14 - Next Generation
I do also very much want to know,” Rarity said with a flip of her hand, “if the baby will have red hair or blue.”
Rainbow Dash burst out laughing.
The old group of friends was packed into the Shimmers’ apartment home minus the Shimmers themselves. The whole situation was more than a little chaotic, but the group was managing to stay lighthearted all the same. Applejack and Pinkie Pie were even in the kitchen making some baked goods as both a distraction and a celebration.
“I would have loved to see the baby today, though,” Fluttershy pouted on the sofa where she was sitting with her legs curled up against her.
“There there,” Rarity patted her on the shoulder since she was sitting right next to her, posture much more poised and “lady-like” as she would call it. “Twilight must be exhausted by now and Sunset will be unnerved. We should give them space even if this Easyglider has kept us from the hospital.”
Rainbow Dash splayed out her cards on the coffee table. She was sitting on the floor opposite of Rarity and bore a proud grin. Her cards revealed she won against the fashioista. Badly.
Rarity’s poise softened and a tick formed at the edge of her mouth. “Blackjack really is an uncouth game of chance.”
“Says the loser,” Rainbow smirked.
“Whoa there, Bessy,” Applejack waved a spatula at Rainbow from the kitchen. “Best not be spoilin’ the good will here. We don’t need no Sunset comin’ home to more jittered nerves.”
Spike barked his agreement and then hopped onto Rarity’s lap. The fashionista pet him to calm both him as well as herself.
“And it’s still summer too!” Pinkie Pie enthused between licking the empty mixing bowl and watching the cupcakes in the oven rise. “You know what they say about summer babies!”
Everyone else in the room looked at her as if she were an alien lifeform. It was a situation the party girl was quite used to and, in fact, enjoyed greatly.
“Whaaaat?” she pretended to be just as confused.
Applejack shook her head and continued. “Anyway, point is we need to give Sunset all the support she needs. And Twilight too whenever we get to see her.”
“I suppose that means no fun and games,” Rainbow set her head against the coffee table.
“Is it just me or has Rainbow Dash become more perceptive with age?” Rarity looked to Fluttershy.
The timid girl fidgeted and nodded without a word, giving a feeling of the old days of the gang. Fluttershy had matured perhaps even more than the rest of them, now in their twenties. She wasn’t shy in the way she used to be and only moments like this reflected her past self – moments where she used her timidity to be tactful. In this case, to prevent a possible dig against Rainbow.
“And I wasn’t perceptive before?” Rainbow’s gaze lasered into Rarity, indignation arriving as if on cue.
“I did not mean to imply, Ms. Dash,” Rarity waved away the concern with one hand while petting Spike with the other.
“Besides,” Pinkie butted in again, “who cares about being a smartypants if you’re hitched!”
The group couldn’t help giggling and chuckling at that. More than one set of eyes looked to Rainbow, whose giggle was more on the nervous side. Her cheesy grin was good enough to convince nobody but herself.
“Then again, Twilight is both a smartypants and hitched!” Pinkie corrected herself.
“She does have it all,” Applejack beamed for her absent friend.
“Speaking of having it,” Rarity turned her gaze back to Rainbow Dash.
The pro athlete looked back and then smacked her face with her palm, dragging it down her eyes in agony. “Here it comes,” she said with resignation.
“How is it going with Adagio?” she asked the question with as much subtlety as a train wreck.
Rainbow had to give her friend one point for getting older. She was even more daring. “Fine. Same as before. Is there a reason you keep asking?”
Fluttershy decided to be the saving grace. “Rarity’s just interested in your life, Dashie. She cares about you. We all do,” she offered before the sound of a ding ringed in the apartment.
Pinkie Pie retrieved the cupcakes from the oven, having grabbed the well-used potholders with a hop and a skip.
“Adagio is not a threat,” Rainbow felt herself repeating an old line. “She doesn’t have any crazy powers anymore.”
“We know, darling,” Rarity assured. “And I am happy that you are happy.”
“Happy? With a bod like Dagi’s how could I not be?” Rainbow stuck her chin up in some show of pride.
“No insult to your galfriend,” Applejack spoke up while she worked on washing the dishes she and Pinkie had made while baking. “But I’ve seen plenty o’ gals as attractive as her. Heck, Sunny might as well be one of ‘em.”
“You think Sunset is attractive?” Rarity purred at the gossip-worthy information.
“Well, uh, naw, I mean...” AJ seemed to understand what had come out of her mouth and looked for an out. “Y’all know what I meant!”
“She does have such a caring personality,” Fluttershy smiled and twirled her long hair with her fingers.
“Personality?” Pinkie sounded off a raspberry while setting the cupcakes down to cool. “We’re talking bodies, girl! Sunny is a babe. Class A do-able~!”
“It’s so nice to come home to my friends having a conversation about my do-ability,” Sunset Shimmer spoke into the room, door knob still in her grip as she stepped through the doorway. Her voice reeked of haven’t-slept-since-last-Tuesday.
“Sunset!” the group all cheered, either getting up from sitting or coming around the counter.
The redhead quickly found herself swamped by her friends and the chaos soon formed into a giant group hug.
“I wasn’t the one in mortal danger, you know,” Sunset managed a shallow and tired giggle in spite of her exhaustion.
“How is she?” Fluttershy was quick to ask, worry on her face. She hated to think anything bad might happen to possibly her closest friend all because she encouraged the couple to talk about having a child.
“Good,” Sunset replied with a rising inflection. “Maybe even better than me. She’s just glad to be headed towards recovery. She wouldn’t admit it, but I could tell she was glad to be free of the...luggage.”
Sensing Sunset’s tired but chipper mood, Pinkie helped her along to the sofa where she practically fell into the soft cushions. “But doesn’t that mean you’ve seen the baby?!” Pinkie couldn’t help trying to pry out the news.
Everyone stared at Sunset to the point of making her nervous.
“Yeah...” Sunset trailed, a bead of sweat forming and running down the side of her face. It wasn’t exactly anything about the baby she was nervous talking about. Rather it was the thought of being pulled into five hours of endless questions when she felt more like getting some rather elusive sleep into her schedule.
“Well, darling?” Rarity gestured for Sunset to go on.
Having all her friends standing around her as she half laid on the sofa was not the most comforting position. Especially contrasting to how warm they were just a few seconds before. As if she were aware of it, Fluttershy moved to sit down next to Sunset and offer her a drink while signaling for the others to back off.
“That sounds perfect,” Sunset sighed in relief to Fluttershy. “We should still have some pink lemonade in the fridge.”
Fluttershy looked to Applejack, who retrieved a glass.
“So Twi is okay and so is the baby,” Rainbow Dash crossed her arms. “That’s all I needed to know.”
“Thanks, AJ,” Sunset smiled at AJ when she passed her the glass of lemonade. Spike was now crawling up onto Sunset and nuzzling her, which she returned by scratching behind his ear.
“Well,” Rarity repeated insistently. She was kneeling before Sunset with eyes sparkling and hands clasped over one of Sunset’s knees in a form of plea.
Sunset took a sip of her lemonade and leaned back into the soft sofa, letting out a tired breath as she finally caught her first bit of relief in a long time. Rarity, however, had her generous patience tested.
“Must you draw this out?” the fashioinsta pouted with a stuck out bottom lip.
“She wants to know,” AJ put in a rare assist for her friend. “Is it a gal or a lad?”
Sunset felt the strawberry flavor of the pink lemonade slip past her tongue after another sip. A ghost of a smile was on her face as she enjoyed the anticipation of her friends. It was also an unstable smile that came from her total panic at finding out this fact for herself. She was too kind to bother her friends any longer though, so she answered.
“Boy.”
Chaos reigned. Specifically in the Shimmers’ living room. A combination of dramatic gasp, Pinkie bouncing off walls, countryisms, quiet squeaks, and confused babbling made that moment of Sunset’s life an interesting moment to say the least. Rarity’s grip on the redhead’s knee tightened triple.
“Buh, kuh, wha, how?!” Rainbow was the one doing the babbling. It was as if none of them had thought it possible even while holding from the assumption it was a girl.
“How not?” Sunset replied coolly. “Twilight and I knew it was always possible, which is why we didn’t want to know until later. If we knew from the start our child would be a girl then it would be pointless to pretend we didn’t know. Granted the chance was low of having a boy given that Twilight theorized only a one in four thousand chance of mutation from RP9 would result in the necessary genetic switch for a male offspring.”
“Cut the Twi-talk and give it to us straight,” AJ put her hands on the hips of her dusty jeans.
Sunset put her glass on the sidetable and crossed her arms. “It was almost certain we would have a girl and we thought we’d have fun by not knowing if we got the unlikely boy. We did.”
“But...” Rarity seemed at a loss, her blue eyes darted about the room as if looking for a handle on the moment. “A boy! What about raising him? What if-”
Sunset was quick to put a finger on her friend’s lips. “I have no idea. But I knew as much about being married when I proposed to Twilight. We’ll figure it out.”
“What does Twilight think?” Fluttershy managed to whisper the question beside Sunset, putting her hand on her friend’s arm gently.
“Well, she’s sleeping right now,” Sunset responded just as gently. “Hopefully she’s not having nightmares about parenting but, knowing her, she just might. I did everything in my power to calm her down. As you might imagine-”
“She freaked out,” everyone else in the room said at the same time. Even Spike barked it in his canine language. They then laughed and Sunset shook her head, knowing how well her friends knew her wife.
“Well duh,” Pinkie stuck out her tongue. “That’s our Smarty Smartskirt all over!”
“I’m kind of surprised you left her,” Rainbow added in. “You two rarely split up except for work.”
Sunset’s cheeks darkened. She never realized that Rainbow noticed such things. “She told me to come back to talk to you all,” she admitted with reluctance. “I only agreed if I could come back afterwards.”
“But you are so tired, darling,” Rarity worried. “You should rest here and let her know you’ll return tomorrow. You can’t sleep at the hospital anyway.”
“Can’t talk me out of it,” Sunset remained stubborn. “And according to the doctors in our special room, I can.”
“If I know Sunny,” AJ shook her head. “Y’all convince her to change her mind on anythin’ when she’s stone cold.”
“Please be careful,” Fluttershy hugged her friend with her own concern.
“So which one did you go with?” Rainbow asked, sprawled out on the rug between the coffee table and TV.
“Which one?” Fluttershy parroted.
“Oh!” Rarity squealed in delight. “Yes! Which one?”
“I’m assumin’ we’re talkin’ names?” AJ tried to grasp the conversation.
Sunset nodded and then looked down to her hands on her lap. “I tried to persuade her to go with a ‘nightish’ one but she was convinced that our kid would just wind up too ‘broody.’ And, yes, I did tease her about using such an unscientific term.”
“So you went with the both of yours,” Rainbow said more than asked. She shook her head but grinned all the same. It was easy to predict what Sunset was going to say when she was wearing the embarrassment out on her sleeve.
“She wanted the most cheerful and bright name we came up with,” Sunset defended herself. She bit her bottom lip when all of the others stared at her.
Rarity just seemed even more taken with where this was going. “Oh my goodness, darling! You didn’t?!”
Sunset looked back down to her hands.
“You did!” the fashionista squealed again.
“I told you it really is summer!” Pinkie bounced in glee.
Applejack put two and two together and saw what the others already guessed. “Well boy howdy. That’ll be a kid as jumpy as Pinkie Pie.”
“Oh, why thank you, madam!” Pinkie giggled.
“What’s his name?” Fluttershy asked politely, blank sincerity on her face.
The others besides Sunset were quiet a moment and then laughed.
“What?” the demure woman was lost. “Oh, did I say something weird?”
“Everyone just assumed correctly, Shy,” Sunset rubbed her friends shoulder. “It’s okay that you didn’t. Twilight and I decided to pick a name that was positive, cheery, and meant something in terms of our family. So we named our baby boy Sunlight.”
Fluttershy beamed. “Oh, that’s lovely. I’ve always liked your names too.”
Sunset might have blushed at that if she hadn’t turned red previously and was not used to such compliments from the girl. They continued talking for a while about everything from Twilight’s obsession over the details of the baby’s room to Applejack’s creation of the crib. After the gang had left, only Sunset and Rainbow remained. Spike as well, but his love for Sunset’s lap had made him more of a room decoration than an animate being. Rainbow climbed up onto the sofa and leaned back with Sunset.
“You know,” Rainbow began in an odd sort of reflection. “I never really cared much for kids. Ones not my own age, I mean. But the thought of playing around with yours doesn’t sound all too bad.”
Sunset rolled her head sideways to try to see what emotion laid in her friend’s face. It was not one she was used to seeing on Rainbow Dash. It was almost like...serenity. Like she was at peace with her life. Something in her was glad – not for herself but for her friend.
“Yeah,” Sunset breathed out the word with her breath. She smiled even as her vision darkened from her sleepiness. She fought to stay awake so she could get back to the hospital. “Not too bad at all...”
The first thing that Twilight saw when she groggily opened her eyes was her wife’s beautiful face resting against her arm on the hospital bed. She never got tired of seeing that cute pouty look Sunset got when she was in slumber, which was further emphasized by the natural glow of the early morning light coming from the window. Her expression was relaxed too, hopefully in the middle of some peaceful dream.
Twilight improved her vision after reaching for her glasses on the bedside table and putting them on. Sunset’s face came into better focus and only improved its charm. She was snapped out of her observational enjoyment when a nurse quietly entered the room and informed her that initial newborn procedures had been completed and she could hold her child again.
As the nurse returned the infant, Twilight roused her wife gently. “Sunny...wake up, Sunny...”
“What is it?” Sunset asked with her sleepy voice.
“Our future.”
Stats
Page generated in 0.019 seconds
Total duration
904 users online
1,174,897 hits today, 2,167,270 yesterday
FIMFiction
My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic Fanfiction
Designed and coded by knighty & Xaquseg - © 2011-2024
Follow & Support Us
Support us
SubStar
Chat!
Discord
Follow us
Twitter
MLP: Friendship is Magic® - © 2024 Hasbro Inc.®
Fimfiction is in no way affiliated with or endorsed by Hasbro Inc.®
That was adorable and I can't wait to see how things go.
uh you kinda need to explain how 2 girls made a boy there is no y cromozone to be given in this situwation this is not just some theory it can be done 2 woman can reproduce with science and it will be female do to this fact
7217005 Read the story again. There was an unlikely gene mutation that caused their kid's gender to be male. And this is fan fiction, so the author gets to make up their own rules, especially when one of the parents used to be a pony and both parents are magical.
Oh that is such a cliche!
Yet I find myself ok with it.
So cute.
Welcome to the world, little one.
Aww goodness that was so sweet! Easily my favourite chapter up until now!
Just ask Twilight Velvet. She took care of Shining!
Yep, they'll need it.
I'm not even gonna wonder why she brought it up to begin with. 😒
Which is great if you ask me.
Uh huh.....
Ngl, I was hoping it was a girl but seems like it didn't happen like we thought.
What a great name.
Ackkk this is too adorableeeee
7217005
Well that's indeed something to be voiced out but yeah, Magic, Yup, Magic is the answer