Five Weeks Later (Week 8)-

The sterile white walls of the Crystal Empire Central Hospital stared back at Gleaming. Cupboards filled with medical supplies lined the far wall, and in the corner, a complicated machine with wires and strange-looking wands was hooked up to a black screen. The unnaturally-bright lights above made her squint, but at least that made it easier to ignore the pictures of mare and fetus anatomy all around.

Gleaming stifled a yawn. She probably would’ve dozed off already if her bladder wasn’t so full. The ultrasound required her to drink a lot of water to provide a better picture, and it was exactly helping that the blasted nurse was taking her sweet time to come in.

“Damn it all...” Gleaming ran a hoof down her face. She felt jittery, almost like she’d just gotten over being sick. She took a deep breath and let it out, but it did little to quell the butterflies in her stomach. She tapped her hoof and bounced her legs up and down.

At last, the door opened with a soft squeak.

In walked a bluish-green unicorn in nurse’s scrubs. A clipboard floated in her magic as she pulled out a quill.

“Good morning, Highness!” The unicorn held out her hoof. “I’m Aqua, one of the senior nurses for obstetrics and gynecology. How’re you feeling?”

“Tired,” Gleaming mumbled. She yawned again as she shook Aqua’s hoof. “Dunno why—I got eight hours of sleep and I still wanna crash.”

Aqua giggled. “Fatigue’s pretty common in the early months. You can think of it as your body gearing up for things to come.”

“Mrghghghggh.” Gleaming sat back flat on the bed, her eyelids drooping. “Still sucks.”

Aqua examined Gleaming’s body for any obvious abnormalities, taking note of basic things like pulse and blood pressure. She jotted them down before going over to the machine by the bed. “I think this’ll be your first ultrasound with us. Is that right?”

Gleaming nodded. “Would’ve done it last week, but we had to reschedule.”

Aqua made a note of that. “So this’ll be the first time seeing your foal. You excited?”

Gleaming didn’t reply. She idly stroked her abdomen as she endured a mental whirlwind.

Aqua patted Gleaming’s shoulder. “The first child is always the scariest, but it gets easier after that. Heck, the whole thing almost becomes routine by your third!”

Gleaming’s eyes flew open. “Whoa, whoa, whoa! My third?! Hold on, there’s no way I’m going through all of this more than once!”

Aqua snickered. “If I had a bit for every time I heard that.”

Gleaming frowned at her. “I’m a stallion, Miss Aqua. You know I am! ! This isn’t something I’m going to make a habit of.”

But Aqua just smiled. “No disrespect, Princess, but my special talent is to recognize the nurturing instinct in others. It’s easy for me to see which mares will only want one foal, which ones likely conceived on accident, which ones’ll want more, things like that. And not just in mares—I can spot it in stallions, too.”

Aqua leaned a bit closer. “You have the strongest nurturing instinct I’ve ever seen. If Princess Cadance can’t carry your kids, then I’ll bet my cutie mark you’ll be doing this again.”

Gleaming felt her insides flutter. Words failed her at first, which allowed a little voice in the back of her head to point out that being a guardian had always been in her blood. She’d made a freaking career out of it.

“Yeah, well… we can’t do it again,” Gleaming finally said. “There were special circumstances that allowed us to do this at all, so… yeah. One-time thing.”

Aqua shrugged. “Maybe for genetic children. There are other ways to become a parent besides having a foal of your own.”

Gleaming’s ears twitched. “Like adoption, you mean?”

Aqua nodded. “And others. Surrogacy, in-vitro, thaumic cell manipulation, aether gene therapy, to name just a few. The foal in each of those cases wouldn’t be both yours and Princess Cadance’s, but it’d be better than nothing. Might be something to look into.”

Gleaming bit her lip. She didn’t say anything, but her lips scrunched up like she was trying to swallow something sour.

Aqua’s ears wilted. “You already have, haven’t you.”

Gleaming’s voice was distant. “For the last two years or so. We’ve never given up on going that route, but our hearts haven’t really been in it. I’m sure that if we did adopt or have a surrogate we’d love the child just the same, but there’s a part of us that wants our kid to be the result of… well, us. I never would’ve considered something like this on my own, but after Cady told me it was the only way she could find…”

Aqua started up the ultrasound machine. “The situation is strange, I’ll admit. Most couples wouldn’t go so far as you two have, but the desire you mentioned—for the child to be both hers and yours—that isn’t strange at all. A lot of couples feel that way, which is why it takes such a special couple to adopt. I’m not going to pretend like I know what you should do, but I do think that you two aren’t doomed to just one child if you want more after this. You have options.”

Well, that wasn’t the greatest silver lining, but it was still better than nothing. A silence fell as Gleaming yawned again and let her eyes fall closed, her thoughts drifting.

The ultrasound machine started up without any difficulty. A lulling hum filled the room that made Gleaming even drowsier, and she nearly dozed off as Aqua picked up long, thin wand with a rounded end. She covered it with a rubber casing and slathered it with blue, goopy gel.

“Er, you DO know what an early pregnancy ultrasound entails, right?” Aqua asked.

Gleaming grunted. “Gotta stick it up in me. Can you at least warm it up with a heating spell?”

Aqua giggled. “Already did. Won’t hurt a bit, promise.”

Gleaming spread her legs and and gestured southward. “Then have at it.”

Aqua situated herself. She fiddled with a few settings on the machine, then slowly, gently, she pushed the ultrasound wand into Gleaming’s labia.

Gleaming failed to bite back a moan. The tool felt like a dildo, except it was thinner and made of a harder plastic. Her heart rate picked up as inch after inch of the wand sank into her.

“Yeah,” Aqua agreed. “It feels pretty good.”

Gleaming felt her tension melt away. She let out the breath she didn’t even know she’d been holding as she relaxed further into the bed.

“I’m about to come up to your cervix,” Aqua said after a moment. “I’ll be pressing the wand against it to try and find the foal, which may be a little uncomfortable, but it shouldn’t hurt.”

“Mmmm...” Gleaming purred like a contented kitten. “Sure thing…”

Sure enough, Gleaming felt something hard come into contact with her innermost barrier. She tensed up at first, but thankfully Aqua was gentle. Gleaming gradually got used to the strange prodding as they both watched the black screen.

“Gotcha!” Aqua said after a few moments. She pointed at a gray bean shape with a darker gray blur inside it. “There you go, Princess! There’s your baby.”

Gleaming blinked like an owl. Said ‘baby’ was nothing more than a fuzzy blob! Were the features of a pony even there yet?

Gleaming tilted her head. “Uh…”

Aqua laughed. “Not much to look at, I know. Things’ll get more interesting in the coming months.”

Gleaming simply stared. It didn’t really look like anything but at the moment, so she didn’t have any context. She thought she maybe saw a hoof? Or that could’ve been its head… or its tail… oh, who was she kidding.

“Looks healthy,” Aqua remarked. “Good size and everything. Lemme see if I can move around for a better angle..”

She moved the wand up a teeny tiny bit so she could get a different view...

Aqua gasped. “Well, would you look at that!”

“What?!” said Gleaming. “What is it? What’s wrong?!”

Aqua chuckled. “Nothing at all.” She pointed at the second bean shape she’d just found. “Although it seems that it looks like you’re gonna be having more than one after all! Congratulations! You’ve got twins!”

Gleaming’s eyes shrunk to pinpricks. The world slowed to a grinding halt as she looked at where Aqua was pointing, the second bean shapes clear as day.

“T-Twins…”

Aqua moved the wand again. “The second one is in a good spot. Not too close to the other one, not too far away. Looks like you got lucky! They both have plenty of room to grow.”

Gleaming just continued to stare, eyes glassy. Her brain was still deciding on what emotion was best suited for this news.

“Baby B looks good.” Aqua fiddled with the machine before pressing sliding the wand up a bit. “Nothing out of the ordinary that I can see. Amniotic sac’s a good size, umbilical cord’s intact… good thing you’ve been taking prenatal vitamins, though. You’d be surprised how much of a difference—”

Suddenly, an afterimage appeared behind the second foal. The bean shape became blurred and indistinct, the lines of its silhouette shifting and overlapping.

Aqua frowned. “What the...”

The shift in Aqua’s voice snapped Gleaming out of it. She jerked her head up. “Huh? What?! What the what?!”

Aqua didn’t reply. With utmost care, she tilted the wand at an angle so she could see behind the second foal.

And that’s when they saw the other two bean shapes.

“Oh,” Aqua remarked.

Gleaming’s voice was a squeak. “Th-Those are...”

Aqua clucked her tongue. She used several methods just to make sure, her lips pursed as she moved the wand back and forth.

“I’ve been a nurse for nineteen years,” Aqua said at last. “And in all that time, I’ve never seen anything beyond a triplet pregnancy. I’ll talk to Doctor Endo, but I think we’re gonna need to call in some specialists here.”

Gleaming fainted.

Later-

“FOUR?!” said Cadance.

Gleaming was back at home in their apartment. Cadance been working on paperwork all morning and afternoon, and her haggard appearance suggested she hadn’t even taken a break.

“At least four,” Gleaming floated over a manila folder for Cadance to see. “There’s only so much you can see with that kind of scan, and Aqua couldn’t count them by their heartbeats because a Greater Detect Life spell is too much for her.”

Cadance looked over the photos. Her eyes widened as she beheld the fuzzy shapes that’d been circled with a marker. The pictures fluttered to the desk as she looked up at Gleaming.

Gleaming snickered. “Looks like I’ll be showing early like you wanted, babe.”

Cadance fell back into her chair. “The ovulation spell I used… oh, dear Celestia... it really DID make you… I was just saying those things to get you riled up! I didn’t th-think it actually would—I never meant for...”

“Well, that’s what happened.” Gleaming went over to the dresser and picked up her bottle of prenatal vitamins. She took one, then pulled out a few new pill bottles and took those as well. “You’re not having second thoughts, are you?”

Cadance blanched. “Wh-What? NO! I’m just worried about you! You’re the one pregnant with four foals!”

Gleaming cocked her head. “And?”

“Oh my gooooooooooosh,” Cadance got up and began pacing back and forth, her wings fluttering. “I’ll need to make changes to the spells I was going to cast, which means I’ll need to recalculate them, and Twilight had helped me with a lot of that and I’m not sure I can do it by myself!”

“So have her come up here,” Gleaming said. “Been too long since she’s visited.”

“But that’s just the start!” said Cadance. “We need advice on what to do! We’ll need more books and reference material! We need to make sure you get the proper diet and exercise! We need specialists and increased protection on you and we need to build a bigger nursery and hire nannies and helpers and Crystallers and oh sweet Luna we’re never going to sleep again—”

“CADY.”

Cadance jumped. She looked over at Gleaming, who was sitting on her haunches with her hooves crossed.

“Here’s what I want you to do,” she said. “I want you to begin all the million things running through your head right now with this—’Because we’re having four foals, we now need to…’ just like that.”

Cadance gulped. She stammered some gibberish and twiddled her hooves.

“There’s no reason to panic,” Gleaming went on. “We have the money to pay for all the expenses. We have ponies ready and willing to help us. We even have the magic and resources to make sure this goes smoothly! There’s really no issue once you realize what we all have going for us.”

Cadance found her voice again. “B-But… you! This is so much more than you signed up for! Why aren’t you...”

Gleaming snickered. “I fainted right there on the table when the nurse found numbers three and four, if that’s a consolation.”

“But you’re so calm now! Why?”

“Because I got to thinking about how well-situated we are,” she said. “Y’know, all the resources we have at our disposal, stuff like that. And didn’t you say something about you and Twily coming up with a slew of spells to make this easier on me? Prevent nasty things like premature labor and foaling pain?”

“Well, yeah but—”

“Some of which you’ve already cast.”

“I know! That’s not the point—”

“We wanted a big family, and now we’re having one.” Gleaming took a swig of water and shrugged. “We make some adjustments, we talk to some ponies, we make some announcements, we come up with new plans, we be a little more careful overall. We’ll be holding our four kids by next summer.”

Cadance was at a loss. It sounded like all those words were right, but they weren’t coming to the conclusion Cadance was expecting. “You can’t possibly—you’re gonna be huge, you know that? You’re gonna gain a lot of weight, so much that you may not even be able to walk by full term!”

Gleaming chuckled. “Doctor Endo said he’d like to see me gain about ninety pounds. I’m supposed to start eating five full meals a day to get there. I already sent word to the kitchens.”

Cadance winced. “How can you be okay with that?”

“Because of why I’m doing it!” Gleaming came over to Cadance, then picked up her hoof and rested it on her stomach. “I was so shocked in the hospital I didn’t know what to think, but later it sunk in that I’d just seen our children. We’re already parents, Cady! We don’t have to wait for them to be born! I want our kids to be as happy and healthy as they can be, don’t you?”

“Of course!” Cadance snapped, a little harsher than she intended. “I’m just confused why you’re taking all of this in stride!”

Gleaming snorted. “I can get my figure back easily enough. This is a small price to pay for us to have more than one, don’t you think?”

Cadance tongued the inside of her mouth. She was still thrown for a loop about it all, but if Gleaming was seeing it as a good thing...

“Yeah… yeah!” Before she knew it, she was laughing and giving Gleaming a hug. “You’re right! We really are gonna be having more than one—omygoshohmygoshohmygoshwe’rehavingmorethanone! EEEEEEEEE!”

Cadance spread her wings and flew into the air. She began sailing around the room in circles while cheering loud and long.

“WE’RE HAVING MORE THAN ONNNNNNNNNNE!” she yelled.

Gleaming couldn’t help but laugh. She watched Cadance for a little while, but then her gaze inevitably drifted back downward.

“...Please let one of you be a boy.”

Author's Notes:

The vote was really close, so I decided to compromise. Things may change later on in the story. We'll see.