Life Lessons

by lunabrony

5 - Foiled Again

Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle were momentarily struck silent by the sudden appearance of the alicorn. They had seen a great many strange things in their short lives, but an unannounced visitor of such high ranking reached right up there on their personal achievement charts with getting chased by a giant squid. Who, as it tuned out, was only searching for its mother, but that was another story altogether.

"Princess Cadenza..." Bloom began.

"Please. Call me Cadance. What can I help you girls with?"

"Finally, someone willing to help us," Sweetie Belle sighed with relief. "We're trying to find out where foals come from, and nopony will tell us. They just act all weird and secretive every time we ask. We've been doing a lot of investigating and that's brought us here, to the... whatever this is."

"The foal preparation class," Bloom added.

"It's called Lamaze," Cadance said. "And I commend you for your investigation, but I'm afraid the material covered in this class isn't quite for ears as young as yours."

"Foiled again!" Apple Bloom complained. "Why won't anypony tell us anything?"

"Girls, girls!" Cadance said. "It's just not something you need to know about. Why are you so concerned, anyway? Shouldn't you be out playing in the schoolyard, finding your cutie marks, making friends? Things like that? You really shouldn't let this bother you," she said kindly. "You're just not old enough. Someday the day will come, and you'll wish you still had time to run around as you do now."

"But several of the adults in Ponyville have foals, and I've never seen a single one of them pregnant before!" Sweetie Belle said. "Isn't pregnancy supposed to take like... a really long time? What does it even do?"

"That's obvious," Bloom said. "The mothers get really fat from eatin; so much while they store food inside them so they can feed the foal when the pterodactyl brings it," she said.

Cadance stared at her. "What."

"Well that's what mah sister told me. She acts like ah can't keep a secret but ah ain't told any of the others at school yet!"

Sweetie Belle shrugged. "It's the most sensible explanation I've heard so far, though I really don't think ponies can do that. I'll add it to our list of possibilities."

Cadance held the door open, gently ushering them out. "You two have nothing to worry about, just try to go about your lives and don't worry so much. You'll learn someday."

"But I don't wanna know someday, I wanna know now!" Sweetie said. Her protest was in vain, however, as the door closed in their faces.

"'Ah;m gettin' really tired of looking at doors," Bloom said.

"Never mind. Come on, let's go back and meet Scootaloo and tell her what we learned."

"After she apologizes," Bloom said.

"Of course, after that," Sweetie said.

The sounds of small galloping hooves receded down the hallway, and Cadance's smile vanished as quickly as if it had been erased with Neighcrosoft Paint.

"They're asking questions," Cadance said, her tone one of annoyance. There didn't seem to be anyone within earshot, but from the darkness came grunts of acknowledgement.

"Follow them," she commanded, turning to leave the room herself. From behind her came no verbal reply, but two sets of large, solid blue eyes blinked into existance and narrowed in focus, before dark blurs disappeared out the window.

Comments

[Slendermare]

more. Just, more.

[ferret]

The Cake twins are changeling spies!!