Expecting

by Shahrazad


Chapter 9 - The Best Laid Wedding Plans oft go Awry

“We’re gathered here today to join these two in holy matrimony.”

Rarity wept, blowing her nose into a lacy tissue. Big Mac stood at the altar, sweating in his tuxedo. Fluttershy stood on the far side as a bridesmare, while Applejack stood next to her brother as a groomsmare. His bride stood next to him, covered in white.

“If anypony believes these two shouldn’t be forever joined, speak now or forever hold your peace.”

“I OBJECT ON THE GROUNDS THAT SHE’S A TOTAL TRANNY!” Dash shouted from beside the altar.

Gasps—followed by a bell toll of silence—reverberated through the hall.

...

Pinkie Pie tore off the veil she wore, careful not to tear the wedding dress. “No-no-no-NO! You can’t just skip to the good part!” She yelled, pointing at Twilight, who whimpered and tried to hide behind the podium. “And Rainbow, it’s ‘tyrant’! You need to object because she’s a tyrant!”

“Sorry,” Dash replied, her wings drooping.

“Pinkie, we’ve been at this for hours. Is it really necessary for Rainbow Dash to object? Can’t we just have a nice, normal wedding?” Twilight asked.

Pinkie whirled on Twilight. “Excuse me? EXCUSE ME!? Are you trying to plan this party?” Her hair fell flat, which looked particularly threatening with the wedding dress she wore.

“No! I’m sorry, you’re the party planner, Pinkie. You can do whatever you want! I just thought it might be nicer without the objection.” Twilight averted her eyes and tried to look small.

Pinkie’s eye twitched, she tilted her head, and smiled a toothy, manic grin. “You think the wedding would be better without the drama of an objection?” Her voice modulated to something between psychotic and demonic.

“Eeeyup,” Big Mac piped up.

Pinkie’s hair poofed out in a flash. “Oh, well if the groom doesn’t want the objection then it’s right out.”

Big Mac wiped the sweat from his brow. Applejack chuckled, “Heh, Ah reckon that’ll make this easier. Kin we jus’ take a break?”

“Sure thing, AJ! Everypony, take five!” They all sighed and turned to leave. Everypony looked like a flower wilting in the heat, except for Pinkie. She put a hoof on Big Mac’s shoulder. “Not you, mister groom! Now we need to talk about centerpieces! Do you want votives or hydrangeas?”

“Uhhh…?”

Pinkie’s ears fell. “You have no idea what I’m talking about, do you? And we haven’t even talked about chiavari chairs, color schemes, or invitation stocks yet. I need to know what you two want!”

Big Mac looked like he was going to be sick.

Applejack trotted into the farmhouse, mopping her brow with a floral cloth napkin. “How’s tha practice comin’ along?” Granny Smith asked from her favorite rocking chair.

“Exhaustin’,” Applejack replied.

Trixie looked up from the table. “Is that Trixie’s missing sample?” she asked, bloodshot eyes focusing on AJ.

“Uhhh…” Applejack looked at the cloth in her hoof, then at Trixie.

Surrounded by magazines, folders, binders, color swatches, candles of various sizes, three quills, two inkwells, and dozens of notes, Trixie glared at the cloth in Applejack’s possession. “Is. That. The. Missing. Napkin sample?”

Applejack dropped the cloth and galloped out. Granny Smith sighed and said, “Ya don’t have ta do this all yerself ya know.”

“Trixie is a mare and only gets one wedding in her life. This must be perfect!” Trixie punctuated her statement with an extra forceful stab of the quill. She picked up the cloth with her magic, brought it up next to a couple of swatches, and squinted in concentration.

Granny Smith shook her head. “This here’s ‘bout you an’ Big Mac. Ya don’t need no fancy dress ta make it important. Why, in my day—”

“Trixie will have a beautiful dress! No, Trixie will have the greatest wedding dress ever known!” Trixie spat out her words with a twitch in her right eye, her mane spouting stray hairs like a row of spines down her back.

Apple Bloom trotted into the room, reading a comic book. She glanced up at Trixie, then back at her comic. “Wow, Trixie. You look kinda like this here Godzilla monster in th’ comic!”

“I’m a bride! Not a monster!” she shouted, towering over Apple Bloom. She looked ready to breathe fire or crush a large coastal city.

The next day…

“C’mon you two, this is the best part!” Pinkie cried, bouncing on her hooves. She pushed fresh plates across the table towards Big Mac and Trixie.

“No more, Trixie is full,” Trixie moaned, rubbing her ample belly.

Big Mac looked like he too was pregnant. His stomach swollen to bursting, he looked ready to throw up. “Don’t you want more wedding cake?” Pinkie asked.

“Nnnope,” he moaned.

“But how are you two gonna decide what kind of cake you want without trying the samples?”

Trixie’s tongue hung out of her mouth. “Urg… Trixie is tired… tired of making decisions. Can’t we just let those Cutie Mark Crusaders choose a cake flavor?”

“Eeeyup.”

Pinkie threw her forelegs in the air. “NO! It’s your wedding! You get to choose the cake flavor! Look, we have seven-hundred and thirty-four flavors to try, and you’ve tried two-hundred and fourteen. That leaves only five-hundred and twenty to go. It’s cake! What are you waiting for?” she asked, her tail wagging like a dog’s. She gestured behind her to the hundreds of plates, each with a small square of cake on it.

“No… no more. Trixie cannot eat another bite. The foal wants to sleep,” Trixie moaned.

“Eeey—urp!” Big Mac put a hoof to his mouth.

Pinkie Pie blew out a massive sigh. “Now what am I going to do with all of this cake?”

Far away in Canterlot…

“Ah-achoo!” Celestia covered her muzzle with a piece of cloth that put Trixie’s swatches to shame.

“Are you alright, sister?” Luna asked over her cup of tea.

“Yes, I’m fine. I just had the sudden feeling like I should be somewhere… doing something… decadent.”

Luna snickered. “Like eating five hundred pieces of luxurious wedding cake?”

Celestia chuckled, “Where would I find something like that?”

The next morning…

“But Trixie liked the double-banana pistachio-and-raspberry cream cake.”

“Tasted like Apple Bloom’s mud pies,” Big Mac responded.

“You wanna make mud pies?” Apple Bloom asked from across the breakfast table, her ears perking up.

Granny Smith snorted from her position at the head of the table.

“Nnnope.”

“Why don’t you go out and play with her? Trixie will be fine, Trixie has plenty of peanut butter and habanero peppers.” Trixie demonstrated this by using her magic and a dinner knife to open the pepper on her plate and stuff it with peanut butter from the open jar. Then, she ate it in one bite, and washed it down with a tall glass of apple juice… from the south orchard. The one with the green, sour apples. Granny Smith smirked. Next to her, Applejack made a face at the culinary horror. Trixie smiled as if she’d bitten into a slice of double-banana-doom cake.

“Ah wanna try that!” Apple Bloom said, reaching for another pepper off of Trixie’s plate. Big Mac snatched her up and trotted out, just in time. Unbeknownst to the young Apple, Trixie stared at her with murderous intent.

No one takes my peanut-butter peppers!

“Ya sure do know yer way ‘round foals,” Granny Smith remarked. “Ya sure this here is yer first?”

Trixie crunched into another pepper and replied, “Certainly. Trixie dealt with foals all the time while traveling. Foals were the best mark— CUSTOMERS! Ah… ahem.” Trixie put a hoof to her chest as if she had to hiccup, which she clearly did not.

The kitchen timer went off like a klaxon. “Tarnation… is it time fer that crazy weddin’ planner o’ yers already? Ah already had Big Mac fix tha’ window. Why can’t she use the door like a normal pony?” Granny Smith said with a sour expression.

The entire house rumbled ominously. Trixie and Granny Smith looked at the windows, as if hungry velociraptors would burst through them. “Aren’t you ready yet!?” Pinkie cried from behind Trixie.

Trixie squealed and jumped. She whirled around to find Pinkie dressed in a full tuxedo, screwing the lighting fixture back into the ceiling. “Wh-what…?”

“I didn’t want to break the window again; that made Granny Smith frown, and I’m not about to start giving out frowns. So I came in through the ceiling,” Pinkie replied. “Didn’t the party cannon aftershocks warn you I was coming?”

“What? No! The timer warned us you were going to be here,” Trixie said, pointing to the device. She blushed, cleared her throat, and said, “What you do you mean by aftershocks? Trixie didn’t hear the before-shocks.”

“I didn’t want to scare anypony, so I put silencers on my party cannons. Why don’t you have your wedding dress on? We should be at practice already!”

Granny Smith pounded the table with a hoof. “Now just hang on a cotton-pickin’ minute! Ya can’t keep a cannon quiet. How did ya—”

Pinkie stuffed a wad of cotton into Granny Smith’s mouth, grabbed Trixie, and headed out the door. “I hope that’s enough cotton to cover one minute! We’ll be back in a few hours,” she called out over her shoulder.

After the door closed, Granny Smith spat out the cotton. “How in tarnation… We don’t even grow cotton!”

Three weeks later…

“We’re ready.”

“Eeeyup.”

“Are you nuts?!” Pinkie cried.

Standing around the kitchen table, the three ponies looked out over the diorama. It looked much like the barn, surrounding orchards, and included dozens of tiny pony figurines. None of the miniature buildings had a roof, so their interiors could be seen. Everything was divided by hexagons, and the base of each figurine perfectly fit the spaces.

Grinding her teeth, Pinkie slapped on her peaked cap, the one with a dozen brass stars on the front. Adjusting her shoulder-boards, she towered over the miniature field. “How are the bridesmares going to exfiltrate the main theater of action once the events are completed? We still don’t know the order!”

Wearily, Big Mac replied, “Does it matter?”

“YES! Am I going before, or after Rarity?! And we haven’t even talked about Twilight! Spike has to know these things beforehoof, or he can’t very well announce us!”

“Shouldn’t everypony leave in the reverse order they arrived?” Trixie asked, blinking one sleepy eye, then the other.

“That’s the classical strategy, but I’d like to shake things up a bit! We don’t want the enemy to know what we’re doing!” Pinkie grinned, her hair falling flat. “They’ll never know what hit ‘em!” Her eyes floated in different directions.

“Uh… I don’t reckon anypony is our enemy,” Big Mac said, pushing his and Trixie’s figurines to the tiny podium.

“That’s what they want you to think!” Pinkie chattered, pushing the groomsmares behind the Big Mac figurine. “You sure you want to allow them to flank you like that? Oh… maybe we can make it look like they’re getting the upper hoof. Then…” Pinkie’s grin grew wide.

“This isn’t a war. It’s a wedding. It’s about love,” Trixie mumbled.

“THAT’S RIGHT!” Pinkie shouted. “All’s fair in love and war! We gotta be ready for anything!”

The back door burst open, and a trio of mares all struggled to get inside.

“We’re going to be bridesmares!”
“Twilight said so!”
“We’re in, or you’re not getting married!”

Lyra managed to push her way past the other two mares and enter the house. “And I’m getting the bouquet this time!”

“What is the meaning of this?” Trixie moaned, looking at her new bridesmares.

“Sorry,” Twilight’s voice called from somewhere outside. “They got wind that I was involved in a wedding. I… sort of removed them from the last wedding they were part of, because… well, reasons. Good reasons!”

Minuette squeezed into the house next, and breathed out, “The Princess says we’re in the wedding! You must obey her!”

“What?” Big Mac asked dumbly.

Twinkleshine and Twilight stuffed themselves into the crowded kitchen of the farmhouse. Twilight blushed and said, “I said I could use my powers as royalty to get them into the wedding. I didn’t actually—”

“But you and your friends stole our spots last time!” Twinkleshine whined. “You owe us!”

Twilight sighed and turned to Trixie. “Do you think you could… maybe let them be bridesmares? It would mean a lot to them.”

Trixie smirked. “Trixie believes the wedding party could use these three. However, you’ll all owe Trixie a favor. After all, this is Trixie’s special day…”

“We will!”
“We’ll be the best bridesmares ever!”
“You won’t regret it!”

“Excellent, now we just have to plan how the ceremony will go,” Trixie said with a sigh.

Pinkie’s left eye twitched. With a cry of frustration, she flipped the table, sending figurines flying. Sinking into her seat, her hat slid off her head and onto her lap. “War is hell.”

Another three weeks later

“Take one.”

“We’re gathered here today to join this mare and mare in holy—”

“NO! Twilight, now’s not the time for your lesbian fantasies! Everypony, back to the beginning, take two!”

“I’m not— I didn’t mean to—” Twilight blushed and huffed. Seeing everypony listen to Pinkie, she flipped back to the first page of the script with a sigh...

”Take six.”

“Ooop!” Rainbow Dash’s hoof nicked the front of her frilly bridesmaid’s dress, and she tumbled tail over teakettle.

Pinkie sighed. “Back to the beginning, everypony. And no flying or tripping down the aisle!”

Dash grit her teeth and pinched her bloody nose with her hooves. “I’m fine, thanks for asking!”

”Take twelve.”

Twinkleshine strode forward, right behind Trixie, smiling the whole way.

“STOP! No-no-NO!” Pinkie cried. “It’s Lyra, Minuette, then you!”

“But why?” Twinkleshine whined.

“Because I want you three in order of background pony popularity, and the author isn’t one-hundred percent sure what your name is! Back to the beginning everypony!”

“What? Who?” ‘Twinkleshine’ asked.

”Take twenty-seven.”

“I now pronounce you mare and stallion. You may now kiss the bride,” Twilight said for the first time this evening, her heart racing. Are we done? she thought.

“GYAHHH!” Trixie screamed.

Twilight looked up wearily. “No… now we have to start over. Pinkie’s going to—”

“DON’T YOU DARE GIVE UP, SOLDIER!” Pinkie cried, knocking over what’s-her-name and Lyra to get to Trixie. She wore a bizarre combination outfit of a general’s hat and a bridesmare’s dress. For some reason, they complemented each other.

Applejack rubbed her eyes. “Ya can’t quit now. Nothin’s more important than this weddin’. We gotta git through it.”

“No more!” Trixie screamed, weeping.

“Don’t give up, darling. We almost had it that time,” Rarity said from behind Big Mac.

Big, sloppy tears leaked down Trixie’s face. Fluttershy bit her lip and inched forward. “Oh, Pinkie. Maybe we should stop. Trixie looks like she’s had enough.”

“Trixie’s fine!” Pinkie cried. “We need to practice this the way it’s gonna happen at the wedding! Nothing’s more important than getting this right!”

Trixie moaned and clutched her stomach as she fell to the floor. Twilight looked over the podium at Trixie and Pinkie. “Well, it’s the second most important thing.”

“What could be more important than the wedding party?!” Pinkie barked with a dangerous edge in her voice.

“The foal,” Trixie moaned.

“The foal isn’t due for another five weeks, now stop your whining, and get your flank off the floor!” Pinkie said, snapping her general’s crop.

“GYAHH! No, Trixie’s foal is coming out now!”

“WHAT?!” Everypony shouted in shock.