Author's Notes:

Fan Sequel of:
The Equestrian Gastronomic Society
by:
MighyShockwave

After Luna is eaten by Prince Pharynx at a vorish nightclub, her sister begins to ferociously investigate the “mysterious” disappearance. Eventually, her inquiries lead her to The Equestrian Gastronomic Society: a very secretive club, considering that all the supposed patrons who Celestia’s intel is sure had been there on that night refused to say anything, even under pressure of the Sun Princess’s own questioning. Now, she is about to unwittingly look into this club, and worse: by herself.

Fetish Checklist:

ONE: implied vore in background
TWO: background oral vore, post-vore/weight gain taunting
THREE: pred vs. prey battle/hunt, oral vore x2
FOUR: mostly-implied digestion, vore threats & promises

- - - -

ONE

As I step trough the doorway, I let my eyes close gently and I sigh quietly, letting go of my frustration with the bouncers—surely, they were simply doing their job trying to maintain the exclusivity of this “Society”. Sure enough, the next pony in line must not have the password, grumbling and cursing.

Until… the bouncers trade looks just as they had with me, then presented the complaining pony with a green “guest” lapel. Curious. Does all it really take to get in is persistence in the face of denial? I snort and give a tiny shake of my head to dislodge the question; let the club play whatever game it wants—as long as I am let in, that is all that matters.

I take the long, winding hallway, which I imagine is designed to hide the actual establishment from view of the street, following the other green lapel-ed pony: a vaguely familiar, rather “chubby” mare that makes me think of Manehatten for some reason. I slow down to reach up and fiddle with my own lapel: Of course, I can imagine the green is nothing but terribly clashing against the amethyst and gold of my regalia-

Silly thing to care about right now!

A Pegasus stallion with a red lapel passes by me as I come back to myself. His eyes are wide and his mouth gaping slightly as he unabashedly stares, and when his eyes flicker to my neck, and the lapel, he audibly gasps, then his wide eyes turn… strange—almost lustful, but not quite right—and he licks his lips and raises his head high as he quickly looks me up and down.

In the end, he sighs and shakes his head.

A strange sense of premonition tickles the back of my mind, but I shrug it off. What Bad Fate could befall me here, in this Canterlot nightclub?

Except this is where my sister had last been seen…

A Unicorn couple, both with blue lapels, is now walking by me. Both also stare at me with a strange look of some desire, but then they sigh as if in disappointment when they notice my green lapel. All these colors obviously mean something—a topic for later investigation, perhaps; my curiosity is being undeniably coaxed, but my sister comes first.

Finally, I step though the next doorway into what must be the club itself, which at first glance appears little different from any other nightclub scene: lights flashing, ponies dancing with abandon, and music with a strong presence of bass (but with something additional in the sound I can’t pin down, let alone identify). Before I can fully take it in, another pony scoots around me from the hall, and I swiftly step to the side, apologizing. “So sorry. I was lost in my mind for a moment.”

“Oh, no trouble for-. Huh? Princess Celestia?!” A Unicorn stallion of neon green and orange coloration, with shocking violet eyes, performs a double-take. His darker shaded, chubbier companion looks me over with eyes narrowed—cagey.

“Indeed,” I confirm as if this needed confirmation.

His wide eyes rove over me, then are caught by my lapel, at which he purses his lips and the look in his eyes turns to considering… something. I notice him wearing a red lapel—I really wish I knew what that means, as another stray itch of premonition comes brushing past.

Eventually, he seems to settle on a simple, polite, “Well, I hope you enjoy your time here, Princess,” and with a light bow, weaves into the dancing crowd.

Again, I regard that crowd, and only slowly does its oddity percolate into my consciousness, for it is such an oddity, I never would have imagined such a place within my capital: While not all, the vast majority of the ponies here have bellies that bulge obscenely! Is this some kind of fat fetish club? I know, at least conceptually, that such a lust exists, but I suppose I subconsciously assumed it would be more a private act… then again, there are such things as exhibitionists and voyeurs as well, I suppose.

Is this really a place my dear sister patroned? Did she really desire-…? Suddenly, I blush hard as a most risque thought dances into my head with moves more manic than the ponies before me. Attempting to be discrete as possible, I use my wings to rub at my own rump, rounded (rather nicely) by literally countless cakes over equally numerous days. Did she-?… I’ll have to ask her.

Slowly, trying to take the time to drive the heat away from my face, I step around the dance floor. I notice, at least, that all those with bulging stomachs are wearing red lapels: One mystery solved, it seems. So what does the blue lapel-?

Focus, Celestia.

With the loud music and the busy dancing, I easily determine I won’t be getting much, if anything, from anypony there. In fact, that’s when I realize that there are more than ponies here: griffons, hippogryphs, minotaurs, buffalo, and even a few changelings! (At least, there are only a few out of disguise.)

Curiouser and curiouser. No matter all my efforts and the Canterlotians’ token posturings, nonponies remained largely unwelcomed by the nobles and the wishtobes.

I arrive now at what I assume to be some kind of lounge area, full of fancy pillows and seating furniture of practically all kinds. It seems this club wants for no luxury! All manner of big-bellied creatures laze about, many with said bellies being fondled, rubbed, worshipped, and even humped against by others.

A number of those here are ones I had questioned before, and all had denied Luna being here, despite my intel’s certainty this is where she had last been seen entering. When they notice me, a few give guilty or apologetic grins, others jump or look around quickly as if in a panic, and the last few simply stare, unabashed and inscrutable. I instantly and easily dismiss those as sources of information—if they hadn’t talked before, why should they now?

As expected, there is a bar on one wall of the lounge. Now, what are the chances the bartender today is the same as the bartender that worked on the night Luna disappeared? I work my way around pillows, seats, and relaxing (and not-relaxing) creatures toward the bar, doing my best to ignore all the strange looks I get, for the strangest thing of all is the lack of bowing—I never cared or lacked for worship, but to be so suddenly and completely deprived, especially in my own capital, I can’t deny is disconcerting. Why?

The Bartender is a rough-looking Earth Pony stallion, twirling and throwing bottles, cans, and canisters with greater skill than most Canterlotian Unicorns could with their telekinesis. -and that’s with the sizable middle he has to match half the members of the club.

“Excuse me,” I say more as a token gesture than anything as I shove myself between a griffon and a pegasus waiting for their drinks; both of them make the first half of some word of protest before realizing who I am.

The bartender freezes, staring, gaze only flickering once to the green lapel. Finally, he slowly lowers the bottle and canister he’d been juggling to the counter, then leans on an elbow in an assertive, almost aggressive posture.

“Apologies for the interruption, dear barkeep, but I am on business of utmost importance.” He only raises his brow slightly—I take it as invitation enough to continue. “I have come to understand my sister, Princess Luna, was last seen at this… club.”

“Yuh,” he says in a poorly disguised accent. “I see her around here. She’s a bit of a regular. Always some good extra fun when she here. Puttin’ on a good show for everyone.” I blush again, and bite the inside of my cheek, trying to stop myself from imaging what kind of “show” my sister could have possibly performed in a nightclub like this.

Again, and hardest yet: a bothersome niggle of premonition in the back of my mind.

“I’m here to ask you about the night she disappeared, a little over a month ago, on the night of the seventh of May. Were you working then?”

“Yuh, I see her that night, then I don’t see her.” He shrugs. “Nothing weird or worrisome happened as far as I’d seen or known, though.” He stands straight and reaches for the canister, apparently assuming I’m done with him.

I take the drink-mixer into my telekinesis and pull it away from his reach; he tries hard not to glare, failing. “Perhaps you can point me to someone who might have seen something?”

He huffs, and snatches the canister out of my grip anyway. “Take yer pick. Most of the members that are here was here that day, too.”

“Thank you,” I curtly intone as I turn away, nearly running muzzle first into the griffon, who had been standing very close and, judging by his posture, comparing his size to mine. I notice he’s wearing a red lapel, yet his stomach is quite flat, and his muscles toned. Hmm. “So, I assume you heard that. Would you, perhaps, be who I’m looking for?”

He shakes his head and shrugs a wing. “Sorry Princess. I have seen Princess Luna here before, but not that night. I was busy.” As he says that, he, most oddly, rubs his flat stomach. The Pegasus, who I assume is with him, and is wearing a blue lapel, watches that rubbing talon with neigh-lustful eyes, and he blushes when he notices me watching him.

Okay, now this curiosity is going to kill me if I don’t figure it out!

“-and you, my little pony? You wouldn’t happened to have seen anything that might hint to what happened to Luna?”

He jumps as if surprised I should ask him this, then reaches up to his lapel and looks down as if making sure it had not been switched without him noticing. “Uh, no? Of course not?” At my arched brow, he stutters, “I-I-I mean, this is my first time!” He then leans against the griffon and nuzzles into his side. “-and hopefully my last.” He adds with a giggle.

I cannot unarch my brow at that, and instead it shoots further up my forehead. He hopes it’s his last night here? I force myself not to shake my head; more than a thousand years ruling, and still my little ponies can surprise me. I leave the griffon and pony to their mystifying romance and once more consider the lounge.

Most of those fattened creatures have at least one other fawning in some way over their belly, except for one: An undisguised changeling appearing most content to lay across a pillow all alone. She’s on her front with legs splayed in all directions, squishing her middle, causing it to bulge out, mostly to the sides but also a little ways under her tail. As I consider her, she belches, then giggles—already in an agreeable mood, it seems, and perhaps with a little attention to her stomach—a little love… It seems so easy, all I need now is for her to actually have seen something.

As I make my way once more across the lounge, I now catch many mutterings and whisperings of “princess” and “eat”. Are they, perhaps, expecting me to gorge and become like one of the red lapel-ed? Then I’m sorry, but I’ll have to disappoint you, my little subjects. I force my eyes to stay on the changeling, who seems of yet to be unaware of anything but her own pleasure.

“My little changeling, what are you doing all the way back here, all alone?” I partially lower my head and my voice, hoping to keep this conversation at least halfway private.

She has her eyes closed from her pleasure, so I don’t think she realizes it is I speaking. She giggles and reaches one forehoof down to rub her bulged-out middle. “Not alone, just yet.” Again, a giggle, now accompanied by a big grin. It doesn’t last: She finally looks up at me and the smile and lazily content eyes disappear into open-mouthed, wide-eyed surprise. “Oh?! I was wondering if I’d ever see you here, what-with Princess Luna visiting so often before. Did she give you the pa-?… Oh.” She stops her own question when she notices my lapel, staring at it.

“Actually, my sister is why I’m here.” She blushes, no doubt thinking of that as some incestuous innuendo. “You may not have been aware of this news, back at the hive, but Princess Luna has gone missing as of a month ago—May seventh, specifically.” She nods, whether to indicate understanding or that she already knows doesn’t matter. “The last time she was seen was entering this nightclub. You wouldn’t happened to have been here that day, would you?”

Nodding, she sits up; her belly, now freed, flows out, reshaping as if like a waterballoon, and doing so with a great sloshing sound, followed by a loud groan, heralding an equally loud belch. …That is definitely not fat, but then-… what? -a stuffing fetish club? Before I can think on it further, the changeling mare answers, “Apologies, Princess. urp. Yes, I was here May seventh. Lucky for you, I’m sure everyone who was there would remember. That was a-” She pauses, blushing and fighting back a giggle. “That was an especially fun night!”

I also can’t help but blush, finding myself seeing my cake binges in a novel, lewd way for the second time this night. “-and my sister, did she participate in this… ‘fun’?”

“Oh, she was the fun itself!” She licks her lips and begins rubbing her stomach. “She always was. So much, that I’d be sad everytime I heard that I missed one of her ‘shows’.”

She continues rubbing around and around her stomach, that now groans from the exertion of its overtaxed digestion. I purse my lips, quickly deciding I have to go for it before I lose all nerve—she might appear to be agreeable, but her answers always seem to be merely fluttering around the information I actually want. She must know something, yet she teases me! If only I weren’t so focused on improving pony-changeling relations… “Would you mind if I-…?” I say, already reaching out a hoof without invitation to join in, rubbing counterpoint to her motions.

“Oh!” I feel her shiver, then relax under my touch; her hoof slowly lowers away, leaving mine to its devices. From there, she lets herself tilt until the weight of her middle shifts and shoves her down onto her back—she lets it. Her belly wobbles up and down as it slightly flattens and spreads out once more, with much gurgling and glorping that heats my face, as well as forcing up another belch. How strange that otherwise normal, everyday sounds could be turned so erotic by such a simple thing as a change of venue! Too, the task I had taken only fuel the fire of my face. While it may be more unusual to rub another’s belly than one’s own, to desire such a comfort after a large meal is still normal outside of this maddening club, no?!

Under my hooves, the changeling’s stomach feels like what I imagine a beachball filled with some thick, creamy liquid might be like. The thing that captures my attention most is the size of it: just about as large as a beachball, as well! What could she have eaten so much of?… -and-… -and where did she get it? The bar doesn’t seem to be offering meals, and I see nowhere that could serve food, as well, there are no servers with plates—certainly, I would have noticed them quickly if there were and they had been carrying such giant servings!—and finally, despite being veritably surrounded by similarly bloated stomachs, I don’t see anycreature actually eating…

Stronger yet more, that premonition gusts around the back of my neck.

Shaking off the irrelevant, if intriguing, realization, I redouble my belly-rubbing efforts, taking off my shoes for a gentler effect. She (and now I realize I don’t know her name) sighs and I feel her abdomen muscles relax further. Her flesh and her meal squish under my ministrations, folding around my hooves in every indentation. Every so often I can feel her stomach rumble, muscles struggling to knead its food, though it’s far too overfull to perform any proper job—and this, I realize, is what I and the other “worshipers” are for.

The changeling begins to make little murmurings of pleasure, which soon I see are her working her voice back up to speed from her utter relaxation. “So, Mightiest, Regal Princess Celestia-” I sputter at the ridiculous title, but she doesn’t give me time to object. “-are you enjoying yourself down here in our Society?”I can now spot her eyes have opened ever so slightly, showing off a glittering sliver of glee.

“Well…” My hooves slow their work as I take time to consider my position: I can already see the tabloid headlines for next week, although the big, serious morning papers aren’t likely to take it as so much one bit’s worth. No… No worries. It’ll be forgotten once this leads me to Luna, anyway, if not before. “Well, I can hardly lie to a changeling about it; I’m sure you already know the answer, but to put it simply-…” I lower myself, practically laying my front half onto her stomach, turning my forehooves around to “hug” it, then I drawing its squishy, near-malleable form against my chest as I let my head rest on it, turned to the side so one ear is against that belly. “I’m sorry to say that in over a thousand years, it’s only now I even come to find this is a thing that can be enjoyed.” As much as I’m going for buttering her up, I stop myself short of praise, lest the discord between my words and actual feelings become too much for her to ignore.

She giggles (mission accomplished), causing my pillow to bounce up and down, with much splashing and sloshing from within. “Mm-hm. I know… -Though, I’m curious, what would you think if you found out the changeling you’re snuggling right now is full of mostly-digested pony?”

My brows rise first at the instinctive shock of the claim, then pull together with confusion when I go back over her sentence; I raise my head then to look down at her to find her eyes now opened fully, with something now behind her no-longer-simple pleasure—something, some emotion, she’s purposefully hiding with all her changeling-skill, no doubt. “I- Excuse me, but I must have misheard over the sounds of your stomach and the music, but… it sounded like you said you had eaten a pony? Did you mean, perhaps, an entire pony’s worth of love?” Even before I finish that last question, though, it doesn’t sound quite right.

Now she lets out not so much a giggle anymore than an outright laugh; I do my best to keep my annoyance off my expression, as ineffective as that undoubtably is against changelings. “Oh, no, no!… Sorry, Princess, but no, that isn’t what I meant. I really was referring to a real, living pony.” She takes one of my now-still hooves into her own and pushes it hard into her very soft middle. “Well, not so much that ‘living’ part, anymore!”

I gasp, but little else. After over a thousand years alive, it consider myself rather difficult to surprise, yet here I sit, looking down at a changeling who just claimed to have eaten one of my subjects! Nothing could have prepared me—I have no possible response, so still I sit, unaware as to the warning of a rumbling within that gut. Her next and loudest-yet belch catches me so off guard, I don’t even flinch, at least not until something wet slaps my face a sticks there. Moving slow, as if in a trance, I remove the object that the changeling had just burped up onto my face without so much a glance of apology, and… it is a partially melted blue lapel, soaked in what I can only assume is changeling chyme.

Only my thousand years could have afforded me the control with which I now rein my anger as I lean onto her stomach and press the ruined lapel against her cheek. “You have one minute to explain before I send you to the Sun.”

She opens her mouth, but a different voice—a stallion’s voice—comes from behind me instead. “Why don’t you let me, Princess.” It’s the green-and-orange unicorn from before… but no longer, as he then, with a flash of fire, reveals himself as King Thorax.

- - - -

TWO

“Fine. If you think you can, take her place.” I stand straight and mighty, tossing the blue lapel at him; he catches it only inches away from his face. With that moment of distraction, I take a quick look over all the nearby ponies and easily enough spot Thorax’s darker companion from earlier. He obviously notices me noticing him and tries to turn away, but I raise my voice. “-and Prince Pharynx as well? Why don’t you join us?”

The still-disguised changeling shares a quick look with his king, and said king beckons him to follow. With a frown fully displaying his reluctance and displeasure, Pharynx drops the disguise and follows us to a couch fit for three. Thorax jumps onto one end and gestures to the middle seat, but with a snort of disbelief at the poor tactic, I take the other end instead. Predictably enough, the King sighs at this, but instead of taking the middle himself, as I’d expect, he allows Pharynx to sit between us—though I suppose his shorter stature will be easier to talk over than if it were the other way and Pharynx had something to say.

It’s now I notice that Pharynx’s fat wasn’t just a part of his disguise, but the thickness of his abdomen and hips are impossible to mistake—Has he also eaten a pony? How long have changelings been doing this?! No answer appears forthcoming once the two decidedly otherwise uncomfortable changelings settle in their seats. “Well?” I prompt, “You have already wasted fifteen seconds of your one minute.”

The King waves his forehooves in a placating manner—what would be placating if I were an infant. “Princess Celestia, please, just try to follow me and think this through with me.” He speaks with an ever-so-slightly higher pitch to his voice: begging—he’s caught and he knows it. “Do you really think we, changelings, would do this—do anything—if it hurt ponies?” I know that brow-arch too well, having used it on all my countless personal students; he’s trying to lead me on with questions to which he thinks there is only one logical answer.

As if he could beat me at that game! Still, I’d rather jump to the punch than join his squaredance. “Then, praytell, what other purpose but pain and death could consuming my citizens serve them?”

Thorax sighs and looks down at the ruined lapel he still holds; he turns it about in his magic for a few seconds before looking back up at me. “Princess, I have a good idea why you might be here, but you’re so focused on finding her that you’ve failed to consider the place you’re investigating. I was never a very good spy, but even I still know that’s a major failure.” Pharynx nods, though whether at his brother’s admission of amateurity or the point on my own failure is difficult to tell.

I narrow my eyes in disbelief and impatience. What does this “place” have to do with either the carnivorous changelings or Luna’s disappearance?! Still, I sense I’ll get no further with them if I don’t at least make a show of trying to determine what the Gastronomic Society actually is beyond “fetish nightclub”.

I start with the bar, considering it a spot more likely where ponies (and others) might meet more spontaneously and … begin to “enjoy” each other in whatever way that means here, and thusly reveal the club’s purpose. My eyes fall upon the griffon and pegasus I encountered there: Both have a few empty glasses before them now—their cheeks perpetually red—and the world seems to have dropped away for them, nothing disturbing them from staring into each other’s eyes, not even a bumbling drunk Earth pony mare bouncing off the griffon’s behind.

Voyeur is one of the very few things I never considered I might be during my long life, yet here I force myself not to look away as the two lean toward each other, as if for a kiss. They do, but only the shortest peck—enough to heat my face and make me realize I’m no longer fighting to keep watching—then… The stallion removes his lapel and places it on the counter, and I realize why a second before the griffon begins to open his beak wider and wider.

Now, I wouldn’t be able to stop myself from staring, mouth agape, as the pegasus stands up on his stool and places his forehooves into the beak. From there, he ever-so-slowly pushes himself foreward, into the throat of the griffon, who sits so perfectly still and patient as if ponies feeding themselves to him is the most normal, everyday thing in the world!

Pharynx realizes I’m regaining my faculties even before I do, and as I take in a breath to shout, he puts a hoof gently on the side of my neck. “Princess, look again,” he says as he points at the pegasus, and now, as his entire front half has disappeared into the griffon, there’s much less of him to see… making it much easier to realize what Pharynx is trying to point out to me: The stallion’s desire.

I consider it rather natural I should be at a loss for words, but all around me, every creature either cheers the griffon/stallion pair on or simply outright ignores the consumption of one of their own going on right next to them! I, slowly and disbelievingly, turn back to the changeling royals. “What… is this place? What is going on? -and… Why?”

Prince Pharynx chuckles and smacks his belly fat. “This ‘place’ is where ponies can embrace their proper role in the world as food!” I pull away slightly, but frown—even through the haze of shock, I do recognize I’ve seen plenty of ponies with full stomachs as well; his meaning, at least, is clear enough. “As for why? It’s simple-…” He sits back and spreads his hindlegs, then lowers his hoof from his stomach to his crotch—I quickly avert my eyes, and he chuckles again. “-they enjoy it, obviously.”

“Yes, brother. Thank you.” Thorax has a hoof to his temple and slowly shakes his head. “Well, Princess, this is, basically, how this place can exist at all, you see. A club like this could hardly survive if it got a reputation for its patrons being eaten against their will, of course.” He smiles, as if inviting me to understand this madness.

“Right. ‘Of course’, King Thorax.” Snarky as I might say it, how can I deny the pegasus feeding himself to a griffon I just witnessed, and his arousal over it? Perhaps something in the drinks here influence-? No. He had expressed his desire for this to be his “last night” before he had anything to drink, I just hadn’t yet known what he truly meant! “Very well. I suppose I cannot deny what you say. If you would, explain a bit more about this club, then.” Thorax’s recent insult of my investigation must have touched deeper that I realized. Still, it does indeed help me understand a little bit more: My sister must have been one of those who ate others—How else could she have attended multiple times?!—but there might be some nuance to this operation that can yet make this trip less of a waste of time.

He grins widely—happy I had come around to his line of thinking?—before a tiny, quick bow of his head (Pharynx, meanwhile, snorts and lets his shoulders sag at how easily I had forgotten his risque taunt). “I’d already planned it, Princess. It all, ultimately, hinges on these,” he says as he taps his red lapel; I raise my brow, and he anticipates my questions. “The red designate, as we call them here, ‘predators’ or ‘preds’, and the blue designates ‘prey’. I assume you can guess at what those mean in the Society?” I nod at the half-question. “The third critical piece that keeps this club running smoothly, naturally, is consent. Only reds are allowed to eat others; only blues are allowed to be eaten, and that can only happen when both parties agree to it.”

I look down, idly noting I’d forgotten to retrieve my shoes, snort, then sigh; my thoughts are all ajumble, each one demanding examination, only to be shoved away by some other idea before I can even begin to consider it. “It sounds like it should be so simple, when you put it like that-…” I look up, eyes roving over the lounge, noting the griffon from before is now rubbing his bulging, wiggly middle with both talons. “…-and yet, I still find it hard to believe my Luna actually does eat ponies, and enjoys it!”

Pharynx lets out a single, “ha!”, drawing my attention like an explosion, but he shuts up (even if he doesn’t stop smiling) at the frown Thorax shoots at him—the King then gives me an awkward, apologetic grin. “Well, that’s just how things go on the average night-to-night activities. There are still some more rules, they’re just not relevant as often.” All of a sudden, his eyes narrow, his muscles tense subtly, and he licks at his chitinous lips. “Like the green lapel, that means the rules don’t apply to you.” It isn’t a simply general-you, but specifically myself he’s referring to, I surmise.

I inwardly shake my head at Thorax’s odd posture, and outwardly shrug my shoulders. “Good, because I’m not here to eat anyone or get eaten. I’m here to search for clues on my sister’s disappearance.” For some reason, Thorax looks disarmed by this, eyes wide with awkward disbelief and leaning so far back it seems he should fall over the hoofrest.

The Prince, however, lets out a full-on belly laugh, hugging his middle, and now Thorax’s admonishing look is not enough. Finally, he calms down enough to say, “Oh, yeah, about your sister.” Finally!! I perk my ears. “She didn’t eat anypony, or anycreature, actually, but I can tell you she definitely enjoyed her time in here, and now she’s enjoying her time in here!” I’m confused for only the split second after his words and before he smacks his fat abdomen once more: Pharynx is confessing to eating and digesting Luna!

- - - -

THREE

Growling, I jump forward, grabbing Pharynx in my forelegs and pulling him to the floor with me, landing on him. His smirk and lack of surprise throughout my attack alerts me too late that this is what he wanted me to do, and a split second later, I find out why: A wetness on my forehead draws my attention, and look up just in time to see Thorax withdrawing the last foot-worth of tongue back into his mouth. A quick hoof to my horn reveals what I suspected—and feared—a magic suppression ring. So this is how they overpowered you, sister?

-And if I needed any more confirmation, somecreature shouted, “It’s another princess hunt!!” Followed by cheers and shouts of bets—at least some have faith in my ability!

Pharynx seems to have expected me to be more distracted by the shout than I am, and attempts to snare me in his tongue. Barely in time, I stick out a forehoof to intercept it, and rapidly loop it around the tongue, catching it. This, instead, catches Pharynx by surprise, allowing me to easily pull him up with me as I stand, bringing him into a straight jab with my other forehoof right onto his nose. His tongue loosens, and I throw the now-limp natural-lasso at his face, against which it splats wetly, blinding him in addition to his current disorientation.

Thorax, meanwhile, has stood up on the couch, ready to leap onto my back, but I spot him just in time and shuffle to the side. As he recalibrates his jump, I shove Pharynx toward him, who falls into the King’s legs, tripping him, and they both fall to the floor, tangled together.

Before they can recover, I grab Thorax by one of his antlers and pull his head up to face me. “What is the meaning of this, changeling?!” I shout, dangerously close (for Thorax’s ears) to the Traditional Royal Canterlot Voice.

He licks his lips again before answering. “The meaning, is this,” he says, reaching up a disentangled leg to tap at my neck—my lapel—with a warning growl from me. “When I said the rules don’t apply to green, I didn’t mean you don’t participate, but that you’re considered ‘free game’, which means I don’t need your consent to eat you. Also, you didn’t get here by accident. I know nopony told you about this place as Luna’s last whereabouts except your intel, or rather, my intel planted in your intel.”

Then, from underneath Thorax, Pharynx’s tongue shoots out and wraps around my forelegs, and with that he pulls my legs from under me; I would’ve hit the ground without some quick wing-work. This time, Pharynx allows his tongue to be pulled out rather than getting himself pulled up bodily once more, and Thorax takes my preoccupation with his brother’s tongue to jump for me, mouth wide with obvious purpose. I dive and lower my head, intent on forcing Thorax to fall back by threatening to impale him on my horn, but I’m too slow, and one of his hooves connects with the side of my head, and I tumble to the floor, though I recover with an awkward roll. I end up facing away from the changelings, and Pharynx now uses his tongue to pull my legs backwards. I’m not quick enough this time to catch myself from hitting the floor chest-first, but from this rear-up position, I see my out: with a hindhoof, I stomp on the tongue, and with a yelp, Pharynx releases me and reels his tongue back in, though he leaves his mouth open to rub the abused muscle. Thorax dives for me again, but now unrestrained, I whip around and aim my horn, crouched and ready to strike right for the chest; with eyes wide, he frantically buzzes his wings and flies back to his brother’s side.

In the moment of reprieve, I notice the cheers and jeers of the crowd—and there’s more of the latter, still. “Now listen here, Changeling King, because this is your last chance: Remove the ring and relinquish your brother to Equestrian custody, and you may receive leniency, otherwise prepare to burn in the Sun!”

His response is to shoot out his tongue—unfortunate, but not unexpected. Instead of trying to dodge or intercept this time, I run forward, and Thorax is unprepared to begin wrapping me up when it connects; I allow it to loop around my neck and forelegs once each before I bite down on it and pull back. Thorax, having seen me do this to Pharynx, allows his tongue to go with me—just as I wanted! Pharynx, perhaps expecting me to be too busy to notice, had been silently repositioning himself, but with a leap, flap, spin, and dive at speeds to awe the Wonder Bolts, I wrap his own brother’s tongue around his neck and barrel. With that, I release the tongue to say, “I hope you remember you chose this, King, because I think it might surprise you to hear that, while my sister was physically stronger than me, I still never lost a single spar.” I smirk at the expected surprise on their faces.

“That… doesn’t make any sense,” Pharynx eventually says, his fearful eyes rapidly shifting between me, Thorax’s tongue, and Thorax himself. “You move the Sun, and-”

“Think of it like this:” I interrupt with a chuckle, “There are two Earth pony sisters working on a rock farm. One spends all day pushing around house-sized boulders, and the other only kicks around apple-sized rocks. At the end of the day, who is more exhausted?”

The two changeling royals share a long look before Pharynx mumbles, “Brother…?” To which Thorax gives a tiny nod. Then, with a flash of fire, Pharynx transforms into his previous pony form—a smaller form—and slips out from the loops of tongue. I try to regain control by flying back for distance, but Thorax has greater control over his tongue than I expected: While I had been gloating and flaunting my apparent tactical advantage, Thorax had snuck out enough length of tongue to snare my wings as well!

With a short victorious laugh (earning a chorus of cheers), he finally begins to pull me in; I fight for as long as I can with only my two hindlegs to stand on, but Pharynx, with another flash, returns to changeling form and fires out his tongue at the only limbs yet unrestrained by changeling tongue. Seeing only one choice to remain in the game, I hop over the tongue, barely missing stepping on it once more, which is enough to convince Pharynx to retreat. However, with no traction, Thorax’s pull begins in earnest, and with that, I cannot regain enough stability to stop it once I land, and am forced to take step after frantic step to maintain any degree of control. Around me, I can hear the crowd laughing at my predicament, and the gamblers eagerly boasting plans for their anticipated winnings—or moaning, as if already defeated.

Eyes narrowed with building determination, I steel my legs and lean back at an extreme angle, and in response, Thorax begins increasing the tension on his tongue—I do my best to keep a worried frown on my face, even as he does exactly what I want. With a signal from Thorax, Pharynx rushes around to my back, then charges, intent on ramming me right into his brother’s mouth. Waiting until the last millisecond, I bend down… then leap forward. Pharynx’s shove connects, but barely registers against my already incredible velocity from Thorax’s pull, and he stumbles. “Haven’t thought this one through, have you!” I shout as I realign myself to aim straight into Thorax’s mouth, hindhooves first.

The King panics and leaps to the side, but he forgets to loosen his tongue, and merely pulls me along, though now slightly off center: even worse for him than before. My left hindhoof connects first, striking the corner where jaw and skull meet, and with a crack I feel something give, even through my shoe, though given Thorax merely lets out a small grunt of pain, I suspect it’s merely dislocated, not broken. Still, with such momentum this barely slows me, and I continue inward, only finally stopping when his lips touch my bellybutton.

We fall to the floor, Thorax taking the worst of the blow, and in his daze his tongue falls slack. Now, with both changelings out for the tiny moment, I make my move. Pulling my forehooves from the tongue-snare, I reach into my petral and pull out my secret, last resort weapon: a magic suppression ring of my own! Without hesitation, I slam it onto Thorax’s horn; it doesn’t quite fit his changeling-shaped horn, but the force I apply wedges it nicely into place—with some pain, judging by how he smacks at the floor with a forehoof, as if tapping out of a fight, while his eyes tear up.

To insure my escape, I punch his antlers, one then the other, causing him to screw up his eyes, and with a monumental effort, I stuff my forehooves into Thorax’s mouth and shove his jaw as far open as possible—with one dislocated joint, he doesn’t really stand a chance. To wild, disbelieving gasps and cheers, I pull by rear half from Thorax’s esophagus, finally falling free with a wet, squelching pop! Seeing Pharynx standing, I flip myself up into a cartwheel instead of simply standing, one hindleg tucked in. As I fall back, my extended leg strikes the Prince’s horn, cracking, but not breaking it, then a short second later, I kick out the tucked leg, striking Pharynx’s throat, and a spiderweb of cracks appear in the chestplate. I leap back from between the changelings, ready to continue my defense, but both are still recovering. Thorax is working his jaw, pushing it around between his forehooves, while Pharynx first puts a hoof to his chest, where a few cracks had connected and caused bits of chitin to chip off, then the hoof moves to his horn, where little jets of green flame occasionally shoot from the cracks.

“How-? You said you were weaker than Luna,” Pharynx grumbles, “She didn’t do half as much damage as this!” All around, the crowd is now nothing but confused murmurs and unsure glances; even the DJ had lowered the music volume, though most of the dancing creatures continue, apparently not noticing.

I smirk as I casually turn around and return to the couch, taking the middle seat. “I lied. I thought you changelings would be able to appreciate a tactic like that.” My giggle goes unshared, so I shrug. “Well, now that things are a little bit more fair,” I say while tapping the suppression ring on my horn, “I thought I might offer the two of you ex-royals one last chance to negotiate your surrender.” Pharynx glares at me for a moment before stepping towards his brother, who still looks a little wobbly on his hooves. “Oh, and unless you want to hurt Thorax, I wouldn’t try to remove that ring. It’s specially enchanted so only I can put it on or off.” The Prince snorts, considers the ring for a moment, then transforms into me and attempts to pull it off. He grimaces at his inevitable failure when Thorax yelps, at which I laugh again. “Good try, but since you changelings ‘allied’ with Equestria, I got your magical signature. There’ll be no changeling shenanigans any more, especially once the two of you are gone. The only question now is, ‘How do you want to go?’ You can still have a say, if you want it.” I pat the seats beside me, inviting them to their last chance—which I don’t actually intend to give the sneaking bugs.

The two whisper into each other’s ears, and I’m content to give them as long as they wish; I lean back, spreading my forehooves across the back of the couch lazily. Only about a minute passes before they approach, calmly, and with a pained look on Thorax’s face and a resigned one on Pharynx’s. As they near, however, they both must sense the change in my emotions, and tilt their heads, confused; however, it seems by their absence of fear they don’t know the intent behind my new plan on how to end this night, considering how they so unconcernedly resume their approach. Thorax sits to my right and Pharynx to my left.

I turn to the King first, and put my hoof gently under his chin—he blushes, and I smirk at this. From there, I move my leg ever so slowly around to the back of his neck, and apply the lightest pressure to pull his head toward mine. I purse my lips, as if ready to kiss, and Thorax does the same… until we’re only a few inches apart. Then, his eyes narrow with gleeful intent before he opens his mouth wide—from this position, however, he nor Pharynx can see I still smile. Pharynx’s hooves hit the back of my head, shoving me roughly, muzzle-first, into Thorax’s mouth, but before Thorax can do anything with this, I bite down onto his tongue and simultaneously grab Pharynx by the back of his neck with my left hoof, then, as I pull my head out of Thorax’s mouth, I pull Pharynx’s head into my place, and his temple smacks against his brother’s chin.

When they both cry out in pain, I waste not a millisecond in reaching into Pharynx’s mouth and taking hold of his tongue in my left hoof, and now with both changeling tongues in my grasp, and their owners distracted, I deftly tie them together in a butterfly knot, then, with both ends of the tongues between my teeth and either length of tongue in one hoof each, I pull the knot taut.

“Celeswia, we-!” Thorax yells around his tongue just before I, grabbing hold of the backrest, pull the couch forward with a somewhat awkward leap. Still, the unprepared changelings fall with the couch, and the backrest bangs against the back of both their heads. I step around behind the King, grip his behind, and pull his hind-half up, leaving him in a downward dog-like position—around us, a few spectators misconstrue my intentions, and their lewd encouragements leave it difficult for me to not double in laughter. Afterwards, maybe; first, snack time!

With all the grace and concern of a pig greeting a trough, I open wide—wider than I’ve ever tried, and mildly shock myself at just how wide my jaw can go—and dive, taking in Thorax’s behind entirely in that one motion. He cries out with wordless pain and panic, then again when I stuff him further in with the aid of a swallow; Pharynx, meanwhile, looks on in slack-jawed, wide-eyed, limb-frozen disbelief. Though Thorax’s carapaced form has little give to it (to better enable me in squeezing him past my lips), its glossy surface provides little traction against the pull of my legs and throat, especially once slickened with my saliva.

“P’incess Celwesia, p’ease shtop!” Thorax regains enough wits to plead, though not enough to make any compelling plead. When I answer with another swallow, now taking his butt entirely into my throat, he scrambles for some purchase to halt his descent into me; his flailing hooves find the toppled couch, and he takes a tenuous grip on the upside-down hoof rest. Another tug from my esophagus and tongue inches his grip away. “P’ease! Don’th! Sthop!” He shouts to the ceiling, as if to beseech a god, each word more desperate than the last.

Pathetic. A true ruler should keep their cool at all times, and maintain dignity, even into death. Proof, as if it would be needed now, that I never should have trusted the Changeling Kingdom to Thorax’s rule. “‘Don’t’? Don’t do exactly as you planned to do to me?! ‘Stop’, when you wouldn’t?! Too late!” I berate, or try to—what comes out is mumbling akin to if I didn’t even have a mouth with which to speak, only a trachea and nose. Still, the king-turned-food gets my meaning when I tug him off the couch with my hooves and give his body my strongest, longest, deepest gulp yet.

“Phtha’inxsh, helshp!” He reaches out to his brother, who ignores Thorax in favor of trying to work out the knot—if I could I would grin and tease his vain desperation, for I know that knot is too tight to undo with bare hooves, as even I wouldn’t be able to untie the tongue in my current condition, if I wanted to. With another swallow, my lips pass over Thorax’s midsection, and he pulls at Pharynx by reeling in his own tongue; getting pulled towards me a few inches, Pharynx glares at his brother. The Prince then tries loosening the grip of his tongue, to let it be reeled out, but this only allows Thorax to pull the knot away from Pharynx.

Another gulp, and now the majority of Thorax’s torso have disappeared into me, and his hindhooves give one last wave goodbye as they slip into my cheeks. Now, I have to angle my head down as his front half slumps from my jaws, with only his chin and forehooves far enough to lay partially on the floor. “P-Pthincess, you mithunderthtand! Phtha’inxsh wash joking! -making a pthank! Wphe thon’t know about Luna!” Even if I had half a mind to grant him a chance, his whimpering, pleading tone gives away his lies; each falsehood from him heralds another swallow from me, and now the backs of his shoulders are pressing against my front teeth.

As Thorax’s rear exits from the bottom of my impossibly bulging neck and enters into my chest, making far less noticeable an imprint, he hangs freely from my mouth, panting and limp, whether from exhaustion or resignation, I know or care not. After swinging my head forward and back a few times to build momentum, I straighten out my head, neck, and body, sitting and looking toward the ceiling in one smooth, quick motion. This has the unintended result of jerking Pharynx towards me by his and his brother’s tongues, which ends up with the Prince hitting the floor chest-first with an “oof!” Immediately after, his chin smacks down, causing him to bite his own tongue with what I can only imagine is enough force to knock him out from the pain, since he loses consciousness shortly after, in the middle of an ear-piercing screech.

This is enough to shock Thorax back into life. “Phtha’inxsh, no! Wake’sh’up! You cthan still ethcape! Phtha’inxsh!” He repeatedly shouts out to his unresponsive accomplice, impotently reaching out toward him with his forehooves. With so much of him in my esophagus, as well as I having straightened myself out into a mockery of a waterslide, I can feel each pulse of peristalsis pull Thorax in and down, not even an inch at a time… As much as I’d love to extend his torture, I figure I should continue to Pharynx as soon as possible, and so begin swallowing again.

When he’s forced to look away from Pharynx by his head entering my mouth, he sighs. “Pthincess, pthlease don’t eat mfy b’other. What everth you do to mfe, don’t… eat… himf… p’ease!” He barely gets out the last few words as the back of his jaw passes through my lips, pinching his mouth closed. Again, my own mouth amazes me when I break Thorax’s would-be-bothersome antlers with one mighty chomp, and from within my now and finally closed mouth, his shout of pain muffled by two closed mouths.

A few more swallows later, and the last of Thorax leaves my neck and soon drops into my stomach, even causing it to bounce slightly when I feel the oddest (or at least, oddest so far this night) sensation of his head popping through. Allowing myself a breather before moving on to Pharynx, I lower my head to my now-hanging stomach’s level, give it a little experimental nudge with my nose—which jolts me with a strangely pleasure, and I barely suppress a shiver and moan—and say to my changeling-turned-food. “I think you’ve misjudged me, Thorax. No matter what happened this night, I would have eaten, and will eat, Pharynx for eating my sister. However, then you had to go and try to eat me in turn. Maybe if you restrained yourself, by now you’d be rubbing my stomach, helping me digest Pharynx instead. Goodbye, King,” I growl out the last word before lifting my head away.

“Looks… like my brother is demoted from ‘Thorax’ to ‘Abdomen’,” Pharynx jokes in a flat tone, as if stating a simple observation, then he chuckles similarly humorlessly; he’s pulled his tongue to the corner of his mouth to speak easier. Taking that tongue into my own grip, I jerk him forward, and punch his antlers, breaking them off—he winces, and even lets out a tiny whimper. “Hey, Princess, no need to be so rough, okay? I lost, fair and square, and even I know it. I’m not fighting anymore, see?”

I stand still, letting him come to believe I actually trust him. “If you do, indeed, have an ounce of honor, Prince Pharynx, then step forward and feed yourself to me.” For the tiniest moment, his eyes widen slightly, giving me the probably first look at his actual emotions this whole night—perhaps he dared to dream that by acting mollified, he could escape his proper punishment?

Pharynx glances around, and my attention, too, is momentarily returned to our audience: The shock of my win must have worn off while Thorax “distracted” me, and now there are a number of creatures exchanging money and returning to their previous activities, except a few who don’t yet believe the action to be over—for whichever “action” each hopes to see. Himself seeing so many having dismissed the hunt to over, Pharynx hesitates (perhaps the crowd had provided the changeling some “emotional support” before?), but ultimately stands and takes those last few steps to stand before me, noses nearly touching. Now as we are, in the relative calm, I can tell that, indeed, even if Pharynx would be insane enough to lie about eating Luna, he hadn’t; I can think of no other explanation for this amount of growth in so little a time.

He leans forward the tiniest bit, so that when he whispers, I can just barely feel his chitin brush my fur. “I can sense what you think about me now, Celestia, but I swear on my shell I’m not lying about your sister. She’s still in there, she loves it, and you can join her—you can be together again.” In spite of my desire for justice, my lips shiver, and for a moment I do consider it. Soul-absorbing wouldn’t be the oddest power I’d heard of changelings possessing, and even beyond them, I wouldn’t put it past the world to house a few such beings. -And if—if—it is true, then eternal bliss would be right up the changelings’ alley, to produce all the more love…

The hesitation, that inner-debate, is almost all Pharynx needs. I blink away the vision of forever-joy with my sister just in time to see the slick, phosphorescent flesh of changeling gum and throat before he lunges. I twist my head to the side, and he clamps down on the side of my face, but by twisting back, I catch his muzzle against my horn, and he’s forced off. Dazed from this impact, as well as still not yet recovered from the abuse of his antlers, he hunches over in pain, gripping his head.

With no more fanfare or other acknowledgment, I force his head back up with a relatively weak punch (more of an “abrupt shove”) under the jaw, then drop my open, waiting muzzle over his. With his nose in the back of my throat, through my own flesh I can hear him mutter, “By the Queen’s crown-,” just before my first swallow, cutting off his curse, binding his muzzle within my esophagus. Unlike his brother’s begging and struggling, this profanity is all Pharynx offers in way of resistance—Perhaps in recognition how all Thorax’s efforts concluded in pure futility?

In spite of my apparent successful revenge, I can not shake off a significant sense of disappointment. Laying so slack as my lips engulf his head, neck, shoulders, and chest in turn, Pharynx is far too accepting of his execution-by-Alicorn-stomach. More than for this he goes down with notable ease, as he follows his larger brother, putting slightly less strain on my esophagus, diameter-wise. Even that small difference is enough for my peristalsis to gain exponentially greater traction, so that I’m sure even if he put up the fight I’d been expecting, he would still be going down faster.

Faster, indeed. It seems in a mere flash, and all that remains is his hindhooves, placid on my tongue. I close my mouth without fanfare, as if this was another bite of cake, and swallow. Still, as I gasp from the effort of just eating two beings, larger than myself all together, and put a hoof to the bulge of Pharynx, as if to make sure he’s gone for good… but I am not satisfied still. Not for hunger—it feels as if I’ve eaten enough to hibernate for a century!—but for a niggling in the back of my brain, very familiar to earlier this evening, but still “new”.

With a jolt, I look to the corner where the first changeling I spoke to had lain: She’s not there, nor anywhere as I turn my head swiftly about—not that that, of course, means much for changelings. A distraction in the form of my own now-very-wiggly-middle appears; Pharynx has just now fully entered my stomach, and it seems the two are repositioning themselves—trying to find some semblance of solace in their dank, gastric tomb. With a grunt of discomfort, my legs fall half-involuntarily from under me, although with two changeling royals “cushioning” my underside, I don’t fall far. Half in effort to still my roiling prey and half in effort to soothe my tummy, I pinch the bulge of brothers between all four legs, and if my lungs have had it in them, I would have gasped, for I had not until that moment truly grasped the literal, physical, and dietary enormity of my deed. How my legs squish to previously-thought impossible depth into my own belly!

- - - -

FOUR

Then, a sudden burst of sound: cheering and groaning, in equal measure. It seems I was not the only one who needed so long to process what happened—what I had done. As the initial commotion wears out, voices emerge, some with generic praise or disappointment, but most are in line with a singular topic. “Can she do that? They were wearing red!” “Yeah, but those rules don’t apply to greens.” “The consent rule doesn’t apply to greens.” “Exactly, so she can eat them even though they didn’t consent!” “You know what I meant!” “Does it matter? Who’s going to stop her or throw her out!?”

Dismissing the argument from my mind with a smirk of agreement to that last comment, I focus on standing—something that, all of a sudden, requires far more focus than I never imagined I would need to employ. I’ve barely raised myself a couple inches when a savior manifests: a Royal Guard, though obviously off-duty and out of his armor, his dyed fur and mane are also too obvious.

“Allow me, Princess.” He bows, and without waiting for my permission, or any response at all, he promptly sprints around behind me, then there begins to shove and wiggle himself under my ballooned middle, taking off me more weight than I even realized has been pulling on my spine. “Just… direct me… Your Highness… and I… willwalkwithyou!” he rushes out the last phrase with a grunt of effort, and I can already feel him, too, beginning to falter under the mass of changeling.

“To the bar,” I say without hesitation, both to spare him every second possible from collateral spine injury, and myself from primary spine injury. We make our way with relative speed, helped by the fact the crowd has mostly dispersed, now “the show” is over, as well as those between us and the bar swiftly getting out of my way (no matter how they might have to awkwardly lug their own distended stomach along with them in their haste).

With it quite impossible to take a seat upon a stool, I settle between two of them, only now recognizing just how distantly spaced they are compared to most bars, and then realizing a split second later that my current use of this space must be its exact purpose. I also find that, in my current condition, sitting has become a relative state, as my impromptu changeling dinner is making it impossible for me to keep all four hooves on the floor in the “proper” or “usual” way. Instead, my spine is forced to go near-vertical, making me feel as if I’m about to fall back—which I’m sure I would without my firmly anchoring belly—and my forelegs are left in a somewhat awkward position of having nowhere to really go except to rest on the top of said belly!

As my off-duty guard takes a seat on the stool to my right, I say, “Thank you. If I might inquire your name?” The bartender steps before us, looking quite angry, but I pointedly ignore him, even as he fake-coughs for attention.

The guard glaces at the bartender, but follows my cue after another second of nonreaction from me. “Of course, Princess,” he says with a shaky bow; he maintains posture for only two or three seconds more before slumping onto the counter. “I am Crude Point, Your Highness.” I take note of his Cutie Mark: a sword being thrust through a broken shield.

“Crude Point-” he turns onto his side to look at me without having to lift his head. “-first I must tell you it would be pointless to rush or panic, but so I don’t forget, know that we will need to put out a warrant for Pharynx’s arrest.” He reacts with an expected raised brow, and even more expected glance toward my stomach; he opens his mouth, but I cut in with an explanation. “To put it simply, there is reason enough for me to suspect that who I just ate may not have been the real Pharynx.” I glance towards my stomach, but if the potentially fake Pharynx hears, he doesn’t react.

Crude blinks from bemusement, but quickly accepts this with a shrug and, “Of course, Princess. If you believe it, I believe it. It’s not like it could… hurt,” he says the last word slowly while staring at my belly, distracted or mesmerized by the slowly shifting bulges—and I quickly shift my hunch to the latter when Crude’s sideways orientation against the bar allows me to spot the blue lapel so blaringly shining from his chest—though perhaps I only think of it that way now, knowing its significance?

Some long seconds later (too many?), he catches my stare, and looks down at himself, instantly blushing profusely and beginning to toy with the lapel when he realizes—or thinks he realizes—what I “must” be thinking. His gaze shifts from the lapel to my stomach and back a few times before he suddenly blushes profusely and turns his body to face the counter again, bringing his knees up against his own belly, as if to hide-

… Oh.

-And just like that, “what I ‘must’ be thinking” adjusts so dramatically, I have no chance to respond to what he “must” be thinking before the bartender finally loses his patience and slams a hoof on the counter. “What do you think you’re doing, Princess Celestia?” he demands with a volume just on the other side from shouting in affront.

With pursed lips, and my guard now staring at me as if waiting (or hoping?) for some direction, I slowly turn my head from Crude to the bartender. “I’m having a pleasant, illuminating conversation with one of my Royal Guard. Nothing more.” I allow him a split second to open his mouth with some no-doubt indignant phrase readied, but I continue, “No more, I’ve deduced, than what you witnessed on the seventh of May: ‘nothing weird or worrisome’. That is how you described my sister being eaten and digested—in essence, killed—no?”

The bartender’s tightly closed lips waver, barely restraining a rageful tirade; I smirk at this, and in turn his brows tighten and, though I can’t be sure under the distorting lights of the nightclub, a bead of sweat forms there. Perhaps looking for a distraction, he considers Crude Point, his eyes flicking to the lapel—and so he believes he’s found his out. “I’m sure you’ve been told by now how this place works, at its base, at least, so you should know that those patrons of mine wearing red are the only ones who can eat others.”

I think he expects me to chase the red herring and argue over the points of the green lapel marking me as exempt from the rules, but of course not; I’m far more interested in that “patrons of mine” comment—in so many words: Got’chya! “Oh? -And who can say that? Who can impose that? You?”

The sophomorically shrewd bartender/now-revealed-owner narrows his eyes further, again obviously thinking he knows what I’m getting at, he skips the argument forward to where he believes he’ll have some chance. “Your sister knew what she was getting into, and she finally got herself ‘gotten’, alright? She purposefully chose to wear the green lapel, even though she knew the password and knew what that lapel meant, and that’s not my fault.”

I pretend to consider the point, looking down at my belly and idly poking at the now mostly still bulges; inside, I’m already celebrating and, oddly enough, looking forward to another meal. “Perhaps she did or didn’t; I don’t care about the particulars of that anymore, now that… proper justice on those responsible has been carried out.” I make it a point to lick my lips and give my stomach a particularly vigorous rub and hug—this has the most felicitous incidence of dislodging a massive belch (truly the loudest and longest I’ve ever produced!), adding to the implied intimidation; I continue, however, as if sitting at a normal dinner table, having been disrupted by no more than a politely quiet reflex of the diaphragm. “Now, though, I’m more concerned with all the other ponies and creatures who were so generously granted entry with the green lapel. If I’m wrong, please call out this hunch for what it is, but after what I just experienced, I’m guessing that none of them ever knew what was going to be done to them any more than I did. More than that is that you not only knew this, but must have created the system in the first place.” I do my best to lean forward aggressively, nearly laying on my monstrous beanbag-of-a-stomach to do so—I narrow my eyes to ensure my intention isn’t lost in leviathan-to-pony translation. “So, how close to the truth am I?”

The answer I receive is a huff though his nose that could be mistaken for annoyance. I turn to Crude. “If I could bother you off-duty, I left a few on-duty guards waiting out of sight outside. Please, give them the usual signal and bring them down here. If the bouncers complain, go ahead and tell them what I did.” I grin at how the two “tough” ponies would react in my imagination—but going up there myself in this condition would be far too much trouble for such a simple amusement.

Crude reacts immediately with a salute, which… unveils his other salute. “No trouble at all, of course, Princess!” and without further ado, leaps from the stool and lands into a swift trot—I can’t help how his swaying erection captures my eye. At least I know he would certainly accept any advance from me! What am I thinking!!! Perhaps this is what eating a changeling does to you: All the “love energy” in their body is released into you, and-

Doing my best to slyly shake off the thoughts, aided by Crude’s disappearance into the crowd, I then turn back to the bartender. “What? Nothing to say in your defense?” Though I maintain a professionally passive smile, I casually and confidently lay my chin onto a forehoof, with the elbow sinking into my belly.

He draws he shoulders up defensively, determinedly meeting my eyes, keeping his own from so much as flicking toward the implied destiny. “I stand by everything I’ve said and done. I know you’ll find by your own laws not a lick of it was illegal, or even close to toeing the line. I’m not worried.” The way he’s breathing now reminds me of Twilight: struggling to keep posture.

“Oh? Not even the littlest bit? Not even worried about something such as, oh, me returning here in the future, taking the green lapel again, and eating you next?” I tilt my head a few degrees and narrow my eyes subtly. “I thought you would have figured out by now that there’s only one possible end for you once I found the truth, or…” I tilt my head to the other side. “… -or, perhaps you considered that potentiality, but it was overridden by how confident you were that Thorax would be able to—hmm—‘prevent’ that?”

He’s good, but not good enough: The tiniest widening of his pupils is enough confirmation for me. Thankfully, my on-duty guards march in just then, preventing me from bothering with further banter—though not without, of course, a final smirk and quip, “I hope to see you for dinner sometime soon.” Then I turn to Night Knife and Star Wings (Bat Ponies from my sister’s Night Guard) with the carefully passive—only lightly disgusted by the situation—expression of a proper princess. “Night, Star, arrest this bartender on suspicions for involvement in Luna’s disappearance and conspiracy against the crown.”

Both their eyes widen at the accusations, possibly also in consideration to who is being accused, and can see that point: A nightclub bartender, conspiring against the crown? Nevertheless, the duo is ever dutiful and step around the bar and swiftly apply hoofcuffs; the bartender remains still and expressionless as he lets them do this, and walks without hesitation when Star orders, “Move out!”

As the bartender is marched away, the crowd’s attention is quickly gathered, much to the Bat Ponies’ trepidation, but their unease is unwarranted, for their brisk exit is unimpeded. With the owner gone, the DJ is the first to look around in abandoned confusion, and announces, “Well, if this means I’m not getting paid, I’m out’ta here!” and so she is.

This seems to break what spell had held the patrons, and they all begin to murmur and wander with uncertainty. “Does this mean they’re getting shut down?” “Should we leave” “Do we have to leave?” “So, do you want to continue this at your place?” are the most common questions, and I concern myself not with them. I close my eyes to focus; of course this place will have to be held by the crown for the investigation, then auctioned after the bartender’s “mysterious escape and subsequent disappearance”, except-…

“Princess?” I peek to the side to find Crude Point, saluting awkwardly—and not from his underbelly—with his head tilted with… worry? I open my mouth just as Crude speaks, “I have- ah! sorry, Your Highness.” I motion for him to go ahead. “Er, I was saying that I have taken the liberty of going through the club, and I found no creatures wearing the green lapel who, well, I would have warned away.” He salutes again, then retakes his seat when I nod.

“Very good, Sir Point-”—he blushes—“as I was, in fact, just now thinking about such.” Now reminded, I pull the lapel off and slap it, with some unnecessary force, onto the stool opposite Crude Point (as I’m currently unable to reach the bar). “-And of the bouncers?”

He laughs. “As you predicted, Princess. They wanted to stop the Night Guards, but after I told them of what you did, they stood still as statues for a minute, then looked at each other and bolted in different directions!” and we share the laugh that follows.

As the merriment wears off, I once more consider Crude Point, though now with a wistful sigh. “The Royal Guard could always use more with such instinct and discretion as yours.” I nod, smiling genuinely in what feels like far too long, meeting his eyes… for far too long.

He stares back, and I can watch as he builds his daring behind his eyes. “P-Princess, if I may be so bold-” He chokes, and looks down, toying with the blue lapel, whether absentmindedly or out of some desperate nonverbal hint.

Suddenly, a daring steals over me in turn: Fuck “wistful”! I let out a light laugh—interrupted by a tiny burp—before responding. “-But of course, Crude Point! If it’s all the same for you, however, I would rather contact Princess Twilight first, so she might remove this ring, before we retire for the evening together.” He nearly falls off his stool from the shock of my forwardness, so I add with a more playful grin, “Then, in the morning, we can discuss… breakfast in bed.” I finish with a lusty whisper.