The silence of the dimly lit room was a bit too much for Angel as she lay still in her bed, gingerly cradling her still aching belly. It twinged again, causing her to wince and rub the soft spot slowly. It had been several minutes since she had gotten the world shattering news that she was pregnant and her mind was already in panic mode. Thoughts raced through her head at blinding speeds, each one more terrifying than the last. Before leaving, the doctors had offered their sympathies for the child and to her, scaring Angel even more.
As she thought, the old wooden door creaked open, allowing the familiar figure of Aunty Autumn Wind to slip inside. Her usual smiling face was nowhere to be seen, much to Angel's dismay. Instead, her mouth was fixed into a small frown, concern knitting her eyebrows into a sweater of concentration. As she sidled in and let the door shut, Angel turned over to look at her with a weak smile.
"Hi Aunty." She spoke brightly only to receive a cold stare. For several tense seconds, neither one of them spoke before an abnormally large grin broke Autumn Wind's face, her head barely able to contain the sheer width.
"I can't believe it!" she shouted as she ran over to Angel, throwing her hooves around her, "I'm going to be a grand-aunt!"
Angel gasped as her aunt began to squeeze her chest with unreal strength, draining all air from her lungs before she could react. The squeezing only intensified as she tried to protest and Angel was sure her bones were going to snap.
"Aunty-- you-- squeeze---meh," she managed to gasp.
"I don't care! I'm just so happy right now!" Autumn Wind shrieked as lifted Angel up from the bed. She began to rock her back and forth, grinning wildly while Angel tried to suck down a breath. She steadily turned blue as Autumn Night held her there. Thankfully, a pony cleared his throat behind them.
"Autumn, put my daughter down. Now."
Angel managed a single breath before her head met the covers on the bed, causing her to straighten up and shudder. Aunty Autumn Night was no longer smiling. Instead, her mouth had turned down into a small frown as she stared into space, her eyes wide.
"Uh oh." She whispered.
Angel peeked around her aunt, who was somehow still standing on her rear legs, to see her father's angry gaze. However, in the brief second she saw him before cowering behind her aunt again, she decided that 'angry' wasn't a fitting term for him. Something more appropriate for his current expression leaned closer to irate, pissed off and 'I'm about to strangle somepony'.
"Autumn, I would like to speak to my daughter. Alone." Her father grunted through clenched teeth, his striking orange eyes piercing through her, directly to where Angel sat. Dropping to her hooves, Autumn Wind spun to face him, a worried look painting her face.
"Now, now, Harvest Moon," she spoke in a timid tone, "We both know this was b-bound to happen sooner or later--"
"Autumn. Out. Now."
"Harvest, please. It's not that big--"
Angel was sure she heard something snap right then.
"NOT A BIG DEAL?!" her father roared, "NOT A BIG DEAL?! SHE'S PREGNANT! THAT'S A VERY BIG DEAL, AUTUMN! MY DAUGHTER COMES HOME AFTER LUNA KNOWS HOW MANY YEARS AND SHE'S PREGNANT!"
"Four years and nine months to be exact. And as I said, Harvest, we both knew this was bound to happen--"
An angry snorting filled the room as Angel did her best to bury her head into her covers, hoping this would be over soon.
"When the buck did I tell you I expected my ONLY DAUGHTER to come home PREGNANT?!"
"Um," Autumn Wind stammered as she put a hoof to her chin, "I know we discussed this at some point. Give me a minute."
Harvest Moon groaned loudly and pressed a hoof to his forehead, grinding his teeth with incredible force.
"I'm not in any mood to play games right now, Autumn. Move aside. Now!"
"Hold on, wasn't it that time we were out drinking and you--"
"Autumn."
"Yes! You had three shots of gryphon whiskey in you and then--"
"Autumn!"
"Said something to you about Angel and you said it wouldn't surprise you if she--"
"AUTUMN!"
An eerie silence filled the room, broken only by Harvest's heavy breathing. Eventually, Angel risked poking her head around Autumn Night and timidly smiled at her father, who was beet red.
"Hi dad." She squeaked to him, causing his gaze to shift.
"Angel, I want to know right now. I want to know everything; who the father is and why you came back. And don't give me that garbage 'I wanted to see you again' line. I want the truth and I wanted it two minutes ago."
Angel gulped as her hoof gingerly rubbed her stomach, unsure of how to proceed. Her father had, understandably, assumed the worst had happened to her and she knew this wasn't going to be easy. Thankfully, a soft hoof touched her back and she looked up to Aunty Autumn Night's smiling face.
"Okay dad," Angel said as she breathed in deeply, "When I left last time, I told you I was going on adventures, right?"
"Please don't tell me this is going where I think it's going." Harvest groaned.
"EW DAD!"
"EW HARVEST!"
"Just continue." He grumbled.
"Anyway, now that disgusting innuendo is out of the way, what happened next, Angel?" Autumn Wind cooed, throwing Harvest a dirty look.
"Well, that was only half true. I did travel around for a while, running errands and helping out my employer, but I eventually quit at her advice. She said I would never get anywhere making a living as a courier, so she gave me a nice amount of bits and I left."
"You were fired?"
"No! Daring told me she wasn't firing me!"
"Fine then, please continue."
"Harvest, please!" Autumn Wind interjected.
"I said please!" Harvest Moon shot back.
"Not that, your tone! Angel needs us now more than ever and you're not helping!"
"What the? Alright fine. Angel, please continue."
"That's better."
"Oh, be quiet, Autumn."
Angel couldn't help but let out a chuckle as the two ponies bantered back and forth. It almost seemed familiar to her in some way she couldn't put her hoof on, but she loved to hear them argue anyway.
"Okay," she spoke up, "So I went a couple of places for a while. The Everfree, the ocean and a few others. Eventually, I ran out of bits and was stuck in Canterlot."
"So why didn't you come home then?" Harvest asked.
"Shh!" Autumn Wind reprimanded harshly.
"Fine." he said with a roll of his eyes.
"Well, I needed bits and I wanted to see Princess Luna before I came home, so I decided I'd join the Royal Guard!"
Angel smiled brightly to her father, whose jaw was now hanging open. Autumn Night, however, was more vocal in her response.
"The Royal Guard?! Wow, Angel! It had to be so awesome to be a member of them!"
"It was! All I had to do was fill out some papers and they accepted me, so it was super easy to join!"
Harvest shook his head, trying to piece this together. In the years that he hadn't seen his daughter, she had blown a sizable sum of bits on travelling and had wound up broke in Canterlot, so she joined the Royal Guard to make some bits and meet Princess Luna?!
"When were you planning on telling us all of this?" he asked, cutting through the chatter of the two mares.
Angel paused and thought for a moment, trying to come up with a response. It had been two months since she returned and hadn't mentioned anything about the Royal Guard.
"I dunno. Whenever it came up, which it just did."
Harvest blinked a couple times, his mind trying to process the response. In no manner of logic did it make sense, but he had learned long ago to give up using normal logic with Autumn Wind.
"Okay fine," he stated, brushing the subject aside, wanting to get back on topic, "So how does all of this have anything to do with you being pregnant and why you came home?"
"Well, when I joined, I met the most dreamy stallion ever," Angel began, her eyes glazing over and a large grin splitting her face, "He was such a jerk when I met him, but he was so cute when he was serious."
This time, Autumn Wind kept the same silence that Harvest Moon did, allowing Angel to lose herself in her memories for a few seconds. Eventually, though, Autumn prodded her to bring her back to reality.
"So, are you going to tell us more about him?"
"Oh yeah! His name is Comet Burst and he's now the leader of Princess Celestia's personal guard!"
"You landed the leader of Princess Celestia's personal guard?! Way to go, Angel!"
Autumn Night hoofbumped Angel, who was grinning from ear to ear.
"That's not all! Before he became the leader, we both helped stop a changeling invasion, so I was promoted to the leader of Princess Luna's personal guard!"
Harvest Moon knew right then she was making all of this up. However, Autumn Wind ate up every word of it, much to his chargrin.
"You were... Princess Luna... WOW ANGEL! Did you get to meet her?!"
"Yeah, she's totally super cool! Except when she gets mad, then she gets really scary, but she always feels bad after doing that and sometimes cries, so I was ordered to be there for her like her best friend!"
"Angel." Harvest Moon spoke.
"Plus, I met Princess Celestia a couple times, and she is rrrreeeeeeeaaaaaaallllllly tall."
"Angel."
"And I reported directly to Shining Armor, who doesn't have as big of an office I was expecting for the size of the castle."
"Angel!"
"Plus, the castle was huge! It holds all the staff and Royal Guards in it, both Day and Night guards, so there were tons of other bat ponies there for me to talk to and--"
"ANGEL!"
"Yes, dad?" she answered, not missing a beat.
"So, who is Comet Burst? The stallion you mentioned earlier?"
"Oh, he's the dreamy stallion who I'm engaged to."
"Okay, so go through this one more time."
Harvest Moon sat on his haunches, rubbing his forehead slightly. His reaction to Angel being pregnant was admittedly, a bit over the top. Still, Angel dropping bombshell after bombshell had caused his mind to ache. She had joined the Royal Guard, gotten engaged and was the center of a dispute between the Princesses. He was sure Angel was making all of this up, but he knew deep down she wouldn't lie about all of this.
Plus, he still had to deal with the fact his now pregnant daughter was in the colony. While just as shocked as the doctors were, he had kept his composure long enough to bribe the doctors to keep quiet about this. How long the doctors remained quiet, though, he couldn't guess. It was only a matter of time before the colony guards came to the cave, demanding to see her and taking her away to the breeding site where her mother currently resided. Harvest had visited her a couple times since she left him and Angel, and it was always a difficult thing to do.
She looked nothing like the mare he fell in love with years ago now. Instead of a normal body, hers was always bulging at the belly, leaving a creepy amount of stretch marks on her. She had been pregnant nonstop for ten years now and had birthed well over twenty foals, something that pained Harvest to think about. He had wanted to prevent that fate from falling onto Angel, but she had unwittingly just sent out flares to the colony.
"I met Comet, we didn't get along and eventually did, we started dating and then I remember going into heat and tricking him into his office so we could be alone."
Harvest groaned again, pressing his other hoof to his head as the headache flared again. Of course Angel would have done that.
"So, what now?" Autumn Night asked, turning to him.
"What do you mean?" Angel asked, looking from Harvest to Autumn.
Autumn turned to Angel, smiling softly.
"Well Angel, there are not a lot of fertile mares here anymore. Your mother, my sister, is one of the last few ones here, so they've been curious about you for a while now."
"Exactly, which is why you being pregnant right now is a terrible thing!" Harvest spoke up, "Those doctors report directly to the colony's leaders and if they tell them you're pregnant, they will investigate!"
Angel's eyes shrunk to pinpricks as her father spoke. She knew it was risky being here, but she didn't know it was that bad. If the fertile mares were dying off, then they would be investigating all the foals of the fertile ones to replace them, meaning Angel was one of the first ones they would investigate.
"So, what do we do now, Harvest?" Autumn Wind asked again.
He took a deep breath before looking up at them.
"We play it cool for now. If anypony comes sniffing around, we need to get Angel out of here. Angel, I want you to stay here in this cave until this either blows over or the worst comes."
Angel gulped hard, trying not to ask the question on her mind.
"What's the worst?"
"They take you from us and turn you into a breeder for the colony."