Whoa there partner! This chapter has an extra naughty bit that you could find over here. Caution: Link contains lactation and snuggles.
Penny's thoughts were melting, her mind had struggled briefly to break free of the prison now imposed on it, but the master who had put her in this position would not let her recover. She let out a low whine. "Oh Hay, this massage is so good." It was almost hard to speak but she had to compliment her mate, she just had to.
"Glad you like it, had to get my clever mare something special and I remember you saying how your muscles were starting to feel sore. Did I pick good?" The half changeling knew full well just how out of it Penny was, she had grown fully accustomed to just leaving her 'mental mouth' resting within the unicorn. It was just so nice to know how the mare felt, particularly when she felt so much love.
Their bedroom door opened and closed, Penny barely noticed.
"Hay my lover." Stick could never resist using that pun now that she had noticed how common 'hay' was to say. "What are you doing to this poor mare?"
Hay leaned over to smooch the drone. "Oh, I am practicing a new form of mind control, you like?" Her horn was aglow, she was focusing on nearly every tense part of the pregnant mare at once, to Penny's delight.
Stick stepped around the little table and looked into Penny's eyes, seeing them closed with a happy smile on her snout. The changeling leaned in and kissed the pony she loved on the nose. "Penny, you in there?"
One eye opened half way, the smile grew wider as Stick watched. "Wassup?"
"The sun." Stick giggled and settled in to watch. "Although with how you are right now, my libido as well."
Hay found enough places that Penny's eye closed again and the half changeling actually felt some of the tension spots work out completely. "Stick, your libido is always up, among other things. How did your first meeting go?"
Stick was suddenly distracted from her mates as she reached back into her bags with her green magic. "Oh, I got a whole mess of homework. Each city might be looking after itself at the street level, but you wouldn't believe how much goes on at the top. Princess Celestia has me studying up Canterlot-Cloudsdale relations and information. All of it." The drone hefted out first a few big tomes, then a small pile of scrolls. "I need to sort through this and be familiar with it in two days."
Hay could easily tell the drone, though she tried to put up a front of being overwhelmed, was quite excited. "You going to tell Fancy you can't work for him?"
The drone, her wings buzzing every now and again with her interest in the things she was looking through, looked up at Hay. "Well, no. I want to see if this suits me. If it does, spending some time working for him would not hurt."
"Makes me wonder what your cutie mark would be." Hay worked another knot of tension loose and saw that Penny's mouth was ajar, a little drool leaking from it. The half-cast pony knew full well a massage alone wouldn't have set her marefriend into quite this state, the gentle scalp massage and brushing she was also giving, that was a whole other story.
The shift in topic got Stick's attention from her research for a moment. "It would be something awesome, like a dragon fighting a monster!"
"You are joking, right? Stick, you poke your nose into business like it is nopony's business, you brush shoulders with princesses and the most elite of entrepreneurs. I really don't think it would be a dragon fighting a monster." Hay shook her head.
"They could be fighting with words? Maybe the monster wants to build a mine in the dragon's domain and the dragon is agreeable but wants a percentage of the gems removed?" Stick had a hoof to her jaw and was staring up at the ceiling. She felt a boop on her nose and with only one pony in the room actively using telekinesis other than her, she knew her target. "Hay!"
Hay dodged the pillow that was sent her way. "Stick?" Her grin gave her away and it was returned by a matching grin from the other changeling. "You deserved it."
"I did." Stick sounded smug at the conclusion to their hostilities. "And what about you? How many credits you got to go before you can graduate?"
"I have three projects to complete, as well as one more block of remedial language to cover. Ugh, why do they even have that, it isn't like I am going to need to know why we have the words we do…" The unicorn put weight on 'why', her tone clearly indicating how much she disliked the class.
"Mmm words are fun." Penny had roused a little from her daze, joining the conversation.
"You would say anything is fun, though. I saw you now have an extended study class with professor Butter, how did you get out of needing to do maths?" Hay gave the mare's shoulder a poke in frustration.
"Mmm, solution for quadratics?" Penny tilted her head back to see Hay think for a moment. "B squared plus or minus-" A brush shoved into the pregnant mare's mouth.
"Fair enough. I forget you have technically been through this before. How many years were you at school, before?" Hay gave one of Penny's ears a rub, getting the mare to lean into the attention, but not before spitting out the brush.
"Hrmm? Well, from when I was a filly… boy, thirteen years there, then at college another four." Penny had slipped, the thought of her memories and language tainted by her new gender was more something amusing for her, however.
"Wait, you spent seventeen years at school?" Hay's horn blinked out in her shock and Penny was sure if she had wings they would have flared up. "How do… how is it humans even manage to get things done? Most of their lives are spent training!"
Penny pulled her limbs in and slowly got herself up and on her hooves. "Well, yeah, but that was helped by our medicine letting everypony live longer and longer. You know, I didn't even think to ask what the average age was for a pony…"
Hay was not to be distracted. "Makes sense now, okay I will give you this, you must really love school if you are willing to go back, after all that time learning, and learn more here." Hay leaned up to nuzzle Penny's cheek. "And while I would ask for your help with the language class, I know your sources of words is likely different to ours."
Penny nodded, only then realizing that Stick was completely lost, her nose stuck in a book. "We are such nerds." She stepped from the table onto their bed and moved up beside Stick, curling against her mate and the father of her filly. "We need a name."
Hay climbed up on the bed too and settled beside Penny. "No, she needs a name. We need to think."
"Hope…" Stick murmured the word, apparently following the conversation. Penny didn't begrudge the mare her study, turnabout was fair play.
"Everypony calls their foals 'hope', particularly in the Crystal Empire." Hay reminded them both of where the foal was conceived.
"She is a unicorn, so something relating to magic?" Penny tried to think of words that would work.
"Two words or one?" Hay rolled to her side, letting her bring a hoof to Penny's side and gently work circles over the now more pronounced bump.
"One would be easier, but more restrictive, and we also have to think of what she will be nicknamed." Penny's eyes closed again, this was almost as good for her mood as the massage had been.
"She will be part changeling, remember. Maybe something that reinforces her dual heritage?" Penny looked at Stick after the changeling said that.
Kissing Stick on the nose, Penny grinned. "You are very right there. But at the same time it shouldn't flaunt it too much.
"Ensorcell? Ensorcellee?" Hay said the words, clearly fishing for thoughts and more.
"That works, what would be a good nickname to use with her?" Penny felt a slight kick and her eyes widened. "I think…"
"We all felt that?" Stick looked across at Hay and got a nod.
"She likes it then, Ensorcellee… Sorlie?" Penny's lips curled into a big smile, her foal had chosen her own name and it sent a tingle of delight through her.
"I don't think I have ever heard of a foal choosing their own name." Hay kept rubbing, feeling little pokes against her hoof.
"You heard Silver call me Damaged?" Penny looked to her mates, getting a blank stare from Hay but a nod from Stick. "You could say I chose my own names. Back then, you would often choose the name to be known by in different places, I even was known more by my nickname among my friends than my real name."
"Our worlds are very different, but that is good, it would suck if everywhere was the same." Stick closed her book and leaned in, feeling the soft pokes and kicks from little Sorlie.
Twilight Sparkle looked at the letter.
Princess Twilight Sparkle, Ponyville
She recognized the writing style. It was most certainly from Fast. The loud music blasting in from outside jangled the alicorn's nerves enough that she opened the letter before she thought about it too much more.
Dear Princess Twilight, Twi.
Twilight giggled at the nickname.
I send you the warmest of greetings and invite you to my hive for a night of relaxed celebration. Please know that I think of you often, still. Princess Fast Change.
It was short and for some reason Twilight wanted to hug it to herself and just smell it. What would the event be? She checked the date on the little card included and realized it would be tonight!
Teleportation was out. It was a little too far and she didn't like going further than she could safely see. Stepping out to her balcony Twilight could hear the blaring music from the concert and groaned. She spread her wings and set about getting away from Ponyville.
With her time spent with Rainbow Dash, Twilight had grown confident enough with her wings that she could fly and think on other things. Things like Fast Change. Her blush lasted all the way to Canterlot.
She set down near the hive and looked around. Then surprise hit her. "Stick, Penny… Penny?" Twilight trotted over and looked at the pregnant mare. "You have grown." She felt dizzy-happy, her friends looked to be glowing with health.
"Thanks, Twilight. Oh, this is Hay!" Penny lifted a foreleg up over her half-changeling love. "This is Twil-"
"I know who Princess Twilight Sparkle is, Penny." Hay booped Penny on the nose. "Pleased to meet you, your highness." Hay executed a perfect bow.
Twilight blushed at the formality. "Please, just Twilight is fine. Here for Fast's little party?"
The three nodded but Stick replied. "Yup, the hatching is the talk of the city!"
"Hatching?" Twilight looked shocked and surprised.
"Yeah, mom laid some eggs and, thanks to how much food she has been getting, they are about to hatch!" Stick was practically bouncing and hadn't noticed the shock on Twilight's features. The alicorn looked ready to bolt but Penny stepped forward and put a leg over the mare's withers with some effort.
"What's wrong?" Penny was usually clueless to social cues, but Twilight was telegraphing her emotions enough that if Stick weren't so giddy she would almost have felt it.
"I thought… well, that we…" Twilight looked about to cry.
"Whoa, slow down." Stick finally got a fix on the situation. "You and Fast got pretty close, didn't you?"
Twilight nodded, but her brain was rushing through what-ifs. "I thought… well…"
"She is the queen of the hive, if she doesn't lay eggs, the hive won't reproduce, it would slowly shrink and die." Stick snuggled against the alicorn's other side. "Even if she took a pony mate, she would still need to do this."
The logic of it was sound, it made sense to Twilight. But it still hurt. "I should go…"
"Nope, not going to happen." Penny pulled on Twilight, trying to guide the alicorn toward the hive. "And don't try to teleport away, that would be rude."
Twilight blushed, she had to stop herself from building the energy to teleport. "You are right. I should talk to her. We are friends and friends don't just leave." The alicorn didn't notice, walking beside her friend, that Penny's back legs had the slightest of odd gaits.