//------------------------------// // Chapter 12 - Love and Marriage, Go Together Like... // Story: Expecting // by Shahrazad //------------------------------// Big Mac shook like a leaf. The barrel of the shotgun pressed against his muzzle, causing it to squeak like a chew toy. He slowly turned around and stepped forward to the podium with a ridiculous, plastic smile on his face. “N-Nopony objects! H-Heh…” Dash spoke loudly, stuttering. She drew a few eyes, but most of the attention focused on Trixie and Big Mac. She said this mostly for her own benefit, because Pinkie looked at her with murderous intent. Pinkie held the remote to her party cannons, strategically placed around the barn for the reception. Dash knew all too well how much damage a party cannon could do if aimed properly by Pinkie. She shuddered, trying not to think about the two ponies buried in shallow graves in the Everfree. Those ponies tried to crash one of Pinkie’s parties. But that’s a long story, for another time… Trixie flattened her ears, but it was hard to tell under the veil. Big Mac reached up with a shaky hoof and pulled the veil back. She tried to look good for the crowd, but those butterflies wouldn’t leave her insides. The Cutie Mark Crusaders stifled their giggles as they folded little paper boats and set them in the little pool in front of them. Trixie and Big Mac dripped sweat, so much so that it pooled at their hooves, giving the Crusaders an outlet to play in. Nopony noticed them playing in the disgusting liquid. “Yeehaw, now it’s a real Apple weddin’!” Braeburn hollered. “Yeah!” “Can’t have a weddin’ without a shotgun!” “So good ta see Big Mac keepin’ up the tradition!” “Them’s the Ponyville branch for ya, all traditional like!” Twilight, open-mouthed, snapped her eyes back down to regain her place in the program. “…D-Do you, Big Macintosh Apple, take this mare to be your lawfully wedded wife?” “A-Ah-Ah-Ah-Ah…” Big Mac started. Granny Smith racked the shotgun again. “Ah do!” he finished quickly. “And do you, Trixie Lulamoon, take this stallion to be your lawfully wedded husband?” Twilight asked. Trixie stood, frozen. A moment of silence passed. Then another. A pony in the crowd coughed. “Psst… line…” Trixie whispered out of the corner of her mouth to Pinkie. Even Pinkie looked gobsmacked. “Are you kidding me?” she whispered back harshly. “It’s ‘I do!’ That’s it, that’s the whole line! How the heck does a pony forget the shortest, most simple line in the world?! Even fillies know this one! Did the foal eat your brain?! I wanna talk to the foal, get her out here…” Granny Smith elbowed Pinkie in the ribs hard enough to knock most ponies over, but it only mildly irritated Pinkie. “Not now, it’s time fer the weddin’!” she whispered. “Now,” Trixie announced. Pinkie stomped, and her whisper carried around the room, “No, not ‘now,’ it’s ‘I do.’” “Yes, it’s time now… we do,” Trixie smiled, sweat dripping down her neck. The crowd cheered and stomped their hooves in applause. “Aww, ain’t that nice? She already sees herself as an Apple! Talkin’ ‘bout herself as ‘we.’ It’s time fer a party!” Braeburn called. Twilight shrugged off the improper ‘I do’ and plowed onward. “Then, by the powers vested in me by being a fancy-schmancy Princess, and the four-hour correspondence course sponsored by the Baltimare church of ‘Send us more Donations,’ I now pronounce you Mare and Stallion. You may now kiss the bride.” The crowd went wild. Big Mac leaned in for a kiss. Pinkie pushed Dash one step to the left, then pressed the button on her party cannon remote. The room erupted in confetti, streamers, balloons, and one of the cannons fired a fully stocked hors d'oeuvres table, with an ice swan in the middle. It landed right where Dash stood a moment ago. “You were planning to kill me with an ice swan if I said the wrong thing?!” Dash cried. “Awesome…” she added under her breath. “I don’t know why I had to say ‘fancy-schmancy’ in the wedding vows, Pinkie. I still think I should have gone with ‘awesome,’ because it might have increased my chances of getting to experiment with Rainbow Dash once she’s drunk…!” Twilight blushed. “You didn’t hear that!” Indeed, Pinkie didn’t hear Twilight’s words, on account of the cheering, and party cannons… and the screaming, of course. “AHHHHH!” Trixie collapsed into Big Mac’s forelegs. He dipped her, planting a passionate kiss on her mouth. She screamed into his. Lyra wiped a tear from her eye. “It’s so beautiful.” Rarity blew her nose. “Oh, it is wonderful, isn’t it?” “Hello? Aren’t you forgetting something?” Spike asked, proffering the rings. Fluttershy flattened her ears against the sounds, but smiled nevertheless. Applejack rolled her eyes. “That don’t look like much ta me. Looks like she’s screamin’ inta his mouth, not kissin’ ‘im.” Applejack leaned in a bit closer to the newlyweds, peering at Trixie. Big Mac released his kiss, a look of relief on his face. Trixie sucked in another breath, hugged Big Mac with a death grip, and screamed again. Spike, grumbling, slipped the ring on Trixie’s horn and Big Mac’s forelock. Trixie’s face contorted into a mask of pain. “Ah, heh-heh, t-time for a drink. R-Right Rainbow Dash? I mean, everypony? Look, marriage!” Twilight said, pointing at the newlyweds. Trixie’s entire body relaxed as she stopped screaming. Huffing and puffing, she put both forehooves on her belly. “T-Trixie will t-take that d-drink now.” “S-Sorry mah love. Ya can’t drink while th’ foal’s in ya,” Big Mac replied. “My love. Ah, Ah can’t believe Ah’m married! This is the happiest day o’ mah life. Ah was scared at first, but s’not so bad. Ah’m still me, yer still you, and nothing’s changed. Ah mean, not really, not like when the foal gits here. Why do ya look like ya ate a bad apple? We git ta celebrate!” “Trixie is afraid the foal is here.” Big Mac looked at her, cocked his head, put his hoof over Trixie’s belly, and said, “Yeah, she’s right here, so what?” Trixie looked up at Big Mac, her face crinkling in pain. “No, the foal is coming out n-OOOOWWWWWWW!” she cried. The cheering in the room morphed into cries of confusion. Pinkie glared at Trixie’s stomach. Rainbow Dash put herself between Pinkie and Trixie, flaring her wings out. “You can’t just… do whatever it is you’re thinking about! It’s just a little foal, we need a plan!” Pinkie blinked, nodded, and looked back at her ‘program.’ Rapidly flipping pages, she mumbled, “Now where was it?” Rainbow Dash looked at Twilight, her face full of panic. “What do we do? This isn’t part of the wedding plan!” Twilight’s jaw dropped. She froze for a moment, giving Pinkie the initiative. Pinkie slapped a hoof at the section in the program she flipped to and declared, “Here it is! Plan foxtrot-omega-alpha-lima,” she spoke into the speaker on her remote. “Execute!” Twilight blinked, clacked her jaw shut and said, “What a minute— you had a plan for Trixie having the foal at the wedding?!” “Yeperooni!” Pinkie replied cheerfully. She pressed a big red button on her remote, the one labeled, ‘Do not touch. No seriously, don’t press this, it’s super dangerous.’ That’s when the roof of the barn exploded.