Unexpected Changes

"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...