Unexpected Changes

"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..."