The world was splotches of deep red and pale green and lush purple with veins of brown. It was cool and wet, though she felt like she was lying on the lumpiest mattress in the world. She couldn’t place the scent around her, but it smelled sweet and serene and relaxing.

It took her hazy mind a while to realize that she was lying on and surrounded by fruit. Fruit as big as she was, oddly enough, but it was still fruit. The confusion at how big they were was fleeting at most. She focused on moving upward and climbing out of her odd surroundings.

The journey upward as she pushed off of fruit of all different colors passed in a haze without the boundary of time or distance. Eventually her head surfaced as she beheld the world around her. There wasn’t much of a world to see. Silver walls nearby blocked most of it off, though she could see what looked like a marble ceiling hanging miles above her head. She heard talking. It boomed in her ears and yet sounded distant and garbled, like it was happening underwater. The voices were familiar, though.

She clumsily climbed over the terrain of fruit and reached the rim of the silver walls. She got on her hind legs and peered over the edge on the tips of her hooves, perspective suddenly swimming into focus.

The walls around her weren’t walls at all. It was the rim of a silver bowl of grapes, sitting in Celestia’s personal chamber. It had to be; lush red carpet, polished mahogany furniture, paintings from across the eras adorning the walls. Every little detail was in sharp focus.

The little details didn’t matter much compared to the giant Celestia lying across her favorite violet cushion a mile away. Or, more accurately, a normal sized Celestia lying across her favorite violet cushion feet away from a very small Twilight. The alicorn’s lips were moving, but the sound was still garbled. She had another silver bowl by her side, and every few seconds she levitated up a grape and popped it in her mouth.

“Celestia!” Twilight called out, trying to wave to her mentor. “I’m over here! I don’t know how I got here, but I’m sure if we can get to the library we can-”

She stopped and froze as a loud creak and groan roared behind her. She turned her head to see a grape nearby caught in a violet magic aura. With a deafening crack, it snapped off and floated into the sky.

Her eyes followed it to see a giant purple flank not that far away with her cutie mark emblazoned on it. Twilight, another Twilight, was sitting on a cushion next to the bowl where she was, idly snacking away as her indistinct voice chatted with Celestia, wearing the full princess royal armor. She started laughing, the sound booming in Twilight’s tiny ears, before she popped the grape in her mouth with a little flap of her wings.

Twilight’s jaw dropped and her eyes widened. “Oh no. Oh no no no no no, I need to get out of here!” She hopped up and took flight. Or at least she tried to. She flopped forward right back into the sea of grapes. She scrambled to her hooves and tried again, to similar results. “Come on, wings, work!” She looked over her shoulders and her heart fell when she found that she had no wings. She was a unicorn again.

Twilight flinched when she felt and heard her doppelganger pluck up another grape nearby with a loud creak and snap. “Celestia!” she yelled at the top of her voice, peering over the edge of the bowl. “Celestia, you’re eating with an imposter! I’m over here!” She tried to charge up her horn to teleport away, but her horn refused to respond. Her mentor didn’t seem to hear her; she just kept talking as she pulled another grape from her own bowl. “Celestia!”

She gasped when she took a closer look. The grape that Celestia was raising to her lips wasn’t a grape at all. It was a struggling, writhing Spike, helpless in the alicorn’s magic grip. Celestia didn’t seem to notice him, or his screams.

“Spike!” Twilight hopped up and put her front legs over the edge of the bowl, trying desperately to pull herself over. “Spike, I’m coming!” She kicked her hind legs furiously as she strained to scramble over the wall. Time was running out. Celestia had already paused from her talking and was opening her mouth.

With one last push, Twilight managed to pull herself over. She tumbled down onto the carpet in a heap, but didn’t waste time in getting to her hooves and galloping toward her mentor. “Celestia, stop, please!” She let out a gasp when she felt a force tug her upward, a glowing violet aura tinting her vision.

“Looks like one rolled out,” her own voice boomed in her ears, suddenly clear and sharp. Twilight didn’t look back, but let out a sigh of relief when Spike’s ascent halted, Celestia distracted.

“It should still be good. Three second rule and all.” Celestia shrugged and popped Spike into her mouth. She rolled her snack around on her tongue for a few moments before an odd look crossed her face. She parted her lips a bit, showing Twilight Spike’s look of terror as he held on to her teeth.

“Help me!”

His only two words rang sharply in Twilight’s ears as Celestia closed her lips and swallowed. A small, unrecognizable lump traveled down the alicorn’s throat before vanishing completely.

Twilight stared in horror, her jaw slack and her struggles gone. Her heart beat loudly in her ears as everything become so much color and noise. She could only see that look of pleading fear on his face, burned into her mind’s eye. “No…”

Everything came back into focus when she felt a rush of warm, fruit-smelling breath rush past her. She looked over her shoulder to see her hooves sliding in past her double’s lips and teeth to rest on her tongue. She could see down her own gullet, wet and tight and dark, slick and glistening with saliva.

“No, no please! Don’t!” She kicked against the imposter’s tongue in vain. If the doppelganger knew, she didn’t care. Twilight hyperventilated as she looked ahead of her again, watching Celestia continue to talk, completely oblivious, through the alicorn’s teeth. “Celestia!”

The princess’s teeth snapped shut. The world went dark. Twilight could quickly feel her prison tilt backward as the tongue beneath her writhed over her, tasted her.

“Please, don’t…!” Tears came to her eyes as she tried desperately to hang onto the alicorn’s tongue. It was too slippery. She was starting to slide backward. “I don’t want to die! I don’t want to die!”

There was a loud gulp, and she was dragged into the abyss. Next Chapter: Dear Dreamers: Rarity Estimated time remaining: 48 Minutes