I sighed dejectedly as I sat on the bed, staring at the floor. I was in Glimmer's room, which obviously was better than mine. She had a rather large bed, one big enough to share. The sheets were off it, leaving just the scratchy cotton liner. Her room was slightly messy with various pieces of clothing strewn about the pieces of furniture and floor. The most prominent were socks of many different colors and patterns. I glanced up to the mirror on her dresser and stared at my reflection, even as it was obscured by a candy cane colored sock.

I was alone in the room since Glimmer decided to clean herself up. The silence was pretty thick, making me feel uncomfortable. Back at my original home, my colony, the place was filled with a similar stillness and silence. I closed my eyes as I fought to contain my memories of my childhood. They were extremely unpleasant to think about, especially once I had learned the truth about my species. That knowledge was the terrible burden every bat pony carried, whether they be mares or stallions. The fact our kind was in decline was not the subject of idle conversation.

"Hey, Viola?" came Glimmer's voice.

I wasn't sure if I had zoned out or what, but she actually scared me. I jumped as her hoof touched my shoulder, flinching as I turned to her. The big teal eyes she bore looked down sadly at me, as if she was working out what to say. As per the norm for her, it didn't take her much more than three seconds.

"Are you still upset about that test?" she asked, slightly concerned.

I shook my head in response and put on a small smile for her. I obviously was terrible at masking my emotions.

"I'm fine," I replied, "It's not like this is the first test that came back negative."

Glimmer scanned me over with her beautiful eyes and frowned a bit. I cursed a bit in my head as she locked her eyes with mine again. She knew me far too well.

"You know the rule about being friends, right? No lying to each other?" she spoke.

I nodded to her before speaking.

"Glimmer, I'm totally fine," I answered, hoping she would let the issue drop, "Just need to keep trying, right?"

Glimmer nodded her head to me, but didn't look away.

"Yes, but something is clearly bothering you," she stated plainly.

My smile vanished and I stared back at her. While she was my best and quite possibly only friend, Glimmer could annoy me with how good she was at detecting my lies. Of course something was bothering me, but it was something I preferred to keep to myself. Still, I had several self-help books that recommended talking out my issues to somepony I trusted would help me and I trusted Glimmer more than any doctor or psychologist.

"Vi, what's wrong?" she asked as her hooves wrapped around my shoulders, hugging me loosely.

With a light pull from her, I fell backwards and lay back on the bed, my head resting on her left thigh. I looked up at her as she looked down at me, concern in her eyes and a small, inviting smile on her face. My forelegs curled a bit as I lay there and I inhaled deeply. Glimmer was way too good at getting me to talk. Her hoof started to play with my mane and I gave in.

"Alright," I sighed out, unable and unwilling to stop myself, "I just, I don't know about all of this."

"All about what?" she asked playfully, curling a bit of my mane around her hoof.

"Trying," I answered with a huff, "It just seems kinda pointless."

"It's pointless to try and have a foal?" Glimmer asked, pausing her little game.

"Well, it feels that way," I admitted, shifting uncomfortably, "I mean, how many times have I taken that test?"

Glimmer was silent at that, preferring to restart twirling my mane.

"See, it's not I don't want a foal. I want one so bad, I don't even care who the father is or if he even knows. It's just... sometimes I feel like I know it's not going to work."

Glimmer sighed at that and flicked my right ear with her other hoof, thinking to herself.

"It's like, what if I'm just plain infertile?" I said, breaking the oppressive silence between us, "Or if I do get pregnant, what if I'm like the others of my kind and it is stillborn or I have a miscarriage?"

Glimmer sighed at that and looked me dead in the eyes.

"Vi, I know you're not infertile," she said in her best comforting tone, "I was there at the fertility doctor's office when he told you that you were perfectly able to carry a foal."

I rolled my eyes at that.

"Yeah, but he also told me I wasn't ovulating correctly," I spat out, my tone turning bitter.

Glimmer leaned forwards and planted another kiss on my forehead, calming me down slightly. It was odd that she calmed me down that easily, but it was reminiscent of my foalhood. My mother would do the exact same thing when I was scared or upset, so I guess it was a comfort thing for Glimmer to do that as well.

"Well, he did say that, but that doesn't mean you can't ovulate," she stated brightly, smiling down at me, "You just have to be ready for when you do."

I kept silent for a while after that, thinking while Glimmer continued to play with my mane. I was always hopeful that one day, my body would ovulate correctly and I would receive a positive result on my test. However, the exam we had talked about was almost seven years ago. My whole life now revolved around me doing everything I could to ensure that, if it ever happened, I would get pregnant the instant I ovulated. That included getting a job where I could meet hundreds of nameless stallions and let them know I was available. Ironically, I also met Glimmer the same way.

My past wasn't a very good story. I grew up in a series of dark caves way out in the middle of nowhere, roughly four miles from the nearest town. The cave system had been my family's dwelling place for generations, some asserting that it was one of the first real colonies established by our kind. As such, the ponies I lived among were quite proud and headstrong. They always claimed we were just as numerous as any other race of ponies, whether they be unicorns, pegasi or earth ponies. As such, I had a warped view of my kind as a whole.

It was when I had reached adolescence did I learn the horrible truth about myself. I was brought into a cave where the resident doctor lived and was given a physical. It was a bit embarrassing since several mares stood by and watched as he examined some very personal areas, but I kept my cool. They had initially told me it was to see if I was healthy and, after the exam, I learned it was only half true. I was perfectly healthy in almost all aspects, but the real purpose of the exam was to see if I was able to have foals. I was horrified when they told me the results: I was infertile.

I nearly lost it when that happened. My foalhood dream was to have a little filly of my own, to raise her and spoil her. I had planned everything, from her name to the diet I would feed her, and listened to my dream die in twenty seconds. That was when the horrible truth was revealed to me that I wasn't the only one. Hundreds of bat pony mares across Equestria were already infertile and the number was growing. I was now another tic mark on that side.

When I came home and bawled my eyes out, my parents told me the truth about our family. The mare I had grown up believing was my mother wasn't my birth mother. She was infertile as well and my father had conceived me with another mare, one of the few fertile ones in our colony. I was horrified to hear him tell me of waiting months to get the chance to impregnate her, doing so with his wife's permission and paying for eleven months of supplies so I could be safely born, but I could tell they were not lying. I looked almost nothing like who I thought was my mother. She had green eyes and a much darker gray coat than I did, along with a lighter blue mane instead of my dark blue-black one.

I felt myself snap after that. My poor father was the first one I attacked, screaming about how much I hated him as I pummeled his face with my hooves. My adoptive mother frantically tried to stop me, but instead got a kick to her rib-cage that obviously fractured at least three of them. I ran out of my home after that, straight to the doctor where my whole life had started crashing down. I don't remember how, but I somehow was able to break his right foreleg, making him tell me how I could possibly get pregnant. I was in a haze at the time, but the parts I remember were of him explaining that he didn't know why mares of our kind were becoming infertile and that if I tried it with stallions not of the bat pony species, I might get different results. I took that as a confirmation that I was indeed fertile and vowed I would prove him wrong with a foal one day.

"Vi?" came Glimmer's voice, breaking the chain of memories in my head.

I blinked, realizing I was staring at the same spot on the ceiling for a while. I had obviously zoned out, not realizing that I was still laying on her thigh. I started to lift my head when her hoof gently held me there, indicating she didn't want me to leave. I sighed and placed it back down, making sure I wasn't going to hurt her.

"Yeah?" I answered.

"You never told me how your night was," she said with a hint of playfulness.

I snorted at that and rolled my eyes. She was always curious to know what my nights were like, especially those where she wasn't directly involved.

"It was pretty good," I started in a neutral tone, "I went to the dance club when you and your coltfriend left and had a few drinks, met a stallion and went back to his hotel room."

Glimmer smiled at that and shifted her rear leg.

"Was he cute?" she asked.

"Meh, he was okay, I guess. I don't particularly remember much about him before we got to his room."

"So, you didn't even know his name, huh?"

"Well, at one point I did, but it must have been an easy one to forget."

Glimmer laughed at that, her blonde mane bouncing slightly. There was always some bit of humor in my stories.

"So," she continued after she finished laughing, "Was he good?"

"Define 'good'," I stated plainly.

"Well, was he big or small?"

I scratched my chin with my hoof for a second, trying to remember.

"Normal."

"Mmm, did he do anything new?"

"Not really. He was more into kissing than most, but he had the tongue to make it alright with me."

"Oh, you got a kisser," Glimmer stated with a bit of amusement, "Those are usually more fun than regular stallions. Did he lick you?"

"He only got to my belly button," I answered.

"Oh? Why did he stop?"

"Because I made him."

Both Glimmer and I laughed a bit at that. It was funny to me because I didn't have many stallions who would stop when I wanted them to, but Glimmer had the opposite effect. When she wanted something to keep going, stallions usually did their best to accommodate her.

"You know, if this doesn't work out this time," Glimmer began, "I heard talk of a new place you could try."

I rolled my eyes at that.

"Glimmer, I'm not going to another club. I still haven't finished this one," I stated like a child would have.

She kept on smiling at me and shook her head.

"No, silly. Not another club. I mean a clinic."

I growled when she said that. I hated doctors.

"No way," I replied, "I'm not going to a clinic to be told what I already know."

"If I come with, will it make you feel better?"

I pouted at that. Glimmer was the only reason I went to the clinic seven years ago, and I was much worse than I was now. Back then, I was a dirty mess of a pony. I hadn't slept in a bed for weeks and had just started my crusade to get a foal with some bad results. Luckily, I hadn't caught anything and still had not to this day, but it still felt wrong to me to go to see any kind of doctor. Still, Glimmer was the whole reason I was here, so I reluctantly agreed.

Happy, Glimmer hopped down off of the bed and trotted to the dresser as I sat up. Her magic began to work and the drawers opened automatically. From inside the furniture came a couple of outfits, each made of a black material. They were skimpy and tight fitting, stuff we normally wore. She hovered one over to me and laid it across my body. The outfit was a dress of some sort that seemed to barely cover any part of me.

"We should be getting ready for work," she stated in a matter-of-fact tone.

I groaned as I looked at the outfit. I really didn't like these. Still, I pulled it over my head and down onto my body, where it hugged every single curve I had. The skirt of it barely reached my tail and I shifted uncomfortably. This was only half of my work uniform. I looked back to Glimmer to see her wearing a two piece outfit, a top wrapping around her chest and a skirt that didn't do much more in the way of coverage. There was a noticeable gap in the outfit where her sandy colored coat could be seen, along with her own belly button.

I saw her horn light up again and a set of four socks levitated to me while another set came to her. The ones closest to me were white with light blue stripes wrapping around them. I groaned a bit, but put them on. The fabric felt funny on my hooves and legs and the tops were scratchy on my rear inner thighs, but at least these would stay on while I worked. The dress, though, was a different story.

Thankfully, I got to work without much gawking. It was easier to fly there and avoid all the odd stares from ponies going about their daily lives. Once I was there, I removed my dress and added some of my favorite perfume to me, the rose one with a hint of jasmine. Glimmer put on her own perfume, which smelled of lilacs. Together, we both exited the employee area and walked out into our work area, a dark bar in an alleyway.

This wasn't your average hole-in-the-wall kind of place. Both me and Glimmer were waitresses here for a reason. This was the kind of place a stallion would get into a lot of trouble for if his marefriend ever found out he was here. The whole staff was composed of mares, single and young. We all wore only socks and tight fitting outfits if we so desired. Most of our fellow employees were earth ponies, along with two pegasi. I was the only bat pony here and Glimmer was the only unicorn. We were always specially requested by patrons who enjoyed our company and looks. I was the exotic one while Glimmer was the beautiful one.

The day started off as any other. A few stallions were here to see us and spend their bits on hard cider, wine or whatever they fancied. Drinks were pretty much the only thing we served here, but if a stallion tipped us well, we thanked him in our own ways. Glimmer often got the largest tips, pulling in at least two hundred bits every night. She thanked out patrons by using her horn to do stuff. I usually got a fair amount since I had learned my strengths a while back. I thanked them by giving them a goodbye kiss on the neck, raking my fangs gently across their flesh.

Still, it was a job and I was good at it. Plus, I got to meet several stallions here who had been lucky enough to get another visit from me later, most of them at night. They always knew if I would see them later because of how I left the check. A lot of the other mares here left cute notes and other such stuff on it. I, however, had a small tube of lipstick waiting at the back, there solely for my little note.

I always left a red pair of lips on the bottom part with my thanks written just above it.