• Published 1st Jul 2014
  • 3,192 Views, 359 Comments

Foal Fever - Distaff Pope



With a filly on the way, Vinyl's started dreaming about her glory days as Equestria's premier DJ. A mysterious potion offers her a chance to feel young again, and with Vinyl's youth restored, Octavia's pregnancy is suddenly a lot

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30. Birth of an Era (Vinyl)

Ohshitohshitohshit. We were supposed to have two more weeks left ‘til she delivered, and I’m like… 90% sure Tavi hadn’t done much preparing for the birth while she was a teenager. I definitely hadn’t. “Vinyl,” she shouted, “we need to get to the hospital right now, grab the hospital bag and let’s go. If you see Woodhoof inform him that we are leaving.”

I frowned, not wanting to give my wife the bad news. “Uhmm… unless you set up the hospital bag when I wasn’t looking, we don’t have one in Manehattan. We have one in Ponyville though.”

She winced. “Alright, let’s just… let’s go then. The sooner we can get to the hospital, the better.” I grabbed my saddlebags while she was talking and put whatever items I could find that looked useful in it. Unfortunately, there weren’t many useful things lying around.

“Got it!” I said, heading towards the door, as she waddled behind me. “We have a blanket and… uhmm…” I floated more items towards me. “We have a lot of blankets. Did we need anything else?”

“Yes,” she said as she opened the door. “Lots of things, but if you can find a hoofwatch, we should be… okay.”

“Why would I need a hoofwatch?” I asked, putting the saddlebag on and heading out the door.

“Because–” I could see her wince. “Do you remember the talk we had a few months ago about what you needed to do once I went into labor?”

I shook my head, trying to think of where I could find a hoofwatch. “Sounds familiar, but… yeah, I forgot. I think once you set up the hospital bag in Ponyville, I figured it was all taken care of so I didn’t need to worry about it. What’s the hoofwatch for?”

She grunted. “Just get one from Woodhoof. I will meet you at the exit.”

“Alright,” I said as I sprinted off down the mansion halls. “I’ll be back as quick as I can.”

***

“Woodhoof! Get up!” I said, pounding on his door. I heard him shuffling out of his bed, and a few seconds later, his door clicked open.

“Is everything alright Mrs. Scratch?” he asked, gesturing for me to come inside.

“No time,” I panted, now that I was back to myself, anything faster than a light jog left me winded, but if Tavi needed me to run, I’d run. “Baby is a go. Need a hoofwatch for…”

“Timing contractions,” he said, nodding and moving to look through his dresser. “I should have one here…” Woodhoof stopped and pulled out a silver watch. “Take this, I will meet you at the hospital once I rouse the rest of the household and gather some items you and Mrs. Octavia might need..”



He said something, but I couldn’t hear him as I sprinted back towards the entrance to the house. Holy shit, why did we have to have such a big house? If we were back in Ponyville, this would have been super easy. Instead, I was running a marathon before we even left the house. “Got... the watch,” I said, chest heaving as I sucked in air. “Ready… to… go?”

She nodded at me and opened the door. “Yes, the last contraction ended roughly two minutes ago, start the timer when the next one starts.

“How will I know when it starts?” I asked as we walked out onto the street and I waved a hoof to try and hail a cab.

“You’ll know,” Tavi said, glaring at me as a cab a cab pulled over towards us. “Just start the timer when I start cursing your name, our daughter, or life in general.” She looked at the cabbie as I helped hoist her into the carriage. “Take us to the nearest hospital, please.”

“Sure thing,” he said as I hopped in after Tavi. “Should be no problem getting to Manehattan General. Hey is there any chance you know how the game is going? If we win tonight, we’ll have the Equestria series in the bag.”

“Great,” I said, taking the opportunity to catch my breath. So, a life as a DJ/teacher doesn’t lead to me being good at anything beyond a short sprint. Even Tavi is in better shape than me because of all the time she spends playing the cello. Like, that mare’s flank is toned. “And, I don’t know, we’ve been kind of busy the last few days.”

“It’s fine,” he said as we took off, “was just wonderin’ how the game was going, hate to be working tonight.”

I heard a string of profanity come from next to me and started my timer. “Alright,” I said, “what do I do now?”

“Time it to the end of the contraction,” she said, gritting her teeth. “Next daughter, you get to go through this while I have the midlife crisis. If you try to make me go through this again, I’ll bludgeon you to an inch of your life with your own tail.”

“That bad, huh?” I asked, looking down at the watch. Twenty seconds.

She nodded, grimacing. “They always talk about how painful it is, and I knew it was going to be unpleasant, but I thought it would be about as painful as being crushed by a crowd of ponies or breaking a leg. Not… gah! Why do mares do this multiple times? You’d think once would be enough to learn their lesson.”

I nodded and felt the urge to poke a bear or a really big, angry, gray pony. Whichever was closer. “So, I really want another daughter, but I think I’m getting too old to have a healthy daughter. Do you think you could–”

“Finish that thought, and I will rip off your face and feed it to you,” she howled as she grabbed my foreleg in a vice grip. It was crazy how strong her hooves were.

“Uh, hey, lady, you alright?” the cabbie asked, as Tavi’s head swiveled around to focus on him. I was kind of happy that she wasn’t focusing on me anymore.

“I’m in labor, what do you think, you blistering idiot? You should count yourself lucky you’ll never have to go through this,” she said before shouting a very creative string of curses.

Tavi took in a few deep breaths as the cab slowed down. “Time?” she asked as the cab stopped.

“Sixty… five seconds,” I said, looking at the second hand. “Is that good or…”

“It depends on a variety of other factors like how long the time between contractions is. Remember to use the start of this contraction when determining the time. Also, why are we stopping? If it’s because I yelled at you, I apologize.”

“Look for yourself,” the cabbie said, pointing a hoof at a crowd of celebrating ponies as more ponies came out around us.

“What’s going on?” I asked the cabbie.

“Looks like the Manehattan Trotters just won the Equestria series, and the whole city is going to be celebrating.”

“Oh, bloody hell,” Octavia yelled. “Of course we win now, because otherwise this would be easy.”

Tavi called to our cabbie. “Do you think you can take another route to the hospital?”

He shook his head. “Look behind us, they got us surrounded now.” I followed his lead and saw that a mob of ponies had surrounded us as more and more came out onto the streets. Tavi looked like she was about to explode, and I figured now would be a good time to distract her.

“Whoa, whoa, time out,” I said, getting Tavi’s attention to focus back on me. “When did you start saying ‘bloody?’ I thought only ponies from Trottingham used that word.”

“Shush,” she said, hoisting herself over me and out onto the street. “Now come on, we have a long walk ahead of us, and neither of us are in the best shape.”

I hopped off to follow her as she marched out into the crowd of ponies. “Are you really going to walk all the way to the hospital? Like… I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

“Do you want to deliver our child?” she asked as I ran up next to her. Around us, ponies pressed close, and I found myself taking the lead to shove ponies away from my wife and prevent them from crushing her.

“Not really,” I said, pushing more ponies away as we slowly moved through the crowd. “Out of the way, pregnant mare coming through,” I shouted. The ponies near us shuffled away slightly and I pressed the opening. “So, we’re seriously walking all the way to the hospital? That’s like… a mile away.”

“Hopefully we won’t have to. Assuming this celebration hasn’t consumed the whole city, we can get out of the crowd and hail another cab. From there, we can get to the hospital and hopefully be there in less than an hour. Did you pay the cabbie?” I shook my head at her as I pressed past more ponies while Tavi followed close behind me.

“Well, I suppose he won’t be too upset, we were under some distress, and if he really wants his bits he can come to our house and request them.” She looked behind her at the crowd of ponies we had already muscled our way past. “I highly doubt we could get back there if we tried.”

“You sound better than you did earlier,” I said before giving another shout for ponies to clear the area. Tavi pressed herself close to me to keep us from being separated.

“I feel… less awful right now. Once I’m hit with the next contraction, that will almost certainly change. Have I mentioned how unpleasant those are?” There had to be a way out of this crowd, because if Tavi had another contraction out here, she… things probably wouldn’t go well.

“Yep,” I said as I tipped myself into my back hooves to look at the crowd, I could see an opening close by, but if we waited much longer, the crowd would have grown around it. “Looks like things get a bit lighter to our left, but if we wait much longer, the crowd will be as thick there as it is here.”

“Then let’s go,” she said, shoving herself into a nearby pony. “What’s our time?”

I looked at the watch. “About four minutes since the start of the last contraction, do you think you can run?”

“Run? No. Walk briskly? Maybe,” she said, frowning. “Why do you ask?”

“Bite onto my tail then, we have to get out of here,” I said, lighting up my horn and creating a telekinetic wedge in front of me. “I can’t keep this spell up for long, so we have to hurry.”

She nodded and bit onto my tail without a single complaint about propriety. I guess having our daughter in a mob of ponies was way less proper than biting another mare’s tail in public. “And we’re off,” I said as we charged into the crowd.

A minute later, I was completely covered in sweat as we pushed our way out of the crowd. Running (speed walking, really) and doing non-cutie mark related magic really have a way of taking the energy out of me. As we hailed another cab, I found myself thinking that I would probably lose as many pounds as Tavi did today.

“H-hospital,”I panted as we got into the new carriage when Tavi suddenly started screaming and cursing. I checked the watch. “Seven minutes and thirty-five seconds.” I flopped onto the floor of the carriage and didn’t bother to get back onto my seat. Floor was just as comfy, and I was already lying on it, so that was an added bonus. I kept an eye on the watch as the carriage moved away from the crowds and towards the hospital.

***

I sat up as the carriage slowed to a halt, peaking out from my seat revealed we were definitely at the hospital. Tavi was ready to hop off the minute we stopped. She had had another contraction on the way, and I had to endure a minute and fifteen seconds of her berating me for getting her into this mess because I had forgotten the start of her last contraction. As we got out of the carriage and I tossed a bag of bits to the driver, I heard her give another yell followed by swearing, and I checked the watch. “Six minutes and fifty seconds.”

“Get this thing out of me as soon as possible!” she shouted as we entered into the hospital, causing a guard, a nurse, and several other ponies in the emergency room to look at her. The fact that she didn’t care at all about creating such a big disturbance was… well, she must’ve been in a lot of pain. The nurse quickly trotted over to us.

“How far apart are the contractions?” the orange unicorn asked as the horn lit up and pulled a wheelchair over towards Tavi.

“Uhm… six minutes and fifty seconds,” I said, “The last one lasted almost seventy seconds.” She nodded at me as Tavi took a seat on the chair and we pushed her to the back of the hospital, while Tavi continued to curse.

“What’s the patient’s name?”

“Octavia,” I said as the nurse pushed Octavia into a hospital room. There was a bed in one corner and a large mat next to it. “What’s the mat for?”

“For her to give birth on,” the nurse said. “Ponies weren’t meant to give birth laying down, it’s easier for the mother and child if she’s crouched on the mat. Once your child is on the way, instinct will take over for her.”

“And how long should that be?” Octavia asked while I checked how long this contraction was. Seventy-eight seconds, they were definitely getting longer. “Because right now, my ‘instincts’ are telling me to curl up on that bed and wait for all this to pass.”

“Then do that,” the nurse said, nodding as Tavi got out of her chair and headed to the bed. “The doctor will be in shortly to check on you, and once the birth begins, you should be on your hooves, but until then just try to make yourself comfortable.” As she spoke, she went about preparing a shot. “This should dull the pain and help you relax, but some mares prefer a natural birth. Do you want me to give you the shot?”

Tavi nodded her head so fast I thought she was going to break her neck. “Alright,” the nurse said as the syringe pierced Tavi’s skin. “This should dull the pain for a few hours, however when you actually start giving birth, we can’t give you anything.”

“Why?” Tavi asked as I watched her entire body go limp. “This feels absolutely wonderful.”

“I know it does,” the nurse said, “but we can’t risk you falling asleep while you are delivering, and it’s safer for both you and your daughter if you deliver stan–” She was cut off by the sound of Tavi snoring. “Has she slept recently? The shot shouldn’t have caused her to pass out like that.”

“We’ve had a very busy last three days,” I said as I collapsed into a nearby chair, realizing just how little sleep either of us had during the last few days. “Sorry, do you need me for anything?” I yawned, the chair was comfy, and if Tavi was going to grab a little shut-eye, I could too.

“Actually, yes,” she said, floating several forms towards me. “We need information on the patient and your relation to her, any so we would appreciate it if you could fill those forms out for us.”

Or not, I thought as I grabbed the pen and papers with my own magic. Maybe I could catch some sleep after I filled out the forms.

***

“Vinyl Scratch, get your lazy flank out of bed this instant!” Tavi yelled, pulling me from whatever dream I was having. She was standing over the birth mat and hooked up to a bunch of beeping machines. I guess that was good? I don’t know. A nurse was reminding her to breathe while a doctor was staring at parts of her that… well, he was a doctor, and she was in labor, so it wasn’t that weird to see. Still a little weird though.

“What did I miss?” I asked as I bolted out of the chair to stand next to my wife. “Sorry, I don’t know why I didn’t wake up earlier.”

“Well, she’s still in labor,” the doctor said, briefly turning his attention towards me before looking back at Tavi’s backside and pulling some measuring tool out of his pockets. “The cervix is currently dilated at eight centimeters, you’re almost done, Octavia.”

My wife snarled something and bucked her leg back at him. He dodged and looked to me. “This would be easier if you could help bring your wife’s attention elsewhere.” So, he wanted me to get in the line of fire so he could work? For Tavi’s sake, I could distract Tavi.

“Hey, Tavi,” I said, smiling at her while she let out another yell. She snorted and turned to me.

“You! You did this to me, and now you have the audacity to ‘Hey, Tavi’ me? I should shove a watermelon up your ass just so you know how I feel.”

“I’d prefer it if you didn’t,” I said as the nurse reminded her to breathe. Outside, the sky was slowly turning grey as dawn approached. “Just… try not to think about the pain.” She gave another snort and stomped a hoof on the ground.

“I said calm her down,” the doctor said, clearly annoyed. “This is not that.”

“Sorry,” I said before looking back at Tavi. “Hey, have you had the name dream yet?”

Tavi nodded. “I did… the night you went to Ponyville. There was…” She gave another grunt. “There was a massive waterfall, with various things… balls falling from it.” I snickered at that. “Athletic equipment, and I remember it all made this tremendous racket.”

“So why was there so much sports stuff?” I asked.

“Probably something to do with the roll part of rock and roll. All the balls…” she rolled her eyes as I snickered again. At least my immaturity took her mind off the pain. “Were round and would presumably roll rather well. Maybe she will play at sports arenas.”

“Like in the Equestria Series?” I asked, thinking of last night’s game.

“Perhaps,” Tavi said, “I recall seeing a few baseballs in the waterfall.”

“So we’re going to have a rocker for a daughter,” I said, nodding. “We can listen to my albums together, I mean, I’m more of a techno girl myself, but a rocker would be cool. I wonder if she will be more into punk or metal.”

“I have... no idea what most of those nouns mean in that context,” Tavi said between grunts. “Would having a daughter who had something in common with me be too much to ask for? Because having to deal with two of you is going to be… taxing.”

“Yeah,” I said, nuzzling her neck, “but you’re still going to love the crap out of her. I bet you will just dote on her all the time and will wind up being one of those obnoxious mom’s who won’t stop talking about her daughter ever.”

Tavi laughed. “I thought I was going to be the obnoxious strict parent while you got to be the cool parent.”

“Oh, absolutely,” I said, nodding my head. “None of the stuff I just described is in anyway cool. It’s absolutely perfect for you.”

She gave another grunt, but she wasn’t cursing everypony in the building, so that was definitely a step up. “What do you want to name her?” I asked.

“The word ‘Racket’ has been bouncing around in my head since the name dream, but I don’t know if that’s a proper name. It feels like it needs more.”

“I get it,” I said, nodding my head. “Like, it’s one of those… familiar names. I call you Tavi, but your real name is actually Octavia.”

“It’s actually Octavia Melody,” she said. “And I think that’s the first time you... referred to me as Octavia. You didn’t even call me Octavia when you proposed to me.”

“Well yeah, but it was just for an example, so it doesn’t really count,” I said, nodding my head. “Don’t worry, my streak of never calling you by your real name remains in tact.”

“Because... that’s what I was really… concerned about it,” she said, gritting her teeth.

“So, what are you thinking then? Racket what?” I asked, trying to keep her distracted. A distracted Tavi was a Tavi that didn’t try to attack ponies near her, which made everypony’s life easier.

“I don’t know,” she said, shaking her head. “The only name I could come up with was Unholy Racket, and that… I would prefer not to name our daughter that even if she has been nothing but a pain for the past few months.”

“Yeah,” I said, nodding my head in agreement. “That probably wouldn’t be the best name in the world, so–”

“Ten centimeters,” the doctor said. “It’s time for you to start pushing, Octavia.”

Tavi nodded and grunted. I could see her whole body strain, the muscles under her fur expanding and shrinking with each push. I thought it would be nice if I was one of the first eyes to see our daughter as she emerged into the world. That was… a bad idea, and I quickly found a trash can to vomit in. Seeing something I loved being so… Nope. Definitely not a good idea. After I finished vomiting, I looked back to see the doctor holding my daughter in his hooves and presenting her to my wife, the rising sun framing the scene. She was absolutely perfect, her coat was a brick red and her mane a dark green, but the thing I remembered most was her amber eyes.

Well, that and the wings.

How the hell did she have wings?

Author's Note:

Published early to make up for keeping you in suspense for the last two days. Hope you enjoyed this chapter!

Disregard note, I wrote this yesterday when I uploaded the chapter and thought I would post shortly after midnight. I fell asleep before then though, so sorry about that. Anyways, hope you enjoyed the chapter.