Romance and the Fate of Equestria

Erm… so, yeah. It has been two and a half months, maybe three, since my last update, the one in which I said I would no longer take months to do so… It's not my fault this time! My computer came down with a virus (okay, that probably is my fault somehow, but I'm at a loss as to what I could have done) and I simply can't afford to get it fixed. It was the most depressing moment of my life, I can assure you, losing not only my story just as I was sure I would be updating weekly, but also my weekly online RPG just as I felt we finally had a decent foothold…

My thanks to the anonymous reviewer who has posted no less than four reviews badgering me about it having been over a month. Did nothing to help the chapter come faster, of course, but if you know me you know I love anything that ups my review count. Snarkiness aside, thank you for appreciating this enough to be agitated when it's late. I do appreciate that.

I'm in massage school now. It's a very intensive program. Nine and a half hours a day, four days a week, plus homework, studying, and clinical internships. What I'm basically saying is… I'll be seeing you guys in July. This massage thing is my last hope for a career and I really, really need to focus exclusively on it for the next eight months or, simply put, my life is without hope. Forgive me. Those of you who haven't outgrown me already, I hope you don't by the time I can at last devote time to this story. Which I will once I've graduated from the program and am a licensed massage therapist with all the high pay for low hours that entails. You have my word.

Protocol… this is the first chapter posted since the end of Season 6. Ultimate assessment of the season? It was a'ight. Kinda lost interest again toward the end there. Although the fourth Equestria Girls film was superb. According to the tvtropes recap page, all that is known about Season 7 is that there will be three EG specials. Now that is interesting.

Chapter One Hundred and Fifty-Eight

In the park where the pony-pet playdates had been held weekly not so long ago, a massive blanket was spread out beneath the trees, which were budding with the vibrant green leaves and pale pink flowers of spring.

"Ah," said Rarity, pulling a wide-brimmed hat low over her eyes. "Nothing like a peaceful picnic in the park… to follow the foiling of an assassination attempt on a mafia princess."

"Ha!" Spike guffawed, passing out teacups. "You girls sure do get up to some weird crap. You don't often associate ponies who do that sort of thing with picnics."

"Heh, yup," said Applejack. "But I'll tell you what that's all about: we go on picnics and stuff between big missions 'cause if we didn't, we'd go straight-up crazy."

"Yeah," Spike said solemnly. "You don't think about stuff like that. The action heroes in comic books and on the radio don't go on picnics. They pretty much just fight bad guys all the time."

"I'm sure they hit the spa or restaurants or somethin' between episodes," Applejack mused.

"And hey, they all have time for romance in their lives," Rainbow said cheerfully, wrapping a wing around Derpy.

Derpy giggled. "I'm just happy to be included in the downtime, even if I'm not there for the action."

In response, Rainbow kissed the side of Derpy's head.

Twilight was frowning, inspecting the contents of her basket of snacks. "Shoot. There's nine of us and I only brought enough eclairs for eight. I must have failed to anticipate somepony." Her eyes darted to Spike, then to Derpy. "I'm so sorry," she said, forcing a helpless grin. "I guess I'm just somehow accustomed to one or both of you being excluded."

"Meh, no problem," Spike said dismissively. "You know what this means, right?"

"I don't get one?" Twilight said sheepishly.

"There ya go, easy fix."

Without a word, Twilight surrendered the basket to the group at large, still slouching in mild shame. "I've gotten so scatterbrained," she finally said. "But that's why we need to do things like this. For our sanity. Fighting is never a small deal. Every fight is… it eats away at you, grinds you down a bit."

"Oh, Twi…" Spike stepped up and hugged her tightly.

"Yeah," said Fluttershy, in even breathier tones than usual, arriving at the picnic and sitting down with Big Macintosh at her side. "That is why I called us here. We could definitely use a bit of normalcy after that last caper. And Macky and I have just the thing for that. We've got a… pretty major announcement."

"We know you're engaged and livin' together," Applejack said dryly. "We were there."

Fluttershy giggled. "Not that. Macky?"

Big Mac was silent for a moment, apparently taking several seconds to realize she was actually addressing him. "What?"

"Tell them, Macky."

"Who, me?" he said in alarm.

"Yes, please," said Fluttershy, looking up at him with wide eyes. "Please? I want it to be your moment."

"A'ight, well…" He stared nervously out at the entire group, of the usual six friends, Spike, and Derpy, and they all stared back at him expectantly. "I can't do it," he muttered into Fluttershy's shoulder.

"Aww," Fluttershy pouted. "Please, Macky? Pleeeease?" Her eyes somehow grew even larger, shiny and dewy.

"Oh, sweet Celestia, you're so adorable," he grumbled. "Uh… okay, okay, I can do this." He took a deep breath and turned to face the group again. "Here's the way it is, y'all. Shy is… Shy's pregnant."

Shock drained the surrounding air, leading to a breathless silence of several seconds, until all at once the gathering erupted in cheers.

"Oh my gosh, this is AMAZING!" Pinkie squealed, leaping ten feet into the air as confetti noisily erupted from somewhere in her vicinity.

"Honey," Fluttershy gently chided through a lull in the commotion, "you mean we're pregnant."

He pondered that, looking her over. "Ah… no. No, I ain't pregnant, that part's all you."

"Okay, I'm pregnant," she submitted. "But we are having a baby."

"Mm, yeah we are," he said sweetly, leaning in close and rubbing his nose against hers.

"Eeeee!" she squealed in uncontained delight.

"Look at you, all glowin'," Big Mac said in admiration. "You're ready for this, aren't you?"

"Oh… I've always been ready for this," she whispered.

"Oh, darling, you're going to be the best mommy," Rarity said, her eyes moistening at the sight of them.

"This is so amazing, you guys," Twilight said between excited, rapid breaths.

"Ooh! I love babies!" Derpy squeaked.

"We think it happened the night we got engaged," Fluttershy explained to the group, her face beginning to turn pink from the attention. "You know, in Manehattan? With the timing and all. Of course"—she stifled a giggle—"it could have been the night before or the night after. But it's nice to pretend we have it pinned down to a special day." With her point made, she stopped trying to stifle her laughter and let loose a spout of pure joy.

"Oh my gosh…" Applejack said, still shaking her head in amazement. In an impossibly high-pitched voice, she marveled, "Auntie Applejack time!" She gazed at her brother and Fluttershy snuggling, and tilted her head. "You really are ready for this."

"Well…" Fluttershy said mischievously, "you know how it goes. We stopped using protection like a month ago and we go at it like bunnies, so, yeah, pretty much. 'Ready' would seem to be the word."

All of them burst out into giggles at that.

"Ohhhh my goodness," said Pinkie with dawning realization. "FOAL SHOWER!"

"Well, hang on a minute," Applejack said in sudden concern. "You two are still just engaged. What does this do to your weddin' plans?"

"Meh, well… not much," Fluttershy said, shrugging. "We're going to postpone it a bit, I guess."

"Postpone?"

"Well, yeah. I'm not so old-fashioned as to think I need to be married before I have the baby, you all know that. What I might be… is vain enough that I don't want to be visibly pregnant in my wedding dress. So, yeah, we'll get married after." Shrugging again, she smiled and added, "The baby can be in the ceremony!"

"Lovely!" Rarity said enthusiastically.

Spike stepped forward and clasped his hands together as he stood before Fluttershy and Big Mac. "And there was much rejoicing," he said warmly.

Rainbow held a tomato in her hoof and raised it up over her head. "A big old tomato-toast to Big Mac and Fluttershy!" she said brightly. "You're gonna be one heck of a dam and sire."

"Dam and sire?" Fluttershy said indignantly. "What are we, farm animals?"

Rarity lifted a tomato of her own and magically passed them out to the rest of the group. "To the expectant dam and sire!" she declared, smirking.

"Dam and sire!" they chorused.

Fluttershy shook her head in disbelief, chuckling. "Thanks, you guys. We feel good. We're very happy. All things being equal, I feel sure that this, for all the years that this is going to be our lives, is going to go super-well."

She sighed and got to her hooves, running a stretch for her entire body. "We've done a lot of things," she said thoughtfully. "I mean, not we… but we." She gestured first to herself and Big Mac, then to herself and her five friends. "We've fought. We've faced death, we've held Equestria's fate in our hooves, we've… we've taken down a hive full of changelings. But now… now I'm bringing a foal into the world and everything seems okay again. Heh… I know one life for twenty-some thousand isn't exactly a fair trade, but at least I'm giving something back." She grimaced. "It's a strange thing to think about, I know, but it's hard to get the hive out of my head."

She sighed deeply and seemed to be mentally centering herself, eyes closed, before giving a soft smile to the surrounding group. "All the same. I couldn't be happier that this has happened and that you're all here to share it with me."

Twilight beamed. "We love you, Fluttershy. So much."

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Endnotes

You know, I think it was clear from the very beginning of this story that my Equestria is a more sexually-liberated world than the one most of us live in. I've been thinking, maybe the reason ponies don't have as much of an issue with sex as humans who probably would in the same position, is that ponies default to not wearing any clothes at all (and even those who do wear clothes almost never wear pants), so it's that much easier to start having sex. I'm not trying to retroactively justify anything, it just kinda recently occurred to me.

…Eh, yeah, that note worked better as a prenote, but I had to push it to an endnote because of, you know, this whole thing. On another note, I was just checking out the reviews for chapter 117 and thereabouts, when the story upped the ante for the smuttiness, and realizing, man, how unbelievable it is that that was two years ago. …I've got a lot of deadfics to my name. But I could never allow that to happen with this one. I have big plans in life. I'll have to remind myself to make sure to fit this story into those plans, no matter the cost.