//------------------------------//
// And Some Pain Too 
// Story: Short Stories with Pregnant Ponies 
// by Kassaz 
//------------------------------//

Applejack felt like she’d been bucked in the gut. Really, she’d been bucked in the gut more than a few times in her life, and bucked in the gut a lot quite recently, and the pain she felt now wasn’t quite as bad as the former, unnoticeable compared to the latter. She lay on her side in the straw in one of the barns, the same barn in which she’d entered the world, and even feeling like an apple skin without much fruit in it couldn’t knock the smile off her face.

She looked at her deflated belly. For nearly an entire year, she’d looked at it, and wondered about the Apple therein. Now she had her answer. She looked past her postpartum body to again admire the newest member of the Apple family. Struggling to stand on wobbling legs, was a short and sweet little foal, a colt as green as Granny Smith and with hair as blond as that which framed Applejack’s vision.

He nearly fell flat on his face yet again, but she reached out her head to steady him, and marvelled at how her powerful neck and head were nearly the size of his entire little body. She let him stand on his own, and sweetly beckoned him into her embrace. He fell into her forelegs, and she hugged him tightly against her chest. The foal wasn’t crying, but she heard Big McIntosh and Apple Bloom were.

Now she had her son, and some pain too.