//------------------------------//
// Trimester: One 
// Story: PaP: Bedtime Stories 
// by Starscribe 
//------------------------------//

"It's wrong," Jackie said, staring down at the little strip of cloth and plastic levitating in Ezri's magic. Two more sat beside her on the bathroom counter, each one with two dark lines in the white fabric. "It has to be wrong. It's obviously, stupidly wrong."

Ezri levitated the last test down beside the others. She was currently taller than Jackie, or at least this version of her was, with reddish fur and a greenish mane. She was a unicorn currently, though since she was also a male now that wasn't the only sort of horn Ezri was sporting. "Changelings would agree with you. But I'm not like them anymore—how many others like me are there? Maybe we're... not all infertile."

"You are!" Jackie shouted, backing away from him and into their massive hotel room. It was one of the largest, fanciest hotels in all of Babalon, large enough that it very nearly consumed the entire floor. Not that Jackie was thinking about the price she paid now. It was all coming out of the Sargon's treasury anyway. "No offence or anything. But you are! Changelings are always—"

"We used to be." Ezri's disguise melted away in a single flash of magic, revealing the distinctly female drone underneath. Well... something like a drone. She still had the same general body shape, but not many of the specifics. The holes in her legs were gone, her color far more pronounced. Jackie had thought it looked garish for the first century or so, but it had grown on her since then.

Unfortunately, it appeared the colors weren't the only things of Ezri's growing on her. Or in her, at any rate. "God, what will the court say? What will the Sargon say?"

"He'll congratulate me," Ezri said, matter-of-factly. "Probably throw me a party. Then you..."

"Oh God..." Jackie muttered again, covering her face with her wings. "Ezri, what were we thinking?"

"Me or you?" Ezri tilted her head slightly to the side. "You weren't thinking at all, really. I believe your exact words were 'please I don't care what you shove in—’"

Jackie cleared her throat loudly. "Not that!" She pushed on Ezri with one wing, as hard as she could. Not very hard, really, since wings weren't meant for pushing. "I didn't mean that. Obviously, no mare ever thinks clearly during that part of the year. I mean... having to stay in that stupid disguise all the time." She rose, folding her wings against her sides again and stumbling into the center of the hotel room. It was a mess, always a mess, though the effects of her job with the Sargonate were all neatly arranged on a set of wooden desks away from the chaos. Jackie took her position very seriously here, and it was important that anyone the Sargon sent into her rooms would know that. They could read through everything she had ever written, read through anything she touched, and never find any sign that she was a spy from the New American Union.

They wouldn't find any evidence, because she kept everything she learned in Dreamtime anyway.

"We never know when servants might arrive," Ezri supplied, following close behind her. "I'm fast, but not all of them use the doors. We get seen together like this one time, and..."

"I KNOW!" Jackie shouted, shoving their half-eaten food off the table and onto the floor with one frustrated hoof. "I didn't actually want the answer! I just wanted something to be upset about."

"You want me to be upset too?"

"Yes," Jackie said, stopping and glaring at nothing. "Very much."

"Okay, sure." Ezri rested against her, her body surprisingly soft despite its shiny appearance. That was a disadvantage in combat—changelings had armor, where her new body seemed mostly to have a decorative feature. It felt far nicer on her fur this way, still as pleasantly cool with more of the give she would expect from skin. "I'm very upset."

"You're not even trying," Jackie moaned, leaning against her. "Lie for me some more. Do better."

"I'm furious with myself," Ezri said, with as little conviction as the first time. "Livid. How could I possibly fail to consider that staying in disguise for that long would give a chance to impregnate you. It's so unexpected, so terrifying... a travesty."

Jackie looked up, glaring sidelong at Ezri, but the drone wasn't even half done. She was no longer the larger of the two, not that it often mattered.

"And now an ambassador from a lordly house has impregnated a member of the Sargon's household. We'll be forced to go into seclusion in the palace for eleven whole months, where we'll be constantly surrounded by the affairs of state. And everyone will be even more open with us, because now we've become members of his family. Most importantly of all..." She met her eyes, unafraid of Jackie's anger. "You'll actually have to carry it to term, because otherwise everything we've done will be tainted. The Sargon might even go to war over it."

"Why?" Jackie couldn't help herself—she was crying now. She pulled away, walking a few steps before wiping her tears, biting back the others. She could control her emotions better than almost anypony alive—fool the smartest, most observant ponies there were. Anypony except Ezri. She had been herself for so long without being afraid, so many centuries, that she was no longer even capable of hiding what she felt. Their relationship wouldn't have survived otherwise. "Why would you d-do this? Why would..." she trailed off, staring down at herself. At her own belly, which didn't look much different yet. But it felt different, and it would start to look different soon enough.

"Because I've seen your dreams, Jackie," Ezri said, unapologetic. "I know after all this time you wanted it to happen at least once. There's always been a part of you full of regret, because you knew that not liking stallions meant you'd never... leave your mark on the world. You'd never start your own lineage. Even Alex managed to get her own bloodline. Well, now you will."

Jackie looked up, glaring at Ezri. She stormed across the room, stamping and fuming all the way. "So, you thought now of all times?" She flung the window open, not considering what that might mean if anyone saw them. They were many stories up, it was true, but with so many members of the population who could fly, that didn't mean they were safe.

Out the window was Babylon, the capital of the Sargonate. It was the city that ruled what had once been the ancient world, stretching across the Mediterranean Sea into parts of Europe and much of Asia. Only China at the east was not in some way a part of its domain. Much more importantly, it was a nuclear power, the only nuclear power that wasn't an ally of the New American Union. Even so, that meant the NAUDP controlled a little less than 40% of the Earth's landmass. The Sargonate ruled over the rest.

Babylon was not the peaceful home of late-night movies and car traffic and energetic ponies living their fast-paced lives. It was no longer lit at night, for fear of air-raids that never came, and because of the sundown curfew for most citizens. Soldiers now acted as the city's police, checking identification at random, and making dissidents vanish into tunnels never to return. Black and white television sets played constant footage of tanks and biplanes and military parades set to patriotic music, and the promise of the eventual end to the “Imperialist Aggressors” in the west.

"You want to bring a child into this?" Jackie asked, gesturing out the window with a hoof. She glanced once over her shoulder and saw that Ezri had resumed her disguise, that of the ambassador for a prominent Chinese family. The real ambassador had, of course, never arrived in Babylon. "Even if we flew back to... I don't even know... Midgard? Maybe we could be safe there. Or Summerland, if we want to sell our damn souls away to Equestria. The world blows! And even if it didn't, any foal we had would get old and die and we'd have to say goodbye just like anyone else we meet. It doesn't seem right... doesn't seem fair, to make a child only to watch it die. To know it's doomed."

"We could be doomed too," Ezri said, quietly. "One of us might take a bullet tomorrow. We haven't ever tried to stay safe. How will our child be any different?"

Jackie turned away from the window again, still glaring. She wasn't even trying to hide her tears anymore. "Ours is guaranteed to die! Nobody even needs to... even if there isn't a goddamned nuclear war, one day it'll still grow up, get old, and die. I've lost so many friends, Ezri, I don't want to start losing kids too. I don't know how Alex hasn't lost her fucking mind, but I'm not that strong. I can't deal with that."

"There you go again," Ezri said, resting one hoof on her shoulder. "Underestimating yourself. You've lived through more than any other immortal who isn't in this room, Jackie. You lasted through the end of your world, the end of mine, the death of my mom. We've fought monsters together, we've gone where nopony else has ever seen... don't you tell me you're not ready for this." He lowered his voice to a whisper, or very near to one. "We've talked about this before. You asked me whether we would have a kid if it was something we could do, and you told me we would. I might not have dreams to help me hold memories like you do, but I remember that. I'd never forget, because..." He hesitated one more second. "Because I never thought I could. Because I knew I'd never be a queen. If I can't have my own swarm, can't I at least have one?"

Jackie was silent for a long time, staring back at her mate. She was still angry—not so much because Ezri had taken advantage of her estrus cycle, though there was a little of that. "You never told me," she said, flat. "Everything we've told each other, and you never told me. If I knew it was important..."

"I didn't think it would work," Ezri said, glumly. "I thought it would be a waste of time. I didn't want to get your hopes up. I thought you'd be as excited as I was. Guess I was wrong about that too."

"Don't," Jackie said, raising her voice just a little. "Don't pull the guilting on me, I'm not in the mood." She sat back on her haunches, staring out the open window again. A chill breeze passed through the window, rustling her mane. She felt Ezri reach over to brush it out of her eyes, and didn't stop him.

Ezri sat down beside her. He didn't say anything else, just waited quietly and patiently. That had been one of the very first things Jackie came to like about her, back when she'd been coming of age in the bunker. It had been her mother that interested Jackie in those days, not the daughter. But where Alex was distant and strange, constantly talking about abstractions and politics and never available for the things Jackie cared about, Ezri was different. Ezri had been willing to spend the entire day in her company, silent, helpful with anything Jackie did without ever getting bored or criticizing her for doing it improperly.

"I suppose... if Alex can cheat with Mary, we can cheat once too," she eventually said. "Assuming... they don't just grow up into an Alicorn. They probably will, considering how low the standards have dropped these days. All this worrying will be pointless, cuz' they'll be the real kind of immortal and we're just abusing the word."

"Yeah," Ezri agreed. "I'm sure they will. How couldn't they, with a mom as good as you?"