Welcome To My Life
Prologue
“Twilight, darling, are you even listening?”
Twilight Sparkle snapped her focus back to the white unicorn sitting on the other side of the small, round café table.
“As I was saying,” she continued, “have you heard the latest news from Pinkie Pie? Apparently with both her and Disc- Party Favour, the remainder of the dark forces didn’t even take a week to clean up, and their kingdom is well on its way to being restored! I do wish we could have gone with them when they returned, but they were rather adamant that we would have all gone quite mad from just being there!”
“And Princess Cadence! Have you heard? She is having her baby any day now! Rumour has it that the baby will be an alicorn colt! Can you imagine? An alicorn stallion in Canterlot! Won’t that be something? I’m sure he will get attention from all of the mares from here to Phillydalphia!”
Rarity took another sip of her designer latte. She savoured the delicate foaminess with poise and grace.
“My!” she exclaimed. “This is the best café in all Canterlot, is it not? ... and you’re ignoring me again.”
“Sorry, Rarity…” Twilight shrugged sheepishly. “It is lovely; and I really do like spending time with you here, but I’ve just have a lot of things on my mind since-“
“Since that dreadful Sauron incident. I know; I know.”
She continued, “You really must get beyond the whole thing, dear! It’s been what… two months since we’ve gotten back.” Twilight nodded. Rarity waved her free hoof in the early spring air. “granted, they have only now finished mopping and sweeping up all of that horrible black dust we brought back. Nasty stuff seemed to work its way into almost every surface in the throne room! But still, most of the ponies involved had moved past it a month ago! All, except for Fleur de Lis, the poor dear. I always knew she was a frail thing, but something awful must have happened to her to make her… end it… the way she had.”
They both gave a shudder. The tabloids and celebrity gossip magazines had gone into a gruesome hay-day over the news that the most well-known supermodel in Canterlot had been found hanging in her dressing room. Nopony knew exactly what had tipped her over the edge, but theories bounced around in abundance: money troubles, stress, or even lost love. While in the arena, she had missed out on an enormous photo shoot. Desperate for a model and short on time, they had selected a virtual unknown. She had been such a smash hit that Fleur had been forgotten seemingly overnight. By the time she had returned, her career was spiralling; a fall from which she never recovered.
Twilight sighed and took a sip from her tea.
“Bastion?” Rarity commented half-mindedly. Not even waiting for the standard half nod, she placed her cup gingerly back on the saucer and continued. “Twilight, really? I thought we’d gone over this last time. And the time before that, for that matter!”
“Rarity…” Twilight pleaded.
She wouldn’t hear it. “No. Darling, you really need to get out again. Have fun and maybe meet somepony! It’s almost Hearts and Hooves, and I refuse to see you mope by yourself with all of those dusty books again.” Not waiting for a response to her jab at her friend’s beloved library, she leaned in and continued. “My new colt-friend has a few good-looking single stallion friends, and I could see about hooking you up with one of them, if you’d be up for it.” She smiled and winked slyly, bringing her cup back to her lips for another heavenly shot of fluffy cream and caffeine; being careful not to break eye contact throughout the motion.
Growing sick of the conversation, Twilight shook her head. “You don’t understand… Something happened between us two months ago. I can’t-“
“Yes, he saved your life; a few times! But not nearly as many times as you have told us about it! You only knew him for a few days! I don’t understand why you are so enamoured with some stupid stallion that you probably will never see again! He’s most likely forgotten all about y-“
Twilight pushed her chair back as she stood up, clopping her hooves down hard on the table. “I’m pregnant!” She burst out. She remained there for a few seconds, staring at Rarity, panting slightly. Rarity had dropped her latte, and was still too shocked to her seat to notice.
She eased back and slumped into her chair. She hadn’t planned on saying that, but the mixed emotions mingled freely with her imbalanced hormones and accumulated stress. Part of her immediately regretted saying that, but most of her was glad that the secret had finally come out.
Rarity put a hoof to her mouth and gasped quietly. “Oh, my dear Twilight! I had no idea! Is Bastion the father?”
“I suppose you could say that…”
Rarity dashed around the table, embracing her friend. Twilight hugged her back, unsure as to how to proceed from this point in the conversation.
Rarity released her, still holding her shoulders with her hooves as she donned a mildly puzzled look. “But how is that possible? Mares aren’t normally in heat for another few weeks. Are you sure, because you would have had to be so out of season…”
Twilight took in a deep breath, formulating the words so as to not appear totally insane.
“Party couldn’t get him out of his scale because he didn’t know how to send him back to where he was from,” she explained. “And because he wouldn’t be able to give him a body, I decided that, being a mare biologically formatted to create bodies…” she trailed off.
“You impregnated yourself… with somepony! A full-grown pony, no less! Do you have any idea what that could do to somepony? Physically and mentally, I mean.”
“I- I don’t know,” Twilight stuttered. “He needed help, so I did what I had to do to make him safe…”
Rarity leaned back and sat on the table.
“It’s times like these that I am glad my special talent isn’t magic. That seems to get you into all sorts of trouble.”