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I: The Hop1,494 words
II: The Skip2,503 words
III: The Jump1,619 words
IV: The Past1,986 words
V: The Future1,060 words

V: The Future

By the time Vinyl Scratch woke up, her head was pounding. She hissed and rubbed her head as she blinked her eyes, mumbling with nearly zero energy in her voice. How long had she slept in? After all the work she had put in, the last thing she remembered was feeling tired, and then...

Oh, right.

A quick glance at the clock confirmed her thoughts, and she frowned. Just a short while past "late-as-heck o'clock", by her reckoning. She'd passed out on her workstation, again. Not a huge surprise. She shrugged it off and yawned, getting up from her table and stretching out her limbs, humming. Octavia was likely already home and in her room, by now. And Vinyl herself — well, after that impromptu nap she had, she wasn't feeling particularly tired anymore.

No big deal, though. Not for her. Vinyl was well-used to her schizophrenic sleep schedule.

She approached the fridge to retrieve another of her favorite drinks, and taking a good sip before her ears picked up an odd noise. From upstairs, it seemed like. The coughing, retching, and overall unpleasant, discordant melodies of someone being quite sick to their—

Welp. Time to be the responsible adult once again, it seemed.

With a sigh, the deejay trotted up the stairs in silence, the distinct sounds increasing in volume the closer she got to the source. Her muzzle scrunched involuntarily as she climbed the stairs and the ever-increasing stench of her fish stash became hard to ignore, but Vinyl soldiered on regardless. By the time she finally reached the door to the upstairs bathroom, however, the rather stomach-churning cacophony had ceased. She considered leaving her alone, but, part of her was still concerned. Was Octy out for drinks and had too many? Ate some bad fish? Some other third thing?

Vinyl sighed, reaching up and tapping on the door with her hoof before pushing it open. Inside, sitting on the floor beside her recently-defiled porcelain throne, was Octavia. The poor shark-mare looked rather pale — as pale as a gray-coated half-shark half-pony could appear, anyhow — with a hoof gently resting on and rubbing her stomach.

"I-I was not feeling well," she said as her friend entered, her voice wavering as she takes controlled breath after breath. "I'm, urp, somewhat better now, I believe, now that I've done away with all that mess. It must have been something I ate. And Celestia help me if I've caught some kind of stomach bug..."

The white-coated mare quietly went to Octavia's side, her horn glowing as she fetched a cup from the sink with her magic, filling it with water and offering it to her friend. She accepted with little hesitation, taking a few drinks from it and breathing deep. Nodding, Vinyl set down the cup again, carefully. Having personally dealt with a lot of ponies who had too much to drink, nausea was something she'd become all too well acquainted with. She set about carefully checking her body for the potential cause of her illness, seeing as how she had relaxed enough by this point.

"So bizarre," said Octavia, mumbling her words as Vinyl checked her over. "Feeling fine before, then not so fine now..."

Vinyl nodded, muttering out a request for her to keep relaxed and drink her water. Far as she could tell, nothing about her stomach seemed particularly disturbed, and Octavia did not have a history of such dizzy spells, so what precisely was the matter seemed rather unclear. Something did catch her attention, however, and she almost didn't think about it until she noticed it was aliv—

OH.

Oh. That.

That was a thing.

"Octy," said Vinyl suddenly, looking her friend in the eye. There was a strange, almost uncertain edge to her voice. As if what she had to tell her was either going to be the most incredible, wonderful thing in the known lands of Equestria, and the mere opportunity to speak of it was almost too much to bear... or, the single worst possible thing overall, second only to eternal damnation in a cage in Tartarus. On the moon. A moon-tartarus. Mootarus.

The metaphor sounded far better in her head, admittedly.

"What?" was Octavia's expected reply, furrowing her brow in confusion.

"Just, uh... a quick question. You haven't been seeing any stallions lately, have you?"

The look on Octavia's face was incredulous. "What? No! The last one I spoke to was Concerto, and he's merely an acquaintance. And if you're thinking in that manner, then no, I haven't once seen a stallion in such a manner."

"Err... yeah, uh, then I dunno how this is possible, or how I'm supposed to tell you this, but..."

"Tell me what?"

"I, uh, well... see, Octy, normally when a mare and a stallion get together—"

"Celestia and Luna above, Vinyl, tell me right now or I will—"

"You're pregnant."

Octavia went silent instantly. The two of them stared at each other for what felt like an eternity. She soon shook her head, her words equally as shaky and unsure. "No. You... you're joking."

The deejay bit her lip, checking once more to confirm it. "Pretty sure I'm not," she said, gently resting a hoof on her stomach. "Unless you always had a weird, parasitic alien life-form taking up residence in your gut, and just didn't really notice until now."

"B-but... I... how...?"

In that moment, that very nanosecond, something broke in Octavia's ill, sleep-deprived mind. Rather than scream, cry, question, or otherwise vocalize her displeasure in a shrill manner, she briefly appeared dizzy as her body fell limp, slumping against the porcelain throne she had been leaning on for some time.

Vinyl quickly checked on her, and found that her shark-like friend had, quite simply, passed out. She let out a nervous chuckle, carrying the (rather heavy) shark-mare's unconscious form out of the room with her magic, and carting her off to her bed.

"Not, uh — not too early to start thinking about names, is it?"

Author's Note:

oh man I hate myself for ending this like that

So it only took like, what, just over a year to write something new? Something like that, anyway. Even though this particular brainfart was hashed out in just a couple of days overall. Go me.

Part of me wants to continue this, or at least, do a little more with the concept (ultimately I always feel as though I could have done better with a concept than what I end up doing), but lessons learned for next time I guess. Whether you liked it, or didn't like it, or somewhere in between... hey, feel free to let me know. Always looking for more input on this stuff.

See you in a year when I write the sequel, maybe. Or not. Depends. (I've got a lot of sequels that need writing, apparently.)

EDIT: By the by, since I probably should've mentioned the reason for that twist at the end: there are a few rare cases where sharks are known to get spontaneously self-pregnant, likely brought on by extended periods of unsuccessful mating with other sharks. Basically, the female is capable of creating and fertilizing its own egg, albeit to a less optimal extent than if they had properly mated. The more you know.

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