“Twilight? You down there?” Applejack yelled from the door to Twilight’s basement study. Twilight jerked her head up from the pile of books and saliva she had been sleeping on. She rubbed a hoof on the sticky side of her face and glanced down at the mess of papers, notebooks, textbooks, and now drool she had made. She must have fallen asleep while researching. She groaned in response to Applejack’s question.
Applejack laughed from the top of the stairs and Twilight could hear those same stairs begin to creak as Applejack made her way down to the study. Twilight gasped and quickly lit up her horn, rearranging her books so the time travel ones were on top and the maternity texts were safely hidden underneath. She felt a pang of guilt at hiding them, but the last thing Applejack needed was a reminder. Twilight was in the baby stages, so to speak, of coming up with a plan or spell that could help the problem, and even if she did, she still wasn’t sure she actually wanted to use it to have a foal anyway.
“Twi, we’ve talked about this. How many times do Ah have to tell you not to fall asleep down here! Just go to bed for pete’s sake!” Applejack scolded playfully.
“Ha!” Twilight retorted. “I wasn’t sleeping! What on earth would give you that idea?”
“Maybe all the drool on your desk, sweetheart.”
“Ah, yes. I suppose the evidence is fairly damning.” Twilight sighed, looking up at Applejack with a smile. “How was work?” She asked.
“Long.” Applejack replied. Twilight looked at the clock on the wall, it was nearly ten o’clock at night. Applejack wasn’t usually this late getting home, but they were ramping up for harvest time at Sweet Apple Acres.
Twilight smiled sympathetically. “Sorry, hon! I hope it wasn’t too much work…” She turned away from her desk and stood up to face Applejack, smiling cutely. “You know, if you want, I could, uh…help you relax.” Twilight gave Applejack her best bedroom eyes. Applejack laughed, a full, beautiful laugh that filled Twilight up with sunshine. Some days Twilight swore it was that laugh that she fell in love with. It didn’t happen as often as Twilight believed it should, but when it did, oh, when. it. did; Twilight felt the happiness down to her bones.
It took her all of one-point-three seconds to launch herself at Applejack for a hug and even better, the kiss that Applejack met her with. It was long seconds before they pulled away from each other, smiles on both their faces. Even after two years of marriage, it never got old. Being close, being wrapped up in one another; it just got better, more familiar and more right. Twilight could still taste Applejack on her lips. No surprise, she tasted like apples, thought Twilight had yet to find an apple in the flesh that tasted quite as good.
Applejack smiled. “I was going to ask how your day was, but personally, Ah prefer this much better.” She leaned back in, her hoof coming around Twilight’s neck. Twilight let out a moan of pleasure as they erased all the negative space between them.
“Mhmm… It was good. I got you cupcakes…” She mentioned in one of the breaks when they came up for air.
“You know that sounds wonderful, Ah might have some later, after Ah’m done tasting you!” She taunted, licking Twilight’s neck and kissing her up until their lips met again, then going back down to Twilight’s chest. Twilight giggled.
“That tickles!” She gasped out.
“Good.” Applejack said, going lower.
“Oh!” Twilight gasped. Applejack planted another kiss as she raised Twilight up to expose her belly, going still lower. Twilight’s back hit the table, her wings snapping out to give a counter to the backward push. Her large wingspan sent papers flying all over the study. “Apple- Applejack!”
“Yes?” She asked, her tongue darting out to lick Twilight again.
“Maybe!” Twilight shivered happily. “Maybe, we should go up to the bedroom to finish this!” She gasped out in the lull between kisses and licks.
Applejack tilted her head back to look Twilight in the face. She cocked her head to the side, as if contemplating Twilight’s request. “Hrm. Nope! Too far!” She declared, her tongue reaching to lick the fur backwards on a very sensitive area.
“Applejack!” Twilight squealed. Applejack laughed, quickly coming back in for another kiss. She pressed hard against Twilight, who felt her balance shift. There was nothing she could do as they both went tumbling over backwards, the table toppling underneath them in a tangle of bodies, legs and wings and wood.
“Oof!”
“Ow!”
A brief struggle ensued while they both detangled themselves from the wreckage and each other. Twilight looked down at the ruined pile of books, papers and table in dismay. Her ears perked as she noticed an odd sound. It took her a moment to realize what it was.
Applejack was laughing. “Gosh, Ah’m sorry Twi!” She giggled. “Guess my first chore in the mornin’ is gonna be table repair!” She joked.
“Sorry?! This is all my current research! It was alphabetized by subject and author!” Twilight gasped, her mind racing with how much work it was going to be to re-organize all this. Then it hit her. Applejack’s laughing had gone suspiciously silent. Twilight’s blood ran cold.
She turned to find her worst fear realized. Applejack stood perfectly still, her eyes fixed solely on the book she held in her hoof.
“What’s this?” Applejack asked softly.
“A book.”
“No shit, Twi! Ah know damn well that it’s a book! Get to it!” Applejack yelled, a mix of anger and confusion written all over her face. Twilight looked down to see exactly which book Applejack had noticed and picked up. ‘What to Expect When You’re Expecting’ declared itself loudly from the cover.
“It’s a book about what to anticipate when bringing a foal into a home.” Twilight said, sheepishly.
The look of utter apathy that Applejack shot at Twilight could have withered plants. Seriously, with Applejack’s earth pony sensibilities, that was not only possible, but quite probable. Twilight swallowed and sighed.
“Well, I’ve been—” Twilight began.
“Are you pregnant?!” Applejack cut her off.
Twilight blanched. “WHAT?! NO! That’s what you were thinking when you saw all this?! That I was cheating on you?!” Twilight yelled incredulously.
Applejack frowned. “Wait, what?”
“Applejack, we just covered this earlier today! TWO MARES CANNOT GET PREGNANT!” Twilight groaned loudly.
“AH know that!” Applejack rebuffed. “What was I supposed ta think? You’ve been down here all day researching something, and all of it is baby books!”
Twilight put a hoof to her face and slowly pulled it down, her eyes meeting Applejack’s.
“Okay, okay. You know I’m not pregnant right?”
“Got that.”
“I’m not cheating on you either.”
“Eeyup.” Applejack rolled her eyes.
“SO. Now that’s out of the way, I do have something to tell you. I’ve been thinking about our conversation this morning.” Twilight began.
“Really? Ah hadn’t even given it a second thought!” Applejack laughed. Twilight could have smacked someone. It was a close tie on whether she more wanted to hit herself or Applejack.
“Anyway. After we talked this morning, I started pulling out all these books, just wanting to get stuff straight in my head.” Twilight started.
Applejack snorted. Twilight gave her a withering look.
“So, then I went to lunch with Pinkie and Fluttershy, and Fluttershy and I got to talking about this particular problem, and then I decided to do a little more research, thinking that, well, babies are just the combination of two sets of genetic material, right? And then, you know, all that is stuck in a uterus for ten months, and then, bam! Out pops a foal!” Twilight explained. Applejack nodded with a skeptical look on her face.
“Ah know all that, Twi. Was that all the looking up you did? You just wanted to know how babies were made, you know after the fact? Ya coulda just asked!” Applejack shook her head, a smile on her face.
Twilight huffed. “No! That is not all, quit interrupting!”
Applejack sat down and nodded very seriously. Twilight deadpanned. It was clear that Applejack was humoring her at this point, albeit with a bit of mockery thrown in.
Twilight pursed her lips and continued. “So, why can’t I just do that with a little bit of science and a little bit of magic? If I can combine our genetic codes with a random probability and then implant the information into a compatible bunch of cells, and then let it incubate in one of our uteruses, we theoretically--”
“Could have a foal?!” Applejack gasped.
“Yes!” Twilight exclaimed. “Now, I need to do a little more work on the random probability gene sequencing, so that the child would be a proper representation, as if we had reproduced the normal way, and of course, we’d have to artificially introduce a Y chromosome if we wanted there to be the correct chances of a girl or boy. And on top of all that I want to talk to Cadence about love magic, because the gene combination could, in theory, happen entirely within the spell matrix, as long as a strong connection exists between the gene donors….” Twilight trailed off.
“Applejack, are you even listening?” Twilight asked, turning away from her notes and back to face Applejack.
Applejack was standing perfectly still. “We can have a foal?” She asked softly.
“Well, there’s still a lot of work to do to figure it all out, and I don’t know, we kinda aren’t really in a great spot for a kid right now, but I figured I’d see if I could solve the problem…” Twilight rambled.
Applejack pulled Twilight over to her, put her own hooves on Twilight’s shoulders, looked her in the eye, and asked, “We can have a foal?”
“Yes, in theory.” Twilight explained.
“Do you know what to do? Because if this is one of those things where you want to analyze it from every angle before doing it despite knowin’ exactly what ya needed to do in the first place, I don’t want to wait.” Applejack asked again, a look of desperate hope in her eyes.
That look damn near broke Twilight’s heart. “I thought you said you were fine this morning.” Twilight responded, trying to change the subject.
“This morning this wasn’t possible. Can you do this?”
“Yes.”
“Alright. That’s what I needed to know. What do you need to do this?”
Twilight frowned. “Well, really, nothing. It should all happen in the spell matrix, including the impregnation and the creation of new cells, which would evolve from already present eggs inside the ovaries. I would just need magic to guide the cells and to implant them with the genetic code it would need to tell it that it needs to become a baby.” Twilight listed things off, gesturing with her hooves. She stopped. “Why?”
“Let’s do it.” Applejack said, fully serious.
“Right now?!” Twilight gasped, her mind reeling with the implications.
“Right now.” Applejack nodded.