Always check the castle for booby-traps
Princess Cadence awoke to sunlight streaming through drawn curtains into her lush bedchambers. Rolling about in her drowsiness-impaired state, she took note that her Prince must have already left to his duties. She nestled deeper into her sheets, attempting to grasp the last vestiges of her slumber. As she began to drift off again, she was interrupted by a growl. She slowly began to realize how late it was, and her stomach took the liberty to remind her she hadn't had her breakfast yet. With a huff, she rolled free of her covers, and onto the carpeted floors of the bedroom. After smoothing her mane and ruffled feathers, she took her crown from the nightstand and entered the castle proper.
She decided to take a roundabout path to the kitchens today, seeing as her court wouldn't open today on account of Unification Day. Admiring some views she rarely saw in the windows of this particular hallway, Cadence nearly tripped as a floor tile sank into the floor beneath one of her hooves. She raised the hoof, and the tile returned into alignment with the floor. She felt an odd tingling sensation come across her body. She readied a shield spell for some kind of trap, but after a few moments, the only sound she heard was her breathing. With a sigh of relief, she continued down the hall. She'd have to tell somepony on the staff about that tile.
As she reached the kitchen, her stomach reminded her of her quest for breakfast. She opened the icebox with her magic, before pulling out a bottle of milk, along with some orange juice. Pouring herself a glass of juice, she took a box of Wheat-Os from the top of the icebox. Adding the milk and the cereal to the bowl, she grabbed a spoon made her way to a nearby table.
No need to use the dining room, she reasoned, the kitchen table is just fine. Taking her seat at the crystalline table, she took to her cereal with gusto. Each crunchy bite seemed better than the last, and before she knew it, she'd gulped down the milk and was staring at an empty bowl in front of her. As Cadence wondered how hungry she must have been, she heard a growl from her stomach. While a bowl of cereal would usually satisfy her, she saw the assorted fruits of the nearby fruit basket and grabbed an apple from it. Crunching into it, she relished the sweet, tart flavor of the fruit. Then she took another, only for her teeth to meet air. She looked down, only to see a core where a full apple had been moments ago. Oddly, she still didn't feel satisfied. As she took a couple more fruits from the basket, an orange and a banana, she failed to notice the dim, grey glow outlining her body as she ate. With each bite, her form grew out almost unnoticeably. The once slim Princess was developing a small belly, as well as her rear blowing out ever so slightly. Cadence paused her demolition of the fruit basket, half a pear still hanging suspended in her mouth. Biting down slowly, she gulped down the fruit like she had all before it. Her stomach gave another famished whine, and she looked down on it. Cadence gasped as she saw her once flat stomach had gained at least an inch, and the pink mound had give to it as she tested it with a hoof. It growled again, more loudly than ever, and panic shot through her. She had to find out what was doing this! She didn't want Shining to have to have a cow for a wife! She stood up from the table, and began to make for the door, gulping down the last couple bites of a watermelon as she did so. ...Wait, what watermelon?
She turned, only to find the rinds of a watermelon resting in her cereal bowl. She looked down at her belly, which hung a good three inches from her body, and if its incessant growling was any indication, it was still hungry. Her mind wandered from the mystery to the massive cake in the storage room nearby. It was meant to serve the castle staff at the Unification Day party later that evening, but her bloated stomach urged her to try a piece. She trotted quickly into the large room, taking in the relatively empty room, noting only the cake and a crate of ice cream cartons.
I shouldn't eat the cake, she thought, but nopony would mind if I helped myself to the ice cream! Using her magic to pry open the crate, Cadence took out a gallon of her favorite Strawberry Swirl ice cream. She'd had this crate of cartons enchanted to keep it cold, and it held true as she stuck her muzzle into the carton and took a couple mouthfuls of the sweet, cool treat, alternating it with bites of moist cake. While the princess was eating, her magic had begun grabbing at nearby food to sate her appetite. Cadence hadn't meant to eat the cake, but as lost in her gluttony as she was, she hardly paid a second thought to the great heaps of cake she was eating. Her belly, quickly blimping up from all the food and calories within, had nearly reached the floor. It swayed, a gurgling, growling pendulum of fat, as Cadence indulged her seemingly endless appetite. Her rear had grown as well, but it seemed paltry in comparison to Cadence's simply mammoth gut. Within a couple minutes, the princess' gluttonous bliss was interrupted by her magic failing to find another gallon of ice cream, nor any remnants of the once proud cake. Cadence looked around in confusion, taking in the culinary devastation that had taken place.
Or, rather, the lack of evidence the food had been there at all. Apart from the two-dozen empty ice cream cartons surrounding her, Cadence couldn't see anything in the room that even so much as resembled food. It was only as she licked frosting from her lips did she realize where the cake had gone. She looked down at her absolutely goliath gut, and gasped. Cadence sunk an experimental hoof into the pink blob beneath her, having it sink quite a way into her plush belly. Blushing slightly as she rubbed, her hooves made deep circles in her belly fat, soothing it as it gurgled away at the insane amount of food she'd eaten. Not risking anypony seeing her on her way back to bed, Cadence elected to teleport, and one cyan flash found her back in her and Shining's room. Sinking into her huge bed with an unsettling creak, she rolled onto her back with some effort. Her humongous belly loomed over her, and she continued rubbing it. Lazy circles of motion caressed her flab as she found herself drifting off to sleep. She was once again interrupted by a nagging hunger in the back of her mind. With a drowsy shrug, she lifted a box of chocolates from beneath the bed, lazily and leisurely gulping the sweets down. Cadence was getting so big, but she didn't seem to mind it. Her enormous gut, still growing before her eyes, was so soft. Something about it seemed right to her. Rubbing it felt euphoric, and the food she was eating all tasted so wonderful, she couldn't help but smile. She toyed with the idea of a curse, but she decided she rather liked her newfound girth. Polishing off the last of her chocolate stash, Cadence's appetite relented at last. Her eyelids grew heavy, her massages slowly easing off as she drifted off to sleep.
Author's Note
Unification Day was the day the three pony tribes united into Equestria, a few months after Hearth's Warming. Usually, Princesses would be partaking in festivals, but such festivals hadn't been scheduled yet in the Crystal Empire. Still, Cadence closed her Court anyway because even Princesses need a day off once in a while.
I don't write stories like this. Ever. I probably won't again. But I hope you enjoyed it. -Anon