"Everything should be ready for Hearth's Warming at the end of the week," Ocellus said.

"Thank you again for organizing the festivities, Ocellus!" said Thorax, king of the changelings. "I knew we made the right decision sending you to Princess Twilight's School of Friendship."

"Well, it was my pleasure," Ocellus said.

"And our honor," Thorax replied. "It's good for the younglings to have something festive to celebrate!"

"I'm not even a youngling anymore," Ocellus said. "I've got maybe just one more molt and I'll be full grown."

"She's right, you know," Pharynx said as he walked up beside the king. Thorax glared at his older brother. He knew what he was getting at, but he didn't want to sully the mood of the evening.

"But you are still the youngest of us," Thorax said. Ocellus looked back and forth between them. As a changeling, she could feed on love and other emotions. But she didn't need to be a natural empath to sense the tension between them. It was plainly evident.

"Is that why everyone treats me like some kind of celebrity?" Ocellus asked them. Pharynx wore a smug, knowing expression. He knew the answer to her question but he held his tongue and looked to his brother. King Thorax was far less composed.

"Kind... of?" he said, stammering, "It's just that... since... with Mom- Chrys- uh... the queen gone now..." he trailed off.

Ocellus looked worried. A quiet anxiety that she had been harboring for a long time finally bubbled up to the surface. "Am I... will I be the last changeling?" she asked.

"No!" Thorax and Pharynx both said at the same time to assure her.

"Changelings are versatile and adaptive!" Pharynx said with pride. "There are lots of ways for us to reproduce! "But without a new queen..."

"A new queen?" Ocellus asked, looking back and forth between him and the king.

"Not just a leader," Pharynx explained. "A breeder. Normally changelings can't incubate their own eggs. A changeling needs to eat the Royal Jelly, and then their internal morphology changes into a queen."

"So someone will be the new queen? And there will be more grubs?" Ocellus asked.

"Yes. There- there will be... Don't worry about it," he said. Ocellus didn't seem terribly convinced. But she didn't press the matter any further. She nodded and returned to preparing for the Hearth's Warming festivities. All the other changelings gathered around her, the youngest of them, the ambassador for the changelings to Equestria.

"Smooth," Pharynx sarcassed under his breath. "I can see why you're the king."

"I never asked for this," Thorax said, turning to walk away from the party. "Do you want to be king?" he asked.

"For the last time, no!" Pharynx said. "I serve the hive. I was never meant to lead. None of us were meant to." Thorax knew that with his brother, it was always the things he didn't say, but what he implied that mattered.

"You still miss her?" Thorax asked. The question lingered in the quiet tunnel. Thorax still remembered the time he brought his brother to Canterlot.

~

"I want to see her," Pharynx demanded.

In Canterlot, Thorax led his brother to the statue of Tirek, Cozy Glow, and Queen Chrysalis. He had never seen his brother cry before or since, but standing there looking at her trapped in stone, he cried. He didn't wail or sob. Tears just ran down his cheeks until he wiped his eyes, smiled and chuckled at the fierce expression captured forever on her face.

"She went out like she lived," Pharynx said. "A fighter to the bitter end!" He looked back at his brother. "You said they can... she can hear me?" he asked.

Thorax nodded. "Discord said that they can."

Pharynx looked back at her, stepping up close to whisper to her. "My Queen... I'm sorry that I failed you." He wrapped his hooves around her and kissed her cold, granite cheek. "I love you, Mom."

It was the last time Pharynx ever went to Canterlot. He could not bear to see her again.

~

"Of course I miss her!" Pharynx said with an edge to his voice, looking away from his brother for a moment to collect himself.

"Even after everything that has happened? Now that we know that there is a better way? Knowing that she was keeping us loyal by keeping us hungry?" Thorax asked.

"Yes," he said at last. Pharynx didn't answer right away. Not because he was uncertain, but because he wanted to make sure they were far enough away from the others. "She had direction. Ambition!"

"You would still take her back as our queen? Back to the old ways, the bad ways?" Thorax asked.

"Yes!" Pharynx said.

"Why!?"

"The hive. Needs. A Queen! Thorax!" Pharynx yelled.

Thorax bristled. Not because he was angry, or because he thought his brother was wrong. But because he was right. It was a plain, simple, naked fact, and Thorax had been trying to ignore it ever since Chrysalis had been ousted. But it had been years now, and many of the elder drones had passed without younglings to replace them. The hive population was slowly dwindling.

"Isn't that why you're grooming Ocellus?" Pharynx asked. "To be queen? For her to take me as her brood-ling?"

"Don't say that about our sister!" Thorax cringed.

"Well she's also my daughter," Pharynx said. "So technically, I outrank you. Either that or family doesn't matter. In which case, don't play that card!"

"Have you told her that!?" Thorax asked anxiously.

"What good would that possibly serve?" Pharynx asked back. "All that would do is confuse her when the time comes for me to breed her."

"Stop saying it like it's an inevitability!" Thorax yelled, flailing his hooves. Pharynx stopped walking outside of the passage to the royal chambers. He turned and walked through the winding, secluded tunnel. "Hey, come on, stay out of Mom's room!" Thorax said.

"It's your room now," Pharynx said. "Or at least it should be! A king, and yet you still sleep in your old drone quarters."

Thorax reluctantly followed him into the royal chambers. "It doesn't feel right being in here," Thorax said.

"Well you never acquired my comfort with it," Pharynx said. Thorax watched him run his hoof along the bedding of the queen's old nest.

"Is that why you were always so loyal to her?" Thorax asked. "Because she chose you as her concubinator?"

"She did choose me..." Pharynx reminisced with a toothy grin. "A lot of changelings had to die for her to choose me..."

~

Thorax remembered well the ceremony for the new concubinator. It was nothing less than a single elimination of would-be suitors in one-on-one mortal combat. By sword, spear, hoof and tooth. Changelings murdered one another for the chance to be the one to mate with the queen. Chrysalis presided over the spectacle until only one remained: the strongest, bravest, most worthy.

Until only Pharynx was left standing, covered in the green blood of his slaughtered siblings. His mother took him into her royal chambers to mate with him that very night. And many nights since. And now, nevermore.

~

"Would you have killed me, Pharynx?" Thorax asked. "When I came back to the hive with Starlight to face her. Would you have killed me if Mom had asked you to?" Pharynx shook his head in frustrated dismissal.

"Why must you question my love for you, brother?" he asked.

"Pharynx?" Thorax pressed.

Pharynx's eyes never left the bed where he used to lay with the queen.

"If my queen asked it of me."

Thorax wished he was surprised by the answer.

"She would have killed you too, eventually," Thorax said.

"When the day came that I could no longer serve my queen as her concubinator... Yes," Pharynx said. "She would have killed and eaten me. Just like she did to Dad. I would have sacrificed myself to serve my queen one final time in feeding her." Pharynx looked at him and grinned with pride. "And the rest of you all would have cursed my name in envy, just as our uncles did! 'Better to have died than to have not had sex!' And my sons would have murdered one another for the privilege to take my place!" His prideful smile quickly faded, giving way to his usual, forlorn scowl. "But... what the hell does it matter now?" His eyes shifted over to the sacred vase beside the entrance of the room. It glowed faintly green through the translucent membrane body. "All that matters now... all that has ever mattered, is the hive. And the hive needs a queen."

"I know."

Pharynx gently touched the sealed lid to the vase. The last of the Queen's Royal Jelly. "This stuff isn't going to last forever. I have half a mind to bring Ocellus in here this very night and feed it to her!"

"Pharynx!"

"And she would, too! She understands what's at stake. She'd actually do something about it, like a proper queen! Not like the coward you are! A 'king' in name only! Just you watch!" Pharynx turned to leave, to go get little Ocellus and make her drink the Royal Jelly, make her their new queen, and then he would make her his.

"You will not!" Thorax grabbed his brother by his shoulder and spun him around. His other hoof socked him in the jaw, sending him reeling. Pharynx had never taken such a blow before. Least of all did he expect a sucker-punch from his sissy broodmate-brother-turned-king. His tumble turned into a controlled roll and he was right back on his hooves, ready to lunge and strike back.

"Will you assault your king, now?" Thorax asked, moving to block the exit.

The question threw Pharynx more than the punch. He wanted to fight his brother, but he felt compelled to momentarily stay his hoof. He was a fiercely loyal soldier. He didn't want to attack his king. But the hive, and its future came first. If he had to fight his brother for that sake, he would. And once Ocellus was the new queen, it would no longer matter. Thorax would be 'king' in name only.

Thorax turned and grabbed the lid of the vase, breaking the seal. Pharynx was about to lambaste him for damning them all to die. Pharynx now needed to go get Ocellus immediately. The Jelly would go sour very quickly if it wasn't consumed as soon as it was opened.

"Move aside! You're in the way!" Pharynx snarled. Thorax instead brought his mouth to the rim of the vase and drank deeply of the Royal Jelly, lifting it in his hooves until there was nothing left in the vessel. His body glowed as he felt the power rush through him. He looked back at his brother.

"I AM the way!" Thorax said with absolute authority.

Pharynx could scarcely believe his eyes but fell to his knee all the same, bowing his head. "What is your bidding, my Queen?" he asked.

"I- I don't know!" Thorax said. "But if feels weird to be called 'queen'."

"Shall I lead a raid to collect ponies for you to impregnate?" Pharynx asked.

"No. We don't do that!"

"Would you bestow us with the nectar to do it ourselves afield?" Pharynx.

"No! And... I don't even know how that would work!"

"The queen would feed us nectar from her... royal staff." Pharynx smirked. "It would fertilize our eggs and then we could lay them in ponies to be incubated with their love."

"No! We are not raping ponies! Never again!"

"As you command," Pharynx said obediently. "There is only one way left, then. After our defeat at the invasion of Canterlot, Mom chose to be more subtle in rebuilding our numbers. She took the duty of populating the hive upon herself."

Thorax was almost scared to ask. "How?"

"After selecting a drone," Pharynx smirked, "she would feed them nectar to fertile their eggs. Then she would incubate them herself in place of a pony."

"Then... then so will I!" Thorax said.

"Shall we hold a new competition for your mate?" Pharynx asked.

"No! I don't want that! And we can't afford to spill any more changeling blood!"

"A wise decision," Pharynx grinned wider, slowly circling him. He sidled up beside him and whispered in his ear. "It must surely be plainly obvious who the strongest of us is, anyway."

Thorax gulped nervously. "It is."

"Shall we... secure the future of the hive?" Pharynx asked.

"That... is my duty," Thorax said. Pharynx motioned for him to lay upon the royal nesting. The woven organic materials were strong and resilient, but yet pliable and soft. It was a far cry better than the simple webbing hammocks of the drones. Thorax laid upright on his abdomen. Despite settling onto the plush bedding, he was yet still feeling uncomfortable.

"Might your concubinator partake of the Royal Nectar?" Pharynx asked. Thorax hesitated briefly but eventually nodded. Pharynx motioned with his hoof for him to roll over onto his back. Thorax did so and Pharynx moved onto the bed beside him, running his hoof down along his smooth segments of Thorax's belly to between his legs. He expertly massaged the partition between the second and third segment, making his ovipositor slowly emerge.

For a fertile changeling, their ovipositor was the means by which they laid their eggs inside a host. In preparation, they secreted a fluid that primarily served as a lubricant for the eggs' delivery. But it also acted as a mild neurotoxin to make the host more compliant and the local muscles more relaxed, to stretch in preparation for holding a large volume of eggs. Afterwards, it hardened into a firm resin to hold the eggs in place until they were ready to be released. Of course a changeling's body was immune to most of these effects. The 'Queen's Nectar' was different. It contained special hormones that were what made a drone temporarily fertile.

Pharynx stroked his brother's ovipositor. At first glance, it was very similar in shape and size to a stallion's penis. And when a changeling wasn't breeding, it functioned the same way. Unlike the rest of the 'technicolor mess', as Pharynx described their new appearances, his 'penis' was the same old charcoal black of their original bodies. Much like Chrysalis's.

Whether it was male or female, his mother or brother, Pharynx paid it no mind. In fact, it only served to spur him on. He still hissed their mother dearly, and he cherished taking her ovipositor in his mouth. This was almost as good.

"Pharynx," Thorax moaned as he felt his brother start to suck on his dick. Pharynx bobbed his head a few times. It usually didn't take much to coax the queen to feed him. Thorax felt a familiar pressure building, but it was strange at the same time. There was much about his new anatomy he had yet to understand. Changelings fed on love and needed neither food nor drink. But if they had food or drink for the sake of appearances, their bodies had the means of 'dealing with it'. But as the queen, his bladder had been repurposed to hold the Royal Nectar. Pharynx pressed his free hoof into Thorax's abdomen, trying to get him to release. He pulled his mouth off just long enough to quickly speak.

"You're holding back. Let it go." Pharynx sucked harder. Thorax whimpered and moaned, finally relaxing his muscles. The Royal Nectar flowed into Pharynx's mouth, slowly at first, and then in a steady stream. Pharynx wrapped his lips tightly around him. He swallowed quickly and continuously and his brother completely emptied himself. Pharynx sucked the last few droplets and smacked his lips with satisfaction as he pulled his brother's dick out of his mouth.

"Such quantity! My generous queen spoils me!" Pharynx said.

"King, please," Thorax corrected, looking down at his erect ovipositor. "I'm not feeling very feminine."

"You're a 'king' in name only now, Thorax." Pharynx grunted, feeling the Queen's Nectar flooding his system. His own ovipositor growing to full mast as his eggs began to become fertile. "Besides, you seemed comfortable enough disguised as that Starlight pony. Why don't throw that one on? I think you'd enjoy that."

"It- it wouldn't be fair to her," Thorax said.

"Perhaps her marefriend then. Trixie was it?" Pharynx suggested. "I would have relished ravaging either of them when I had last captured them."

"Ponies are our friends now," Thorax said. "Not food, or incubators."

"As you have so often reminded me," Pharynx hissed. "Perhaps Mother, then? At least make this somewhat pleasurable."

Thorax winced. He hadn't really been thinking when he first drank the Jelly. His concern was protecting his fellow changelings, and also securing the future of the hive. Even if it meant consorting with his own brother. He could accept that. He hadn't considered that Pharynx might not accept him. But it hurt. Thorax motioned to his own body.

"Am I... is this not good enough for you?" Thorax asked, seeking the kind of emotional validation that Pharynx had come to expect from the former queen's handmaidens. Pharynx grinned.

"Of course you are," Pharynx said sincerely. He moved over the other changeling, looming above him on the bedding. "Truly. You are the leader of our hive." Pharynx's ovipositor grew turgid as he rubbed it against Thorax's bottom. "You will bear my grubs, the next generation of younglings. A strong generation of changelings." A bit of lubricant dripped from Pharynx's tip, against Thorax's tight pucker. He applied a bit more pressure.

"You are my brother. And I do love you." Pharynx continued. "I'll enjoy this just as you are. I only suggested that you make yourself a female of some form or another for this next part, but if you insist..." Pharynx pushed forward.

"HHNG!" Thorax grunted as the tip of his brother's ovipositor popped inside of the tight o-ring of his anus.

"Oh wow! You really are tight!" Pharynx said. "You should really try to relax. Or maybe shape-shift yourself a little."

Thorax could barely concentrate enough on breathing, let alone shape-shifting as his older brother shoved more of his dick into his ass.

"You're going to have some real problems making room for my eggs if you can't even make room for me. Fuck!" Pharynx said, working a little more of his shaft in with each thrust.

"UNF!" Thorax let out a wheeze as Pharynx displaced his internal organs with his dick, shoving them upwards against his lungs. At last, Pharynx was able to get it completely inside him.

"Fucking finally! Now let's get down to business!" Pharynx started thrusting in earnest. Thorax could only lay there at the complete mercy of his older brother pummeling his colon. Thorax's ovipositor re-emerged as he got fucked. The tip of it leaked more Queen's Nectar, dribbling it onto his belly. "Hey! Don't waste that!" Pharynx scolded. He lifted his brother's hips as he kept fucking him and arched them upwards, shoving his brother's dick into his own face. Pharynx aimed the tip of it into the king's mouth.

With Pharynx practically folding him in half, Thorax had no choice but to swallow a few mouthfuls of Queen's Nectar from his own penis. The warmth of it radiated through his body.

"Ha! Never saw Mom do that!" Pharynx said, fucking him harder, thrusting it into his own mouth. "Stop fucking yourself! Stop fucking yourself!" Pharynx teased. "Just like old times, eh bro?" Thorax grunted and groaned. Pharynx felt his little brother's muscles pulsing around his dick. He watched a series of bulges moving up his brother's shaft as his orgasm sent his eggs into his own mouth. "Swallow! Swallow them! Eggs are coming out of your ass one way or another. Yours are just going to have to take the long way!" Thorax swallowed the eggs whole as he was told. They would likely affix themselves in his upper intestine until they were ready to be laid. Meanwhile, in his lower intestine...

Pharynx felt a familiar tightness growing in his own abdomen, just as he had so many times mating with his own mother.

"F-fuck! I'm cumming!" Pharynx grunted "Here they come!" The tip of his ovipositor flared open like a blossoming flower. His muscles involuntarily pulsed and throbbed and his massive clutch of fertile eggs began to move up his shaft. Thorax's eyes rolled back as he felt his asshole stretched even wider around his brother's hilted shaft as the eggs moved up within him. The first emerged from the flared tip, deep inside of Thorax's bowels. But it was only the first of many as several more eggs follows after in rapid succession, the whole of the clutch pushing itself deeper still up into Thorax.

Thorax panted and wheezed like a mare in Lamaze class as he felt himself being filled with more and more of his brother's eggs. Luckily, his brother's secretions were working well to make him able to stretch his muscles and his belly ballooned out with his brother's brood.

For Pharynx, it was all he could do to just hold on has he felt the most eggs he had ever delivered being forced up and out of his ovipositor. He had greedily drank all of his brother's Nectar, and now he was paying for it. He panted and sweated, unable to stop cumming despite the fatigue of his muscles. The sheer transfer of biomass left him feeling emaciated as he poured nearly all of his stored love into his clutch. He gave every last ounce that he could. He would die for his clutch. For his hive.

Thorax felt so full. Not just full of eggs, but also full of love. The ambient love radiating off the eggs. He could tell that he had poured his heart into it. As soon as the last egg was safely deposited within its host, Pharynx pulled out his withered ovipositor, leaving behind a thick resin. The husk of a changeling collapsed on top of his brother. Thorax grabbed him with his hooves and pulled him close.

Pharynx's eyes flittered open briefly, skirting the edge of unconsciousness. Utterly drained of love, he would be dead soon. And his queen would eat him. He hoped he would be a good meal to sustain his queen in her time of need. When she needed him the most, as sustenance for their brood. His final sacrifice to serve the hive he loved so much. He felt the mouth on him. This was it. He was about to be eaten. And it was okay.

Thorax kissed his brother and hugged him as he laid next to him. His swollen belly made it tricky, even as he rolled onto his side. He snuggled against his brother and smiled.

Yesterday, he didn't think that he would particularly enjoy his brother's dick up his ass, or being filled with eggs, from both ends no less. But as he laid there with his belly full of loved eggs, he understood the appeal. It was good to be king. But he wanted to simply enjoy his brother's brand of 'intimacy' again in the future under less serious conditions.

"Thank you, Pharynx," he whispered into his brother's ear, kissing him again. Pharynx felt a modicum of his strength returning to him.

"You're... your not going to eat me?" Pharynx rasped.

"Of course not, silly! I love you!" Thorax said. He said it with genuine feeling. Pharynx felt a fresh wave of vitality wash over him from the love he was getting from his brother. From his words, hugs and kisses.

"Why are you giving me your love? The eggs!" Pharynx said. "You need food for the eggs!"

Thorax rubbed his belly.

"We can give them all the love they need and still have plenty for each other," Thorax said. "Haven't you learned? With love, the more you give, the more you have!" He grabbed his still-weak brother's hooves, and started to playfully pummeled him with them. "Stop hitting yourself. Stop hitting yourself!" Thorax laughed and smiled, loving his brother even more. It gave Pharynx the strength the pull his hooves free.

He was now even strong enough to pull himself out of his brother's hug.

But he didn't.

They just laid there together, snuggling long into the night. The fecund king, and the proud concubinator.

In the coming days, Pharynx assured the other changelings that everything was fine. That the King was just a little under the weather. And the best thing that they could all do to expedite his recovery was to send him their love. Which they did, to great effect.

In the small hours of Hearth's Warming Eve, Pharynx helped the very gravid king from his chambers to his selected nesting location. After a long night of laborious laying, but Pharynx was by his side the whole time.

The next morning, the King presided on his throne once again, alongside his beloved brother and mate. They sat, overlooking the others as they awoke that morning, walking out to find that beneath the Hearth's Warming tree lay the greatest gift of all: The clutch of eggs for their future generation.