Snug in a Bug

The following story by Kassaz was written to accompany this artwork:
https://www.fimfiction.net/story/582238/1/tall-tales-of-the-one-true-queen-and-her-many-children/snug-in-a-bug

Queen Chrysalis lay flat on the floor of her hive, in a sense. She was alone, and not. She was rather still, and constantly, violently twitching. Her monstrously bloated belly rested underneath her, every one of her nooks and crannies filled with foals, dwarfing the rest of her body. It was lumpy with its contents, and had no clear shape; despite lifting her hooves well from the ground, it still bulged upwards so that its highest point was past her withers. The queen couldn’t tell, and wouldn’t care, but her thin spine twisted and curved along her gut, leaving her lounging on top in what would be a very uncomfortable position for any pony. She had nothing to do while she waited in the bowels of the cave system stretching from every direction around her, but to admire her body and the bodies of the children within her. She had read every book available to her many times over; she couldn’t plan her most recent military strategy any further, for this was her military strategy; and one of her born children was taking an awfully long time to return with her drink order. She had just awoken from a nap, and could feel that sleep wouldn’t soon easily return to her.

The queen stretched her legs and buzzed her wings with a long yawn. Even her mighty wings were incapable of lifting her body, and she took pride in it; the age of austerity, of small batches, was finally over again for a time. Her legs carelessly slammed into her gut, striking whatever unfortunate foals were beneath them. Her forelegs pressed in deeply where her forehooves met her swell, while her hindlegs splayed behind her to rest against a bulge and prevent them from dangling uncomfortably, for her. There was a small window—comparatively—through which she could observe her children; while her transparent membrane revealed all of them set against the flesh, she could only see those directly around her thorax, and not even all of them. The lucky foals directly in front of her head occasionally saw a fang-filled smile, and even felt the rare affectionate rub from her hoof. They may be able to connect her consumption of love in all its forms to their satisfaction. All others were condemned to even more ignorance of their existence, with those at the bottom—or surrounded on all sides by their siblings deep inside—enshrouded in darkness.

The membrane which held them inside her body shifted and stretched in every direction with their movement, however little or harsh, except the bottom set against the cold stone floor. Thin bands connected to her thorax stretched across her belly, from one side around to the other, and provided the only means for her to influence it where she couldn’t see, but they were far too weak to contract when stretched as they were. There was never quiet within her; even if those on the outermost layer were still, those within the inner layers could kick them against the membrane all the same. The queen was resigned to her children having an advantage over her for once in their lives, and merely tried to keep herself lying on top of them like the knot on a balloon. They constantly shifted and squirmed underneath her, but rarely was their movement so great and coordinated as to change her position by any appreciable amount; it was embarrassing, whenever she became so lopsided that she would fall over herself and require help. With that thought in the back of her mind, she pressed her forehooves into herself even more deeply while her hindlegs did little more than bang her underside, trying to adjust herself ever so slightly; she couldn’t move at all, but thought to herself otherwise.

She decided to give them some attention, and ran a hoof along the little faces staring back at her. Some closed their eyes when her hoof drew close, and others watched. In their little smiles, she saw reflections of hers, and bared her fangs at them in a wide grin. Most of her foals directly underhoof weren’t little faces, but backs with developing wings or butts whose owners were deeper down; some were even less present, like little legs—or just their hooves—that stuck out and twitched, unable to make any greater movement she could notice. She rubbed one of the little backs, and watched the wings twitch lightly. She prodded one of the little rears, and its owner bucked with all his might, little hooves stretching her taut even moreso; her magic encircled the little hoof and kept it still against its owner’s wishes, and she compared the tiny hoof to hers for a few moments before releasing it to watch it withdraw uselessly where it had been.

Faint buzzing could be heard throughout the hive by listening carefully enough, but it was most often ignored. Queen Chrysalis heard a particular set of wings, still far away down one of the many tunnels, which seemed to be drawing closer. Her ears twisted themselves to face the noise coming from behind; as it drew closer, she felt slightly more movement from the foals underneath her rear and hindlegs, and she figured they’d seen something she hadn’t yet; the queen slowly began to smile without realizing it, drool making its way between her fangs to splatter on her slick membrane; her smile was killed intentionally before she rotated her head to look directly behind herself. Her born child finally brought to her a golden chalice filled with liquid love, which she took in her magic and brought to rest at her nose. She inhaled deeply. It was strong love, pony love, the kind of deep love that drives ponies to have their own foals. Now it was nothing more than food for her to make her foals. She kept that thought in mind as she tilted her head back and drank all of it in one gulp. She exhaled loudly, resisted a burp, and closed her eyes. The love made her head warm and fuzzy, causing her to forget the world around her and even her body struggling underneath her. She felt so satisfied. It never lasted. Her frown returned as she felt her stomach quickly process that love and diffuse it into the amniotic fluid sustaining her foals. It was almost painful for her to feel the precious love draining from her body into their bodies within hers, where she couldn’t enjoy it. Her magical grip flickered, dropping the chalice onto her swollen middle; she watched it bounce several times as her born child tried to catch it in his hooves, while her unborn children merely flinched at it, and he dove in front of her but out of her view as it fell further. He wordlessly flew away to collect more, hiding the chalice that was likely even more dented than beforehoof, and then she was alone again, as much as she had been previously.

The queen propped up her head on the bottom of her hoof by twisting her foreleg in a way that would break on a pony, shoving the joint into some unfortunate children who could do nothing but be moved not quite out of the way. Not all of the children around her thorax could she see, she remembered as several of them grouped around her stomach started to kick it tirelessly, reinvigorated by the meal she’d just consumed. Her stomach wasn’t yet empty, she noticed with a burp; a pink cloud shaped like a heart left her throat before breaking and then dissipating into the air around her, before she could suck it back inside. She scowled at the wasted food, but reminded herself that the foals around her stomach were always bigger, and would be worked harder. She was made to burp again, but kept her mouth closed and swallowed her food a second time. Queen Chrysalis sighed. There was no mirror with which she could remind herself of her beauty—none in the hive were big enough—and she could only vaguely see herself in the reflection of her gut, which failed to satisfy her. She wanted to bask in her own enormity, the literal glow of her maternity, and yet was denied this. She could feel her womb’s outline, and across it could begin to make out the hundreds of new body parts shoved against its entire surface, but this failed to give her a detailed sense of her scale; in her deepest depths, she felt absolutely nothing—for while all of the little brains and nerves and body parts belonged to her, they also belonged not to her more, with the evidence being their obscurity to her—leaving only high pressure building up against her thinning membrane, organs, and increasingly her rear to remind her that she was still growing bigger every moment.

Her hindlegs slipped from their resting place, but otherwise stayed where they were, and she couldn’t feel around for a suitable spot to rest her hooves again; they now dangled behind her rather than splayed, and she could feel another minor ache added to her body, which she knew would grow slowly over the days. She started to think about pulling enough of her born children from their labour to move her. She imagined herself still where she was, still massively pregnant, but lying on her side; the simple thought already felt like a vacation for her. There would be some issues such as finding a smooth ledge for her thorax, to prevent herself from being crushed, and finding or building a cavity for her belly, so it wouldn’t drag her down, but she smiled not unlike she had when the drink had been brought to her. Her smile died again as the ache continued to settle into her rear back. Queen Chrysalis laid herself flat against her maternity, forelegs joining hindlegs in dangling uselessly.

An army had passed through her hips, its work surrounded her, and she smiled. No hideous cutie mark rested across her flanks, for she needed none to know her one and only purpose in life: Her destiny was to consume love and convert it to her kind. All other life existed to provide love to them and for no greater purpose, despite whatever some mark contrarily claimed. A familiar sensation brought itself to the forefront of her mind, and she closed her eyes tightly. She felt no less than three foals clustered at her cervix, each seemingly vying to be first of the brood. She would have to try a new brooding position with the next pregnancy. She was days away from giving birth. Instead, she would have her born child returning with her drink serve as a piece of furniture for a time. It always pleased her to rest on her maternity while her legs were propped up in some way, and she didn’t care if that way were a child struggling to hover behind her. She opened an eye to look at one of her children, and wondered just what task he’d perform for her in the future.

Like a cork from a champagne bottle, a foal shot out through her hips—she could feel that he was head first—and remained mostly lodged inside for the moment; she could feel the second to be out lined up behind him. Queen Chrysalis clenched herself around him as best as she could. She didn’t need a torrent of newborns falling out of her and onto the stone cold floor. Like a cork, he was still able to plug her up well enough, sans the puddle of fluid she could now feel running down her belly and pooling on the floor. She breathed deeply and slowly through clenched fangs, neck erect, legs tensed, staring straight ahead, unblinking. Her born—and grown—child would return soon with her drink, and then alert the hive. She only had to keep them inside of her body for a short while longer.