk because my legs just didn't want to work. Can't clean your room if you can't stand up."

Chapter the Fourteenth: Borscht

It didn't take long for the fillies to finish up their homework. There wasn't that much of it this early in the year, and they weren't all that bad at the material.

Before too long, they had finished and were sitting around and chatting. "So, what's all of this stuff for?" asked Snapdragon, inspecting the charms. "Is this something your yak sitter brought with her?"

"No," waved Lily. "These are part of the alternative medicine treatment. According to my dad, these are inscribed with a spell that makes it easier to go through heat."

"How do they do that?"

"Apparently, they smooth everything out and straighten out my insides so that everything moves how it's supposed to. Kind of like when there's a kink in your hose, how untwisting it makes it easier for the water to flow? Well, this helps unkink my hoses."

"I thought there was that one organ that, if you uncoiled it, it could stretch to the moon and back?" questioned Glory. "If that's straightened out, how are you not a thousand metres tall right now?"

"It doesn't stretch everything out and make it all straight, it just makes sure that there aren't any kinks or bends where there aren't supposed to be. If there's supposed to be a bend, it leaves it there."

"So, then, what are the crystals supposed to do?"

"The crystals are mood elevators. They're supposed to improve my mood in the morning, and they kind of do."

"How?"

"Because every morning, there are dancing red and pink lights on the wall, and that makes me feel all bubbly inside."

"So, it's just a light show?" asked Daisy.

"Yeah, but it works..."

"This all seems rather silly, dear..." Snapdragon scrutinised the crystals in the window. "I don't think these things have any magical properties. I think you were swindled."

"My dad would have been the swindled one, and he only makes good deals."

"There's a first time for everything, dear, and it always causes a spiral out of control."

"You think my dad's spiralling?"

"Well, he's not here, he's hired a yak to babysit you, and he picked one that wants you to call her "Granny." If it were happening to me, you'd think my dad was the one who snapped."

"Maybe," admitted Lily. "Or maybe, my dad has a plan that he has to be careful about, and there's nothing wrong with having a yak as my sitter. She's not that bad, girls."

"Oh, thank you."

They all looked up from their activities to see Granny standing in the door.

"Food is ready. Come. Eat."

Not only was the food ready, but by the time they come downstairs, it was ladled out into bowls, and the spoons were laid out in their proper locations. Not only had Granny set out bowls for them, she'd displayed a degree of etiquette that would not be out of place at a fancy gala.

The soup was a bright red colour, and smelled like sour candy. As the fillies all took their seats, Lily wasted almost no time. As soon as everypony was seated, she began to shovel big chunks into her mouth.

"Such healthy appetite," chuckled Granny. "She eats soup like starved child." She turned to the other three. "Eat, eat! I make plenty!"

Glory was the first to actually taste it, starting with a mix of enthusiasm halfway between Lily and her normal self. If Lily was devouring it, then it had to be good, right? That fervor disappeared after two bites. It was far more sour than she had expected, and she had to stop and finish what she had in her mouth.

Snapdragon tried just the broth, at first. She wasn't too sure about the chunks, and having the whole thing being bright red made her a little bit wary of it.

After seeing her friends reactions, Daisy was almost scared to take a bite. Even as Glory kept eating at a slower pace than what she'd started at, making funny faces all the while, Daisy lifted her spoon and inspected it. Why was it so red?

"What'd you say this was, again?"

"Borscht," answered Granny, looking up from her bowl. "Try. Is good."

"What's in it?"

"Is beetroot, is cabbage, is onion, is carrots, is vegetable stock. Has lemon juice. Is good. Try."

She leaned forward and sniffed it. It still smelled sour, as if it were fermenting.

"Can I have more?" asked Lily, holding up her empty bowl. Daisy still hadn't tasted it, and Lily was already done.

"Is good girl!" laughed Granny, taking the bowl from her. "You eat enough to feed two fillies."

As she disappeared into the kitchen, Lily turned to Daisy. "It's good, right? Didn't I tell you she's a good cook?"

Daisy didn't answer, and just took a bite. Despite the reactions of her friends, there was a lot of sweetness to it. Perhaps it was because she'd waited so long, but the soup was frigid.

"Is it supposed to be this cold?" asked Snapdragon, having taken another spoonful.

"Yeah. It's a cold soup," explained Lily. "Apparently, there are all kinds of soups that are served cold. Borchd is one, then there's geshtappo, and fishy-swahs."

"Gazpacho and vichyssoise," corrected Granny as she walked back into the room with Lily's bowl. "When borscht served hot, during wintertimes, is called borshch. Is good, but is hot. Now is summertimes. Serve cold."

Lily began eating once more, and did not stop until her bowl was empty, then leaned back with a hoof on her belly. Glory was the only one that made it through a bowl, while the other two were only able to make it halfway, if that. Granny had a bowl and a half before putting everything away.

After dinner, Glory raised her hoof. "What should we call you?" she asked, looking right at Granny.

"You can call me "Granny,"" she smiled back.

"But I already have a granny, and she's not a yak."

"How about "Lily's sitter?"" suggested Lily. "If you need her attention, you can call her "Granny," and if you're talking about her to somepony else, you can just tell them that she's my sitter. It doesn't have to be that complicated."

"Unless you and her real granny are in the same room," suggested Daisy. "That could make things complicated."

"Only if they're in the same room, though," clarified Snapdragon. "How often do you expect that to happen?"

Chapter the Fifteenth: In a Panic

The next two weeks passed with no issues whatsoever. Normally, this wouldn't be a problem. A few weeks of nothing going wrong were a good thing, as that meant that everything was fine.

Except, when one is expecting bad news, and that bad news doesn't come, the question arises as to whether or not it was worth waiting for in the first place. If it had gone wrong, you were prepared, and that was a good thing. If it wasn't going to go wrong, you'd wasted all of your time worrying about it for no good reason.

Except, Cloverleaf had something else on his mind as the train approached the station. If nothing was going wrong with Lily, when she was supposed to be going through her second round of heat for the season, either the effects were so very mild that the first one was a massive overreaction, or it had been a false positive for her heat cycle several times over, or something was wrong with her that they couldn't have anticipated. He needed to know for sure, and that meant leaving his lawyer to look over the books on his own.

He believed Granny when she said that Lily seemed to be perfectly healthy in her letter. He believed Lily when she said she felt fine. But neither of those was supposed to be true. Three days of the last week, he'd expected her to have stomach cramps, he'd expected her to lose part of her appetite, and he'd expected her to take at least half of a day away from school, or worse, based on the extreme power of her first heat. That it wasn't happening; that she was perfectly fine was concerning. He had to see it for himself.

As he disembarked from the train, nearly forgetting his luggage, he rushed back to the house. It was Friday, and Lily would be back soon from the frozen yogurt place in a few hours. He started up towards the house, letting himself in. "Gran?"

Granny poked her head out of the living room. "Mr. Cloverleaf? You're home early."

"I needed to check on Lily. You can go ahead and take the rest of the day off, if you like."

"Lily not here. Out with friends. Having yogurt."

"I know," nodded Cloverleaf. "I'll just wait for her."

"I finish sweeping."

Cloverleaf looked over her shoulder. There was some debris throughout the living room, mostly dust and loose hair. It had just started to be swept, and the dining room looked like it needed a good sweeping, too. The chairs had already been moved out of the way, so she was probably planning on finishing up both rooms today before dinner.

"I'll go ahead and finish. You go ahead and take a day off and relax for a bit. I'll handle everything here, and you can come back in the morning."

Granny shrugged. "Hokay."

She deserved a night off. Lily could be a hoofful sometimes, and if Granny was taking the extra time to make sure the house was clean, something he hadn't expected or elected to pay her for, but now would, she deserved a break. She was a good sitter, as far as he could tell, and Lily had said in her letters that she was nice.

He finished sweeping and prepped his ingredients for dinner. No frills, no laces. It was a standard egg salad sandwich, not anything special. He needed something quick and easy, because he wanted to spend as much time as he could with his daughter. Not just to make sure that everything was alright, but because he still missed her. It had been almost three weeks, after all.

"I'm home!" she called from the front door as he was finishing up. Placing his spatula in the sink, he stepped out into the hall and smiled down at her as she was taking off her saddlebags. "Granny?"

"She took the night off."

Lily looked up. Her eyes went wide, and a big smile spread across her face. "Daddy!!" She ran up and leaped into his hooves, which were moments later wrapped around her. "I missed you so much!"

"I missed you, too, princess," he smiled back, holding her tight. "How's everything?"

"School's going good. We started on division, and Ms. Mayberry says we'll soon be going into the part of division where things don't divide down cleanly, so I'm a little scared of that, but we're also learning about subaquatic plants, and that's really fun! Did you know that seaweed is edible? Now I want to try some!"

Cloverleaf smiled and set her down, walking her into the house. "I'll see if I can find any before the next time I come back. How about your heat? It should have returned by now."

The smile faded from her face. "I... I don't know. You said it'd be back a week ago, but I didn't feel anything. Well, I mean, I felt a little weird, but... it wasn't painful or anything..."

"Did you take that tea?"

She shook her head. "You said to start it when I felt my first stomach cramp, and I never felt it. But, I mean, like..." She pinched her leg. "That hurt, so, I'm not unable to feel pain."

"You said you felt weird," he noted. "Can you describe it?"

"I guess... It's like that feeling when you're nervous, when you're not sure if you're cut out to be the center forward, and you're losing points. Or, not losing points, but not keeping the other team from scoring. You know?"

"Like there were butterflies in your tummy?"

She nodded. "But then I started thinking of you, and it all just sort of... went away."

He turned to look at her. "Just like that?"

"Well... I mean, not really, but it did go away on its own."

He took a deep breath. Things weren't exactly adding up.

"Part of me wants to think you were right."

"About what?"

She shuffled her hooves a bit. "You said that the first time was always the hardest, and that the next time would be easier. Maybe I already had it, and it was so easy that I barely realised it?"

Maybe that was it. Maybe the first round had hit her so hard because the bulk of the second had impacted at the same time. That may have even contributed to it being early.

He shook his head. There was a lot to consider, and he had to stay focused. "Let's have dinner, and then we can talk about it some more."

Chapter the Sixteenth: Surprise

After a thorough shower and an inspection, there still seemed to be nothing wrong with Lily. She seemed normal and healthy, and that was quite concerning. She was at a stage in her life where she was supposed to be going through heat, and she wasn't. What should have been agony was little more than inconvenience.

He had one last idea. Having her play in her room for a bit, he ran to the pharmacy and bought the three most reliable variation of the product he wanted, in different brands. If they were each above 95% accurate, then all three of them couldn't possibly provide a false positive; the odds were one in eight thousand.

"Are you sure you need all of these, sir?" asked the attendant. "Usually, one is enough."

"If one says yes, and the second says no, the third one breaks the tie," Cloverleaf answered. "I'm not leaving it up to chance."

He rushed home and opened up all three boxes, reading the instructions to Lily before sending her into the bathroom to perform. It wasn't long before she came back out.

"So now we wait," said Lily with a shaky voice. Her dad was scared, and he'd openly admitted that to her, so she was a little bit frightened, as well.

"Come here," he called, opening his hooves and beckoning to her. She walked over to him and climbed into his lap, nestling herself into a warm hug. "It's going to be okay. This is just a test. No matter what happens, I'm still your dad, and I'm still going to keep you safe no matter what, okay?"

"So, what's going to happen if these tests come back negative?"

"If they come back negative, that means that you're still waiting for your heat. It's slow, but it'll come. If it lasts another week, we'll take you to the doctor and find out why it's not happening."

"And if it's not?"

Cloverleaf pulled her in just a bit tighter. "Then it won't come for a long time."

"But... that's good, right?"

He shook his head. "It seems good on paper right now, but it won't stay that way forever."

"So, I'm going to go back to experiencing heat again?"

"Oh, yes. It's going to come back over and over again throughout your whole life. It's just going to be on hold for a bit."

For the next three minutes, they sat in silence, Lily tucking herself into her father's chest and her dad trying to keep her in relative comfort. They just had to wait for the tests to be done, and then they'd go into the bathroom and check them out.

"Okay," breathed Cloverleaf. "I think they're ready. We just have to go check them. Ready?"

Lily clung tighter to him and nodded. She wasn't ready, and neither was he. But they had to know, and that meant that they had to find out sooner or later. Better to do so now, and know what future they needed to plan for. Lily had placed them under washcloths so that they only had to deal with one at a time, and their boxes were placed next to them so that the instructions could be double-checked.

Cloverleaf lifted the first washcloth. The indicator showed two lines. "Okay. Two lines means that the result is positive. But that could just be a false positive. The test could be wrong. It says it's ninety-seven percent accurate, so there's a three percent chance that it's wrong."

Lily nodded and picked up the second one. "That's a plus sign. That's two positive results."

"One more test," breathed Cloverleaf. It wasn't going to make him feel any better; he knew that. If it was positive, then it would mean the same as the other tests, and if it was negative, it'd only serve to stir up doubts in his mind.

He lifted the rag. The strip had turned blue. That was a positive result.

"So... So, that's it, then..." shuddered Lily. "They're all positive."

"So, it has to be true, then," sighed Cloverleaf.

"So, what now?"

Cloverleaf thought for a moment, then scooped up the tests and tossed them into the trash can. "Now? Now we live our lives as we were. There's just a few things we need to watch out for, and a few things we need to do."

"Like what?"

He took a breath. "When I say we, I mean I need to do. You're going to be fine, I just..." His forehead was sweating, and he was having trouble breathing. "This is... This is going to advance things considerably. I thought that... I mean, I didn't know that it'd happen this early, or even at all. I thought that, at worst, I'd not be around to see it, but..."

"Dad, calm down," urged Lily. "What does all of this mean?"

Cloverleaf took a deep breath, then pulled his daughter closer in. "Let's go sit."

They walked into his bedroom and hopped up on the bed. He leaned back to stare at the ceiling for a bit and think about what had happened, and more importantly, what was going to happen. Lily lay down next to him and looked at his face. She'd never seen him so scared before, and he was still trying to make her feel better. She grabbed his shoulder and rested her head next to his. He'd tell her when he was ready.

There was a very long silence, disturbed only when she started to snore. She'd fallen asleep on top of him while he was trying to put together an answer. Not wanting her to wake up cold, he slipped the blanket up over them both and turned off the lamp. There was no reason to wake her yet. Not until he could give her a solution.

He could feel her smiling as she nuzzled herself closer into his chest. The last thing he wanted was to hurt her. He wanted her to be happy, and he wanted her to be healthy. It came down to what it was she wanted to do, and if she preferred one option over the other, he would support her. Still, he was pretty sure he knew what her decision was going to be, so he took one last look at the ceiling and a deep breath before drifting off to sleep.

"...I'm going to be a grandfather..."

Chapter the Seventeenth: Pregnant

"A foal!?"

"Keep it down!" urged Lily. "Do you want the whole neighborhood to hear you?"

Daisy took a few deep breaths. "Since when?"

"I don't know, but we found out last night. That's why I didn't go back into heat."

"So, when you start carrying a foal, you stop going into heat?" asked Glory.

"I guess..." Lily shrugged. "That's what my dad said, anyway."

"Well, he has been correct so far," noted Snapdragon.

"So, what are you going to name it?" asked Glory.

"We don't know if it's a colt or a filly yet," grunted Lily. "How can we possibly decide on a name?"

"You could come up with one for each?" suggested Snapdragon. "Or you could pick a name that doesn't have a gender, like Snapdragon."

"Or you could ignore gender norms," offered Daisy. "Who cares if the colt is named Daisy?"

"Oo, oo! Morning Glory for a girl and Evening Glory for a boy!"

Lily shook her head. "I'm not naming it after any of you."

"Why not?" asked Snapdragon. "Don't you like us, darling?"

"I do, and that's why I'm not doing that. How confusing would it be if I asked my daughter to come over to where I am, and Glory comes over and asks why I called for her?"

"So just don't call her Glory. Call her Snapdragon, instead."

"Snapdragon, could you stand up for a second?" asked Lily.

Snapdragon did. "Why? Did I sit on something?"

"No, I was talking to my foal," snarked Lily. "You were fine."

Snapdragon's face turned pink in mild embarrassment. The feeling wasn't helped by Daisy chuckling at her.

"So, what do we do, now?" asked Glory.

"Well, it's a great big secret," explained Lily. "We're not supposed to let anypony know until it's too late. As far as my doctor knows, I'm still in heat, I'm just not in any pain. As far as the school is concerned, I'm not contagious. And no one else needs to know."

"Why did we need to know?" asked Glory. "Surely, if it's a secret, we should be trying to keep the number of ponies that know about it to a minimum."

"Yeah, but I don't like lying to you girls."

Glory and Daisy blushed. It was good to know that Lily held them in such high regard.

"So, we're to be your keepers," concluded Snapdragon.

"That's right. And you can't tell anypony. Not even your parents, because the guards will come and beat up my daddy and throw him in a dungeon for the rest of his life, and then they'll throw me in a different dungeon, and then when I give birth, they'll throw the baby in a third dungeon."

"We could ask Princess Celestia to let you all out," suggested Glory. "That works sometimes."

Lily shook her head. "It's Princess Twilight now, remember?"

"Oh, yeah..."

"I'm sure Princess Twilight can bust you out of prison," assured Daisy. "Who's going to stop her?"

"The guards might," suggested Snapdragon. "If they were given orders to not even let her through. Because you could be banished and then thrown in a dungeon in the place where you were banished to, and Princess Twilight might not have any jurisdiction there."

"What does "jursticshun" mean?" asked Glory.

"Use your contest clues," answered Daisy. "Obviously, it means "guards.""

"At any rate," sighed Lily, "If Princess Twilight is the one that ordered me to be kicked out of Equestria and locked away in a dark cave somewhere, she's probably not going to let me out. The guards are already under her control, so if they beat up my daddy, it'll be because she told them to."

"Oh. Right..."

"So you guys can't tell anypony."

"What if something goes wrong, though?" asked Daisy. "What if somepony finds out, and it wasn't because of us?"

"She hasn't told anypony else," suggested Snapdragon. "How would anypony find out?"

"Won't somepony notice when her belly swells up?" asked Glory. "You can't hide a foal inside of there. She's going to swell up so much that her belly's going to be dragging on the ground!"

Lily swallowed hard. She hadn't thought about that. "How big?"

"Well, the size of a newborn foal varies. You're probably not going to manage a full-size foal, because of your own size, but it's still going to be roughly that size when it comes out."

"Where does it come out from?"

Glory scratched her head. "I think it's going to come out of the belly button."

"That would make the most sense," agreed Daisy. "That's where the baby's going to be, and the belly button doesn't serve any other purpose. Do you think it can stretch enough?"

"I believe it suddenly has an elasticity when it's ready to go," comforted Glory. "No way can you fit a baby through it right now. Even so, we have some time to stretch it out a bit."

"Are you sure that's where it comes out?" asked Lily, rubbing it with her hoof. "It seems awfully small..."

"And not very stretchy," groaned Daisy, poking at it with her hoof. "Is there no other way?"

"Well, my cousin was cut out," said Glory. "My uncle said the doctors took a chainsaw and cut my aunt in half, right down the middle, took the baby out, and then stapled her right back together."

"I'm pretty sure he made that up," scoffed Snapdragon. "Doctors don't go stapling ponies together; that's ridiculous."

"Oh, I know," giggled Glory. "The scar only goes around part of her belly. It doesn't reach her back!"

Lily shivered. Even if she wasn't going to be cut in half, she really didn't want a scar. "I really hope my belly button is stretchy enough..."

With that, a whistle brought them downstairs for lunch. Granny was back in the house, as Cloverleaf had left after breakfast. She'd made cucumber sandwiches on sourdough with cream cheese spread, a dish normal enough that Lily's friends were actually willing to try it. The only one not eating was Lily, not because she wasn't hungry, but because she was still trying to digest the conversation she'd just left. It was scary, thinking she was going to be cut open with a chainsaw. She hoped to Celestia that it wasn't true...

Chapter the Eighteenth: How Parents Come to Be

After dinner, which Lily did eventually eat, they returned to her room. It was the weekend, after all, so their parents were letting them have a slumber party. Snapdragon had even brought makeup and hair care products. They just needed something to talk about to pass the time. Luckily, Glory knew just what she wanted to ask about.

"How did you end up pregnant, anyway?"

Lily raised her eyebrow. "We took a test, and it told us I was pregnant. That's it."

"Yeah, but how did you become that way?"

"Glory has a point, for once," agreed Daisy. "My second cousin said he and his wife were trying to have a kid, so there's obviously some kind of action you can take that makes it work. It doesn't just happen."

"Don't you have to be married, first?" asked Snapdragon. "I've never known a single mare with a kid, except two. One was adopted, and the other was because the father had died."

Daisy clapped her hooves. "That's right! We need to figure out who the father's going to be!"

"Isn't it obvious?" scoffed Snapdragon. "It'll be whoever she marries."

"Then, wait," interrupted Glory. "How do step-parents work? I thought that was how step-parents came to be?"

"Then it'll be her step-husband," concluded Daisy. "So, who were you thinking about stepping on, Lily?"

Lily shrugged. "I have no idea. I wasn't even thinking about stepping on anypony."

"What about a yak?" teased Snapdragon.

"Don't be ridiculous," scoffed Lily. "Granny's a girl. Girls can't be fathers!"

"Plus, step-parents are always evil," added Glory. "Ask any fairy tale."

"That's in-laws," corrected Snapdragon. "Any romantic comedy will tell you that in-laws are awful. It's better to refer to them as out-laws, because you want them out."

"Being related to your husband isn't a crime, though," argued Daisy. "How would they be outlaws?"

"They might have been outlaws before they were in-laws," suggested Lily.

"Well, my granny is my mom's mother-in-law, and they like each other just fine," argued Glory. "Are you calling my granny a criminininal?"

"No! Of course not!" growled Lily. "Although, her cookies are so good that they should be illegal... "

"Oh!" Daisy clapped her hooves again. "You're going to be a mother! That means you have to know how to cook!"

"Well, why can't my step-husband do the cooking?" asked Lily.

"Boys don't know how to cook!" laughed Snapdragon. "Who ever heard of a stallion that knows how to cook?"

"My dad cooks," shrugged Lily.

"Yes, but that's different, darling. Your father is a single parent. He has to know how to cook. No self-respecting stallion would choose to lower himself to work in the kitchen; that's what mares are good at."

"Well, if she's already good at it," snorted Daisy, "why does she have to learn how to cook?"

"That's not what I said!" sneered Snapdragon.

"You said that mares are good at cooking," confirmed Glory. "And even my mom said that Lily's becoming a mare. That's what heat does; my mom said so herself! So why does she have to learn?"

"Because the foal's going to need food," answered Snapdragon.

"Babies drink milk," argued Daisy. "You can just buy that at the store and pour it into the bottle, right?"

"That's right," nodded Glory. "I saw it in a movie, once."

"I saw that movie, too!" nodded Daisy. "In fact, they just put the rubber thingy on the bottle and give it to the baby."

"It's called a nipple," said Snapdragon.

"No, nipples are those protrusions between your back legs," clarified Lily.

"No, she's right," interjected Daisy. "Those are called "teats." They're used to attract stallions to make them servants. That's what my sister said."

"Well, can we use them to make a stallion her servant, and then make that servant be her husband?" asked Glory. "If that's what they're for, then we can find her a husband, easy!"

There was silence for a moment, with some smiling and nodding. However, it wasn't more than a minute before all expectant eyes fell on Daisy. All of a sudden, everypony was staring at her.

"What?"

"How do I use them?" asked Lily.

"What do you mean?"

"I mean, if I'm going to use these to make a stallion my servant," she stood up and rubbed her breasts, "I need to know how, right?"

"I think just having them is enough."

Lily shook her head. "I've had teats for years, and I've never known what they were there for. I also can't remember ever using them to convince a stallion to do what I wanted. If that's what they do, mine aren't working."

"Mine, either," answered Snapdragon, peering down between her legs. "You'd think that if I could make colts into servants, they wouldn't be so rude."

"I think mine work," said Glory, "but that might just be wishful thinking. They might have also just agreed to it because they were going to whether they were under the hypnotic spell of my teats in the first place."

"Mine are bigger."

Everypony turned to Lily, who pushed them out.

"They weren't this big at camp, were they?"

They certainly were bigger than they had been at camp. They weren't all that big yet, but they had grown out a little bit. They were softer, too, and had a lot more give when she poked them with her hoof.

"Maybe the amount of power they hold is bigger when they grow out?" suggested Snapdragon. "Maybe you should try to convince a stallion to do what you say. It'd be very helpful if it works."

"Maybe I should," thought Lily aloud. "It couldn't hurt."

"It could, though," warned Glory. "What if you used them to convince a guard to look away while you did something illegal, and another guard, a mare this time, caught you? That'd be, like... tampering with the guards, or something. That's even more illegal, right?"

"Well, yeah, but it's not like they can arrest me for two crimes at once," chuckled Lily. A few seconds later, the smile faded from her face. "Can they?"

"I don't know," shrugged Snapdragon. "I haven't been arrested before."

"Neither have I," agreed Daisy. "I could ask my cousin. He was arrested, but he quit, so they let him go."

"Please do," nodded Lily. "I want to know what the penalty is for using these things, and I want to know how they work so that I don't use them accidentally." She took one more poke at her breasts. Now that she knew they were able to be used as weapons, they were suddenly frightening.

Chapter the Twentieth: The Library

The following Wednesday, they had received their assignments, and the class was broken up into groups of four, plus two groups of five to keep the last two students from being unable to form a full team. They were to join together for their science class and make a report on the reproductive cycle of plants. There was also a bonus, extra credit question that seemed to have nothing to do with the matter: "What is the difference between a fruit and a vegetable?" Aside from being plants, what did that have anything to do with plant reproduction?

They were given a few days to work on their project in independent study. Once they had all made their presentations, Ms. Mayberry would tell them what was right and what was wrong, and then lead them through the rest of the course work. In doing so, they would be able to look for their own answers, rather than just regurgitating them back to her, and they might actually remember it.

The first day of this independent study was spent at the school library, reading books and looking at diagrams, but after school, they all went to the real library. Unfortunately, some of the books they were wanting to look at had already been checked out by the other students. They were about to give up and go home for the day, when Daisy had an idea.

"Do you have any books on pony anatomy?" she asked the librarian.

He cocked his head to the side. "I thought you said you were studying plants? If anything, I'd have thought you were going to look into animals next."

"We are," Daisy admitted. "But you said the books we were looking for were already gone, and we don't know what animals we're supposed to look at. But we can start on ponies and know more about that when the last quarter comes around."

With a nod of approval, the librarian pointed to the biology section. "Row seventeen, shelf six."

As Daisy led the other girls back, Lily whispered to her, "What are we doing?"

"I've been thinking," answered Daisy. "We've had a lot of questions recently, and if we can't find answers to the questions on the test right now, we are in a library, so we can find answers to other questions. I'm right, aren't I?"

"That grammar is atrocious," scoffed Snapdragon. ""I am right, am I not?" not "I am right, are not I?""

"Then what is the proper contraction?" asked Glory.

Snapdragon didn't answer. This was just like the time she'd spoken out against the word "grateful," for not meaning "full of grates," rather than "full of gratitude."

"It doesn't matter," breathed Lily. "Is it really okay to be looking at anatomical models at the library? Children come here!"

"Lily," snorted Daisy, "we are children."

"Yeah, but, like, younger children..."

"Then that's the library's fault for keeping books like that in the first place. If a kid could walk in here and just pull it down off the shelf, it wasn't really locked away, was it? Besides, this is educational. We're not going to be in trouble because we're supposed to be studying this stuff soon, anyway. Besides, the librarian told us we could."

She pulled down a book labeled "Pony Reproduction Reference Guide" and sat down on the floor with it. Opening it up to the female anatomy section, Lily instantly recognised the shapes and images.

"This is one of the diagrams my dad showed me," she said, pointing to one. "Except, this one's in colour. Mine was just black lines on white paper."

"It's still white paper," noted Glory. "Show us around!"

Lily pointed to the various parts and gave them all names. Some of them were the correct names, like the womb and the fallopian tubes, some were inaccurate, but not entirely wrong, such as referring to the vaginal canal as the pussy, and some of what she said was outright wrong, such as the ovaries being called "test-sicles." Luckily for the girls, there was a labelled diagram on the next page with higher detail, and knew things she didn't, like the cervix.

As fascinating as this was, they quickly moved to the next chapter, male anatomy. What the fillies found out when they saw the first diagram was that Lily had undersold it. The drawings involved in this section were highly detailed, showing the mostly flat battering ram that was the head, the difference between the flared and unflared tips, the medial ridge, the urethra, and a great big pair of testicles. There were pictures of it being fully erect, protruding but flaccid, halfway out for the purposes of urination, and even tucked away inside of the prepuce. There were also pictures of various rashes and diseases that they didn't want to look at, so after the clean pictures, they flipped past that to the cutaway shots of how mating was performed.

Despite being very informational and clinical in how it was written, the pictures were exceptionally graphic and highly detailed, with labels for almost everything. Lily was able to point out a lot of stuff that she'd already learned, even things she'd already talked about, like the white substance that was excreted by stallions. As the book was primarily focused on how reproduction was performed, it skipped a lot of information she had experience with, such as blowjobs and cunnilingus, and things she'd heard about like anal and facials.

Finally, they came to the section Daisy had been looking for. Chapter six was about the growth of the foal inside of the womb, and chapter seven was about giving birth. They would also need chapter nine, which was about how to feed a newborn foal, though this book didn't have a lot in the way of baby care tips. There was definitely no section on how to change a diaper; they looked twice. There was, however, a section on birth that made Lily feel a lot better. Mostly, it was because she would need to push her foal out of her vagina, and not her belly button. In fact, her belly button wouldn't even come into play. It was exclusively the foal's belly button that would matter, and that was only because she would have to cut it to sever something called an "umbilical cord."

Chapter the Twenty-Second: Hooves-on

The next day was just as uneventful for their project. Ms. Mayberry had been informed that the books were checked out of the library, and she was willing to give them an extension for their honesty. In addition, she had set up an agreement with the librarian to ensure that they were to be informed when the books came back in, so that they could do their report properly. After all, they weren't the only group that couldn't work on the project.

With nothing better to do on a Thursday evening, they went to Lily's place. Daisy had insisted on it. Specifically, she wanted to go up to Lily's room to see the secret box. She wanted to compare the contents to the book, just as she'd almost been caught twice staring at her dad's balls.

When the door was closed and locked, Lily reached under her bed. There was a large wooden box on wheels with a padlock on it that was unlocked with a combination.

"I'm really not supposed to be showing you this," she breathed, flicking the wheels to the side. "It's supposed to be between me and him."

"You keep telling us about "him,"" noted Glory. "Does "he" have a name?"

"The father of the foal," deflected Lily. "I don't want him to end up in trouble."

"How will saying his name land him in trouble?" asked Snapdragon. "Surely, you trust us?"

"I'm just being careful," breathed Lily, popping the lock off. "I'm already taking a risk just showing this to you."

She turned the box around and lifted the lid. Inside of the box were three different dildos, and a personal massage wand. The small and medium dildos were fairly firm, and had controllers, but the big one was very floppy, and exactly the size Lily had described.

Daisy's eyes went wide. "So, this is what they look like, huh?" she asked, picking up the big one. It was heavier than she expected.

"That one is," nodded Lily, picking up the medium one. "I'm only up to this one on my own. I can't even handle it at full power."

"Full power?" asked Daisy, trying very hard to contain her excitement.

Lily grabbed the controls and switched it on. The rubber dick began to gyrate in a clockwise motion, whirring softly as it spun.

"This is about as intense as I can handle," she said, turning it up two notches so that it spun faster. It was now making a full rotation every second and a half. "Any higher, and I can't keep it in. It's too much for me on my own."

"How high does it go?" asked Glory.

Lily clicked it up the last three notches so that the device was gyrating nine times in five seconds. It was very fast, and was only intended for experts.

"How about the big one?" asked Daisy.

"That one doesn't have a controller," noted Lily. "It's just big."

Snapdragon picked up the small one and flipped the switch. This one didn't gyrate; it just vibrated. "What's the point of this one?"

"Oh, that one has other modes," explained Lily. "Here, watch this."

She turned the knob on the controller to setting three, which sent three pulses of vibration of increasing intensity through the device, then the whole thing went still for a second before sending another set of pulses.

In the meantime, Glory had placed the personal massager against her clavicle. "sswwiinngg llooww, sswweeeett cchhaarriioott..." she sang, her voice warbling.

"You're going to want to clean yourself up," informed Lily. "That's been on my butt."

Daisy and Snapdragon shared a laugh, thinking it was a joke, and also thinking that it was funny the way Glory tossed it aside as soon as she heard where it had been. The only one who thought it was neither joke nor prank was Lily, who knew exactly where it had been. She had wiped it down with a sanitary wipe, as she did with all of these, but it had still been pressed against her.

As the chuckling subsided, there was a knock at the door, and Granny informed them that it was time for dinner. Snapdragon and Glory went home, after Glory washed her clavicle twice, and Daisy ran off to tell her parents that she was going to be eating at Lily's place tonight.

After dinner, Daisy locked the door again and pulled out the box. "So, I know the other girls are still a little bit weirded out by this, and Snapdragon doesn't want to be involved, but I'm..." she took a deep breath, "I'm genuinely curious about how all of this stuff works."

Lily just shrugged. "I mean, I'm not an expert or anything, but..."

"But you know a lot more than I do," finished Daisy. "I know I haven't gone into heat, yet, but ever since we've started talking about this, I've been feeling this, like, tingling. Down in the same place, you know?"

Lily was still for a moment, then nodded. "I think I know what you're talking about. I don't know if I'll be able to help you with that, though..."

"It's stronger when I look at this stuff, though. The pictures, and the... rubber thing." She ran her hoof up the dildo, along what would have been the urethra if it were real. "I don't know what it is, but I... I feel it, you know? Something about it is just... I can't explain it. I'm really hoping you can teach me?"

Lily looked at her toy. Seeing the big one next to Daisy's body, she knew it wouldn't fit. She also took a small peek between her legs, and it was dry. Her body wasn't producing the wet stuff that made it slide in easier. "I can't do it to you," she sighed.

"You don't have to!" insisted Daisy. "Just show me? I want to see it. I don't like being confused by this feeling."

Seeing Daisy pleading with her eyes, Lily thought about it. "How about this weekend?" she urged. "We can have a sleepover, and I'll show you how I do all of that."

"Can't you show me now?" whined Daisy. Her hooves were shaking, and Lily knew that Daisy needed something. When her eyes met the personal massage wand, she knew that there was something she could do to help, even if it wasn't much.

"...Okay."

Chapter the Twenty-Third: Private Demonstration

Lily lay back on the bed, propping herself up on her pillows. Her toys were laid out beside her, and there was a used bathtowel under her flank to prevent staining the bedsheets. Daisy had been given a clean towel from the linen closet, just in case.

"First thing's first, I have to do the prepwork," Lily explained, pulling out a small bottle of clear liquid from the nightstand. "This bottle says "water-based." I was told that I have to find that on the label, or it could damage these things. Next, I have to tie up my tail to make sure it stays out of the way."

Lily had a medium-length tail, but with a good, sturdy braid, it was tucked off to the side quickly and easily. With everything ready, and her and Daisy in place, she reached for the first tool in her arsenal; the personal massage wand.

"So, a lot of ponies use these to work through muscle pain, but apparently, they have another use to adult mares." Turning the wand toward herself, she put it to the lowest setting and slowly lowered it between her legs. As soon as the vibrating head touched her skin, her legs snapped shut, and she had to make a concentrated effort to open them back up so that Daisy could see.

"The first touch is always the most difficult part," she panted. "It's like diving into a pool, where the water's all cold."

There was a click as the wand was turned up, then two more before it started to hum. Lily lowered her head back onto her pillow as the vibrating head of her scepter rocked back and forth. Slowly, over the course of a minute, it started to turn shinier and shinier as her breathing grew deeper and deeper.

It wasn't until it was turned off that the reason it was shining was clear. It was very wet, despite having been dry when it was turned on. Not only was it wet, but Lily was, too. Some kind of fluid was leaking down from her slit to her towel. "What's that stuff?" asked Daisy, pointing to it.

"I was told to just refer to it as "moisture,"" she breathed. "The book said it was called "discharge.""

Daisy looked a little bit closer. "It looks kind of like snot."

Lily's eyes opened wide. "That's probably why I was told that stallions use tissues to wipe it up!"

"Does your stallion friend use tissues?"

"No. He prefers a towel." To accentuate her point, Lily reached down between her knees and grabbed the towel, pulling it up and wiping herself dry. She then pushed the wand and a sanitary wipe towards Daisy. "You can try it, too."

As Daisy wiped down the device, Lily grabbed the tube and started applying a small amount of lubricant to the small toy, warming it up a bit with her hoof as she rubbed it. "What's that for?" asked Daisy.

"So, normally, I use the wet stuff that I have for the purposes of fitting stuff in there," Lily explained. "However, I just wiped it all off. If I'm dry, nothing likes to go in. It all just sticks and it drags against the skin. And that hurts."

"So, this is like that?"

"Actually, the stuff in the tube works better, and you should use it, anyways, but without it, you need the stuff you produce on your own."

"It's water-based," noted Daisy. "Can't I use water?"

"No, water actually makes it worse. I tried using this stuff in the shower, and it just doesn't work right. Everything sticks and is really grabby."

Daisy nodded. "I'll take your word for it," she lied. She didn't quite believe that, and wanted to test it for herself when she had the chance. It wasn't that she didn't trust Lily, more of she didn't think that water would make it stickier. "What's next?"

Lily waved the small dildo in the air. It was very firm, as it had to house the hardware inside that made it vibrate. There was a thin layer of silicone rubber surrounding it that was soft and pliable, but strong enough to keep everything together and hold the general shape.

This one, Lily inserted into herself all the way until a flange stopped her from going any further. The controls sat untouched, as Daisy was so amazed that Lily could take the whole thing inside of her that she'd practically bounded across the bed to look closer. She was certain that there was some kind of trick, but no. It was all the way in, a whole four inches deep.

"How are you doing that?!" she demanded.

"Keep it down!" shushed Lily. "You're going to alert the whole neighborhood!"

"S-sorry," breathed Daisy, backing away.

"It's not that hard. It's not that much." Lily pulled it out and showed its length. "I've been trying to fit it in my butt. That's the hard part."

"Maybe if you combined the stuff in the tube with your discharge?" suggested Daisy.

Lily shook her head. "I tried that. It's just too tight for me to do on my own. I need help to make it fit."

Taking the hint, Daisy grabbed it by the flange. "Okay. How do I help?"

Lily had not been intending to ask Daisy to help her with this. She was merely making a note that she still needed training. Still, she was the kind of filly that didn't turn down assistance with physical activities, primarily because she liked to help others, and wanted to be the best she could be. Were Daisy in her shoes, she would have felt the need to help her with it, too.

Gripping her knees, she pulled her legs back. "Just try to slide it in. I'll tell you if it becomes too much."

With a firm push, Daisy managed to fit the whole thing in. Since it was widest in the middle, once it reached that point, it slipped right in with no issue.

Just as they were filled with relief for having accomplished shoving a dildo up Lily's arse, there was a knock at the door. "Daisy?" called Granny through the door. "Your mother is at front door. Says you have laundry ready!"

The girls looked at each other, then nodded.

"We can pick this up tomorrow," breathed Lily. "In the meantime, I need you to do something for me."

"Sure," huffed Daisy. "What is it?"

Lily pointed to her butt. "Can you help me take it out?"

Chapter the Twenty-Fourth: Full Contact

Lily was unavailable over the weekend. Her dad had made an appearance to make sure that she was okay on Friday afternoon, and left Sunday evening. Daisy was seeking some kind of relief, but Cloverleaf always seemed to be around. She knew that Lily loved her dad and he hadn't been around lately, but she was very disappointed that there was no time to spend with Lily.

On Tuesday, the books they needed were returned to the library, and due to the check-out limit, Daisy had to turn in the anatomy books she'd already checked out. She'd already memorised so much information from them, anyway. The number of times she'd read the words "The urethral nub then penetrates through the cervix" was in the hundreds after just six days, and just as Lily had suggested, she'd learned how to use her hoof to calm herself down.

Since they had the books, and the report was due on Thursday, they had to rush through the project after school. Since several of the other students had pulled the books away from them to do their report, Ms. Mayberry had them go first, since their projects were obviously top-of-the-line. The downside to having the books back so late was that they really had to focus in on the assignment in order to be done in time with a good enough quality to not need the extra credit, despite Glory knowing the answer to the extra credit question and including it with the report. The difference, of course, being that that the fruit contained the seeds required to grow a new plant, while vegetables were primarily the stems, leaves and roots.

On Friday, however, they were given some of the best news Lily could have asked for; Hoofball tryouts were this weekend. "I'm totally signing up!" she exclaimed as they left for the frozen yogurt shop. "That'll totally make up for the loss from this summer!"

"I'm glad it won't be a total loss," sighed Daisy. She was still bummed about losing the camp championship.

"You girls are signing up, too, right?" asked Lily, looking at the expectantly.

"Certainly, darling," smirked Snapdragon. "You have to be on the team to be able to make changes to the uniforms."

"Maybe they'll let me be a cheerleader this year!" squeaked Glory.

"We all know what you're going to be," smiled Daisy, turning her attention to Lily. "Center Forward."

Lily chuckled. "I do score more often than the rest of you..."

"And also, you put the most balls in the goalbox," noted Glory.

"Yeah..." Lily raised her eyebrow. "That's what scoring is."

"Oh." Glory giggled. "I'm sorry, I thought you meant something entirely different."

"What did you think I meant?"

"It wasn't important."

"It is to me."

Glory shrugged. "Scoring is what it's called when you rough up a surface so that two things that aren't attached can be melded together. Useful in carpentry, welding and ceramics."

All of Glory's friends just stared at her like she was crazy.

"What? I looked it up in the dictionary."

After making their purchases, with Lilly ordering her usual but with a twist of lemon lime, they picked their table and sat down.

"We're old enough for the big leagues now, girls," breathed Lily. "This isn't going to be quite the same as the last few years."

Daisy glanced up from her yogurt. "It's not?"

Lily shook her head. "The rules are changed, but now the other teams are going to be stronger, fiercer, and more determined. And we have to be, too."

"They can't be too much better," shrugged Glory. "I mean, we went to hoofball camp over the summer, and we were almost undefeated for most of the season. Right up until you left, actually. If we beat them last year and then kept practicing, we can probably beat them again."

"It's different, though," urged Lily. "Harder kicks, faster passes... This is the year when most teams that go on to do great things start to gain their confidence. Where they'll take a shot at the goal even if it ends up tripping the other side. You remember how that filly faked an injury during my last game?"

"Yeah, but that was fake," argued Snapdragon. "The counsellor saw everything."

"The cheaters are going to be craftier, and the refs more unable to follow the action. Faking injuries is going to become part of the game, and being actually injured is going to become easier and more commonplace. So unless you're ready to protect yourself, be ready to jump out of the way."

"Faking an injury seems like a dirty trick," scowled Glory. "They shouldn't be allowed to do that."

"The clock keeps going, though," answered Lily. "If they just put the game on hold while the clock goes on, they can stall for time in a strategic position, or worse, penalise the other players." Her stomach let out a growl, and she placed a hoof over her abdomen. "Sorry, but, uh... I'll be right back."

As she trotted off toward the toilet, Daisy leaned in. "Girls, we can't let her join the team."

"What?" asked Snapdragon. "Why not?"

"You heard her! The chance of injury is going to be higher this year!"

"I'm sure she's going to try to keep herself safe," assured Snapdragon. "Lily isn't the kind of girl to let herself be hurt."

"It's not her I'm worried about," urged Daisy. "It's the other one..."

"What other one?" asked Glory.

Daisy steeled her face and enunciated very clearly. "The one who could be very severely injured by a kick to the stomach."

Snapdragons eyes snapped open as she suddenly realised what Daisy was talking about. "...The little one..."

"Oh," realised Glory. "Her "little sister.""

Daisy nodded. "We can't risk an injury. We need to make sure that she doesn't do anything dangerous."

"Can't we just tell her our concerns?" asked Glory. "If we make our stance known, she might stop to consider ways to make it work. Maybe she could be a defender?"

Daisy shook her head. "Lily's never going to agree to be a defender. She's a center forward. It suits her best. And she won't settle for second best."

"So, what do we say?" asked Glory, seeing Lily on her way back.

Daisy turned and looked as well. "I'm not sure..."

Chapter the Twenty-Fifth: The Tryout

"Are you sure you want to do this?" asked Daisy, tugging on Lily's shoulder. "There's nothing wrong with skipping a year. You can work on your muscles and come back some other time."

"There's no time like the present," argued Lily. "I'll be fine."

"Will you, though?" agreed Snapdragon. "You said it yourself, darling; this year, everypony's going to be bigger, stronger, and meaner."

"Myself included," nodded Lily. "Trust me; if there's one thing I know, it's how to play hoofball."

"We just think you might end up hurt, and we don't want that," stated Glory bluntly. Her friends all turned to look at her with fire in their eyes. While Daisy and Snapdragon were upset that she'd just blurted it out, Lily was personally insulted.

"Do you really think I'd be so clumsy as to let myself be injured by playing a simple game? It has rules! Rules that are put in place to protect the players! There is a clause of how rough you can be, for pony's sake!"

Glory reached up and scratched the back of her neck. "Right. Sorry. My bad."

With a nod of acceptance for her apology, Lily continued toward the field. As she approached, she unrolled her jersey and slipped it on. She had yet to grow at all over the last month and a half, so she was able to fit into it with no issues. "We're here, coach!"

The stallion that led the team turned as she walked up. "Lily! Glad to have you back! And Daisy, you too."

"Glory and I are also here," noted Snapdragon.

"So you are," he nodded. "Are you all trying out, or are you just here to check out the team?"

"We're definitely looking to be on the team," nodded Daisy. "We all have different reasons, though."

The coach turned and glanced at Snapdragon. "I'll bet you do..." He returned his gaze to Lily. "So, it seems you're ready to go. We were going to change colours for the jerseys this year, so yours is out of date, but that's alright. We don't have the fabrics in yet, so you can just wear that one; it's fine for now." He turned once more to the others. "Do you have your jerseys?"

Daisy had hers, but the other two did not. As Daisy slipped into hers, Glory and Snapdragon were fitted with mesh vests to make clear their positions.

Once everypony was assembled, The coach had them do some very basic exercises. First was three laps around the pitch, then leg lifts, and it ended with some stretching. All the while, Daisy was thinking to herself that abdominal crunches or sit-ups would be a bad idea. What if Lily crushed the baby? When Snapdragon vocalised this to her, Glory reminded them that hoofball was a leg-centric sport.

The coach blew his whistle. "Okay, girls, gather 'round." They all filed in, With Lily being one of the first to make it in, and Glory being the last. "Okay. We're going to do some tests to see where your aptitudes lie.

"My mom said I need to keep a positive aptitude!" said a filly in the back. To Daisy's shock, it was not Glory.

"That's attitude," corrected the coach, "but that's important, too. A positive attitude means you're going to try harder. In fact, let's all say right now, "I'm gonna be the best," then the position you want, okay? On three. One, two, three!"

All of the girls called out their desired positions. There were a lot of goalies. They only needed one in the best case. Two, at most, if their first choice was injured.

"Okay, everypony that didn't say "goalie," line up by those cones." He pointed to some cones at the north end of the field. "Three lines, try to keep them even."

About a third of the girls filed down there, where a hoofball was waiting for each line.

"Alright, raise your hoof if you don't know how the dribble slalom works." There were a few ponies that raised their hooves, so the coach turned to Lily, who was at the front of the center line. "Lily, would you like to demonstrate?"

With a nod, Lily rolled the ball back onto her hoof, then rushed forward, dribbling back and forth.

"When you have the ball, you dribble it, keeping it close to your hooves, moving it down the field. Here in practice, you're going to weave between the cones. Lily went right then left, you can go left then right, it doesn't matter. As you can see, when she reaches the end, she's coming back. If you're at the front of the line, be ready to go, because she's going to pass it to you."

Lily passed the ball, and it went right to the next filly in the line. It bounced off of her legs and went flying toward the next line, where Daisy caught it, and passed it back to the front of the center line.

"You're supposed to receive the pass," explained the coach. "As soon as you do, you do what Lily did. Dribble down to the end."

As Lily took her place at the end of the line, the three leaders just kind of stood there.

"Are there questions you have?" asked the coach. No response came for several seconds, until Glory raised her hoof. "Yes, Morning Glory."

"Aren't we supposed to go?" she asked from the middle of her line.

"If you're ready," shrugged the coach. "Lily demonstrated, there aren't any questions... Go."

When nopony moved for another ten seconds, Glory stepped out of line and snagged the ball from her leader. Seeing this, Daisy did the same, as did the pony standing in front of Snapdragon.

"There we go," clapped the coach. "Good form, girls. Way to take charge!"

As the girls began to pass the ball and run with it, it was made obvious to the coach, as well as some of the players, that some of these girls would not make the team. Dribbling the ball and maintaining control of it while running was one of the most basic aspects of the game, as was passing and receiving. The pony that passed to Lily was really bad at passing, though, and as she was readying herself to take her second run, a pass that was poorly aimed and coming in too hot smacked right against her face, and Lily was knocked to the ground.

Chapter the Twenty-Sixth: Goals

"Seriously, I'll be fine," urged Lily through the bag of ice water on her face. "As long as nopony kicks the ball right into my face again, I can still play."

"Are you sure?" asked the coach. "That was a pretty hard blow. There's no shame in going home and coming back tomorrow."

"Maybe not," answered Lily, "but why go home when I'm fine? I can just sit back for a few minutes and go right back in once my lip stops bleeding."

With a sigh and a nod, the coach turned and walked back onto the pitch. Lily had been brought off the field and onto one of the benches to rest, cool her face and rehydrate. Snapdragon was with her, as the coach had allowed one friend to leave practice to make sure Lily was alright, and Daisy was still needing to practice. The filly that had kicked the ball at Lily's head had been given a five-lap penalty. She'd claimed it was an accident, and since she was new, the coach had to give her the benefit of the doubt. If it was an accident, she'd take steps to ensure that it didn't happen again. If it was malicious, she'd do it again and receive a harsher punishment, and be kicked from the team. But for now, five laps was an appropriate punishment while the rest of the team finished up the dribble slalom and started in on the next practice task: repeatedly passing the ball back and forth.

"Are you sure you're going to be alright?" asked Snapdragon once they were out of earshot.

"I'm fine," urged Lily. "She just kicked the ball right in my face, is all. I wasn't ready, and I will be next time. All of the professionals catch the ball with their head sometimes, and it's mostly just a problem with unicorns."

"Yeah, but what if you fall on your belly next time and squash the feta?"

Lily slowly turned her head to face Snapdragon. "I think maybe you were the one hit in the head. I'm not carrying any cheese on me."

"Not that kind of feta, the other one!"

"What are you talking about?"

Snapdragon leaned in and whispered, "The B-A-Y-B-Y."

Lily scoffed. "It's too early for that."

"But it won't be too early forever. Someday, it'll be too late."

Lily took a deep breath. "I know. I'll be out of the game by then, though."

"Are you sure? You took a nasty blow to the face, darling. What if the next one hits you in the stomach and pops the baby?"

Lily was silent for a moment, then stood up, walking onto the pitch as the next activity was about to be announced. With the conviction in her walk, Snapdragon thought Lily was about to tell on her, and followed from a short distance, but on arrival, Lily said nothing.

"Okay, girls," instructed the coach. "We're going to practice shooting now, as well as blocking. I want all goalies by the post, and all forwards here at the twenty-five metre line." He turned to Lily. "You sure you're alright?"

Lily nodded. "I'm a forward. I should be fine."

"Okay. Take your positions."

As Lily had surmised, there were a lot of goalies. Out of the twenty fillies trying to join the team, twelve of them wanted to be goalies, and there were only two forwards; Lily and Daisy. Even if they both made the team, there weren't enough forwards to constitute a full team.

"Okay," sighed the coach. "Is there anypony else interested in playing a forward? We need at least three, and we only have two."

"Four," corrected Lily. "We need a fourth in case somepony ends up injured." She pointed to her face.

"Good point. Anypony?"

Looking around, nopony else wanted to play as a forward. Even without a backup, they couldn't play.

"I'll do it, I guess," sighed Snapdragon. "I don't enjoy the position, but we need an extra. Somepony else will have to play defender."

The coach clapped his hooves. "Very good, very good." He'd been coaching the team for a few years, and he knew that Snapdragon wasn't particularly good at the game. It was obvious that she was more into the uniform, and was better at keeping the team looking good than winning. Still, she wanted to be on the team. Perhaps she'd even be okay as a forward. "Anypony else?"

Unlike before, nopony came forward. None of them wanted to be a forward, because that meant comparing themselves to Lily, and she was the best.

"Alright, fine. Goalies, take turns blocking the ball, forwards, try to score."

With a toot from his whistle, the forwards started launching balls toward the goal in stages. They would try to catch the ball, have their success or failure recorded, then throw or kick it back to whichever forward was shooting next before moving to the back of the line.

Daisy managed to make about a third of her shots, give or take a few. Snapdragon was lousy, only making one shot go in because the goalie tripped on the ball while trying to kick it back, and it went in.

Lily was fantastic, though. More than eighty-five percent of her shots resulted in a goal, either because the goalie was unable to catch it, or because her shots were strong enough and well-placed enough to push them back a step or two. She wasn't unblockable, as some of her shots did manage to be caught or deflected, but she was making the goalies look like fools.

One, having been unable to block her twice, was so frustrated that she kicked the ball back at Lily, hard. Snapdragon saw it coming and immediately leaped in the way, thinking it was going to hit Lily right in the gut. The ball ploughed into her chest, hard, but not nearly as hard as Lily's hoof struck her back. Just as she'd promised back at the bench, Lily was ready when the ball had come sailing at her, and she was prepared to return it to the goal. Instead, what she'd done was kick Snapdragon in the back and send her careening into the dirt.

The coach blew his whistle as he came running up. "Okay, girls! Practice is cancelled today. You can all head home, and we'll try again tomorrow..."

Chapter the Twenty-Seventh: Confrontation

The rest of practice went by without a problem. Rather, there were problems, but almost none of them were with Lily. Fifteen angry parents stormed the field at one time or another, yelling at the coach for not letting their daughter be the goalie. He calmly explained to them every time that the team only needed two goalies at maximum; one normal and one backup, and that he'd picked the two that had done the best. And of course, Lily remembered which two, because they had been able to block her shots fairly often. If their regular goalie could block just over half of her shots, she was good. Their backup could manage about a third. The coach offered them another position on the field, and while most parents had stormed off, making a big deal about writing to the Equestria Youth Athletics Association, one in particular had agreed to the position change, and they had a new forward in reserve. That reserve forward was Snapdragon, because the other filly, one Cherry Pit, was slightly better.

If they'd managed to claim yet another forward, Snapdragon would have been moved. Something Lily hadn't told them, because she didn't know about it, was a team support crew. Glory had been moved there, as this crew was meant to make sure the team only needed to think about the game. The cheerleaders were there to keep the crowds cheering, there was a collection of vendors to keep the spectators supplied with food and drink, as well as merchandise, there were refreshers to make sure that any players returning to the bench were supplied with towels, drinks, and anything else, and if Snapdragon didn't need to be on the team as a reserve, she'd be the one in charge of uniforms and uniform maintenance. All of these positions had been handled by adults in the past, and were still being led by adults, but the kids were allowed to take part, now that they were older.

After just two and a half weeks of practice, it was time for the first game of the season. Rather, it was the fourth game, but the first one that Lily and her team would be involved in. Lily was in the guest locker room slipping into her jersey when she felt a hoof on her shoulder. She turned, and Daisy was standing there, as was Snapdragon. Glory was already outside.

"You don't have to go through with this," warned Daisy, quiet enough so that nopony would overhear. "Just tell the coach that you feel sick. Please, please don't go out there."

Lily shook her head and cinched her sash, tucking the tail away so as not to have it caught in anything. "I'm playing. At least for the first few games."

"Think of the baby!" urged Snapdragon quietly. "Even when it's this small, you could still damage it!"

"I've already taken that into account," answered Lily. "Don't worry about it."

"We're going to worry about it!" growled Snapdragon. "Lily, you're our friend. We care about you. We care about what matters to you! We care about the baby, too. I'm begging you to just drop out of the game. Be a member of the support crew, if you want us to win, but don't play."

"Sorry, girls. But I'm going out on that field."

As Lily walked toward the door, Daisy called out to her. "If that's the case, my stomach and Snapdragon's just took a bad turn."

"It did?" asked Snapdragon.

Daisy dug her elbow into Snapdragon's shoulder. "We had dinner together last night, and the food poisoning just caught up to us. There's no right forward, and no replacement. The game has to be forfeit."

Lily's hoof stopped at the handle and she turned around. "You wouldn't."

"I would," snorted Daisy. "I'm not letting you play this game. Bow out, and let Snapdragon and myself handle it, or you can keep fighting and ruin it for the whole team."

For a minute, all was still. Lily was glaring daggers at her friends. She knew they meant well, but there was no way Lily was going to let her child come to harm. She'd done her research, and the only way a blow could injure her child at this stage of development was if it was strong enough to knock the wind out of her. It would have to be hard enough from a distance that she couldn't see it coming, or with such force up close that she couldn't block it. The former suggested that she was an idiot, and the latter meant that the one who kicked her was so aggressively rough that she'd be expelled from the game. This wasn't a "both go for the ball at the same time and shin each other" kind of accidental injury. They would have to act with malice, aiming for a section of her body that should not ever be aimed for.

"I'll go talk to the coach," Lily sighed.

Daisy and Snapdragon followed along, making sure Lily kept her word. It wasn't that they didn't trust her, just that they knew she really, really wanted to play. If she said she was fine, they were going to be sick.

"There you are," smiled the coach as they approached. "Now, we all remember yesterday's strategy meeting? We know what we're supposed to watch for?"

The girls nodded.

"Good. Out onto the field, girls. Take your positions."

As the rest of the team ran out across the grass, Lily, Daisy and Snapdragon stayed behind. "Coach?" called Lily. "Something's wrong with my stomach."

He kneeled down and placed a hoof on her abdomen. "Do you feel sick?" he asked. "Do you need to sit out?"

As Lily nodded, Daisy stepped forward. "Don't worry, Coach. Snapdragon can sub in. She said she feels great, and so do I."

The coach nodded. "Well, that settles it. If Lily is too sick to play, then I guess we'll have to--"

There was a loud belch from Lily, and all of her perceived discomfort left in an instant.

"Nevermind, coach. I guess it was just a bad gas bubble. Since the whole team is feeling great, let's play some hoofball!"

As the coach clapped at Lily's recovery, glad to know she was feeling better, Daisy just stared. Lily had just cheated them. They couldn't pretend to be sick, now. She'd just said they felt great. If their condition dropped so suddenly, that would be suspicious. With a growl, she took to the field, and Snapdragon went to the bench. They couldn't even come up with a plan together. The only thing Daisy could do now was make sure that Lily was unharmed, and that meant playing harder than she ever had.

Chapter the Twenty-Eighth: The Big Game

"Is it working?" There was a tapping on the microphone, then some blowing. "Okay, good. Let me know when we're live, would you? Wait, already!?" A scramble across the desk rang out across the radio broadcast range. "Fillies and Gentlecolts, welcome back to the West Equestrian Fillies' Junior League Hoofball coverage. Tonight's match is Salt Lick City versus New Fetlock."

Cloverleaf turned up the radio. He'd just left his lawyer's office ten minutes prior, trying to secure some real estate in the new town he was about to expand to. He was glad he hadn't missed the game, though he would have preferred to watch his daughter play from the stands. However, it was a four-hour train ride. By the time he arrived, the game would be over. At least he could sit in a diner and listen to it. It was better than nothing.

"Here's the coin flip, looks like Salt Lick City is calling it in the air, and... Looks like it's a bad call. The ref is serving to New Fetlock. The ball goes to Lily Blossom, the center forward, and she starts taking it down the field. Here comes Starbright to block, and she missed! Lily passes to Daisy Delight, looks like they're taking a right hook approach, and a line shot from the corner; it's caught by the goalie. Macaroon throws the ball to Shady Pine and IT'S INTERCEPTED! Lily has the ball again, Shady goes in for the steal, but Lily shoots... And it's good!

"Coverage of tonight's match, by the way, is brought to you by Cloverleaf Shipping and Manufacturing: All the comforts of home, wherever you roam, and by Caramel Delight's Candy Shoppe: Home of the Honey Drop.

"The players are back in position, and the ref has the ball. He serves to Starbright of Salt Lick City, and there they go, right down the middle of the field. Lily looks like she's ready to block, and OH! That's a clean steal, right there! Lily passes to Cherry Pit, back to Lily, Then Daisy, then back to Cherry. This is good sportsponyship, fillies and gentlecolts.

"Cherry lines up her shot, Boulder Dash on defense, she takes the shot and mis-- No! She faked the shot! It was a pass to Lily! She has a clear shot to the goal, and-- Another fake shot! The ball goes to Daisy, and it's good! The goalie dove sideways to block Lily's shot and couldn't stand up in time to block Daisy's shot! What an excellent display of teamwork, girls!"

Cloverleaf nodded. He'd seen that move before. He'd brought Lily to watch a professional match, and she didn't stop talking about it for a week. She thought it was so cool that one team could fake out another team so well that there was a wide open shot for the goal that was almost impossible to miss.

"The ball goes to Starbright again, and she takes a long shot down the middle. No question, the goalie just picks it up. Yeah, right there, Stone Wall grabs it and passes to left defender Babbling Brook, pass to Cherry Pit, back to Lily. Intercepted by Starbright!

"Starbright is dribbling down the field, she's moving past the defenders... She shoots again, and it's blocked by Brook! Brook is pulling the ball away, but Starbright is right on top of her, trying to steal it back. They're approaching the boundary, and-- Oh! That had to have hurt.

"There's the whistle, and the ref is running out onto the field. In trying to grab the ball, Starbright grabbed Brook by the collar and pulled her to the ground. Ref's calling a foul, and pulls out a yellow card. Brook is being awarded a penalty kick, and she's going to pass the ball to... Long pass to Daisy. The pass doesn't quite reach, but Daisy reaches for it. She has it, and she's running with it.

"Down at the other end of the field, now, Daisy's cornered. Blocked on all sides. Lily's dashing back and forth, trying to create an opening, but Starbright's on top of her, blocking the pass. Daisy's being backed up, and HEADER! Daisy passes the ball to Bramble, who sends a long pass to Cherry! She takes the shot... And it's caught by the goalie!

"Macaroon to Starbright and it's intercepted immediately! Lily has the ball and she's undefended! She takes the ball and runs left. The goal is right there, the other side's gaining on her, and it's a fast pass to Daisy! She shoots! It's good!"

Cloverleaf pumped his hoof in the air. He'd have been proud of his daughter if she'd taken the shot. If she was undefended, the goal would have been easy to hit, but she passed and let another player take the easy shot.

"Eleven seconds remaining on the first quarter. Can Salt Lick City pull their first goal of the game? Let's see. Starbright has the ball, and she slips past Lily. Runs it down the middle, swerves to avoid Bramble, and BROOK GRABS THE BALL!! It's a long, high kick into the air, and there goes the buzzer!

"Fillies and gentlecolts, we've reached the end of the first quarter. The score is three to nothing in favour of New Fetlock. We've seen some good work from New Fetlock's team, good sportsponyship... At some point or another, every member of the team has handled the ball. Salt Lick City seems to be doing everything in their power to put the ball in Starbright's hooves. She is their shooter, after all, so their best chance at scoring is to put the ball in her hooves.

"While we wait for the game to resume, I'd like to again thank our sponsors..." Cloverleaf turned the volume back down.

"Your daughter on the team?" asked the waitress, approaching to fill his coffee.

Cloverleaf nodded. "My daughter is the center forward for New Fetlock."

"Are they doing well?"

"Winning three-zip at the end of the first quarter."

"That's nice. Is this going to be all for you today, sir?"

He shook his head and grabbed the dessert menu, which he'd already opened to the picture he wanted. "Do you have any key lime pie left?"

"I'll have a slice out for you right away, sir. Anything else?"

"Whipped cream?"

"I'll have that right out, sir."

"Thanks," he called as she walked off toward the kitchen.

"Now rehydrated, the players are taking to the field again," called the announcer, prompting Cloverleaf to bring the volume back up.

Chapter the Twenty-Ninth: The Bump

Four more games. Four more games against four other teams. The league wasn't very large, but Lily's team had been invited to the national championships. They were even favoured to win, because out of the other seven districts, not a single one of the teams had gone undefeated. Lily and her team had. After defeating all five other teams in her district, the closest call being 13-12 against Trottingham, she was feeling on top of the world.

And then she woke up one morning to something kicking at her.

She tossed her comforter to one side, looking for what had struck her. Nothing. She jumped up to her hooves to see if it was something that had rolled under her. Nothing. Nothing was crawling on her body, either.

And then it kicked again, and she realised that the feeling was coming from inside of her. She placed her hoof on her belly, and a tiny hoof pushed back. The baby was forming.

She ran to the bathroom and looked at herself in the mirror. She didn't look to be that big. Then again, she'd seen herself every day, and the transition had been gradual. If she looked closely, she could see stretch marks starting to form.

She took a deep breath and relaxed. Letting her abdomen fall as it wanted, she looked again. The bulge was small, but it was there. And that meant it was too late. She couldn't play hoofball anymore. Not until she gave birth.

She sat down on the rim of the tub, taking a few deep breaths. She knew this day was coming. She knew this would happen. She was almost three months into her pregnancy, meaning the first trimester was going to end soon. She didn't know what a trimester was, but she knew there were at least three of them, and she was expected to swell up during the second one. That was to start very soon.

There was a knock at her bedroom door, something she could hear from the bathroom. She poked her head out, and Granny was standing across the hall, waiting for Lily to call out to her. "Over here."

Granny turned around. "Early up, are we?" she smiled sweetly. "Is school time soon."

Lily squeezed her eyes shut and shook her head. "I'm sick today."

"Sick? Sick how?"

"My stomach is churning, and I feel like I'm going to throw up. That's why I came to the bathroom early."

It wasn't a complete lie. She'd come to the bathroom to look at herself in the mirror, but the rest was true. Granted, she was sure that the reason she felt like she was going to vomit was likely because of the news, but she was in no mood to go out today. All she wanted was to stay home and sort this out. She could go back to school tomorrow, if she could find a way to hide her bump, but even that was a temporary measure. Once she started showing for real, she had to hide. No one could know.

"I tell school. You want soup?"

Lily nodded. "Soup. Yes. Soup is good. And, umm... I think I should take a shower, too, and then go back to bed."

"I tell school."

Lily closed the door and returned to the tub. She didn't think she needed a shower when she came in, but it'd be nice if something were to keep her warm. Plus, she was nervous to the point of sweating, and she wanted to cry. She was sad because she couldn't play hoofball anymore, angry that the opportunity to participate in the championships had been taken away from her, happy that her baby was okay, excited that it was healthy, scared of being found out, mortified of what would happen if she made even the smallest mistake, and all of the emotions flooding over her at once were so overwhelming when packed together that she actually did throw up.

After flushing it down, she stepped into the shower and turned on the warm water. She needed to calm down and think about this.

Granny knocked on her door again before opening it. Lily was still in bed, curled up and sobbing softly. "Lily?"

She wiped her face and rolled over. "Sorry. I was just... nevermind. It's not important."

"Friends are here. How is feeling?"

Lily sniffed. "Can I see them?"

Granny stepped aside, pulling the door open. Daisy, Glory and Snapdragon came in, all wearing light jackets. "A little chilly out there, today," chuckled Daisy. "How ya' feelin'?"

As Granny closed the door to return to the kitchen and let Lily talk to her friends, she tossed the covers aside and sat up.

"Whoa!" gasped Glory. "You're fat now!"

"It's probably just bloating from being sick," sneered Daisy.

Lily shook her head. "No. Being sick didn't cause this. This showing up made me sick."

"Is it the baby?" asked Daisy, quietly.

Lily nodded. "Wanna feel?"

Glory and Daisy put their hooves up against Lily's belly, feeling the tiny little movements of the fetus moving around.

"That's so cute and small!" squeaked Glory, her hooves shaking from too much excitement.

"You seriously can't play hoofball anymore," warned Daisy. "If you even think of it--"

"I'm quitting," assured Lily. "It's too late. I have to miss the tournament."

Daisy let out a breath. They'd been trying to convince her to stop since the day spots were announced, and had been unable to convince her. At every turn, trying to trick her into bowing out in front of the coach had resulted in them being outsmarted. They'd never gone so far as to tell him the truth, that Lily was pregnant, because of what would happen next, but Daisy had faked an injury. Snapdragon hadn't caught on, and Cherry Pit wasn't in on the plan to begin with, so the game went on, but still...

"Snapdragon, would you like to feel?" asked Lily.

Snapdragon didn't answer. She was digging through Lily's closet, tossing clothes into multiple piles and grumbling to herself.

"Snapdragon!"

For a moment, she turned and looked back at the group, but then went back to rummaging.

"What are you doing?" asked Daisy. "If you're looking for that cute swimsuit she had, I have that."

"I'm not looking for a swimsuit," Snapdragon growled. "I'm looking for... Yes! This will do nicely..."

Chapter the Thirtieth: Reclusion

Lily quit the team as she promised. The reason she gave was a medical condition; that she wasn't allowed to do any strenuous exercise due to a mass found in her abdomen. Her coach believed her when he saw the protrusion, and even the lie that she was seeing a doctor about it. She expressed still wanting to take the team to victory, but could not participate until the protrusion was removed. As such, she was moved to refreshment; making sure that the team was always at their best.

Her coach was the only adult to see the "growth." The rest of them, she just told she was cold, which was why she was always covered in loose-fitting flannel clothing. That was Snapdragon's idea. The best way to hide her body would be to literally cover it up. And with the weather turning cold, and everypony thinking she was chilly, it didn't seem out of place. This sort of thing would be a lot harder to hide through the summer months.

After a few weeks, it became more difficult to move. Lily had a slumber party that weekend with her friends, and it was made clear why. She was very big, now.

"This thing grew so fast," she wheezed, leaning back against her stack of pillows. "It's huge!"

"It is," marvelled Glory. "Is all of that the baby?"

"Well, some of it's probably fat," conceded Lily. "No training, no hoofball practice, no hoofball..."

"You wouldn't turn fat that fast," promised Daisy. "Let's be honest, most of this is the baby."

"So," leaned in Snapdragon. "Is it a boy or a girl?"

Lily shook her head. "My dad said not to go to the doctor unless it was an emergency. He said he's fixing something up so I can see a special doctor that'll just make sure that the baby and I are healthy without calling the guard to have us taken away. I don't know what it's going to be, but he promised that he'd have something by the end of the month."

"Do you have a name, yet?" asked Daisy.

"It's no use coming up with a name until we know the gender," scoffed Lily. "We can't give it a boy's name if it's a girl, or a girl's name if it's a boy."

The three other fillies looked at each other and nodded. "We've been talking," started Snapdragon, "about that..."

"We've decided that you can name your foal whatever you like," finished Daisy. "You don't have to name it after any of us."

"Especially if it's a colt!" chortled Glory. "Can you imagine, a colt named "Daisy?""

"Seriously, though," sighed Daisy, putting a hoof on Lily's shoulder. "Anything you want. Name it after somepony you like, name it after somepony famous, name it after your great-great-grandparents. It doesn't matter."

"...But it would tickle me pink if you named it after me."

"Glory!" snarled Snapdragon.

"It would!"

Lily chuckled at that. She hadn't had a good laugh in a few days. Not for lack of trying, more for carrying around all of the extra weight. The mood swings were pretty nasty, too. She'd done her best to keep them mild, but sometimes, she was just sad or angry for no reason at all.

"So, that bump is pretty big, now," noted Snapdragon. "Even with my skills, considerable as they are, we're not going to be able to hide that for much longer."

Lily ran her hoof over her swollen belly, feeling the baby shift to meet her hoof. "Do you girls remember when I told you what would happen if anypony ever found out?"

"I recall," answered Daisy. "As you said, the guards would throw your dad in a dungeon, then throw you in a different dungeon, then throw your baby in a third dungeon."

Lily shivered. The thought of ending up in a dungeon and being responsible for her father as well had terrified her. Now, she'd grown rather attached to the fetus, and what scared her more than anything was the thought that her baby would grow up without a mother. She had, and it was terrible. But at least she had a father. The baby would have nothing. Nopony. And she hated that idea more than anything.

Daisy grabbed her hoof and squeezed it tightly. "We're not going to let that happen," she promised. "If some guard tries to take away your baby, I'll kick him right in the balls. I hear that hurts."

"And if that guard is a mare," added Snapdragon, "I know how to bite."

"Just make sure you stretch out your teeth beforehoof," noted Glory.

Daisy raised her eyebrow. "How do you stretch your teeth?"

"I said "jaw.""

"You said "teeth,"" confirmed Lily.

Glory opened and closed her mouth several times, trying to stretch out her jaw and teeth. One of these goals would be successful.

Granny knocked on the door, and Lily rolled forward, covering up her belly with her clothes. "It's open!"

"Am headed home," said Granny. "Taking your friends with me?"

Lily tilted her head to the side. "Why would you take my friends with you?"

"Take them home," stated Granny. "Friends need go home; big talk. Not see me for long, long time."

"Why wouldn't I see you?" asked Lily. "You're not coming back?"

"Maybe for visit."

"So, then, who's going to watch me?"

"I am." The door opened a bit further, and there stood Cloverleaf. "I'm back, now, and I'll be taking care of you from now on."

Lily's eyes went wide. "Dad?!"

He nodded. "Girls, it's time to go home. I need to talk with my daughter, alone, for a bit. You can come see her again tomorrow afternoon. Granny, here, will escort you to your houses, if you wish."

They all looked to Lily, who nodded to them. "I'll be fine, girls."

"Left recipe book on kitchen counter," added Granny. "For good soup."

As everypony left, Cloverleaf watched to make sure they made it out okay. Once they were gone, he locked the door, then turned to Lily, who had already uncovered herself so he could see. "I swelled up like a watermelon," she said, lifting her belly so he could feel. "It's really big, now."

"So it is," he smiled, running his hoof over her. He could feel it kicking. "Very nice legs. Think it'll enjoy a friendly game of hoofball?"

"I certainly hope so..."

Chapter the Thirty-First: Reunion

As Lily took the last forkful of waffle off of her plate, mopping up the jelly and cream, she looked across the table at her dad. He was finished already, leaning forward on his elbows and watching her.

"What?"

He chuckled. "I missed you, Lily. A lot."

She swallowed the last bite. "I missed you, too. Granny was great, but you're my dad. Every child needs a parent."

"Most have two."

Lily lowered her head. "Some don't have any."

"That's true..."

"I've had a taste of that," sighed Lily. "It sucks."

"You'll receive no argument from me."

"I'm glad you're back. It's going to make things a lot better."

He grinned. "Yeah..." slowly, the smile drained from his face. In its place came a look of uncertainty and fear.

"Dad? Is everything okay?"

Cloverleaf took a deep breath. "I was just thinking of something I have to do. I don't really want to, but it's required."

Lily reached across the table and grabbed his hoof. "I'll help."

He placed his hoof on hers. "I know you will. You're a good kid."

"I was raised by a good dad."

His smile returned.

"Now, let's go upstairs." Lily slid out of her chair and onto her hooves. "I want to show you what I've been doing while you were away."

Curious, Cloverleaf stood up and followed her. He had an idea of what he was going to see, but he pushed the thought out of his mind. He didn't want to set his expectations too high.

When they made it to her room, she pulled out the box, and he turned around to lock the door. The doors to the house were all locked, as were the windows, and they lived in a nice neighborhood, but he still wanted the room sealed. He even drew the shades to make sure nopony could look in on them.

By the time he turned around, Lily had the big dildo out and was lubing it up.

"The big one, huh?" he chuckled. "That's pretty heavy stuff. Are you sure you want to try it?"

Lily did not answer. Instead, she just leaned back, placed the tip between her labia, and pulled. More than two-thirds of the shaft disappeared into her in a single slurp, and with a deep breath, so did most of the rest of it.

Cloverleaf could not hold his jaw up. It had collapsed to the floor, and his eyes had widened to the size of dinnerplates. When he'd pushed down his expectations, they weren't nearly as high as this.

Lily's head rolled to the side. "Ta... dah.." she panted, just barely holding the massive length inside of her.

Cloverleaf shook his head and approached. "You've been practising!" he cooed.

"Well, I can't play hoofball like this," she chuckled. "What else am I supposed to do all day?"

Cloverleaf leaned over and kissed his daughter, reaching down between her legs to grab the dildo by the handle. "I'm very proud of you, sweetie, but you didn't have to go quite that far."

"How else am I supposed... to handle the-- the real thing?" she asked, her speech riddled with gasps and moans. "Can I see it?"

"In a moment," he promised. He slid down the bed to her hips and rolled her leg over his head so that her thighs were on either side of his head. "I want to see how beautiful my daughter is as she's coming along."

He pulled the dildo out so that he could see her body as it fell. Her pussy was absolutely dripping, and not all of it was lube. She was trembling at every touch, his hooves driving her wild. Her breasts shook back and forth as her body rocked. They still weren't big, but they were bigger than most fillies' her age. They were even starting to produce milk, as her body was preparing itself for the baby to be born.

Lily gasped as Cloverleaf dragged his tongue along her lips, paying special attention to her clitoris. When the tip of his tongue touched it, he wiggled it around, and her legs clamped around his neck. She had done this dozens of times with the vibrator, to the point where she could handle it easily. But the vibrator was nothing compared to his tongue.

He didn't stay down there for long. He could have, and would have, but it was not necessary. She was ready, and he was almost ready. "Pass me that lube?" he gestured, climbing up and hovering over top of her.

She shook her head and grabbed the bottle, scooting down between his legs. "I can do it," she said, squirting a glob into her hoof. Snapping the lid shut, she rubbed it back and forth in her hooves, warming it up. She'd learned that applying it directly, it was always too cold, but if you warmed it in your hooves first, it was nice. It went on smoother, too.

Cloverleaf was almost fully extended before, but as Lily stroked her hooves up and down his shaft, coating every square centimetre of the surface in high-performance lubrication, he started to firm up, growing harder and longer, letting out groans as she prepped him for entry.

Those moans turned to a yelp of shock as her lips closed around his tip. It wasn't bad, he just wasn't expecting it. He'd had his eyes closed, and was imagining his first time with her mother. She hadn't been nearly as skilled, but she was just as beautiful. Feeling something close around him drew him out of that memory.

"Sorry," Lily called, pulling away. "I tried not to use my teeth."

"You didn't," he assured. "You were doing great. I just wasn't ready for it."

She was about to try again, but he grabbed ahold of her shoulder and pulled her forward until they were face-to face. Both of their lips were still a little wet, creating a sticky amalgamation as he pressed himself against her. Their tongues danced in each others' mouths, each one eagerly kissing the other.

As they separated, Lily's face had turned red, and the strand of saliva connecting their faces dropped down to her chin. She looked so cute and helpless, and he wanted nothing more than to wrap himself around her.

"D-daddy," she panted. "Please... I need it..."

He smiled down at her. "Anything for you, my princess..."

Chapter the Thirty-Second: Father and Daughter

Lily climbed up her dad's chest, pulling herself up his body until the tip of his cock pointed right at her.

"You don't have to do this," Cloverleaf said, reaching up to caress her chest. "You can lie back and let me take care of everything."

Lily shook her head. "I want to do it this way. I barely exercise anymore. It's making me stiff, not moving around."

"Okay..." he took a deep breath. "Just go slow, okay. And if it starts to hurt too much, stop."

Lily said nothing. She loved her dad, and wanted to do as he said, but she knew better. Looking him right in the eye, she slipped down more than half of his length. While the big toy was supposed to prepare her for him, it was actually a little bit larger than he was, and having already crammed its entire length into her pussy, he was little issue. She swallowed his whole cock inside of her in two breaths, now sitting on his balls.

Cloverleaf placed a hoof on her hip. "Really?"

"Yup."

He took a deep breath. "It seems you're more practised than I gave you credit for," he smirked. "Okay, then. Go at your leisure."

Lily lowered her head. "I... I can't."

"Sure you can. You're a big girl now. I trust you."

"No, I... I mean I'm stuck. My legs don't want to push me back up."

Cloverleaf looked down at her hooves. They were convulsing. He could even feel her knees twitching on his hips. She could take his whole length, but it drained her ability to control her legs. If, as she had demonstrated to him, she was taking it while on her back, she'd not been practicing keeping her legs stable. She still had a way to go in her training.

Cloverleaf chuckled. "Alright, sweetie. Let's start slow."

Hooking his hooves under her hips, he lifted her a few centimetres and then gently lowered her back down. Then back up, and back down. With every slippery pump, she took a breath. As he pulled out, she inhaled, and as he pushed back in, she let it out.

He only went slow for a little bit. Once he could see that she was doing well, he picked up speed. Not a lot of speed; he wasn't hammering into her. Just a little bit more speed, and a few more centimetres of depth to go with it. He was certain she wouldn't break from this.

Something did click into place, though. Her exhales were deep, quavering moans, now. As she bounced up and down, she leaned forward, rubbing her body against his and just enjoying the ride.

"I'm going to go a little deeper," he breathed, his voice a gentle hum in her ear. "Just relax a little more, okay?"

He didn't do anything for several seconds, just continuing as he had been. It wasn't until her cheek rubbed up against him, signalling that she was nodding, that he began to change gears. He was waiting for her to give her consent.

With her ready, he lifted his hips and began to thrust. He wasn't moving her as much anymore, taking charge and going at his own pace. He listened, of course, for any objection, but the only semi-coherent word out of Lily's mouth was "yesch." She was into it.

He could feel her clenching up. She was tight around him already, but she wasn't relaxing. It wasn't to keep him out, but rather, to keep him in. As he pressed in, he was met with little to no resistance, and as he pulled away, she clamped down, trying to suck him back in. As much as she was loving it, it was all for him.

He slowed to a stop and then pulled her up off of him. "Wh-- What are you... Hah... I wasn't..."

"I know," he answered, setting her back down on the bed. "We're not stopping, I'm just starting to feel a bit sore, moving like that. So I'm switching us to a new position; that's all."

He moved her onto the bed, placing her face-down on the mattress. Once she was in position, with her chin on the pillow and her back legs spread with her tail up in the air, he stepped over top of her. With little warning other than lining himself up, he pushed into her once more, all the way down in a single stroke. He went slow, of course, watching her face for any discomfort, but she was in little pain, if any. In any case, she did not indicate any discomfort. Her big, goofy smile said the exact opposite, in fact.

Slowly at first, but then picking up speed, he began to thrust his hips forward and back, his balls slapping against her clitoris. She could do little more than pant and moan at him as his mighty rod impaled her tight snatch over and over. He was watching her expression the entire time, and it was pure sexual bliss.

It wasn't long before he was drilling into her at full speed. She was a melted, squealing mess by then, little more than a hot, tight wet hole for his cock. He'd lost all pretense of trying to keep his daughter safe. She was safe. Safe enough, anyway. She was in the hooves of somepony that loved her, and she was feeling great. She'd even cum a few minutes in.

More important than that, though, she was about ready to cum again. She was close; he could feel it. He had the capacity to keep going, as he could slow it down and still drive her over the edge, but he opted out. Picking up speed one more time to finish himself off, he yanked her hips back into his, spraying his load right into her, just as he had several months prior. His head was clearer this time, but now there was less danger. She was his little girl, and he'd do anything to make her happy.

And make her happy, he did. Filling her up caused her to cum a second time, and as she slowly recovered from that, he wrapped his hooves around her. It took an embarrassingly long time for her to realise that she'd been rolled over, as the only thing registering in her mind was the numbness of being on a cloud and being weightless. She wasn't a pegasus, but that was how she imagined that it felt.

When she regained her senses, she reached down and cradled her father's balls in her hoof. He was still inside of her, just like their first night together. Some of his cum was starting to drip out of her, but she didn't care enough to wipe it up. She'd have to leave the bed, find a towel and mop it up, and unless he carried her, that meant pulling him out, and she wasn't about to do that.

Instead, she nestled into his chest. It was warm, and he was hugging her. It was comfortable, and in less than a minute, she was out.

Chapter the Thirty-Third: The Morning After

Cloverleaf awoke to the feeling of something warm and wet crawling all over him. It felt wonderful, and for a moment, he was content to just lie there, groaning in moderate pleasure. He wasn't used to waking up like this, but he was ready to enjoy it.

As his mind cleared up, however, he recalled the events leading up to his falling asleep. He opened his eyes, and caught sight of something winking back at him. Something that wasn't an eye.

"Morning, princess," he groaned.

Lily pulled her mouth away from his morning wood and turned back to face him. "Good morning, Daddy. Was I doing a bad job?"

Cloverleaf shook his head. "You're doing fine, Lily."

With the confirmation that she was doing well, she wrapped her lips around him and went down once more. She was quite enthusiastic, and was actually quite skilled. She was following the instructions he'd given her, and rather than focusing on going as deep as she could, she was concentrating on her technique.

She was really enjoying herself, which made it all the worse that he was going to have to do something that would put an end to her jubilation.

"Lily, there's something we need to talk about," he started.

"Ah-goesh gug!" she called out through a throatful of cock. The vibrations of her trying to talk make him tingle. She really was almost done; he wouldn't last much longer. She really was very good at this.

He let out a grunt, and she grabbed his hips, going all the way down until her nose was in his balls. With a second grunt, they clenched up, and he released a load down her throat, filling her stomach with all of the fluids that she could handle. More than she could handle, in fact, as some of it was so pressurised that it came back up and spewed from her nostrils like a sneeze.

After taking a few hard breaths through her nose and clearing away the bulk of the drippings, she pulled her head up, slurping off most of the sticky coating. She even turned around and showed her open mouth, completely clean. She'd swallowed everything.

"Good job," chuckled Cloverleaf, tousling her mane. "You're a natural at that."

"Thanks, Daddy," she smiled, snuggling up into his elbow. "It just looked so enticing."

He pulled her in tight. "You're such a wonderful girl, Lily," he sighed. "Any stallion would be lucky to have you."

"You're the only stallion I want, though," she smiled, squeezing him tighter. "I did look at the other boys in my class, like you said, but they don't compare."

"You would be better off with somepony your own age..."

She shrugged. "Since when is loving your father a bad thing?" She shook her head. "I'll keep an eye out, but I doubt I'll ever find anypony to replace you."

For a brief moment, a smile graced his lips. He was trying to lower the mood so he could give her the bad news, but she was happy, and she wanted to share some of that with him.

"Lily, there's something we need to talk about..."

Daisy stepped out into the backyard. The second championship game was over, and now it was time to practise for what would likely be their final match. There was no official practise today, but she had a move she'd been trying to learn since Lily left, and she really wanted to be ready before the match.

As she lined up her shot, though, she heard a sob. It was faint, but it was clear. She listened closely, and it was coming from next door. A quick peek through the fence showed Lily, wrapped in baggy clothes, sitting on the back steps, crying. Based on the state of her sleeves, she'd been there for awhile.

"Lily?" she asked, jumping over the fence and walking up to her. "What's wrong?"

Lily sniffled, wiping her face on her sleeve. "I'm not going... to see you... for a long time..." she said between gasps.

Daisy placed a hoof on her shoulder and rubbed her back. "Are you having another mood swing?" she asked. Lately, Lily had been crying a lot over small things and making mountains of molehills.

Lily shook her head. "No!" There was a pause. "Well, yes, actually, but that's not the point!"

"Hey, don't worry," smiled Daisy. "I'm sure we'll keep seeing each other. You're, like, my best friend. I'm not going to just leave you here."

"I know," Lilly hiccupped. "I know you're not leaving. I am!"

Lily leaned over, bawling into Daisy's practice jersey. Daisy didn't know what to do except to hug her back and try to make her feel better. She didn't know what to say, either, so she remained silent.

After calming herself a bit, Lily regained her breath. "I'm... I'm moving," she finally managed to spit out. "Not just across town, either. I'm leaving town entirely."

"Where are you going?" asked Daisy. "I can come visit. I can bring the girls, too. We can even still go to camp together." She wasn't sure if any of this was true, but maybe it could be, and if there was a way to comfort Lily, she'd try it. Anything to stop her from crying.

"I don't know," sniffed Lily. "I kind of... stopped listening. I didn't want to... to leave all of my friends behind. Not when you've all been so nice to me..."

Daisy pulled Lily in and started rocking her back and forth. "It's going to be okay," she promised. She didn't know if she could keep that promise, but she was going to make it, anyway. "What do you know?"

Lily wiped her face. "I know it's going to be soon. Starting tomorrow, my dad's hired a moving company to pack up our things. He's in there, now, marking several boxes as "existentials." You know, stuff we need to have when we move in. He's already picked the place, and we're going to be there by Monday morning."

That still gave them the weekend. It wasn't much time, so if Daisy was going to save Lily, she'd have to act fast. She didn't know what she was going to do yet, but she did know one thing: Nopony hurt Lily without suffering the consequences.

Chapter the Thirty-Fourth: Leaving

Once Lily had calmed down a bit, Daisy went inside. Lots of boxes were stacked up already, with Cloverleaf grabbing a new one a few seconds after her entry to start filling up. She didn't hear a lot of movement, just him in the kitchen. That's where he was working, and nopony else was around.

He caught a glimpse of her out of the corner of his eye. "Morning, Daisy. Lily's out back."

"I know," Daisy answered. "I saw her on my way in. She was crying."

Cloverleaf nodded, but did not stop. "I can imagine so. She's not very happy right now."

"I don't blame her," scowled Daisy. "She's being forced to move against her will."

"I know. It's not ideal, and I wish there were some other way. But we need to be closer to her doctor, and we have to move to make that happen."

"No doctors nearby?" scoffed Daisy. "We have a hospital right down the road."

"Not for what she needs."

"What she needs is to not be stressed."

"What she needs is a doctor that'll solve her problems without creating new ones. She needs to see a specialist. She can handle a little bit of stress on the road to fixing a lot of it. It'll be good for her."

"But will it be good for the baby?"

Cloverleaf stopped in his tracks and sighed. "Of course. Of course you figured it out..."

"Actually, she told us."

"I don't doubt that."

"Can't moving wait until after she gives birth? It'd give her time to rest, anyway."

Cloverleaf took a deep breath and closed the cabinet door, looking her right in the face. "She's pregnant. That's why we're moving. Because she's going to give birth, and when that happens, we need to be somewhere that will keep her safe."

"You think I'd put her in danger?"

"No, but if danger should come for her, do you think you could handle it? If six guards showed up to take her away and confiscate the baby, do you think you could hold them off?"

"I would try. I certainly wouldn't run away."

Cloverleaf shook his head. "Let's say you were successful, and fought off the guards long enough for Lily to escape. You'd be under arrest, and eight more guards would go after her. What are you going to do from your dungeon cell?"

The room fell silent but for the ticking of the wall clock.

"My point exactly. Our best bet for keeping Lily safe is to not attract attention in the first place."

"Why would guards be chasing you?" asked Daisy. "Why Lily?"

Cloverleaf resumed packing. "I'll answer that in a moment, but first, how many students in your class are pregnant right now?"

"What does that have to do with anything?"

"Just humour me."

Daisy stopped for a moment, then answered. "Just Lily, I guess. Maybe others, but they're not showing."

"Right. Why do you think that is?"

"Probably because none of them are starting families."

"Do you think any of them should be?"

"Well, there are a few, but a lot of them are just dating to see what it's like. I don't think they've figured out sex yet."

"I didn't ask for "knew how." I asked for "should." How many colts would make good fathers, how many fillies would make good mothers?"

"...I mean, Lily's been putting in the effort to learn. It's something, anyway."

"And she's the most prepared, in your opinion?"

"She is."

"So, would you say that young kids should not be having their own kids, and should wait until they're older, more mature and wiser?"

"Yeah."

"Well, the royal court of Equestria would agree with you."

"And you don't?"

"I never said that. I think that, generally speaking, all colts and fillies should be given a sexual education before they go into heat for the first time. I believe that they should have a plan set out before becoming pregnant, but I know that sometimes, that doesn't happen, and one must deal with the consequences. That's what we're doing; dealing with the consequences."

"By moving?"

"Lily is pregnant. That's a fact. The stallion that did so will be arrested if we take her to a local doctor, and her child will grow up with no father. Furthermore, since Lily is under the age at which she can earn a minimum wage, she would be unable to take care of the child, and unable to take care of herself, so they would be placed in orphanages. If they're lucky, the same one, but not likely."

"Why not your care?"

"Having allowed it to happen in the first place is criminal negligence. I was supposed to keep it from happening. Can't raise a kid in prison, let alone two."

Daisy took a deep breath. "She can come stay with us. My parents love her."

"But that still has me going to prison," concluded Cloverleaf. "It doesn't matter if I did what I did to protect Lily, or her baby, or even to ensure that all parties were unharmed. Reasons don't change facts, and the fact is, she became pregnant while underage in my care. So, to keep her and her baby together, fed, and in good health, we have to go see a specific doctor. One that won't call the guard to take away her family, her home, and her child."

Daisy was silent.

"Lily is going away, yes, and that sucks. The choices are to either keep me with her, and she can raise the baby with my help, or I can go to prison, and her baby will go into state foster care. She can go away with her family, or completely alone. At least this way, you can come visit from time to time." He turned to Daisy. "If you want her to stay, and myself and the baby to be torn from her for the next ten years, you can do that. Or, you can come see her in two weeks, when school lets out for Hearth's Warming."

Daisy sighed. "This sucks."

"Don't I know it..."

Daisy shook her head. "Take her away, then. I hate this, but it's for the best..."

Cloverleaf nodded. "I take no issue with you all coming to visit us. I'll give your parents the address of the new place. She needs friends. Good friends. Friends like you. So make sure you don't forget about her."

Daisy shook her head. "I would never."

Chapter the Thirty-Fifth: The New Neighbors

The weekend passed so quickly. The wagon ride had only been two and a half hours so far, but it felt like an eternity compared to the two days of spending time with her friends. Right now, they were all back at school, while Lily was in the back of a wagon with a few basic belongings. She wished that she could be with them right now, even if they'd all have to listen to a boring lecture about Saddle Arabian dental hygiene practices. She'd still be with them.

Her dad hadn't said anything since their last rest stop. Since he was pulling the wagon, she'd have to call out in front of her to be heard over the thrum of the axles rotating. She just wasn't interested in talking.

Cloverleaf did want to talk, but he didn't know what to talk about. He knew Lily was upset about moving, but talking about going to a new house and making new friends would go over about as well as reminding her that she was leaving her old house and old friends. Even her new school was off the table. She'd have to come to terms with it sooner or later, but all he could do to make the situation better was to find some way of making her happy.

"There it is," he called to the back as he crested a hill. "If you want to see where we're going, you can, now."

Lily looked up at her new home. It was a small town, roughly half the size of New Fetlock. She'd been here before, at a game. They had an okay hoofball team. They weren't great, but they weren't terrible. She could probably help them make district in the spring season.

She was still quiet as they made their way into town, however. Cloverleaf tried to entice her by pointing out places she might like, such as the frozen yogurt shop and the hoofball pitch beside the school, as well as the new warehouse he'd bought to expand his business here, and she was genuinely interested, but she was also still upset. She didn't say a thing until they came to a stop.

"Why are we stopping?" she asked.

"We're here," he said, gesturing to the house on their right. "This is the new place."

Lily hopped down to the sidewalk. This house was smaller than her old one; there was no upstairs.

"There's also a basement. Come on, I'll show you around before we start to unpack."

It was a nice enough house, and the neighborhood looked to be decent. There were only two bedrooms instead of three, but there was a section in the basement that could easily be converted to a workout room. It had already been discussed that, since they were routinely sharing a bed when he was home, that they'd share a bed here, as well. Not always, of course, but most nights. It wasn't even entirely about the sex, either. The other bedroom would go to the baby, acting as a nursery.

They spent the rest of the morning and part of the afternoon unloading the cart and unpacking. That is, Cloverleaf did most of the unloading, and Lily did a lot of the unpacking. He'd bring in the heavy box full of silverware and plates, and she'd move them up to the cabinets and drawers. She was still a filly, after all, and quite pregnant. It wasn't until she ran out of boxes to unpack that she stopped.

There were voices outside. Three fillies, a colt, and her dad. Finding that she could do little more with empty boxes, she opted to go out and see what was happening.

There was, in fact, only one filly. One of the girls, as well as the boy, were donkeys, and the other girl was a gryphon.

"Ah. There she is, now." Cloverleaf waved her over. "Come meet the neighbors."

Tentatively, Lily walked up and extended her hoof. "I'm Lily."

The gryphon shook first. "Call me Guin." She gestured to the two donkeys. "This is my daughter, Jenny, and my son, Kurt. And this," she gestured to the young mare, "is his marefriend, Seascape."

"How do you do?" grunted Lily platitudinously.

"So, how's the baby coming along?" asked Seascape.

Lily and Cloverleaf turned their attention to her, a bit of panic crossing their faces.

"Relax, I'm not a guard," she said. "Obviously, she's pregnant, and underage, so you two obviously moved here for the lax laws on the subject."

"Seascape's already had her baby," added Guin. "Having gone through that, she's quite ready to help."

"Plus, you seem decent enough ponies," finished Seascape. "You obviously tried to fix whatever mistake you made, if this is where you landed, so I'm asking you, is the baby healthy?"

Lily looked up at her dad. "We haven't been to see a doctor yet," she answered. "We've only just arrived."

"You need to do that right away," she warned. "If that baby comes out with an injury because you didn't catch something in time--"

"When Crag came out," interrupted Guin, "they had to go slow because the umbilical cord was twisted around his neck. He's breathing fine, now, but there was a big panic that day."

"I just don't want you to feel the way I did," finished Seascape.

Cloverleaf nodded. "That is the reason we came... We have a little bit of paperwork to sign, turn it in tomorrow, and then we can go see the doctor. Thank you for your concern, though."

"You look to be about my age," noted Guin. "What grade are you in?"

"Sixth," answered Lily. "You?"

"Same. And Jenny, too. We'll keep a close eye on you; make sure you're doing okay at the school, if you want."

Lily furrowed her eyebrows. "I thought she was your daughter?"

"Adopted," answered Jenny. "We were best friends before that, and now she's married to my dad, so we're practically sisters, but on paper, she's my stepmom."

Kurt nodded along, but looked away. "We should go inside; wait for dad."

Lily nodded and took a step back. "Nice meeting you."

Cloverleaf waved as they walked in, then released a breath he didn't know he'd been holding. "Well. I suppose that it's good that the neighbors are friendly..."

Epilogue: Let Out Early

Winter and Spring went by so fast that Lily barely noticed it. She was upset that she couldn't see her friends regularly, sure, but the neighbors turned out to be pretty good friends, as well, so it wasn't so bad. As promised, Seascape was invaluable as a fount of wisdom and experience for an expecting mother such as Lily, and Guin knew a lot of life skills that she was very willing to teach.

It was just a week before the end of the year when Lily's letter to Daisy arrived. In spite of the fact that they were so young, Daisy, Snapdragon and Morning Glory all somehow convinced Ms. Mayberry to let them take their final exams early and skip the end-of-term celebrations. It was unorthodox, but they agreed to come in on a Saturday to make sure it was done, so they must have been serious about making it happen.

As soon as they arrived, they rushed into the house. It was Daisy's dad that had brought them this time, and he was sticking around for a little bit. He had something he wanted to discuss with Cloverleaf. The girls immediately ran up to the Nursery, where Guin and Lily were waiting.

Right before they entered, Snapdragon had the good sense to cover Glory's mouth. Lily's letter had mentioned what had happened, and Glory could very easily cause a problem by opening her mouth.

Lily was sitting in a rocking chair, gently swaying back and forth. Guin was sitting in Cloverleaf's chair off to the side, and the little colt lay curled up in his mother's lap, suckling at her teat.

"Omigawsh!" shouted Glory, thankfully muffled by Snapdragon's hoof. "He's so cute!"

Lily brought a hoof up to her lips, as did Guin with a claw. "He's still sensitive to sound. Please keep your voices down."

"Sorry," whispered Daisy. "Good thing Snapdragon was on top of things."

"I always try to be, darling," she grinned back.

Lily gestured her head to the colt between her legs. "This is my son, Yarrow. He was born four days ago, and is just the most gentle colt there is."

"Did it hurt?" asked Daisy. "Giving birth, I mean."

Lily shook her head. "It wasn't painful, really. They gave me something to numb it all, and the only thing I felt was fear. Fear that something was going to be wrong with him. He came out, and he was so quiet. I was so sure that he hadn't made it. and then he cooed at me for the first time, and I knew he was okay, and everything that had me so terrified was over, just like that. He's been pretty quiet since he came out, and that's had me worried a few times, but it can sometimes happen."

As if in response, he separated from her and curled up, fussing just a little bit. Lily immediately brought him up and tapped on his back until he burped, then stood up.

As Lily tucked him back into his bassinet for his nap, Glory spotted something else. "Omigawsh!" she exclaimed again, prompting Snapdragon to tighten her grip. "Your cutie mark!"

The girls all turned to look at Lily's flank, where a small bottle was nestled in a flower.

"Oh. Yeah, that showed up the day before yesterday."

"Here and I thought your cutie mark was going to be a hoofball," snorted Daisy. "Imagine that."

"Yeah, so did I," thought Lily aloud. "I was so sure there was nothing in the world I loved more than hoofball. As it turns out, that honour actually goes to my son. I actually love him more than anything." As soon as he was snuggled in tightly, she leaned down and kissed his nose. By the time she came back up, he was asleep.

Guin switched on the receiver for the baby monitor as they left the room. "So, what'd I miss?" asked Lily. "How's school going?"

"We took an early final," explained Snapdragon, finally letting go of Glory's mouth. "We wanted to be here."

"All of the other suckers are in class right now," chuckled Daisy.

"We were let out on Friday," nodded Guin. "Well, Lily had to go back. Missed the final because she was giving birth at the time, but I took care of the baby yesterday for her."

"All done, now," smiled Lily, but the smile ran away from her face. "Unfortunately, girls, I'm not going to make it to hoofball camp this summer."

"You're not?" gasped Snapdragon. "But why? You're not pregnant anymore."

"Yarrow still has to eat, though," noted Guin. "He needs his mother. For this year, at least."

"I can come back next year, assuming I don't have another baby."

"I can bring him to the games, then" offered Guin. "Have him sit in the audience. And if anypony asks, I'm foalsitting for my neighbor. I won't even have to lie."

"Hope you girls have fun," smiled Lily. "I'll be practicing in the back yard. I can still do that, anyway."

"Yeah, about that..." Daisy shuffled her hooves. "I won't be going to camp, either."

Everypony turned to look at her. This was news to all of them.

"What do you mean?" asked Snapdragon. "Aside from Lily, you were the most zealous player on the team."

"Well, I was waiting until we arrived to tell you, because I wanted Lily to find out at the same time. But, since we're all here..."

Daisy reached into her saddlebag and pulled out a little white stick with a pink cross in the middle.

Everypony's jaws dropped to the floor. "You're kidding..." breathed Lily. "You're kidding, right?"

Daisy shook her head. "I went into heat a few weeks back. I was at school when it happened, and my dad came to pick me up and take me home. Apparently, there was a mix-up at the herbal medicine shop..."

All was still for a moment. No one said a word.

And then, Lily smiled. "Who's the lucky stallion?"

Daisy blushed and lowered her head. "I'd rather not say..."

Lily chuckled. It wasn't that much different from her own situation. "So... you're probably going to want to move in somewhere nearby," she said, placing a hoof on Daisy's shoulder. "How far along are you?"

"About a month," blurted out Glory. "That's when she disappeared!"

"So, you're probably going to want to move in over the summer," grinned Lily. "We might even be neighbors again!"

Guin shook her head. "The nearest house for sale is a block and a half down the road."

"That's close enough!" nodded Lily, enthusiastically tossing herself into Daisy for a hug. "Neighbors!"

"I guess now's a good a time as any," said Glory, taking a deep breath. "I have news for you all, too."

Everypony turned to Glory. "When did you go into heat?!" asked Snapdragon. "You never took a break from school!"

"Are you moving in, too?" gasped Lily. "Snapdragon, you need in on this!"

"Oh, nonononono!" clarified Glory. "I'm being fitted for braces!"

Chapter the Tenth: Out of Reach

The rest of recess was spent trying to figure out what had come in to replace Lily. They'd narrowed it down to either robots, aliens, or alien robots. Daisy, Glory and Snapdragon all knew that it was heat, but since Lily had asked them not to say anything about it, Daisy and Snapdragon were dismissing the claims, and Glory was opting for whichever was the funniest at the time, currently the changeling queen that ate farts. It made sense, after all, as pickled eggs would make that happen.

After playing around for a bit, they went back inside to do their presentation. They went in seating order, starting with the front left and going right, then the next row back, then the next row, and so on.

Top Story introduced himself as a lover of battle tops, and had written little slice-of-life stories for the little creature stickers that decorated the tops. He'd even drawn pictures. The blue and white ones were best friends, the red one was the romantic interest of both, the yellow one was evil and was trying to take over the world... It was very interesting stuff, but Ms. Mayberry had to put a stop to it, as there was limited time in the day, and they had to introduce everypony else.

Snapdragon talked at length about her favourite swatches of fabric, why some of them didn't take to colours as well as others, and why certain stitching techniques were considered proper or improper for each. Glory had missed the point of the assignment, talking about her mother, her sister, her father, and how they were all good at what they did.

Daisy barely had anything. Seeing herself as being "normal," she didn't know what to put down to make her seem special, as her main interests were things she could share with her friends. She enjoyed joking with Glory, she enjoyed hoofball with Lily, and she enjoyed makeovers with Snapdragon. But by herself, she wasn't always really into any of these things.

Finally, it was time for Lily to go. "So, I'm really into hoofball," she started. "I actually spent most of my summer in the filly hoofball league with my closest friends. I won an award for MVP, but I wasn't able to collect it because I missed the last game. They're sending me the medal in the mail. I ended up sick right before the last game, and they had to send me home, but I'm better, now."

"What sickness did you have!?" shouted one of the other students, waving his hoof.

"Is it contagious!?" shouted another, covering her mouth and nose.

Lily shook her head. "I said I'm better, now. That means I'm not sick anymore."

"But you're still carrying germs!"

"The doctor said it's not contagious at all!"

"That's just a thing doctors say when they want diseases to spread!"

"That's enough!" called Ms. Mayberry. "She doesn't have to tell us the exact nature of her illness. Lily has a right to medical privacy, as do the rest of you. If she wants to tell us about it, she can, but if she doesn't want to, she doesn't have to. The only exception to this would be if she has something contagious, which she said it wasn't. If she cut herself, and the wound was infected, that's not something that will spread to you, but it could very easily keep her from playing hoofball. The same if she tore a muscle in her leg, or if one of her arteries clotted. That poses no danger to you, and she might not want to say what happened."

"But what if the doctor was wrong?" asked Gusty. "What if she has something else that they didn't test for? Like, what if they thought it was a cold, and it was actually the feather flu?"

"Then we operate under the assumption that it's a cold until we find evidence to the contrary. Now," she turned back to Lily. "Hurry along, we still have a few more students to go over."

With a nod, Lily began to explain her favourite parts of hoofball, her preferred position as a center forward, and how to perfectly line up a shot so that the ball went exactly where she wanted it to go. When she finished, she sat down, and it was Gusty's turn. Her special interest was racing.

Eventually, they made it through all of the students, and only had a few minutes left of class, which they used for administrative stuff. They each individually thought it was odd to fill out their planners at the end of the day, explaining the various things they did, rather than planning out what they thought their tasks for each day would entail, but such was the way they were supposed to do things. It was more like a progress tracker than a progress guide, but it was what they were meant to do at the end of the day.

As the school bell rang, Ms. Mayberry asked Lily to stay behind. "Just for a minute, dear, then you can catch up with your friends right away."

Lily approached the desk and waited while she pulled out a few papers. "What's this about? Am I in trouble?"

Ms. Mayberry shook her head. "No, you're not in trouble. I just need to know a bit more about this illness, is all."

"But you said I had a right to medical privacy?"

"You do. I just need you to take this home with you and have your dad sign it." She pushed a piece of paper into Lily's hooves.

"Oh. My dad's not home right now."

"When he comes back home, have him sign it."

"That's going to be a few weeks."

Ms. Mayberry turned to look at Lily, her mouth agape. "He just left you home, alone?"

"No, no... Since he had to pick me up from camp and help me recover from my illness, he had to drop some meetings, so now he has to make up for them. He found a sitter for me."

Ms. Mayberry nodded. "I see. That all adds up, now. Have your sitter contact your doctor, and have this paper signed, so you can stay in my class."

Lily looked at the paper. She didn't know what "Liability Waiver" meant, but if all she had to do was have it signed, she could make sure that happened.

Chapter the Nineteenth: How a Foal is Made

"Okay," said Glory, almost an hour later. "It's settled. Lily will go on three dates with Top Story, and then they'll marry, and then he can father her child. That's how we solve this."

Everypony was a bit uneasy about this conclusion. Daisy thought more dates were still required, Snapdragon assumed that there had to be a long period in which they planned a wedding that would bankrupt them for the first twenty years of their marriage, and Lily didn't even like Top Story that much. But her child needed a father, so they had to go through with it, and that was the plan that made the most sense.

"Good," nodded Daisy. Her concerns were evident in her tone, but if it would stop the fight, it was worth conceding. "So, remind me again how you ended up pregnant?"

"The same way everypony does," scoffed Snapdragon. "When a mommy and a daddy love each other very much, they write a letter to the stork, and the stork brings the foal to them, wrapped up in a blanket. Pink for fillies, blue for colts."

"But we've only just decided on the daddy. He doesn't even know her all that well yet."

"That's what the dating is for."

"Yeah, but how does he already love her very much if he doesn't know her?"

"And I don't really know him, either," added Lily, now seeing why Daisy was having trouble. "How do we love each oth-- Wait... I never wrote to any storks..."

"Birds aren't involved in baby-making," chuckled Glory. "It's like I told you earlier, it grows inside of the mom until it either comes out on its own, or you end up cut open to extract it!"

"Yeah, but how does it end up in there?"

There was silence for a bit, and finally, they all turned to look at Lily.

"What are you looking at me for?"

"You somehow ended up with a baby inside of you," noted Daisy. "We can speculate, and there's clearly something that's not quite accurate, but to be perfectly honest, you're the only one that knows how it ended up in there. Did you eat anything weird, recently?"

"I've been eating a lot of weird stuff lately," admitted Lily. "Maybe the pickled eggs, maybe the borjt..."

"Then I should be pregnant, too!" gasped Glory. "Yay! I'm going to be a mommy!"

Snapdragon reached down to her belly and placed a hoof on herself. "We... We all tried it..."

"But we didn't eat as much as Lily did," assured Daisy. "We might still be safe! And, who knows? It might be something else!"

"What about the other end?" asked Snapdragon. "Did something crawl up your butt?"

Lily's face went white. "No, but..."

Daisy leaned in. "But...?"

Lily took a deep breath. "Girls, I'm not supposed to tell you about this. I wasn't really hiding my heat from you, because I knew I was going to need support, and I was really scared, but I didn't want everypony else to know that I'm some kind of freak." She buried her face in her hooves. "If I tell you about this, it has to remain an absolutely secret. Like, you can't tell anypony. Not even your parents. Okay?"

It wasn't often that Lily ever showed any signs of fear. She was one of the bravest, strongest fillies in their class, by a fairly wide margin. Anypony could see that she had a strong will, and if faced with any obstacles, she was going to take them down. That she looked scared right now was chilling, and that was enough to make her friends want to keep this secret for her.

Once they'd all agreed, Lily took one more deep breath. "I did have something... in here..." She rolled back and pulled one of her labia to the side.

Snapdragon immediately dove to cover it up. "What are you doing!?" she shout-whispered. "You're not supposed to show that to anypony!"

"You girls are my closest friends, though," said Lily. "I've had to show it to my doctor, and the camp counselor, and my dad said that, while he would have preferred a mare take care of it, he had to show me how the equipment works. Other ponies had to see it, and you asked."

Snapdragon removed her hoof. "Why is it all wet?"

"It's... kind of been that way sometimes," admitted Lily. "It didn't used to be. But after I went into heat the first time, it just kind of... stuck."

"So when you go into heat, you pee yourself?" asked Daisy.

"It's not pee," answered Lily. It's some kind of slick, sticky stuff. I asked my dad and he says it's not a problem, but that if it ever comes out, I need to wipe it up, but it's fine if it's inside." She grabbed a hooftowel from the nightstand, giving it to Snapdragon.

"And you said there was something that went up there?" resumed Glory, looking a bit closer. "What was it?"

Lily cleared her throat. "So... stallions don't have this thing. They have a different thing, and theirs sticks out. It's, like, this long." She held her hooves apart the distance from her hips to halfway up her chest.

"That's ridiculous," scoffed Daisy. "If stallions had something that big on the outside of their bodies, you'd think we'd have seen it."

"No, but it's usually, like, tucked away beneath their skin! They have this kind of flap thingy that keeps it hidden!"

"And where's this flap?"

Lily leaned in. "Okay, so you know where the tail is? Right in front of that is this leathery pouch that stores their eggs, and then right in front of that is a little flap. Inside of that is a tube that can be pushed out, and apparently, what happens is that the eggs, just like the eggs of a bird, have this white goo. And that travels up the tube, and it's an instant cure for heat. If you're suffering the effects of heat really strongly, this stuff will cool it off just like that."

"So, it's a cooling goo?"

"Yeah. And it comes out of stallions, and it tastes kind of salty, and it's sticky and thick."

"So, stallions have an egg sac," pondered Glory. "Like spiders do."

"I guess that's why colts like spiders," realised Snapdragon. "They feel a kinship with them..."

Chapter the Twenty-First: Independent Study

The girls had checked out the book, as well as a few others from that section, and gone home. It might be a week before they were able to look at the books they wanted, so in the meantime, it was okay to put together a template. Granted, that would take less than an hour, but they were still studying.

They'd gone to Daisy's house. Not for any particular reason, excepting that Snapdragon and Glory had shared bedrooms where they could be heard talking about things their parents might find slightly objectionable, even if it was technically part of their education and purely academic in nature. Still, what they wanted was privacy, and Daisy and Lily were the two that had access to that.

"That looks... really painful, actually," noted Daisy, looking at the penetration diagram. "Is it painful?"

"It hurts at first, yeah," nodded Lily. "It's, like, really..." she stared at the ceiling, her eyes darting back and forth while her face scrunched up in all kinds of rent ways. "I don't think I know how to describe it. It hurts, yes, but it also feels great."

"Like a roller coaster!" gasped Glory. "Right?"

Lily raised an eyebrow. "Roller coasters aren't supposed to hurt."

"No, but, they're, like, super scary, and as you're walking up to them, you can hear the other riders screaming and crying, and the experience is terrifying, and as soon as the ride comes to a stop, you want to go again because it was a lot of fun!"

Lily furrowed her brow. "I... guess? It hurts, but then it feels great."

Daisy looked back to the diagram. "It still looks painful."

"You said they were this long," noted Snapdragon, indicating roughly the same size Lily had mentioned earlier.

"That's right."

"But this diagram shows that it's actually much shorter. It barely comes up to her belly button. It doesn't extend into her chest at all."

Lily looked at the picture again. "Maybe that guy's just really small?"

"Or maybe the mare is really big?" suggested Daisy.

"Or maybe they're normal size, and the one Lily found was gigantic!" suggested Glory.

"I think I would prefer something smaller than normal," gagged Daisy. "It's too big."

"The text says that it's really stretchy, though," read Snapdragon. "It says that, in the event of disparity between sizes, the mare can either clamp down to increase pressure on a smaller male, or stretch to accommodate a larger one."

"Do they have to be sad?" asked Glory.

"What do you mean?"

"You said there was despair between sizes. Do they have to be sad?"

"That's what the book says," indicated Snapdragon. "But they spelled it weird, too. It might mean something else."

"Like what?"

Snapdragon just shrugged. "What do I look like, a dictionary?"

"I have tried it with smaller things," volunteered Lily. "The handle of a screwdriver, for example. It wasn't nearly as good. And really bumpy, too."

"So, bumpy is bad?" asked Daisy, writing that down.

"Well... yes and no. On the real thing, it was nice. Like... here." Lily grabbed the book and flipped back to the image of regular stallion penises. "These bumps here are great. But, like, the stuff on the screwdriver handle aren't. Or maybe it was just the screwdriver I used, because there are different handles."

"How would you even use it like that?" asked Daisy. "If, say, we didn't have a stallion around willing to do that to us?"

"Should I open a window, darling?" asked Snapdragon.

"What?" asked Lily. "Why?"

"Daisy's face is turning red. I think she might be overheating."

"I'm fine," answered Daisy, her blush coming through even stronger. "I'm fine, I'm just... Don't worry about it. If I need to cool off, I can run to the bathroom and wash my face with some cold water. Now, what was it we were talking about?"

Lily thought back, but could not remember. When she'd heard about Daisy's face, she'd pushed it out of her mind for the new topic.

"Oh, that's right," said Daisy. "We were talking about different things that you could put in your... Your, your... You know. Let's keep talking about that." She hugged her cushion a little bit tighter.

"Okay," shrugged Lily. "What did you want to know?"

For a moment, the room was quiet, save for the ticking of the clock.

Lily took a breath. "Okay, I guess we're done talking about th--"

"No!" shouted Daisy. "I-I mean... What else can you use?"

"Well, I..." Lily shrugged. "I guess you could use your hoof? I have this, like, rubber thing that also works pretty well, but I can't remember what it was called."

"What does it look like?" asked Snapdragon.

"It looks like a "peh-nis." It's just made out of rubber, and it's really cold. He wants me to use it to stretch out so that it doesn't hurt so much the next time."

"Can we see it?" asked Daisy.

"I don't have it with me," Lily shrugged. "I'm not supposed to show anypony, or tell anypony about it, and it can't leave my room ever, and I'm only allowed to take it out of the box if the door is locked."

"So, we're in agreement, then?" nodded Daisy. "Tomorrow, we study at Lily's house?"

"I never agreed to that," objected Snapdragon. "Aren't we supposed to be trying to find out about plants and things?"

"Can't do that without the books," shrugged Glory. "We should stick to Daisy's phoney-bologna story about studying in advance."

"It's not a phoney-bologna story!" snapped Daisy. "I just happen to be very interested in finding out stuff that we're supposed to learn soon, anyway. It's not like I wanted the books to be checked out by the time we made it to the library!"

There was a knock at the door, and Daisy scrambled to close the book and cover it before it opened. "Food's almost ready," called her dad, poking his head through the gap. "Are your friends staying for dinner, or...?"

"I should probably head home," noted Glory, standing up. "It's waffle night, and I don't want to miss that!"

"I have laundry that I should start on," answered Snapdragon. "Thank you very much for thinking of me, though!"

"I'll stay, if you'll have me," answered Lily. "I just have to go tell my sitter real quick."

As the girls left, Daisy's dad followed them out to the front to wave to them as they left, and to welcome Lily when she came back. Daisy followed along behind him, and as he turned a corner, his tail flicked ever so slightly out of the way, and she could see the pouch that held his testicles. The book was right. They really were there.