Rhythm and Harmony: The Octascratch Prompt Collab

by lyra_lover777

16 Parents by Cobalt Ravenscroft

Parents by Cobalt Ravenscroft

Hospitals were rarely places you wanted to spend your life, but for Vinyl and Octavia it had been their home more and more over the past few months. By now, Vinyl had memorized the route to Octi’s room, right, right, straight on, left, right, up a staircase and third room on the left.

Her wife had been in here for the past week, and several times before that in the months before, but soon they’d be home again, together.

As Vinyl got to the top of the stairs, she could hear cries of pain from the other ponies in the ward, but none of them were her babe, she knew that. She also knew that Octi would slap her if she called her that in here, so she thought for a while – a new skill she had learned from Octavia – before going into her ward.

Sat three beds in on the right was her wife, in all her pregnant glory. Her belly bulged out to the side with their unborn foal, their little gift of nature (and a bit of magic). She was awake right now, and currently very annoyed at the grapes on her bedside table, sitting just out of her reach. Vinyl didn’t exactly enjoy seeing her wife like this, but she couldn’t hide her giggles for too long so she decided to levitate the offending fruit over to Octavia.

“I could have got them myself,” she grumbled through a mouthful.

“Don’t talk with your mouth full, Octi,” Vinyl teased, sitting beside her bed on the floor.

The grey mare shot her a hateful glare, one that she had had to get used to but she knew it wasn’t – always – her fault.

“How long then?” Vinyl eventually asked.

“Any time,” Octavia groaned, “the nurses keep coming back to check on meee-AHHH!” She suddenly cried out in pain as a contraction tore through her.

“Octi!” Vinyl shouted, jumping up to check on her wife, “What’s wrong? Shall I get somepony?”

“Button!” was all the screaming mare could shout between wails of pain, pointing at the wall by her bed where a large red button was built into the wall. The unicorn flared up her magic, pushing the button multiple times, hoping that would make a nurse come quicker.

She calmed herself enough to hold Octavia’s hooves between hers, hoping to calm her slightly. But, with Octi being an earth pony, her grip was much stronger than Vinyl had expected. Both mares cried in pain, one for a much better reason than the other.

Nurses soon ran into the ward and over to the couple, a variety of medical equipment floating in various magical hues. One nurse, the lead midwife as Vinyl remembered, rolled Octavia on to her back so she could get a clear look. The older mare only had three words for the waiting ponies, “The baby’s coming.”
---

Two hours later and the ward was once again quiet, save for the low chatter of other couples in the room. Sat with the curtain drawn around the bed area, Octavia had her foal wrapped in her hooves in a pink blanket with her wife now joining her on the bed.

“We did it, Vinyl,” Octavia spoke softly so as not to wake their filly, “we’ve had a foal. We’re… we’re…”

“We’re parents, babe,” Vinyl finished, “we’ve got a little mare, the most beautiful I could have hoped for.”

Said mare had a soft grey coat, a bit lighter than her birth-mother, and a powder blue mane, which now gave Octavia a question.

“Why is her mane blue? I thought yours was dyed?”

“Only the electric blue, the dark’s all natural,” Vinyl clarified with a flick of her mane.

Silence now fell over the three of them, the soft breathing of their daughter soothing the two new parents. But the foal still didn’t have one important thing.

“Vinyl,” Octi started quietly, “what shall we call her?”

“I think you should choose,” Vinyl said as she hugged her wife close with a hoof, “she was living in you for months, didn’t even pay rent.” They shared a small laugh before returning to the matter at hoof.

“I like Arpeggio,” Octavia announced cheerily, “Arpeggio Melody.”

“It’s beautiful, just like her,” Vinyl smiled and hugged her new-born with her free hoof.

They were silent once more, but an idea soon came to Vinyl’s mind.

“We need to have a party for her,” the unicorn gasped happily, acting like the filly she was at heart.

“No wubs, dear,” Octavia calmed her wife’s next idea before it surfaced, “Arpeggio is going to play classical.”

“She’s trying electro,” Vinyl argued, “whether you like it or not.”

Turns out there would be one thing they wouldn’t agree on, even if both mares were starting to appreciate each other’s tastes.

Comments

[Divine Path]

You seem to have captured well the joy of being a mother.

What a lovely sentiment,
already dreaming perpetually of kinship's bliss.
A brilliant future may await this love
and this child,
with all your foolishness these nights.

Excellent work, dear Author!

[Azure Ravenscroft]

You keep forgetting the italics Lyra_Lover, check where they are before you upload my chapters