With her remedial classes out of the way, Penny was free to explore more advanced training. Although her days did get quite full with continued magic lessons, endurance work and now with a mathematics professor who practically mined her for what she knew of numbers.
"Electrics?" Hay looked at the book Penny was reading. "Out of all the amazing and wonderful things you could study, you choose simple electrics?"
Penny shook her head. "No, not simple electrics, but I need to make sure I am not missing anything that might be different. I know how electricity works, why it works. But if either of those things," she gestured to her phone and charger, "breaks, we lose out on all that music."
Hay nuzzled Penny's neck in a distracting way. "So you want to be able to fix them?"
"The charger, maybe, but if the phone itself breaks, the best we can do is try and pester other humans into selling us theirs." Penny closed her book and looked to Hay. "What has you in this mood?"
It was right then, right as Hay was replying to the mare, that she felt it.
"What's wrong?" Hay saw Penny's features change to shock, the lunar pony not even acknowledging her naughty offer.
"I felt… I felt a kick…" Penny sounded shocked still, but her features broke into the happiest smile Hay had ever seen on her. Hay turned to one side and brought a hoof down, feeling Penny's magic grip it and guide it to just the right spot. It took a moment. "Right… right there… THERE!"
Hay almost bounced in place, she had felt the little buck of the foal inside Penny. "I felt it too, oh Penny!" Wrapping her forelegs around the other unicorn, Hay squeezed her shoulder and neck in a tight hug.
Silence was the order of the day, Penny laying to one side, Hay resting a hoof gently on her swollen belly. They spent a lot of the time simply looking at each other, sometimes leaning in to share a kiss, but it was some time spent simply enjoying each others company and the miracle of reproduction.
A soft knock at the door broke their little tableau, however. "I got it." Hay kissed Penny again and trotted to the door. She waited for the pregnant mare to preserve her dignity and opened up.
"Ma'am, I am to deliver an invitation to a Penny Farthing, to visit Princess Luna at her first convenience." A night guard stood, looking proud right up until the moment he spotted Penny on the bed. His features broke into a smile, the stoic look that all of Luna's guards bore breaking as he saw that one of Luna's new children of the night was with foal. He gave a bob of his head and turned, trotting away.
Hay closed the door. "That is princess-speak for now." Hay reached with her magic, knowing Penny could see it, offering a rigid bar of it to help the mare pull herself out of bed.
"I don't need that much help yet…" Penny muttered, but she reached to the magic with her mouth and gripped tight, lifting her heavier-than-usual self from the soft bed. "I wonder what Luna wants?"
"Who knows, lets go." Hay floated a pair of light dresses over, the one for Penny having been altered a little to allow for her extra mass.
Penny watched as Hay slipped hers on, fastening it up around her belly and turning. Her mate knew she was being watched and had put on a show. "Nope, totally not in the mood for royalty now." She advanced on Hay only to have her own dress, in the other unicorn's grip, tugged over her. "Hay! Not fair!"
"No, what is not fair is leaving a princess waiting." Hay fastened the dress up for Penny, dressing her almost like a mother would their foal. "You always this… well, distractable?" Hay opened the door so they could leave.
"I… well…" Penny actually had to think about it. She gave her dress a little swish as she walked, liking how it felt to have it on. "No, not normal."
The admission got a kiss on her cheek. "It is cute. But lets not dive into getting you a second foal too quick, okay? I want to get to know you a lot more before I have to deal with a pregnant you again." The sentiment was shared by Penny.
"Oh, don't worry, this is not going to be a regular state, much as Stick and Luna would wish otherwise." Penny thought on the idea though, she really was a bit out of sorts when it came to focusing of late.
"Princess Luna? Why would she… oh…" Hay put things together. "Of course she wants plenty of lunar unicorn foals." She bopped herself on the forehead with a hoof.
"Not that I don't want more foals, just… yeah, I might wait a little while until I have my next." It was a comfortable decision, but something nagged at Penny. Then it hit her. "Wait, if you can change too, that means-"
"Any of us could have a foal and it would be ours." Hay finished the thought, giving a giggle. "Slow on the uptake with that one, I think Stick has been trying to get me to change into a stallion for the last week."
"She wants her own foal?" Penny sounded surprised. The changeling had seemed, a little, to be like Penny in regards to her thoughts on sex… at first. Then another revelation hit the mare. "She has been holding back, matching herself to my needs…" It was overwhelming and shocking, had Stick really been doing that?
"Huh?" Hay wasn't following the new thought. "What are you talking about? Stick?"
Penny nodded. "I… wasn't really into, fun times," Penny censored her words as they found themselves in the open street with other ponies, "I thought she was the same, but now I think she was just hiding it, keeping all her needs and wants suppressed. What would she have done if I hadn't opened up?"
Hay struggled to follow this. "Well, she might have confronted you eventually, I don't think she would have kept it hidden… forever…"
"Yes she would, she is a changeling, being something they aren't, sorry, you aren't, is almost second nature to them… you… oh darn." Penny wobbled a little with her stereotypes. "What if there is something she is still keeping hidden, should I ask?"
"Asking would be the last step. Making her feel like she can answer honestly is the first." Hay leaned over to Penny and pecked her cheek. "Perhaps we need to have dinner? Or even spend a night with her in the hive?"
This last one got a quick look from Penny. "In the hive? Is this for Stick or you?"
"Both, all three of us really. I want to get to know Princess Fast a little better, she is a princess after all and I don't know her as well as you do-" Hay was cut off by a chuckle from Penny.
"I don't really know her either, okay, lets sort something out." Penny had a touch of blush, she had heard rumors about the changeling princess, about her… feeding habits.
"Business?" A solar unicorn guard prompted them as they approached the castle.
"Here by invitation of Princess Luna." Penny smiled up at the imposingly big stallion. Her nervousness around male ponies had died right down, thankfully.
"Very well." The stallion stepped to the side just as the lunar pegasi from earlier, the night guard, poked his head out from inside.
"Ah, you came right away, perfect. Follow me." His voice had regained the hard edge it had first had. He turned and, expecting to be followed, started trotting away.
Hay and Penny caught up and dropped into the easy pace he set. "Where are we going?" Penny hadn't seen this part of the castle before.
"To meet Princess Luna, of course." His voice was calm again, clearly the hardness was for show. "She was very specific about where you would meet."
They rounded a corner and Luna was standing right in front of the entrance to the castle infirmary. "Welcome, Penny Farthing, Hay Cart. We are to believe you have not been for a checkup yet."
It wasn't a question and Penny knew it. "Check up?"
A nurse bustled past the princess, quickly working in that way nurses could, to herd the two mares into the medical area. "Come on now, it only takes a few minutes and we can make sure everything is progressing normally. This is your first I gather?" The nurse was chatty, it seemed.
"Yeah and… yeah." Penny was about to say more but kept her snout closed. Luna sent her a wink. This was a setup.
"Okie dokie then, lets get you up on here." A low hospital bed was indicated and Penny managed to get herself up on it easily. It jerked a moment and then lifted her up, bringing her to an easier to inspect height. "Are you family?" The nurse was giving Hay an appraising look.
"Yes." Penny was most adamant about it. "She is here to keep me company."
The nurse's look changed to acceptance and she gave a nod. "Could you pull that curtain closed, we need to take a look at some things that don't need to be public."
Luna, it seemed, was not to be included in this. "Um, excuse me, L… Princess Luna, would you like to feel my foal? They are kicking again."
Luna's expression changed to shock and delight, in equal measure. "We… I…" She stepped closer, looking at Penny's belly, as the nurse was unfastening the dress.
"Here, lift your hoof." Penny coaxed the princess, mute at the honor and surprise of what was happening. With the hoof raised, Penny gently gripped it with her magic, guiding it in and resting it right where she could feel her little one's activity.
The expression on Luna's face flashed quickly. Inquisitiveness gave way to shock, surprise, delight, and excitement. "I can feel them!" She had lost any hope of keeping her royal plural.
"Them?" The nurse raised an eyebrow.
"We don't know their gender yet." Penny explained. She watched as the nurse brought a little machine closer and held out what looked like a little microphone. "What is this?"
"It uses magic to let us see, roughly, what is happening inside of you." The nurse turned it on and pressed the device where Luna's hoof was still touching. The alicorn quickly pulled her hoof away, a slightly embarrassed look on her face.
There was a little click and Penny could sense an odd touch to her magical senses. The device spat out a little picture. It was comically perfect, it showed Penny's belly, distended, and mysterious organs in the background but, right in the front of the cut-away, a little foal was curled up, one back leg extended and kicking right as it was taken.
Penny couldn't stop herself, tears welled up and she was weeping, having trouble looking at the picture. That was her, and her foal… her little…
"Filly, by the looks of it." The nurse brightened, reaching over and tapping the machine, making it spit out extra copies, one for each present.
"An extra please, for the father." Hay prompted the nurse and got a second one.
"The next bits are not so nice, princess, if you would like to stay, and the mother has no objections…" The nurse looked to Penny, who was still rapt in her study of the picture.
"If she wants to, Luna can stay. Luna…" Penny looked away from the picture, up at the alicorn. "I need to ask you something important."
Luna's expression sobered from the unbridled enjoyment she was experiencing. There was something very different between knowing a mare is pregnant and feeling their foal kick. "What may we do for you, Penny Farthing?" She sank her speech into well-trod territory.
"On the world I came from, there is a tradition." Penny's snout curled into a wry expression. "Called god-parents, it is more a sign of trust and a promise. If anything happens, if neither Stick or Hay are able to look after my daughter, if I am gone… will you please ensure she has the chance to grow and learn, safe and happy?"
The dark alicorn's shock was plain again, Penny seemed to have learned a knack for disarming Luna in a way that the mare couldn't hide her emotions easily, or was it just the situation?
"Penny, this is a grave matter, but we sense it is one you have given much thought to. An alicorn's life is not one of leisure and ease, that raising a foal would be a simple task. We would be delighted to serve this role, but I fear I cannot promise it." Luna looked defeated. "I would have a suggestion on who would be a better fit."
Closing her eyes, Penny knew the answer, she would have to find her friend again. "Silver and Night."
Luna nodded, then realizing Penny wouldn't see it she added, "Yes."