{"sf1_id":507496,"sf2_id":"B1QjJA7e","title":"The Elusive Facts of Life","author":"sozmioi","words":1491,"posted_at":"2013-02-28T03:23:00.000Z","tags":["Celestia","Female","Magic","My Little Pony","Pony","Pregnancy","Twilight Sparkle"],"url":"https://fse.anthro.fr/stories/507496-the-elusive-facts-of-life","original_url":"https://sofurry.com/s/B1QjJA7e","image_url":"https://cdn.sofurryfiles.com/submissions/thumbnails/b2/e0/b2e09e95-abd8-44b8-8a7c-c38f24642d03","description":"Twilight Sparkle thought she knew where foals come from, but her information appears to be wildly inaccurate, and this has gotten her into a 'delicate' condition.\nDefinitely not clop, for all that sex is the topic and no one's wearing anything.","content":"Twilight Sparkle panted in frustration in the Carousel Boutique back room, shifting her gaze among the confused faces of her friends. \"Doesn't everypony know? Stallions' gonads produce a particular cell, sperm, and a fluid carrier, semen, for them to swim in. Mares' ovaries produce egg cells that are periodically released down the fallopian tubes into the uterus. If the stallion's semen makes it up past a mare's cervix, and the mare's... in... heat...\" She frowned.\n\n_I've never actually seen a mare in heat. And those illustrations seemed off. Those ponies' legs were very thin, and the faces quite angular..._\n\n\"Okay, maybe that isn't how it works for us. So, Pinkie, would you tell me again your theory on how I got pregnant?\"\n\n\"Sure! Remember last month?\"\n\n\"I'm more than a month along, Pinkie.\"\n\nPinkie pouted. \"So you know how all this works, do you?\"\n\nTwilight Sparkle tentatively crossed out another layer of her supposed knowledge. \"Okay, so I guess you're referring to when I got sick, and I pushed myself trying to help in the hunt for that missing filly, and woke up having been dragged back by... whatshisname.\"\n\n\"Yup. Wouldn't you say that's a compromising position?\"\n\n\"Well of course! But it really didn't seem like he'd done anything untoward to me, let alone _penetrate_ me!\" _But of course if semen hasn't got anything to do with this, that's meaningless._\n\nRainbow Dash looked queasy. \"You thought you had to get _stabbed_ to get pregnant?\"\n\nFor the first time that morning, Twilight managed a laugh. \"Well, not exactly... see, the way the semen makes it up past the cervix is... would have been... appears not to have ever actually been... umm, well, setting aside the grammar...\" Twilight Sparkle became flustered. She swallowed. \"He, you know... _sticks his wee-wee up your ya-ya!_\" she wailed.\n\nShe swallowed, and monitored the reactions. Their confusion and concern had intensified.\n\nApplejack said, \"Umm, Twilight, I'm not the most educated, so it could just be me, but I've never heard of those.\"\n\n\"Penis. Vagina. One goes into the other.\"\n\n\"Those too.\"\n\n\"What.\" Twilight Sparkle, perplexed, said, \"Excuse me, could I have a look under your tail?\"\n\nApplejack backed up. \"No!\"\n\n\"Please?\"\n\nRainbow Dash took off, hovered on her back, and spread her legs. \"Will this do?\" Rarity buried her face under her foreleg. \"Oh come on, it's not like there's really anything here to look at.\"\n\nTwilight could, to her surprise, verify Rainbow Dash's disclaimer. _Urethra, Anus._ She re-checked, the other direction. _Anus. Urethra._ \"That's enough, thanks.\" _How did I never notice that I haven't got a vagina? Is it just me?_ She sat and curled her head down. The angle wasn't good enough...\n\nShe levitated over a mirror, ignoring Rarity's complaint. She put it down, afraid of what she'd find... and, as she'd feared, the view was similarly lacking in a particular feature that she had been expecting. _I am not the mare I thought I was._ And now that she thought back, it did seem odd that she would have never once seen a penis outside a book. The illustrations had been... well, they should have been noticeable. She hadn't really been _looking_, but still, she should have _seen_.\n\n\"But... but... where does the foal come out, then?\"\n\nEmbarrassed pause. Rainbow Dash eventually said, \"You poop her.\"\n\n\"That's disgusting!\"\n\nRarity indignantly exclaimed, \"Not half as disgusting as having to have a stallion stick himself into you to get the whole thing started!\"\n\n\"But... but...\" The energy left her. With resignation, she went on, \"All right then. So, umm, Pinkie, you were saying?\"\n\nPinkie resumed. \"It sounds like you didn't say the words!\"\n\n\"What words?\"\n\n\"'Pinch of salt, lump of coal. I'm not ready for a foal.' You say it after you've been around a stallion out of the family, especially if you were asleep or you were kissing.\"\n\nTwilight Sparkle could not stop blinking. Rarity added, \"Or rubbing horns.\"\n\nAs if it would help with Twilight Sparkle's confusion and incredulity, Fluttershy added, \"If you think he might've said his words, then you better say it a few times.\"\n\n\"_His_\u0026nbsp;words? What are _they_?\"\n\nThe mares looked to each other awkwardly. Applejack said, \"I can't say it. It just ain't right for a mare to say 'em.\"\n\nTwilight Sparkle's heart was pounding. Everything she knew was wrong. \"But you know them, right? Could you split it up, maybe?\"\n\nAfter a few seconds of nervous glancing, Pinkie began, \"Drip of water...\" Rarity continued, \"Scent of oil. And yes, he does need to say it like 'oal'. For the rhyme, see.\" Then Pinkie blurted out the second line so quickly it was incomprehensible.\n\nAs the five rapidly and loudly repeated the mare's preventative chant several times, Twilight Sparkle facehoofed. \"I get the idea. But girls, girls. Do you have any evidence that this works?\"\n\nApplejack said, \"It's as real as the Pinkie Sense.\"\n\n\"But... it'd have to be magic! Earth ponies can't use magic!\"\n\n\"Of course we can, darlin'! What, do you think when I kick a tree, the apples fall in the buckets on their own? That'd be violat'n the second law of thermodynamics!\"\n\nEverything went bright white, then dark.\n\nTwilight woke with a start. \"Oh thank Celestia, it was just a dream.\" She was still unsettled, though, and reached to her bedside table. Grabbing the receiver and pressing speed dial 2, she lay back in bed.\n\nHer free hand fell on her belly. Her slightly round, definitely-not-unoccupied belly. Panic.\n\nRarity groggily answered, \"It's 3 AM.\"\n\n\"Rarity, I'm pregnant.\"\n\nPause.\n\n\"You woke me up for this? Of course you're pregnant. Everyone's pregnant.\"\n\n\"What, even the stallions?\"\n\n\"What's a stallion?\"\n\n\"We're _parthenogenetic?_\"\n\nClick.\n\n_Or hermaphroditic, I suppose._ She didn't dare to check whether she hadn't noticed possessing any new equipment.\n\nA glow preceded Celestia's arrival.\n\nTwilight crawled out of bed and supplicated.\n\n\"Stand up on your own two feet and look at me.\"\n\nTwilight crawled upright, but took a moment to actually face the giant woman. The princess' floating 'hair' did not suit her stern face, and the hands supporting her hugely bulging belly looked awkward above the multicovered haze between her legs. And that was all that was there. _Parthenogenetic, then. Phew._\n\n\"This has to stop.\"\n\n\"Yes, your majesty.\"\n\n\"Rewriting the universe three times?\"\n\n\"But I didn't...\"\n\n\"Who's your brother?\"\n\n\"Shining... wait. How can I have a brother?\"\n\n\"See? You mustn't rewrite the universe in a panic. You'll generate inconsistencies.\" The princess sat on the foot of Twilight's bed. \"I knew ever since the day you got your cutie mark you had terrible potential. And until yesterday, it remained... unrealized.\"\n\nTwilight Sparkle bowed her head again. \"I'm sorry, princess. I'll do my best to put it back.\"\n\n\"We'd best do it together. You can still only access the full extent of your power when you _are_ in a panic.\" She drew Twilight to sit next to her. \"Now... what were you running from this last time? I don't quite see why we ended up as something other than ponies.\"\n\nTwilight Sparkle thought back. \"As you said, inconsistency. I'd made a gap there by forgetting to allow earth pony magic, and I tripped over it and covered it with a bit of myself. I must have figured this was the best I could do to let her grow apples without magic, or something. And the gadgets seem fairer to the other kinds as well.\"\n\n\"That explains ending up as something drastically different, but what were you really running from?\"\n\n\"Not having bothered to learn basic reproduction properly?\"\n\n\"No, because you didn't fix that, did you?\"\n\nTwilight bowed her head. \"Then I don't know.\"\n\nCelestia was clearly disappointed. \"This change removed the last traces of responsibility. Everyone's born pregnant with all the children they'll ever have, so how could you possibly be blamed for your situation? I hope you see why I had to step in now, even if you'd done it seamlessly.\"\n\nTwilight Sparkle closed her eyes. \"If I could remove the last traces of my responsibility, why couldn't I just... make it go away?\"\n\nCelestia put a finger under Twilight's chin, turned and raised it. Twilight reopened her eyes, and looked into Celestia's. \"Because you don't want to. Just like you didn't want to forget the way things 'really' worked, back in the old world.\"\n\nTwilight Sparkle looked down to her belly.\n\n\"You don't _need_ to rewrite the universe to get rid of an unwanted embryo, Twilight. You knew that when it was still early enough. You knew that, and that wasn't the change you wanted to make. It was the circumstances. The history.\"\n\nCelestia put a wing around Twilight's shoulders. \"I'll let you keep the first change, that you were drunk. And you'd remember it that way. That's reasonable enough.\"\n\nTwilight smiled weakly. She'd deal with it, whatever had happened. \"No, princess. I'll face it as it actually happened, now.\"\n\nPrincess Celestia nodded, and they got to work.\n\n  \n  \n\n"}