Alien Affectations

The following story by Kassaz was written to accompany this artwork:
https://www.fimfiction.net/story/582238/3/tall-tales-of-the-one-true-queen-and-her-many-children/alien-affectations

Queen Chrysalis took a deep breath and enjoyed how her lungs found room to fill completely; she closed her eyes in satisfaction as she exhaled. She furthermore enjoyed the ability to walk freely throughout the hive with a smaller pregnancy hanging from her rather than the inverse. The uniform tunnel stretched before her into pure blackness reminiscent of her onyx exterior; her width nearly occupied the entire tunnel, while her horn occasionally scraped the top. She frowned at that—it had been more than tall enough, before the material resettled more than expected—but refused to lower her head. She smirked just a little as her children walking in the opposite direction were squeezed into the walls by her wide side—which formed around them rather smoothly except for the smaller bodies stuck inside and between—and at those who weren’t by choosing instead to crawl along the walls when they could, all silently. The hive was deadly silent, as it should be, which made it all the easier for her long ears to hear a pony starting to cry.

She smiled. The chamber containing him was open, and she had been regally waddling that way already. She peeked inside with her long neck, only her grinning head with glowing wide eyes and dripping fangs visible to him. Her appearance was made for fear, she’d elongated and sharpened her fangs just then for the purpose, but his back was turned to her and she frowned; her eyes dimmed and her features softened as the magic faded. She chose instead to observe him for a few minutes, eyes blinking in sequence rather than together. He was babbling, as ponies always did in the hive, using foreign words, some of which she recognized.

“My family... I’m never going to see my family again.” He was whispering to himself, and his words were regularly interrupted by stronger gasps, as if he were struggling to breathe. She heard other words, such as “friend” and “home,” but none that particularly interested her, like “sex” and “love.” It occurred to her that she knew what these words meant, the hive had an Equestrian dictionary, but they held little value to her. The queen had no need for friends, and “family” was redundant.

A changeling foal peeked over the stallion’s side and stared into her eyes, unblinking until yawning and returning to sleep, or feeding—the queen couldn’t tell which. The foal seemed to be healthy, carving the grin back into her face. Words were such useless things to her; it delighted her well beyond words to see the stallion caring for her son—his too, not that he mattered. Her breathing was shallow and quiet, but it stopped completely to better hear what he did next.

She watched him bring the foal closer to his face, and he shuddered again before whispering to him. “I-I guess you’re my only family now.” Queen Chrysalis’ grin grew even wider, revealing clearly every tooth in her mouth. She nearly wanted to say something, to congratulate them on their strong bond, but knew she shouldn’t. Regardless, the entrance to the chamber holding them was too narrow for her to fit, and she wouldn’t waste magic on something so meaningless. He would walk to her when she wanted him, which would be some time later.

She continued walking through the tunnel, which eventually featured a hard turn. Many tunnels in the hive were circuits, lacking a beginning and ending, but not all of them. The crying of the stallion kept repeating in her head, keeping a satisfied smile on her face. It occurred to the queen that she would more effectively infiltrate equine society if she better mimicked their queer behaviour, and that she should make an effort to practice. She turned her head to look at one of her children squirming inside her womb; they would not suffice for this. That decided, she walked through the illusory bend to put herself in a terminal route. Some walls in the hive were truly doors, some slid aside as packed rock, and the most important were other changelings, but the wall through which her head slid first was purely light bent by magic. Captured ponies so rarely tried to explore the hive and were easily beaten when caught; it wasn’t worth wasting magic on a true barrier when a changeling escort worked well enough to keep anypony unaware and outside.

Her long forelegs stepped through next along with the front of her thorax, and she looked back again as her middle was stuck in the passageway. Her forelegs twisted and bent to grab the sides of the tunnel; spit flew from between her gritted fangs to splatter on the floor; and she soon enough even had her hindlegs lifted to hold the sides of the outer tunnel instinctually, though she knew that but weakened her position. Many moments of struggle passed, she held herself still to listen. Her motherly form inconvenienced her, but instinct too reminded her that she was above struggling alone. She heard one of her children walking towards her; certain was she that he wouldn’t pass by his queen burdened and stuck, that had never happened, but better to give him no chance for it to cross his mind. She waited, and one of her hindlegs twisted further to drape over his back and drag him underneath her. She let that hindleg return to the ground while the other stayed stuck in the wall, and waited with a satisfied smile.

Said smile soured a little as she felt him clumsily pushing her belly, accomplishing nothing but surrounding himself with her body. His hooves soon enough found her rear to push, it felt like he may have been particularly short, but she cared not to twist her head and peek through the magic veil to see. He may have been particularly stupid also, as she felt him add his head to the pushing without much thought to where his horn was poking. She started to sneer looking back, but then she budged. Her askew hindleg became wedged between her gut and the passageway, and she used it as a lever. She didn’t look back at her child when she made it through the passageway.

The tunnel expanded into a large room with crystalline light stabbed into the ceiling. Jagged rocks filled with holes shot out from the floor. She looked at the shadows in every direction, to see eyes made in her image, made in her body, looking back at her; she focussed on none of them, only on the center of the room: A recent brood lay on the floor by itself. The foals before her were larger than those inside—larger than her head, but not by much—and much smaller than their grown siblings overseeing them. They were too young to do anything useful, she thought, but now she would see.

Many of them slept, but those fewer bothering each other turned towards her as she lumbered closer. The queen decided it would be easier to sit than to stand—there were plenty of her grown children nearby to help her rise—and found a smoother rock that would support her weight. She nearly dropped her rear to the floor without looking, but swept her magic back-and-forth at her hindhooves, knocking a few of her children out of the way, and grabbing one who refused to be moved. She brought the child before her face; they stared at each other, she amused at his total ignorance to his near-death underneath her.

She locked her hindlegs, not that they could bend forward much with her unborn brood in the way, and slowly tilted herself backwards. Her forelegs left the floor first, then her gut as it slid along the ground; slowly she lifted, and quickly she fell, with a loud boom echoing throughout the room. Momentum left her sprawled and her withers collided with the rock, leaving her sitting somewhat upright; she grunted not from that but the many moments of feeling her womb’s contents shift and settle. The foal held in her magical grasp had been still and silent while keeping roughly the same distance from her head throughout her movement. They locked eyes again, and she let her hold around him dissipate. He landed buttfirst on her giant womb—she had dropped him without concern for his siblings underneath, who could only close their eyes if they even anticipated it—and the waters of her womb made waves carrying him up-and-down many times before she was mostly still once again.

She saw in her peripheral vision more of the foals taking notice of her—some newly awoken, others leaving their places chewing new holes and edges into the jagged rocks to crawl towards her. She locked eyes with the foal sitting on her again, who stared back in turn with his hoof in his mouth—an instinct the queen had never found sensible, for she never breastfed her children, beyond infiltration through replacement of foal with foal, rare nowadays. She practiced a few loving phrases on the foal, telling him she could just eat him up—a confusing lie, since he was far too big to swallow—and making other noises she knew mares to make towards their foals. The foal removed his hoof and smiled before reaching out to touch her nose with it. She smiled back.

Another foal walked to her side before sitting down and tilting his head in confusion at the cramped little faces staring back. Along with the faces he saw a mass of every other body part jutted up against every other. Closest was a foal curled up on the outer layer, and he put his hoof over him before pressing in deeply, enough to make him rock back-and-forth. He noticed the foals like him but inside her belly were smaller, with his hoof so close to them, increasing his interest. The little bodies inside squirmed against each other, but he noticed they didn’t move away from his like his other siblings sometimes did, so he figured they too wanted to play. The unborn got reprieve when he tilted his head so much in trying to match the upside-down heads looking back in impotent anger that he fell over himself and rolled onto his back, which had him matching a foal whose upside-down head was visible and every other part of his body indistinguishable from the other bodies surrounding him.

A third foal approached her head, and she took attention away from the one on her to look at him. She was aware ponies would sit down and raise their forelegs at their parents, wordlessly asking to be lifted; she was glad to see her child take a more active approach, rearing and trying to scale her body to sit with the other now also looking at him. She set her forehoof between his legs and pushed him up. She watched the two watch each other, and felt their attention shift downwards at a leg trying and failing to shove them off its owner. Now their attention was solely towards their siblings and they had no issues poking back in curiosity.

She nearly forgot her purpose on her back in the room. She gently grabbed the first foal’s head and brought it close enough for her to nuzzle. She decided she was very good at caring for others, and would consider a caretaker’s role if she were to infiltrate the ponies’ society again.

The queen could feel the jealous seething of the many grown eyes watching her shower love on the younger now surrounding her. They would help her stand later, and she would perhaps share some affection during. She smiled at the beauty of the situation: A mass of her changelings watched her, with a swarm of those younger on and against her, themselves giving her their full attention directly or at the brood within her. A swarm of changelings watched a swarm of changelings watched a swarm of changelings, and she was in the center of every swarm, as it should be.