//------------------------------//
// Lyra Is Genteel: The Fifth Month Is Flirtatious 
// Story: Lyra Is Crazy: Many Months Of Mommy Madness 
// by Masterweaver 
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	"Lyra, what are you doing?"

"I'm making a doghouse!"

"...out of the bricks that ponies throw through our windows?"

Lyra waved her spade at Bonbon. "It's called ironic repurposing. They want to attack us? I use their attacks for useful things!"

"Lyra, we don't have a pet. That's not nearly enough bricks to make a doghouse. And you're four and a half months pregnant." Bonbon bit her lip. "I don't know if you should be doing manual labor right now..."

"Well I don't want to be cooped up in my own home for who knows how long worrying about random brick throwers." The unicorn stuck her tongue out petulantly, before turning back to her project.

"Where did you even get the cement?"

Lyra glanced around furtively. "I... know some ponies."

Bonbon brought her hoof to her face. "Please tell me you didn't do anything illegal..."

The unicorn paused, considering her spade. After a moment, she put it down. "And now I'm feeling the morning sickness coming."

"Lyra!"

"Nope, totes serious." Lyra galloped for the door. "Sorry Bonbon, we'll continue this after I finish puking!"

"It's two thirty PM! It's nowhere near the morning!"

"HARFLBLARFIGANIFA..."

The changeling groaned. "Sometimes I could swear she times these things..."


***


"YES. OH MY YES. THIS IS SO YES."

Lyra squeezed the plush in her magic, rubbing her face against it. "This is just perfect! I think our kid would love this, what do you think?" She levitated the plush doll over to the decidedly unamused Bonbon. "It's adorable!"

"It's Chrysalis."

"It's still adorable!"

"It's an insult to changelings everywhere is what it is. If we buy it, I'm going to burn it." Bonbon looked around the brightly coolored toy store, and eventually plucked a stuffed bear off a nearby shelf. "Aren't these considered more normal?" she asked, holding it out for her wife to examine.

Lyra grimaced. "Ew, bears. Bears are like... big muscle mounds with loads of teeth, and they smell funny. I am not going to teach our kid to like bears."

"Right." Bonbon put the stuffed animal back. "I forgot we don't like normal for a second there..."

"Normalcy and us have a permanent mutual embargo," Lyra agreed brightly.

Bonbon snorted. "Lyra, I was being sarcastic."

"I wasn't!" Lyra chirped brightly. "We're the quirkiest quirks that ever did quirk! QUIRK IT BABY!"

Bonbon tried her hardest to avoid snickering as Lyra suddenly started swishing her hips back and forth, her bulging belly swaying a few seconds after the tail. But the fact of the matter was the whole scene was so ridiculous, she couldn't help but let out a little giggle. "S-Stop that! We're in public!"

"Smooth Lyra don't care." The unicorn danced up to Bonbon, hipbumping her shoulder. "Smooth Lyra just keeps moving. She's so smoooooth."

"Pfft, Ly, Lyra, toy store. Foals will be around." Bonbon spun around, putting a firm hoof on the unicorn's withers. "I don't want you to get in trouble again..."

Lyra stopped her prancing, her ears folded back. "Oh. Right.  The whole... thing, with the taboo about telling... yeah." She kicked the floor idly. "I was actually liking the dance, though..."

Bonbon bit her lip.

After a moment, she put her other hoof on Lyra's hip, giving her a gentle smile. "I prefer a waltz, myself."

Lyra blinked, her ears perking. "Yeah?"

"Yeah."

Green hooves took their place on black chitin. "Well, who am I to turn down a dance with a beautiful woman?"

The two of them spun slowly through the aisles of the toy store, shopping forgotten in the moment as they danced to a song that only they could hear, watched by the eyes of a few hundred stuffed animals, action figures, gamebox art portraits, and one frowning pegasus who left the building shortly thereafter.


***


"So when did Arsenic and Lace say they'd be done with the whole help out the town thinger thing?"

Bonbon rolled her eyes. "Around five. We're meeting them at Sugarcube corner for dinner, remember?"

Lyra nodded, absently glancing around the town square as they walked through. "Hard to believe only a week ago this place was covered in Great and Powerful banners."

"Ugh..." Bonbon shuddered. "At least it got the heat off of us for a while..."

"I keep telling you, the trial was horseapples." Lyra waved a hoof. "More than likely one pony from Ponyville, three at the most, traveled throughout Equestria to find other ponies who were afraid or hated changelings. That's like, less then half a percent of the total population of Ponyville! It was an outlier. A very determined outlier. That's all."

"I know, I know...." Bonbon sighed. "It's just.. the idea that I would actually... to the pony I love...! It gets to me."

"Well, it's all over now." Lyra grinned broadly as they turned down Broadhoof lane. "Smooth sailing from here on out..."

Bonbon didn't reply.

"...Bonbon?"

"We're being followed." She flicked her mane. "Pegasus, high left."

"Well... maybe he's just curious?"

"...sure." Bonbon shrugged. "Maybe he... oh silk."

Two earth ponies had just exited a nearby bookstore, their saddlebags completely empty, and were marching toward them with matching frowns.

"Lyra, run." Bonbon crouched low, her eyes flicking between the two earth ponies rapidly. "They're after me, not you."

Lyra shook her head. "What?! No! Whatever happens, we'll face it together--"

"Lyra Heartstrings you are five months pregnant with our foal and that means you need to get out of here now. Find Arsenic and Lace and get them back here, do you understand?"

"...Yes ma'am." The unicorn turned around... only to find two other unicorns walking with clear intent. "Uh, cancel that, we're boxed in."

Bonbon glanced behind her for a moment and scoffed. "You took on the royal guard once!"

"Yeah, but I wasn't five months pregnant then!"

Bonbon groaned, looking around quickly. "Come on, this way!" She rushed down a nearby alleyway, leading Lyra behind a set of trash cans and unopened crates. "Set up a barricade, I'll try to lead them away!"

"Got it!" Lyra's horn lit up as she began slamming wooden boxes together to form a ramshackle wall. "What are these even doing here anyway?"

Bonbon buzzed up into the air. "Who cares? See you later h--OOF!"

The next thing Bonbon knew, she was slammed into the ground by the scowling pegasus. "I knew it! You're hypnotizing ponies into trapping themselves in alleyways so you can PLANT YOUR SPAWN IN THEM!"

"...what?"

"He said he's an ignorant douchbag conspiracy theorist," Lyra supplied helpfully from behind the crates. "Oh, also, GET YOUR DIRTY HOOVES OFF MY WIFE OR I WILL RIP YOU APART!"

"What's the matter, changeling?" The pegasus pounded his hoof against the chest. "You afraid to fight without your thrall?"

"Oh please, I know how this goes. The moment I attack one of you, you'll run off to whoever and say that I started it, blah de blah de blah."

"Don't worry Lyra," the pegasus snarled, his eyes darting to the four ponies now galloping into the alley. "We'll have you free of the bug's mind control soon enough."

"Oh, fine, sure, you think I'm controlling her now!" Bonbon grumbled. "Where were you half a year ago when I tried to get her out of prison by claiming I hypnotized her?!"

"So you admit it!"

"Oh for the love of--!"

"You two, hold her down!" the pegasus barked, gesturing toward the earth ponies. "Verdant, Shimmer, find whatever spell she's using and rip it apart." The pegasus turned to the barrier, wings flaring. "No doubt she's going to try to use her power over Lyra to her advantage. I'll have to hold her back."

"You ain't getting past my wall of wooden crates!" A trash bag was hurled over the boxes. "EAT GARBAGE, YOU GARBAGE EATING GARBAGE!"

"AUGH!" The pegasus stumbled back as half-eaten meals, shreds of containers, and used diapers exploded over his face. "Bleaghu pfft! Ugh! The things I endure for justice..."

"See?" Bonbon shouted, struggling against the hooves pinning her down. "If I were controlling her I'd have made her make a much better quip!"

"YEAH! Hey wait a minute..."

"Mere words will not belay deliverance of truth! Or justice!" The pegasus glowered at the crates. "NOR WILL THROWING GARBAGE AT ME!"

The two unicorns knelt down, their horns glowing as they waved them slowly over the writhing changeling's head. Bonbon winced at the magic currently prodding inelegantly at her mental self, letting out a little grunt of pain. "Could you two be more blunt with your magic, please? I don't have nearly enough of a headache as is."

"She's not defending," one of them muttered. "This is too easy."

Bonbon growled and winced again. "Come on! You can see I'm not casting anything!"

"I can't find anything...." The other unicorn looked up. "Windbreaker, there's no constant spell. We can't break what isn't being cast."

"But how...?" Windbreaker paused. "Of course. It's a dormant spell on Lyra... Quickly! We must get past this wall of flimsy crates!"

"YOU COME ANY CLOSER AND IT'S FACE DIAPERS FOR EVERYPONY!" A garbage bag hovered menacingly over the boxes, gripped in a golden glow. "I'M SERIOUS! THIS HOUSE IS HOME TO NEWBORNS AND I HAVE REAPED THE SPOILS!"

The pegasus stared at the bag, his wings caught midflap. Some of the trash dripped off his leg and onto the ground.

"...Alright then." He turned back to the unicorns. "Plan C."

Once more the two horns lowered to Bonbon's head, but this time the force against her mind was not limited to a simple prod. No, it was a rippling mass of untrained clutching tentacles trying trying trying around and gripping and prying and she struck back quick and hard but they struck harder and she yelled as one cast a pain spell and the other reached in in the moment of weakness and every memory jumbled round and up and about and oh Lyra you are so so sorry Rainbow I'm so sorry you are such a bitch Chrysalis you can just go and jump off a slice of pie please miss Cake I have the bits right here is where she is buried Twilight what are you going to do wait that sound that sound that sound what is that sound--

Screaming. Familiar screaming. Not of terror...

Rage.

The crates burst apart, Windbreaker covering his eyes as wooden splinters scattered through the alley. He barely had time to look up before he was slammed to the ground, a golden glow pinning him in place. Lyra glowered at him for only a moment before her face snapped to the four ponies surrounding Bonbon, glaring at them through glowing white eyes.

"She's surging.... She's surging!" One of the unicorns backed away. "RUN! SURGING PREGNANT UNICORN!"

With an inarticulate cry of pure fury, Lyra lit her horn.

The next few minutes... Bonbon, still recovering from her own torture, wasn't quite sure what happened. She knew she had never seen Lyra's magic so bright. And ponies probably shouldn't bounce off the walls so quickly and repeatedly. And... was that a rope spell...? There was just so much going on.

By the time she had managed to get on her hooves, though, it was all over. Lyra was panting heavily, her eyes beginning to loose their mystic glow.

"What..." Bonbon looked at the unconscious ponies for a moment, before turning back to her wife. "What was that?"

"Surge." Lyra smiled giddily, walking to the changeling and nuzzling her. "Pregnant unicorns, if they feel really threatened, can become very dangerous, for, uh, very short periods of time... I'mgonafaintnowkay?"

She collapsed at Bonbon's feet.