//------------------------------//
// Ch. 25 The birds and the bees. 
// Story: School! Flying! Falling! Goofing! 
// by Lazydrill 
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"Well then, I'll start at when signs of maturing start to show." Your father said as he adjusted his sitting on the couch. You nodded in understanding, the talk your coach had with you about maturing remaining in your head. "A colt, when starting to mature, will have a few slight, close to, unnoticeable urges. Maybe you haven't noticed yourself, but we, as your parents, have seen the small urges in you a few years ago."

Your ear flicked and you cocked your head sideways in confusion of where your dad was going with this, "A few years ago? What did I do then what I don't do now?" 

Your mother chuckled to herself and looked up to your dad who grinned lightly, "Well, the urges are still there." He looked at you with a knowing look, "For example, we know of your playcolt stash in your drawer underneath the Daring Do series."

Your cheeks became burning hot as your parents casual called out your secret stash. Trying to hold onto your dignity, you tried to dismiss it, "I... I don't know what you're talking about..." Your eyes darted around the room, trying to avoid the smug grin your father was sporting while your mother simply chuckled behind a hoof.

"Don't try to fool me, young colt." Your dad said with a chuckle. "Your mother found your secret stash years ago." Your mouth dropped on the couch and your wings fell limply to your side. "Your mother was cleaning your room because she found it dirty. So she also went to clean the inside of your drawer since you never did it. While taking out your, by that time, one or two Daring books out of the drawer, she found one play colt magazine which felt... sticky."

You lowered yourself into the couch and covered your eyes, "Uuugghhhh..."

"Oh come now, sweetie. Don't be embarrassed." Your mother said gently, making you drag your hooves down your face. "All colts go through this. Although, I was a bit surprised that you reached this stage so early. But it is not a bad thing in any way." Your mother grabbed her cup of tea that was on the table with her hooves and brought it to her muzzle, blowing gently over it to get the temperature down. "I wished though that the magazine wasn't so sticky... I needed to wash my hooves after it..."

Your cheeks were burning red as tomatoes, "MOM!" 

Your mother shrugged her wings and took a sip from her tea as if nothing was wrong. "Hey, don't be angry at me. I just tell you what would've been better." Your mother sat her cup down on the table again and chuckled, "At least I'm glad everything is made out of clouds. I pity the mothers on the ground who need to clean and wash their colt's sheets."

This made your ears fall down the side of your head as you thought about what your mother just said, "Yuck..."

Your father took his cup and raised it up with his right hoof, "Cheers to being a pegasi." He took a small sip form the tea and hummed his approval. "Anyway, lets get back on track." You nodded your head rapidly, eager to steer away from this personal part. "These urges, that makes you use these magazines to destress yourself, are part of it. You use them and your imagination to your wanting, which all comes down to the fact that you're ready to mate and have foals. It is nothing bad. It is a primal instinct that everypony has and something that will never go away." 

Your mother adjusted herself on the couch and lay down next to your dad, tucking her legs underneath her and laying her chin on the couch. "You know... mares have these urges too. All be these urges slightly different, they are not far away from that of a colt."

Your dad took another sip before putting his cup of tea back on the table and brushed your mother's mane gently, "That is about it for the urges. Further, there are changes that happen to colts and mares when they start maturing on bases of physical and mental."

You nodded at your dad, remembering what your coach told you, "A colt can develop more muscles, become taller, their wings bigger and their mane and tail become rougher, right?" Your father hummed in confirmation.

"In the way of physical changes, indeed." You extended your hoof and took your own cup of tea from the plate on the table, holding it in both of your hooves that warmed up nicely thanks to the temperature. "But there is more to physical changes, and don't forget the mental changes." Keeping your eyes on your dad, you softly blew over your tea to get it to a more desirable temperature before taking a sip from it. "Colts, when reaching maturity, also may experience a change in their smell senses, we'll go further in that later." You raised an eyebrow at your dad but nodded anyway. 

Your mother nuzzled your father's chest from her laying position, "Don't forget to tell him about his scent, sweetie. I think it is better if he knows that too."

Your dad nuzzled your mother's mane, "I will. I'll explain him when we get to his smell sense." Your mother hummed and lay her head back on the couch with her eyes closed, leaving your dad to continue, "Tell me Static, have you noticed any changes about your female classmates in the last few years? I mean in the way of how they look, or how you feel towards them." 

You took another sip from your tea and looked to your dad, "I did not really pay attention to the changes of my friends... they just looked to me like they always did; like my friends." You looked down in thought about the last few years. Thinking back carefully to see if you noticed the changes from your filly classmates, a few things began to surface in your head that did stand out. One thing that you noticed, for most by Lucky and Berry Petal, was that their wings were looking more elegant and were slightly bigger than two years ago. Not to mention that their appearance all-round was more pleasant to look at, their mane and tails had also grown longer and were somehow getting your eyes' attention form time to time, and so did their wings. 

Glancing back up to your dad, you saw him waiting patiently with a smile and a... puffed out chest? "Well... Now that you mention it, Lucky and Berry Petal have certainly grown a bit taller than last year. Their wings look more elegant and have also grown a small amount. And their mane and tail both look more... I don't know how to word it... but all-round they lo..."

"Their mane, tail and wings catch your eye, don't they? And I think the word you were looking for is alluring."Your dad interrupted you gently.

You held your cup of tea in one hoof and used your free hoof to brush your neck, "I think alluring is big word for it..."

Your dad chuckled and shook his head from side to side, "Hehe. No, it is the perfect word for it. Don't think I haven't been through the same thing. And I know why your eyes get glued on them." Your dad leaned down and nuzzled your mother, who was listening with her ears perked but had her eyes closed and was breathing gently in her laying position. "You see, stallions look for certain points in a mare, the same way that mares look for a few things in stallions. I'll give you an example, like your mother and me." You sat your cup down on the table and brought your hooves between your hind hooves on the couch. "Your mother and I saw and sensed things in each other which, eventually, lead us to where we are now," your father said as he used his right hoof to gesture all around you. "What I saw in your mother was, at first, beauty. Which sparked my curiosity in her."

"Oh, hush." Your mother interrupted suddenly. "You keep telling yourself that, but there was, and still is more than what you say." Your mom opened her eyes and glanced up to your dad with a knowing look.

Your dad began to blush and coughed in his right hoof, "Well... of course." You cocked your head to the side in question to what your mother hinted at. "I... Alright..." your father seemingly gave in to what your mother wanted. "I saw your mother play with a couple of foals on a playground... That really sparked my interest in her..." Your ears perked up at that. "Your mother was playing with a few foals from around her neighborhood she lived in. I was on my way to do grocery shopping for my parents when I noticed her. I remembered her from my school, but never had something a mare did ever gotten my interest like she did. I didn't know why it grabbed me, and up to this point, I couldn't be happier that it did."

Your mother hummed and lay her head back on the couch, "That is what I meant. Your father had, and still has, a weakness for it." Your mother opened one eye and looked at you, "And so do you, Static."

Your dad's ears perked up and he glanced to your mother, "He does? Are you sure?"

Your mother chuckled softly and raised herself up into a sitting position, "I'm sure of it."

You felt a small drop of sweat run down the fur on your neck, "Uhm... I don't think I..."

Your mother shot you down with one stern look, "Don't you deny it." Her expression softened again, "I know you have a thing for it. You cannot lie to an older and married mare about what you like, especially if she's your mother," she said while puffing out her chest and raising her head.

You sighed in defeat, accepting the fact that she would not let you tell her otherwise. "Alright, lets get back on topic," your father brought you and your mother back to the subject. "Now, about your change of smell and your scent. Your smell doesn't really change. Your nose, when maturing, starts to pick up a certain scent in the air that mares that have matured already start to spread."

You looked confused to your parents, "Huh? Since when do mares spread a scent? Is it bad?"

Your mother chuckled while your dad grinned, "Bad? Not all." Your dad said with a roll of his eyes. "At least, that depends on the mare. And mares have been spreading their scents since the dawn of ponykind."

"I still don't understand..." You said with uncertainty.

You mother looked at you with care, "If your dad doesn't make sense, I'll explain it to you. Although, I cannot say I'm correct when it comes to stallions about the scent."

"Hey, easy. I cannot overload our foal with this information from the get-go." Your father coughed in his right hoof again. "Anyway, every mare has their very own scent. They spread it two times a year, in Spring, and in Autumn to be precise."

"The heat..." you said to nopony in particular.

Your dad nodded, "Exactly. These times of the year have been woven into us as being the optimal times of the year to mate with a partner. The scent mares release helps with finding a suitable partner."

"How does a scent help with finding a partner?" you asked with curiosity.

"Simple; your nose catches a scent, and you instantly know if you like it or not. If you don't like it, then you have your answer. If the mare's scent you smelled is not catching you, she's unsuitable to be your partner." Your dad explained with certainty in his voice.

"Mares have this too." Your mother joined in on the topic. "Mares also smell the scent of a stallion which you release during the heat. Funny enough, a mare can't smell the scent of another mare, nor their own. They can only pick up on the other gender, yet they know themselves that they are spreading it."

"The same goes for stallions; we can't smell each other or ourselves." Your dad took his tea cup back in his hooves and began to drink it empty before putting it back on the table. "But..." Your father said with a brief stop in his sentence. "...Here is the oddity that you have and over ninety percent of all colts don't, you are already maturing for some time while those other stallions still need to start maturing. This puts you in a difficult situation."

You were confused why you would be in a difficult spot, ruffling your wings and raising your eyebrow at your dad, "Puts me in a difficult situation? Huh? Why?"

Your dad sighed and shuffled on the couch, "When colts start to mature, they start to leave their scent when the time of mating comes around to attract potential partners. And since you're maturing, you're also susceptible to a mare's scent. And that puts you in a difficult spot, since you're one of the very few that will stand out to the mares as a partner that is ready to mate, they'll try, without knowing it themselves, to... euhm... attract you."

"But I can refuse them, right?" you asked with a hint of confidence. 

Your father, however, lightly scratched the back of his neck, "Well... you can try. But you must understand that your scent, and that of a mare, is full of pheromones. These pheromones will very easily overpower your will to refuse them..."

You stared at your dad with disbelieve, "I think you're overreacting a bit Dad... I don't think pheromones are that strong during the heat."

Your father sighed and tapped your mother lightly with his left hoof, "Honey, can you explain him?"

Your mother chuckled, "Sure." You were unsure if the way your mother said that was good. Your mother grabbed her own cup of tea and brought it to her muzzle, "Mares have their way to...coax the stallion they want into the state of mind if the mare really wants. Hormones and pheromones play a huge part in this." Your mom took a sip of her cup and sighed happily. "It is, in fact, how we got you."

"...What?"

Your mother rolled her eyes, "I said, that that was how we got you." You looked from your mother to your father and back. "Your father was at the time close to me during heat season. Everyday I coaxed him just a bit to push him over the edge."

"That is... evil, Mom." You pulled your head a bit back and shuffled on the couch to get a better sitting position. But what she said made you wonder; how does a mare get a stallion to that point? "Mom... what did you do to... uhm... get Dad that far? I doubt you only winked at him and he toppled over..."

Your father whistled innocently as he looked away. You looked back at your mother who took another sip of her tea, "Well, it was close. But indeed, there are some subtle things a mare does for coaxing their stallion. A few things that I did were; brushing his hind legs gently with my tail on occasion, nuzzling him on various moments I found it fitting, preening next to him, or helping him preen his feathers, the small talks in between. That all slowly pushed him over the edge." Your mother glanced with corner of her eyes and a smug grin to your dad who wore a slight blush and refused to look at your mother.

Your ears were now perked up to their full extend, somehow, this was something you really wanted to know. "What did you do to push him over... the edge?"

"Simple," your mother said with a chuckle. "I whipped my tail in his face during the heat." Her tail whipped and hit your dad in his left side, making him jump a bit from the sudden touch.

"You weren't really subtle about it either, honey." Your dad said as he brushed the side your mother whipped with his right hoof. "You brushed your tail more times against my legs and my muzzle than I cared to count."

"Oh dearie," your mother said innocently as she put her head under your dad's chin. "Don't act like you didn't enjoyed it... or wanted it."

All the while you simply sat there, watching your parents forgetting about you for a minute as they fumbled a bit with each other. In the mean time, you thought about the way your mother said she coaxed your father. But why the tail whipping? "Why did you whip your tail in Dad's face, Mom?" you asked with a flick of your ear.

Your mom nuzzled your father for a bit before sitting upright again, "I said that pheromones played a huge role in finding mates and coaxing a mate, right?"

You nodded, "Yeah."

"A mare's tail is hanging continuously during heat in the scent, holding back about... lets say about eighty precent of the pheromones. All those 
pheromones a mare's tail holds have a huge impact on a stallion when a mare whips her tail in his direction, or hit his muzzle. When that happens, all the pheromones that had build up in the mare's tail are released in an instant." Your mother explained as she wagged her tail behind her to emphasize her point. "If the mare is lucky enough, her mate doesn't give it much thought, or inhales at the exact moment, taking in all the pheromones right away. When that happens, the stallion's brain reacts to the scent and sets his thoughts on one thing; mating."

"Trust me, Static. It may sound like you can easily evade it, but you can't." Your father said with a sigh of defeat. "As your mother said, she coaxed me everyday slightly to the point I was almost continuously at her side, not wanting to leave her for some reason I still haven't figured out. Back then, in my high spirits, her touching and brushing simply seemed like she wanted to be close to me, so I didn't mind it." Your father looked in the corner of his eyes to your mother, who sat on the couch with her chest puffed out. "Anyway, as she said, when the middle of the heat came around, I was almost inseparable from her. We spent every day with each other, during school and outside. And as you know, we both wanted foals. Although, in my rational state of mind, I wanted to wait until we were older. But your mother wouldn't had any of it. And that's when she toppled me over the edge and... well... a few weeks after that, she told me she was pregnant with you..."

"And I couldn't be happier." Your mother said with a happy long sigh, her eyes looking up to the ceiling with a faraway stare.

You sat there with your mouth open, "Y-you mean that... that one time she toppled you over... you got me?"

"I never said that it was one time." Your dad said with an amused smile. "Remember, the heat duration various for every mare, but the time they go into heat is centered around the same time. I guess I was lucky to some degree that your mother's heat lasted for two-feathering-weeks, or else we wouldn't have had you." Your dad was whacked lightly on the head by the wing of your mother.

"But how many times did you... mate... until you got me...?" You asked with a creeping sensation of disgust and a feeling that you didn't really want to know.

"I cannot say." Your dad said with a shrug of his wings.

You looked confused at him, "Huh? Why not?"

"I lost count, honestly."

Your mother let out a giggle with a hoof in front of her muzzle. "All those pheromones, the scent of both the mare and a stallion, sends a ripple through the minds of both partners. Their bodies becomes way more energetic and alive. Your endurance increases greatly together with the will to mate. This is especially the case when said partner is close and the mare has a high fertility."

You shuffled uncomfortably and lowered your body fully onto the couch, tucking your legs underneath you to get a more comfortable position. "What do you mean with high 'fertility', Mom?" you asked as you wagged your tail around your flank to keep your sides warm.

"Oh." Your mother said as her eyes widened. "I haven't told you that yet? I meant with that, that if a mare has a higher fertility that she is even more driven to mate than other mares with a lower fertility." Your mother put her right hoof to her chin and tapped it in thought, "I believe my fertility is... about... eighty-seven percent, which is quite high." You cocked your head sideways, not really getting what she was going on about. "You don't really understand it... but that's okay. I'll explain you; you see, when fillies are born, like any other pony, they are physically examined. The doctors give the parents a small stack of medical papers with all kinds of info about their foal. Including their expected fertility percentage. The higher the fertility percentage, the more likely the mare is to get pregnant." You opened your mouth silently with an 'o' form in understanding.

"...And that bring us back to the point where I said that I lost count." Your father said when your mother finished speaking. "A couple, during heat season, can mate a lot of times. This is also woven into us. This way, even the mares with a low fertility rate have a high chance of getting pregnant during the heat. Which is what happened between your mother and me. There was no way she wouldn't get pregnant, and she knew that."

Your father was suddenly slapped in the muzzle by your mother's wing. Glancing to her, you saw her wings spread out wide with a slight twitch every now and then. With eyebrows raised, you looked to your mother who had a blush on her cheeks and looked to her left and away from your dad, who chuckled and ducked below your mother's stretched-out wings. "Hehehe. Honey, not in front of our foal," Your dad extended his right hoof and brushed it underneath her primary feathers, making the feathers bend gently and flopping straight again.

"EEP!" your mother squeed with a high pitched tone, making you pull your head back in surprise as your dad brushed her feathers.

...your mom just squeed... Unbelievable... the last time you remembered her squee like that was when... actually... this was the first time you heard her squee like that.

"Uhm... Mom? You okay?" You asked with raised eyebrows.

Your mother nodded with a hoof plastered against her mouth, her cheeks carrying a light blush. She looked sideways with narrowed eyes to your dad who wore a big grin, "Sorry hun, couldn't resist it." Your mother turned her body to the right and turned quickly back to the left, making her fanned out right wing wack your dad in the back of the head, "Ow... Okay, I deserved that one." Your father moved a bit further away from your mother, sitting down at the edge of the couch and leaning with his right hoof on the arm rest. Your father chuckled lightly and glanced over to you, "I don't need to explain you what just happened, do I?" You quickly shook your head, knowing very well what your dad did with your mother and what her fanned out wings meant.


Your mother visibly calmed down, her hoof going back on the couch between her hind legs while letting out a deep sigh, her wings slowly folding against her sides with a light ruffle of her feathers. "Phew, well that was something. I'll get you back later..." Your mother looked to your dad with narrowed eyes and a smug grin, her voice changing to something you couldn't place, "...Blizzy." In an instant your dad's cheeks became redder than you had ever seen them, his tail wagging behind him on the couch and his wings ruffling uncomfortably.

"Uhm... I... I think we should get back on topic!" your father said quickly while looking away.

"I thought as much." Your mother said with a victorious grin. She focused her attention back to you and smiled her signature smile again. "Well, what more is there to tell?" she said as she tapped her hoof against her chin in thought while looking down.

"I believe we haven't told him about the behavior matured ponies have during heat season?" your father brought up as he looked unsure to your mother.

"Hhhmmm... Doesn't that go with the pheromones at the same time? We did talk about that and what it does during heat." She said, still looking down with a thoughtful expression. 

"Hhhmmm... Well..." your father hummed in thought. "I don't think I've explained about a stallion's behavior during heat season." He looked sideways to your mother who looked back to him with her head to the side, her left ear giving a light flick. You looked curiously to your dad, "If I have told it already, too bad, I'll tell it again, hehe." You let out a sigh with a roll of your eyes. You extended your wings quickly to stretch from the long sitting and folded them back again. "A stallion, during heat, as I already mentioned when having a mate, will be quite clingy to his partner. This is even worse when his partner is coaxing him." Your dad gave a quick look to your mother who went to lay on het belly again, tucking her legs underneath her and ruffling her feathers briefly.

"Stallions only get clingy, and the mares push them over the edge... and that's it?" you asked while raising an eyebrow, expecting more.

"Of course not." Your dad said with a chuckle. "A stallion can get very protective of his partner, this gets worse tenfold when his partner is expecting a foal. In fact, we stallions will let other stallions know if a mare is our partner; more often than not by staying close to our partner throughout the day, and of course, showing pride in various ways, raising our wings is the most common sign. There have been incidents where a mare's partner even attacked other stallions because they didn't want the other stallions around their partner." Your dad visibly puffed out his chest and spread his wings out widely while looking determent. Not a moment later, your mother was watching your dad up and down with her eyes, her wings flapping a few times before resting at her sides again.

Your mother turned to you, "And proud and protective he was. It was ridiculous when I was expecting you, Static."

Your ear flicked and you looked to your mother with your head sideways, "Ridiculous? How so? What did he do?"

Your mother half-rolled her eyes, "Well... Lets say that... he didn't like it when any other stallions came near me." She looked at your dad and gave him a wink, "He still doesn't like it." Your father gave a snort. "See? Still doesn't like it," your mother said while turning to you. "He never left my side whenever I went somewhere, never let me lift anything, and I mean anything, it was quite annoying at the time, honestly," your mother said with a deep sigh, lowering her head with her eyes closed. "But..." she said as she raised her head again and began to smile. "It was so sweet of him. He really wanted me to take it easy and do everything in his power to keep me and you safe and sound from anything that he thought that could be dangerous or stressing on us both." 

Your mother lifted herself up from her laying position and walked over to your dad's side and snuggled up next to him, laying her head on his shoulder while your father nuzzled her mane and wrapped his left wing around her. "I would do it all again, anytime, anywhere, if it means you and our foals stay strong and healthy." Your dad said soothingly to your mother, who hummed and nuzzled your dad's cheek.

"I know you will, Blizzy, I know." Your mother said gently.

You smiled at the both of them, hoping there would be a future for you like that with a mare you loved. And maybe, you knew who you loved, and hoped to be with her like your parents were right now someday.