Shadra snorted and I couldn’t agree more with that sentiment. Not everything could be sunshine and rainbows, as much as I wanted that to be the case. Even with life throwing challenge after challenge after us, we would make the best of it until, hopefully, some normalcy would return to it. While drinking tea on a rare day off from responsibility was nice, it was far from the picture of simply enjoying life for the sake of it. Not to mention, I doubt I would get the opportunity to do so again in the near future. Things were pretty hectic around here with the constant drone of construction being an ever-present background noise.

Even my brief stint of depression could only last for so long before I had to take up responsibility again. Sometimes it really does suck to be the queen (and not in the fun way, I assure you). Being one of the only two ponies with a say in how things get done around here, ponies tend to complain a lot to you.

Sometimes I really do wish I would have just gone and found myself a nice, cozy, and warm beach instead and enjoyed a quiet, and most importantly, lazy life. Alas, if there was just one thing I couldn’t in good conscience do, it was standing idly by while others suffered. That was the old me and I wouldn’t fall into the same trap of thinking like that again. I made a promise to my wayward Leaf and I would keep it. Besides, these ponies have become my family and I would never let them down.

“So,” I said after I noticed Orchard take her last sip of tea from her cup. “What did you want to talk with Arachne about?”

“Your wedding dress, of course,” she smiled back, giving Tea Leaf a brief nuzzle as she came by to take our empty cups away. “And who you want to escort you to the altar, My Queen. Ponies are already fighting over who gets to sit in the front row, I don’t imagine you want them to fight over that as well, do you?”

“Fuck, no,” I shuddered, a horrified look entering my eyes as I thought of that possibility. Orchard’s smile didn’t disappear, but it did get a bit more strained as I slipped in my regal mask by blurting that swear word out. I shifted awkwardly on my haunches as her smile turned mischievous and I just knew she was about to berate me for that again. “Don’t even start on it, Orchard. Seriously, I’m not in the mood for that false schtick of yours about being all prim and proper. Don’t think I didn’t hear you moan out your husband’s name last night, you totally did that on purpose to rile me up.”

“Guilty as charged,” she tittered, her motherly air never leaving for a second. It was all just a façade to hide the devious sex demon in pony’s clothing from sight, I swear it. “Don’t think I haven’t noticed the way you keep looking at me, My Queen. If you weren’t so insistent on keeping yourself 'pure' and 'innocent'"—she snickered ever so slightly at that—"for Prince Amore, I’d do so many delightful things to you~.”

“You are the worst kind of milf,” I grumbled, getting horny from the picture she painted in my mind. The thing is, I knew her husband would be involved in some manner as well, it was only making it worse on me. While ‘more and I haven’t had outright sex with each other, we have been teasing our bodies a lot lately. I had to admit, him touching my wings with such featherlight motions was a really good feeling. Or the way our horns felt when they touched, it was like setting our minds aswirl with magic.

He especially liked it when I teased the outline of his Cutie Mark with the edge of my hooves, it always made his dick twitch needily. The best part about it was the fact that it gave him an instant boner when he was just starting to get aroused~. He hated it whenever I did that to him, not that he protested a lot against it. Heck, it even made him moan girlishly and I absolutely loved hearing him like that.

“You say the most wonderful things to me, My Queen,” she remarked like the mischievous minx that she truly was deep down. Only she could enjoy being called a milf like that, I swear. “You bring out the best in ponies, how could I not admire you?”

“I think your definition of ‘the best in ponies’ and mine are vastly different,” I muttered. I didn’t even hear an attempt of denying my words from her, so there was that. I’m pretty sure Arachne was mostly at fault for that, she kinda had the tendency to bring out the worst in somepony. And I’m also pretty sure she was at fault for Orchard liking hot wild (and very much loud) sex just to annoy me. Not that she wasn’t already into kinky shit like that before we even met her, I suppose.

“Do you not encourage freedom of self?” she whispered, her muzzle dangerously close to my ear, her hot breath making a shiver run down my back. Oh, she definitely abused the fact that her voice was akin to that of a Hollywood actress, didn't she? A sexy Hollywood actress in a raunchy noir film, at that, working in a fancy bar as a performer on stage, scantily clad in a pretty dress t-that shimmered with e-every movement... Damnit! Why must she tempt me so?! For that matter, why must my own imagination tempt me so..? Ugh, I fucking hate being sexually frustrated. “Mhh... are you not the one that encourages love of all kinds? That encourages sin at every opportunity? That presents her body free of all shame for everypony to see at any given time? The sensual teasing with the way you walk? My, my... do I have you flustered, My Queen? You poor thing, you...”

“Orchard, s-seriously...” I muttered, short on air as my breath came out in shallow pants of arousal. I desperately squeezed my genital plates shut while my wings buzzed in agitation, desperately hoping beyond hope that she would take mercy on my poor self. Or on my frantically beating heart, for that matter. I swear, it was this close to just giving up on me, outright. “I really don’t want to disappoint Amore because I couldn’t control myself around you. You're fucking torturing me here with a friggin' coy smile on your face and I'm... fuck, I'm so pent up, I really want to but I can't! I really can't! I don't want to lose my Snowflake's trust, he's the only one I've ever really loved and this is coming from a person with some pretty bad narcissistic tendencies half of the time. Please, have some mercy on me here...”

“Oh, I’m just teasing you, my dear,” she giggled, her previous behavior completely gone. Her emotions were perhaps the airiest I have ever witnessed them be right now. She really was the worst friend one could ask for. Fiercely loyal, though. If only she wouldn't constantly dial up her teasing antics around me specifically... or flaunt her perfect curves right in my face... I could finally let my guard down around her. Alas, as it stands right now, I just want to sink my fangs into those damn juicy cheeks of hers and bury my muzzle as deep as I could underneath her tail. Damn these stupid nymphomaniac urges. “I wouldn’t want to get in between you and your love, dear. It's a good sign that you are able ta resist falling ta temptation like this, I reckon. It means you are more than worthy enough of his heart. If that is not true love, then I don't know what is. Besides, Rock would scold me if I ever did something to threaten such a sweet bond, as much as I want to have another go at that... mhh, scrumptious~... body of yours.”

“At least he’s the reasonable one,” I said, shooting a glare her way as I fidgeted uncomfortably on my now arousal-soaked pillow. The only thing she did was titter mirthfully back at me again.

I honestly had to wonder how those two came to be a thing, it was ridiculous how much their personalities differed from each other. Quartzite was a decent stallion that was more or less the definition of stoic calmness whenever I've seen him. Orchard, on the other hoof? The less said about her, the better. She could give Arachne a run for her money, seriously.

“Oh, I wouldn’t say it like that,” Orchard hummed, a small grin spreading on her muzzle. I could smell the mischief from a mile away and was already preparing myself for some sort of anecdote along the lines of how her husband wasn’t as innocent as he seemed to be most of the time. “Quartz can be pretty laid back when he wants to be~. He ain't boring all the time, you know?”

“I... don’t know what I expected, but that sure wasn’t it,” I muttered, dragging a hoof tiredly through my face. That mare will be the death of me, won't she? “Can we please get back to the topic at hoof? Preferably before you start regaling me about the stuff you two did last night?”

“My, my, has your Prince infected you with his prudishness, My Queen?” she asked and I banged my head against the surface of the crystalline tea table with a groan. Of course, she just had to tease me more. I hate having friends... “What’s the matter, dear? I thought you were taking ‘that’ step in your relationship?”

“By ‘that’ step, I meant petting and other foreplay stuff like roleplay,” I mumbled a little bit muffled, dying inwardly as I heard her giggle back at me. “You know, generally making out without getting sexual... well, too sexual... about it.”

“Aww, that’s almost cute,” she snorted. “The Prince tamed the untamable beast, how pathetic~.”

“Fuck you, too, Orchard,” I hissed, wearily glancing at her out of the corner of my eyes, only to see her take delight in my suffering. By the twin suns, she's evil. She has to be, there's no other explanation for her gleeful teasing. Why do I even keep her around anymore? She really is a pain in the flank. “I’m being respectful of his... of his damn prudish wishes, okay?! Fucking hell, fuck this shit, seriously! Love is fine, but I need lust, dammit! I haven't had a good, fulfilling meal in like... forever!”

“There, there,” Orchard giggled, patting my back. “It seems like the wedding can’t come soon enough, you two really need it. You more than he does, judging by how tense you are.”

“I haven’t had sex in months, Orchard. In months!” I whined, blowing my mane out of my eyes with a tired, depressed huff. “Outside of the hive, that is. You have no idea how bland it gets only feeding on love. Sure, it tastes great and it's pretty filling all by itself, but it gets so boring. There's no spice to it, no real heartiness, just... a rich honey flavor that tempts you to take as much as you can and then some. It doesn't feel like a proper meal, you know? It’s more like a greasy sugar rush, if anything.”

“There, there. You are free to come by anytime, My Queen,” Serene offered, looking kindly down on me with those falsely innocent orange-red eyes that hid nothing but a pervert behind them. The invitation was really tempting, too, but I couldn’t get weak now. Especially if it meant breaking Amore’s trust. I have to stand my ground, I just... have to. Damn stupid sexy friend flaunting her sex life at me... “You don’t have to join in on the action, dear. Don’t you start giving me that look now, Missy. What I meant was simply to watch and nibble all you want~. It would be such a shame for it all to go to waste, don'tcha think?”

“I’m not a voyeur, Orchard,” I grumbled, a little bit miffed. “Not like Arachne and Shadra, anyway. I have standards, and I don’t want ‘more to think I don’t like him anymore. My Princesses could stand to share some of that lust, though...”

“Well, the offer still stands,” she shrugged, turning towards her bags to rummage through them. “As I was saying, I’ve been talking with Proper Stitch and we came up with... this!”

My gaze wandered toward the sketch she held up in front of her with a proud smile and I heard both of my Princesses gasp. It goes without saying that it was an absolute masterpiece that she presented us with if it managed to drag Arachne of all ‘lings out of her rapid musings about her beloved theories and calculations. And it truly was a piece of art that I was honestly rendered utterly speechless. Shadra gently nudged me out of the way as she took control of our body, levitating the drawing out of Orchard’s hooves with a carefulness comparable only to how we handled our eggs.

It was black, just like we had asked for. But not ‘just’ black. Oh, no, no, it was much more than that. Deep magenta accents were to be added as well, despite what the sketch portrayed at first glance. Proper Stitch really outdid himself with this one, I have to say. The tulle was like gossamer from what the copious amounts of notes on the side described and there were several thin layers of it that, in theory, would create an effect reminiscent of mist. There would barely even be a hint of our legs visible through it if what Stitch promised was true. It was all but guaranteed to be as elegant as it would be alluring and it excited me immensely.

Then, there was the decoration of said tulle. Fine diamonds and lace created what looked like spider webs shimmering through to the top layer from the one underneath and the tiny gems would ensure that it would glitter like morning dew.

The eye-catcher wasn’t the meters-long train, though. No, that privilege belonged to the corset and the long-sleeved arms giving the whole dress an elven-like look that could have honestly come straight out of a fantasy novel. The arms were simple, yet elegant, framing my legs perfectly and widening out the closer they got to my hooves until they dragged on the ground ever so slightly.

The corset complimented the rest of the outfit perfectly with fine stitching and three-dimensional lace in the form of small flower petals that gave the dress a more youthful, almost eternal, look (which, in turn, also completed the whole theme of a fae-like appearance with the morning dew aesthetics). The centerpiece of it all was a little heart shape in between my front legs, subtle enough to not distract from the overall look but prominent enough to bring it all together.

Lastly, there was the small upturned collar giving the dress a truly majestic feeling. It was just high enough to accentuate my neck and the jewelry I would wear around it. Naturally, the dress wasn’t the only thing Proper Stitch took into consideration, he also thought of how my mane would look, put up into an updo with even more gemstones in it. Not so many as to overwhelm the overall look or distract from the wedding dress, but just enough to stand out on their own.

It was a dress befitting a queen, there was no doubt about it. No other dress after it could ever compare to the true masterpiece Proper Stitch created, I was almost certain of that. And, from what I could glean, the train could be removed at a later date to make it into a formal dress for other occasions, meaning it would be displayed not only at my wedding, but for decades, if not centuries, to come.

The amount of thought put into this was simply staggering. So much so, even, that Shadra was openly weeping at the sight of it. It left me wondering how Amore’s clothing would turn out, there was no way that it could be anything less than perfection after what we saw here.

I couldn't wait to see the real deal with my own eyes. It felt almost unreal that this was going to be our wedding dress. It really did hammer in the fact that this was going to happen in the (hopefully) near future. We were getting married to Amore... holy shit. Holy fucking shit.

We were getting married! Eee!

“Serene, I-I...” Shadra said, voice wobbling heavily as she turned to look at the mare sitting next to us, slowly rubbing our back comfortingly up and down. “T-thank you...”

“Of course, dear,” she replied softly, gently kissing our temple with affection. “You are like family to me, and... I would love to see you wear that dress, someday. You are making us all so proud, Your Majesty. It’s... it’s honestly an inspiration being in your presence. You give us hope for a better tomorrow, you know? All of those plans you have for this place... it shows how much you care for us. It’s the least we could do in return for your dedication.”

“O-Orchard, I...” Shadra stuttered, only to come up at a loss for words. “I don’t know what to say. It’s... perfect in every way. How could I ever repay you?”

“I wouldn’t say no to officiating for you, you know,” Serene teased, smiling softly with a twinkle in her orange-red eyes. “I won’t ever be able to see my own foal in a position like yours, so... I would be honored to at least be there for you, dear.”

“No,” Shadra smiled, embracing Orchard gratefully. “I would be honored to have you there, Orchard. Just... don’t make it weird, please.”

“Alright,” she chuckled, cupping our cheek softly. “Amore is a very lucky stallion to have you, My Queen. Stitch and I are going to make sure it’s going to be the best day of your life. Both yours and Amore's life, I promise.”

“I can’t thank you enough,” Shadra replied, changing my magenta colors with her pink ones while also losing a few inches in height. She really liked being smaller, didn't she? “I will forever cherish it.”

“I hope so. It’s going to take a long time to make that dress, you know?” Serene Orchard said, poking our side as Shadra lost herself in that absolutely magnificent view depicted in the drawing again. “And you will come to hate Stitch not only for the fitting but also for the plans he has about the material for the dress.”

“What do you mean?” Shadra asked, giving the mare a careful and cautious look.

“Trust me, no ordinary silk will do for that dress,” she answered, giving our hooves a pointed look and I felt dread begin to build up within me.

“Fuck,” Shadra muttered, groaning in despair. Yep. Exactly my sentiment, Shadra. Exactly my sentiment. Fuck, indeed.

It’s going to be a pain in the ass to provide that much changeling silk to make even one layer of that tulle, it’s going to be even more of a pain to make sure it was thin enough to work with. Which meant painfully dragging our silk out of our forelegs over hours upon hours, hoping it won’t tear in the process.

At worst, it would take years just to make that dress. But it would be well worth it, in my opinion. Not only because it would be a product of our combined labor, but also because it would be made out of changeling silk, meaning it could change with us without getting destroyed when we use our shapeshifting ability.

While a lot of progress has been made over the past few months (in more ways than one, I might add), I could tell that it was going to take a very long time indeed until we had the streets and sewers built. Not to mention, the Crystal Palace was going to take even longer to construct, even with the aid of magic, wings, and super strength. We were looking at a minimum time of at least half a decade or so, time that we could barely spare with certain doom hanging over our heads.

Working on that dress on top of all of that? I fear it might take a much longer timespan to get everything ready for the wedding than half a decade. We only had so much free time during the day, we couldn’t oversee everything around us while at the same time also extracting our silk in a sufficiently (and suffocatingly) careful manner.

I hate to say it, but... I think the wedding won't be taking place anytime soon.

And how right I was with that prediction, I had to painfully find out. At most, we could spare an hour per day helping Proper Stitch and Orchard out in the process of making that dress. All the while, Arachne’s calculations got more and more complex by the second, and the design for the palace started to become far more intricate than we first assumed. I honestly thought it was going to be impossible to build. At least, not with Arachne being the only one knowing the blueprint for it by heart, that is.

The thing is, from what she told me, we had to not only keep the physical structure in mind, but also the way it would interact with magic, and more importantly, the interaction with other planes of existence. Mainly, we had to keep in mind how it would affect the Realm of Death. And all we had to work off of was pure conjecture and hypothetical theories.

We were utterly screwed, I could tell. There was no way we could ever build something so... incredibly impossible to build.

“Well, if anything, it looks kind of really cool,” Shadra commented, sitting on her haunches next to me as we gazed up at the construct Arachne turned the hive mind into.

“We are never going to get that thing finished,” I whined in despair and felt like outright giving up right then and there. “Just look at it! It’s like the Eiffel Tower on crack! Nay, worse, even! It’s like McEscher was put in charge of designing a building made entirely out of crystals!”

“Now you are just exaggerating,” Arachne huffed, pouting grumpily. “It’s not impossible. It’s just... highly unlikely we are going to finish building it within the next decade.”

“More like the next century,” Shadra pointed out snarkily. “You do know that most of our subjects don’t have any wings whatsoever, right?”

“Well...” Arachne grimaced, rubbing her neck. “I’m sure we can work something out, right? If humans can build skyscrapers without wings and magic, there's no way we can't.”

“Don’t worry, Mommy. We are going to be there to help!” a voice spoke out behind us and I whirled around with a startled yelp. My heart was pounding wildly in my chest as I felt Shadra jump on my back like a frightened cat. “What?”

I blinked, staring at the little... changeling... before us. “Who are you?!”

“Hmm, I don’t know,” they answered, tilting their head cutely. “I like the name Polly. Can I be called Polly, Mommy?”

“What?” I mumbled, confused. “I... uh... I mean, I guess? But...”

“What Araneae meant was where did you come from?” Arachne asked, walking curiously around me while Shadra finally got down from me, equally as bewildered as I was.

“Oh, that’s easy,” Polly answered, making a dismissive gesture with her(?) little hoof. “I hatched from your egg, Mommy.”

“Right,” I drawled out, glancing down on the... foal, I guess. “But why did you only appear in the hive mind now? I mean, you hatched six months or so ago.”

“Well, after I started pupating and you sealed my chamber with that sticky stuff out of your... hoof? Those things are called hooves, right? I’m still trying to figure all of this stuff out, there are so many things floating around in here”—she gestured to her head with her hoof—” it’s really fascinating. For example, what’s a Dyson sphere?”

“Something that doesn’t exist... right now, that is,” Arachne answered, a thoughtful look on her face. “Say, what else do you know? How do you even know that in the first place?”

“I know lots of stuff, but I don’t know what it all means,” Polly shrugged, tilting her head. “It’s like a library up here. Is that the right word? I guess it’s the best description I have for it, at the moment. Most of the ‘books’ are copies of stuff Mommy knows. Are you my Mommy, too? You look like her.”

“I...” Arachne glanced towards me, shifting awkwardly on her hooves. “Well, it’s a bit hard to explain, really.”

“How?”

“Uh...” Arachne grimaced as she rubbed her neck unsurely. “Imagine it like this: There was a very bad thing that ripped us apart and we tried fixing it but us attempting to do so ended up even worse and then we were three instead of just one?”

“Oh, like split personalities,” Polly nodded, rubbing her chin. “Kinda. Does it still count as split personalities when your psyche fails to repair itself correctly and instead grows into three separate minds?”

“I swear, a child shouldn’t be saying those words,” Shadra muttered next to me, thoroughly weirded out by the behavior of... our child. Oh, fucking hell, our child! Eee!

I snatched Polly up into my embrace, squeezing the living daylights out of them as I couldn’t help my motherly instincts of just wanting to hold my child in my arms.

“Urghs!” Polly squeaked, squirming futilely around. “Too... tight... Mom..!”

“Sorry, but... you are just so cute!” I giggled, nuzzling the top of Polly’s head with enthusiasm.

“Maybe you should refrain from strangling our kid, My Queen?” Shadra snickered next to me, receiving a tiny glare from me and a hopeful look from the little changeling currently in my death grip. “So, you want to be called Polly, huh? Anything else?”

“Hmm,” Polly mused, grateful as I loosened my grip on her. “I like those female pronoun things, can I use them? They feel right.”

“Anything you want, my precious,” I hummed, squeezing her against my chest again. “Aww, this is just the best day ever!”

“Mom~,” Polly whined, struggling against me again. “Please, I’m a fragile being!”

“Right,” I pouted, setting her reluctantly down in front of me. “I’m sorry, little one.”

“If you are here,” Arachne started, giving Polly a thoughtful glance in curiosity. “Then, where are your siblings?”

“I don’t know,” she shrugged back at us. “I think my consciousness developed a lot earlier since I was the first to pupate.”

“That makes sense, I guess,” Arachne nodded somewhat unsurely. It was pretty much a given that this would have had to happen, was it not? After all, if they were to emerge as adults (like we thought they would after they were done pupating), then they would have to mature in mind as well, somehow.

“You are the one that always knew when I was about to feed you, aren’t you?” I asked, starting to realize which one of my larvae was currently in front of us. “We just sealed your chamber yesterday!”

“I don’t quite remember a lot before I started pupating,” Polly shrugged. “But I felt like I was safe, maybe that helps?”

“I’m glad to hear that, dear,” I smiled, nuzzling the top of her head.

“So...” Shadra began, pacing around the little worker ‘ling, studying her features with an odd amount of curiosity. “That means your siblings will also ‘learn’ things from Araneae, right?”

“From you, too, Mommy,” Polly chirped back happily. “I like the ‘books’ about tinkering I have from you! Do you know what a BSCD is supposed to be?”

"I'm sorry, a what?" Shadra asked, giving me a thoroughly confused look. I shrugged back at my Princess, equally at a loss for what our daughter asked of us. "Where did you get that from?"

"From you, I told you so," Polly answered, rolling her eyes. "I just know the acronym and that it is connected to some of those bioscience 'books' about genes and copying stuff... I can't really tell what it is supposed to be, so I asked."

"I'm assuming it is some sort of cloning device if it is connected to genes like you say," Arachne said, furrowing her brows. "But why can't we remember what it is? Cloning organs or even animals wasn't exactly unheard of."

"Considering whose memories those originally were," Shadra muttered, glaring at the ground in discomfort. "I'd say it's connected to one of Tobias' nastier memories, and that's saying a lot here."

"Who is Tobias?" Polly asked, tilting her head. "I don't have any 'books' about a 'Tobias'."

"Don't worry about it," Shadra answered as she went back to pacing around our daughter. "It's better you don't know anything about Tobias, trust me."

“How do you know from which one of us you have these 'books' from, anyway?” Arachne inquired, raising a brow.

Polly tilted her head for a moment, buzzing her little white-ish wings in what appeared to be agitation. They were more like an incredibly soft pink on closer inspection, though. To be honest, it was kinda hard to make out. “I just... know? When I think of the stuff I know, I get this feeling towards you, Mommy.”

“How curious...” Arachne hummed, giving Shadra a look as she lifted Polly’s tail to the side in morbid curiosity. “What are you doing..?”

Polly blushed a bright white while my Princess examined... well, ‘that’ part of our daughter. “Figuring out their sex...”

“But I t-told you what I am, d-didn’t I?” Polly stammered, escaping my Princess’s grasp with a little squeak, running in between my forelegs. “Why does my body feel funny now, Mommy?”

“Oh, boy,” I muttered, giving Shadra the stink eye as my daughter clung to me with nervously buzzing wings. Her softly glowing pink-white eyes were gazing up at me and I could tell there was a part of it that might vaguely indicate where pupils would have otherwise been had she developed in a different way. I guess only queens actually had pupils in our race, which... was kinda weird, to be honest. “It’s something that happens when you get... excited, I suppose.”

“Oh,” Polly blushed even brighter. “Like as in 'attracted to someling else'?”

“Yes, and that’s as far as I’m willing to explain it right now,” I huffed, throwing another glare Shadra’s way.

“What?” Shadra asked, raising a brow back at me. “You guys were the ones curious about it, why am I the villain now?”

“She’s our daughter, you idiot,” I grunted, rubbing Polly’s back comfortingly, and I immediately heard her purr back at me like a content cat while happy chirps left her wings. “But... now that you’ve already done that, what did you find?”

“A vagina and a hidden dick, duh,” she rolled her eyes. “So, yeah... there you have it. You are the mother of a healthy hermaphrodite, My Queen. Congratulations.”

“Almost hermaphroditic,” Arachne corrected, glancing at Polly with the same morbid curiosity Shadra had displayed earlier. “Though that requires further testing~.”

“You aren’t going to experiment on our daughter, either, Arachne,” I threatened, baring my fangs at her while hugging Polly a little bit tighter with my foreleg. My faithful (and insensitive) Princess shrank away from me, a thoroughly chastised look on her muzzle. “Certainly not while she’s still... a foal? Nah, that sounds wrong for some reason. Do any of you have an idea of what we should call a changeling juvenile?”

“Why not a nymph?” Polly proposed, smiling up at me. “It sounds cute, I think.”

“But you aren’t really a nymph,” Arachne pointed out, scrunching up her muzzle in distaste. Figures she would be the one to get uppity about something that doesn’t even really matter all that much. “A nymph is a development stage in insect species that don’t go through a complete metamorphosis like you do.”

“You know, for once I agree with the cute option,” Shadra commented, brushing up against our Princess with a mischievous smile. “Nymph has a far nicer ring to it than foal. Besides, aren’t you guys always the ones that want things to sound buggy?”

Arachne shuddered as Shadra trailed a few kisses up her throat, getting her to whine needily as Shadra licked the back of her ear. “W-well, that is... t-that is... mhh~...”

“That is... what?” Shadra whispered huskily and I felt Polly curiously poke her little muzzle through the gap in between my forelegs. I desperately tried to not breathe in through my nostrils as their pheromones got decidedly thicker in the air of the hive mind. That was one thing I didn't need having an effect on my body right now, seriously. “Aren’t you the one to stretch the meaning of words when it suits your needs, my degenerate horny bug succubus?”

“I.... ahn~... I am...” Arachne stammered before throwing herself at Shadra with a ravenous need for sex, hungrily capturing her lips with a growl.

Before Polly could get too curious about the two horny 'lings rolling around on the floor, I snatched her up and went for a little walk far enough away from them for us to not hear their wanton screams and moans of lust.

Talking about sex for the purpose of teaching Polly the birds and the bees and having her watch both of them go at it like sex-starved bug-pony hybrids were two very different things, altogether. She was a child (a curious one with understanding far beyond her years, but still a child... or a nymph, whatever), I'd rather not let her watch these kinda things before she was old enough for me to trust her not to do stupid shit all the time. Like wandering around a dark, monster-infested forest at night. Or inciting a bloody revolution. Or waging a war against shadow ghost monsters from hell.

Haah, I'm such a great role model, aren't I? Fuck me...

“Isn’t a succubus a demon?” Polly asked me while giving me a fearful, hesitant look with those adorable eyes of hers.

“You are definitely too young to know that, little missy,” I sighed with clear exasperation. “Okay, how do I put this...”

“Why would I be too young to know what a demon is, Mommy?” she asked, instead. This time, I couldn't stop myself from letting out a groan in despair, a hoof rushing to my face to alleviate the incoming headache. For fuck's sake, I wasn't at all prepared to deal with this shit right now. “Are we demons? Is that why they were biting and sucking on each other’s muzzles a lot?”

“Yes,” I simply stated, not in the mood to put up with this shit. Being a mother was the most difficult job in the world, I noticed. And I was failing spectacularly at it.

Have I already mentioned what a great role model I am? Ugh, kill me now...

It's no wonder why Arachne always insisted on calling them our subjects, instead. We were definitely not cut out for the whole ‘caring for newborn minds’ thing. Certainly not for newborns that are already friggin' twelve years old or so. Probably closer to fourteen, considering she was already asking way too adult stuff.

“Are we... bad, Mommy?” Polly asked me and I blinked back at her, shocked. “Demons are bad, aren’t they?”

“No, we aren’t bad, dear,” I whispered back with a gentle smile, giving her a reassuring nuzzle. Might as well do damage control while I was already at it. “Some demons are... innocent."—I couldn't help but snort at that—" We help other ponies and get food in return, there’s nothing bad about that.”

“Oh,” she hummed, tilting her head. “So we do the sucking thing to get food?”

“That sounds so incredibly wrong,” I muttered to myself before I gave the little nymph riding on my back a strained smile. “Yes... yes, we suck on... fuck, I can’t do this. You see, we sometimes kiss each other when we like each other a lot and... uh... do other stuff. You’ll understand when you emerge. I hope.”

“Alright, Mommy,” she nodded, a sage look in her eyes that belied her true age. I kinda had the feeling that I’ve just done the worst thing a parent could ever do, but I ignored it in favor of... trying to explain the birds and the bees to my daughter. Ugh. How does one explain the differences between sex and gender (and all the delightfully naughty stuff that usually accompanies all of that) to a nymph in a hopefully child-appropriate way? Without dying of embarrassment on top of everything?!

“Okay, let’s just get this over with,” I sighed to myself and set her down before me. Polly looked at me in concern as I tiredly rubbed my hoof against my forehead again. I had a feeling that I was going to be doing that a lot over the next few months (if not years). “You see, what you have down there between your hindlegs is what’s called your genitals. That's like a trait of your biological sex and, well... changelings, at least our kind of changelings, have both female and male genitals, called a vagina for the female sex, which is around the area below your tail, and a penis for your male sex, which is hidden by those plates there”—I pointed towards the general area while not trying to gag that I even had to show that part to her—” and it comes out when you get ‘aroused’, meaning when you get in the mood for... well... uh...”

“For naughty stuff, right?” Polly asked innocently and I instantly facehoofed. Why do I even try to keep this child-appropriate? She clearly knows more than she lets on. I take it back. Orchard won’t be the death of me, my own children will be. “Why do you keep hitting your face?”

“You’ll understand when you are older, dear,” I explained with a twitching eyelid. “Anyway, as I was saying... when two ponies (or changelings, I guess) get aroused and like each other very much... they... ugh, I can’t believe I’m explaining this... they make love to each other.”

“You can say sex, Mom,” Polly said and my eyelid twitched even more erratically than before. “That’s what naughty stuff means, doesn’t it?”

“Yes,” I sighed defeatedly. “That’s what ‘naughty stuff’ means.”

“You have a lot of naughty stuff books,” Polly stated, rubbing her chin thoughtfully. “Does that mean I can do naughty stuff too?”

“Eventually,” I nodded tiredly with a reluctant sigh, trying to keep my composure while also trying to ignore the two naughty Princesses tumbling around the ground in the distance, no doubt trying to assert dominance over each other. “It’s one of the main ways of getting food for us. Ponies not only feel love for each other when they like each other very much and do this sort of thing, but they also feel something that’s called ‘lust’. Lust is an emotion that is... usually accompanied by the act of sex and... uh... well, I would say it tastes just as good as love does, perhaps a smidgen better, in my opinion. Ah, what am I saying? It's the best thing in the world.”

“That’s what you fed me, right? This 'love' thing?” Polly asked. “While I was just a larva?”

“Yes,” I nodded, smiling ever so slightly. “Love is very nourishing, as is lust. Too much love gives your tummy a very bad ache, though, so you must always be careful about how much you feed on, alright?”

“Okay,” she smiled. “I can get as much lust as I want, though, right?”

“I...” I hesitated, glancing at Shadra and Arachne. “...right. As long as you always have the consent of the pony you engage in... that... kinda stuff with, you can eat the lust you receive from them as much as you want. Just keep in mind, some ponies get very exhausted after... well... that. They can't keep going indefinitely.”

“Oh,” she hummed, pouting slightly. “So I have to be careful with that, too? How long can a pony last during sex?”

“Uh... It depends, really. You don't have to be as careful about it as you have to with love, though,” I explained, hoping my suffering would end soon. “Love is... addicting... at best, you can easily overfeed on somepony if you are not careful with your hunger. Lust, on the other hoof, has a clear limit you can draw from at any one point. You have to actively evoke it in somepony for them to feel it towards you.”

“Right, doing naughty stuff with them,” she nodded and I sighed once more. This really wasn’t turning out like I had thought it would. I mean, in pony age, she was already about twelve years old at minimum, which would mean that a changeling would emerge at an age that was roughly the equivalent of a twenty-five-year-old pony and... well... I wasn’t entirely surprised to find out that she was taking after her mother(s) like this already. Stupid 'books'...

“Okay, so...” I drew in a steadying breath for hopefully the last time. “That’s basically what ‘having sex’ means. Then, there is also the word ‘sex’ by itself, referring to not just the act, but also the biological distinction between female and male, as I've told you before. That’s all nice and good, but there’s a bit more to it than that.

"For one thing, your sex doesn’t necessarily have to mean your gender, meaning that, just because you have both and are a worker ‘ling, you don’t ‘have’ to be a mare if you don’t want to be. Just like you don't have to be a stallion, either. Those are, simply put, social expectations based on how you present yourself to others. You can mix it up however you want, really.

"Some would say there isn't really much of a choice, that you are cursed with the body Mother Nature gave you and born with the gender you have, but for us changelings, we quite literally have the choice to be what we want to be since we can become anything we put our minds into. That includes inanimate objects, though I wouldn't recommend it. It gets itchy being in a form foreign to that of an organic body after a while. You also have the option of living out both parts of your... uh... gender and sex, I suppose. Or you could abolish the concept in its entirety, as well. Now that's something you could actually do that other beings will be hard pressed to imitate.”

“That’s also connected to the pronouns thing, right?” she asked and I gave her a so-and-so nod in cautious confirmation. It was basically the gist of it, anyway, I didn't need to confuse her even more with all the non-conforming gender pronouns that existed on top of that. Heck, most of that stuff confused even me when it wasn't just limited to 'they/them'. There are way too many neopronouns to keep track of them all and trying to understand what each one meant was a tough endeavor without constantly looking up an explanation on the internet.

In the end, I settled for the simplest and easiest explanation that I knew. Be what you want to be because that's what you are and no one could tell you otherwise.

“There are many genders you could be, or you could even be fluid among them and have other factors decide your gender, like your mood for example,” I tried to explain, hopefully in a sufficient enough manner for her to get what I meant by that. To be honest, I myself wasn’t quite so certain what to classify myself as. While I primarily thought of myself as a mare and had no problem with the dick between my legs, I felt like I would actually prefer to go by the pronouns that reflected the disguise I was using in the most accurate way. That way, I would have far fewer headaches trying to keep everything straight in my head, whether or not it was a pony-like disguise or something entirely different.

And, well... I do feel more stallion-y from time to time, so there was that. Especially around Amore, I felt comfortable to just be. Whether my future husband would have a problem with me showing him affection as a stallion remained to be seen, though. It would be friggin’ hot if we did that, though, in my opinion. Me with my roguish charm and he with his caring nature... damn.

“So... I could be a stallion if I really wanted to and use he/him pronouns?” she asked and I nodded, proud of her. “Hmm. Maybe later. I like the current me.”

“A wise decision, dear,” I smiled and heard her giggle in delight as I snatched her up again. I didn't hear, nor see, any 'questionable' acts, so I estimated it to be safe enough to return back to where we came from. “I guess that would be everything then in regards to sex, gender, and naughty stuff. Unless you are curious about something else?”

“You said worker changeling before,” Polly pointed out, tilting her head again. She seemed to be doing that a lot, I noticed. It was cute, in a way. Innocent. “What does that mean?”

“It... mhh... it means you came from a fertilized egg,” Arachne answered slightly out of breath as she brushed a shaky hoof through her disheveled mane, coming over to meet us halfway after they finally got it out of their system. It was... no, it would have been endearing had it not been for the fact that our daughter heard their 'naughty stuff'. Even if it was just 'sucking' on each other's muzzles like there was no tomorrow. “Or more specifically, you are a diploid changeling whose main job is looking after the hive and gathering emotions, and thus, keep everything in working order. Unlike us, though, you are going to develop into a ‘worker’, so to speak, and not a queen, whose primary role is to birth more workers and drones for the hive.”

“What does a drone do, then?” Polly asked as she hopped down from my back (momentarily giving me a heart attack in the process). Before Arachne could even so much as dare to think of answering that question based on facts she knew of honey bees, I silenced her with a dark glare.

“They are going to protect you and us,” Shadra smiled, lowering herself to Polly’s eye level. “You see, they will have to brave dangers that only they could handle. They will become the best-trained soldiers this world has ever seen, I’m going to make sure of that. You won’t have to fear any monsters coming near the hive, do you understand? We will make sure you are always safe.”

“So they are going to be like our military? Do they have to be soldiers?”

“In a sense, it is entirely up to them what they want to do. Just like it is entirely up to you what you want your purpose to be in the hive,” Shadra answered, booping Polly's muzzle with a hoof. It was so very adorable to watch her scrunch up her muzzle in response, it almost gave me (another) heart attack. “Those that do want to protect the hive as soldiers will be a force to be reckoned with, that I promise you. I'm going to make sure to teach them everything they need to know, and, unlike any other military of this world, ours will be nigh undetectable. We are changelings, dear, and our greatest strength lies in stealth. After all, we are shapeshifters and can look like almost anything we desire. Unless we are going to war with another hive, no one will be able to tell that we were even there until it is far too late.”

“So it’s our job to make sure they come back home, right? I’ll make sure to look out for my brothers and sisters, Mommy!”

“I’m sure you will,” Shadra smiled and nuzzled Polly’s head affectionately. The little nymph leaned herself into Shadra's affections with a happy chirp from her wings and Arachne and I d’awwed in response.

I already dread the day when she’s going to stop calling us ‘Mommy’ and instead begin to call me her queen. As much as I wanted to avoid that, I knew it had to be so. Maybe not so much for her sake, but certainly for my own. At least I will get to enjoy their childhood instead of just seeing them grow up from larvae to adults while skipping the in-between, so... that was at least something, right?

If only I hadn’t spoken so soon. The following month after the rest of them started pupating turned out to be one of the worst ones yet. Everything was going so well, I was even starting to simply forget about the daily worries I had of the umbrum finding their way in through some impossible means. It took me honestly by surprise to see Apini, one of the worker nymphs, grow weaker by the day despite the hive’s best efforts to keep them at their best.

Arachne was trying her best to find out the reason why that was but sadly came up empty-hoofed. There was nothing we could have done for them but watch and be there for them as they gradually lost their strength to even keep standing.

Shadra was the one that was mainly in control of our body during that time because she couldn’t stand watching Apini’s condition worsen. All the while, Polly played the little nurse for our sick child, fulfilling every little wish asked of her (one of them being a particularly perverted one that I felt like I couldn’t even forbid since the two of them grew rather close with each other over such a short period).

It was a somber day indeed as Apini’s body stopped breathing and slowly faded out of the hive mind like dust in the wind. I held Polly close as she cried her eyes out, the little nymph having grown to the size of a young adult by now. Softly at first, we started to hear a deep-ish voice sing a lullaby in honor of their deceased sibling that we barely noticed over the sound of the sad chirping all around us. The voice of one of our sons slowly began to overtake the background noise until it was the only sound in the hive besides the crying sounds of my firstborn daughter.

Sting’s voice was laden with grief and sorrow as he sang about loss and how not a single day would go by where that death would ever be forgotten. Apini would be remembered and I intended to make sure it would happen. That, I promised to myself.

“T-thank you, My Queen,” Polly whispered with a hollow voice, leaving my embrace with a sunken gaze. My heart gave a little quiver as I saw her dull eyes, the joy of life clearly muted in them. “I... appreciate it. You, too, Sting. It was a wonderful song.”

“Anytime, sister,” Sting nodded, shifting on his hooves with a deep sigh, his grey eyes gazing forlornly to the side. “We all loved Apini, it was only right to honor their last moments like this.”

Polly barely even reacted to the condolences Sting gave her, slowly trudging away with her head held low. I wanted to go after her, comfort her a bit longer and tell her everything would be alright, but... my legs felt like they were rooted to the place and so I just sighed, my gaze wandering back to the spot where Apini breathed their last breath.

Arachne came to sit by my side, a gentle but mournful smile on her muzzle and I quietly leaned my head against hers. There need not be any words said to convey how much she wished that this hadn’t happened, but that was the sad reality of life. She, of all 'lings, knew that the best. I wish I could be a bit more like her, taking it with a rational understanding that things like these happened and there was nothing that could be done to prevent it. Alas, I felt like I failed Apini, somehow. Like it was my fault, despite me knowing that it was not so.

There was nothing that could have truly prepared me for such a somber day (or any other day where it might happen again, for that matter). I knew the day would eventually come where I had to watch my children die, but... I hadn’t thought it would come quite so early. Nor did I ever think it would happen while they had yet to see the light of day outside of the hive mind. It was... hard... to describe how I felt, witnessing it right in front of my eyes. Unreal didn’t do it justice and numb was putting it too lightly. In a way, it hurt worse to see my daughter so distraught than watching my own child die.

I don’t know. I did shed tears, a lot even, but... a part of me just refused to acknowledge it happened. As if it was but a nightmare I would wake up from. My heart just... wasn’t in it. It was simply easier to deny it in my mind than to admit it in my heart. And I felt like a monster for doing that, feeling like I was a failure of a queen. Nay, not just as a queen but also as a mother (more so than I already felt like I was).

That day, the first of many crystalline trees to come marked the death of a beloved child, standing tall in the open-air hive mind. Like the last time, the little lake we decided to keep from the old hive design displayed our mood in a sad glowing blue color and I spent the rest of the day in a quietly depressed cuddly pile with my children and my Princesses.

Even Amore's and our subjects' crystalline coats were slightly duller in their usual shine, offering us their condolences as soon as they heard the news of Apini's passing.

It became the first official day of mourning for changeling kind, paying respect to not only my little Apini, but also to Leaf, Gentle Breeze, the fallen crystal ponies in the mines, and any other deaths that would inevitably happen.

Alas, the month was far from over and things would indeed get worse than I initially thought with Apini's death. A lot worse.

"What do you mean Secure Guard has gone missing?" Shadra hissed, stomping her hoof angrily as she glared at the cowering stallion before us.

"H-he w-went to get water with us, Y-Your Majesty," Straw Basket answered (almost forgot his name there...). "When Daisy Bloom looked for him, h-he wasn't there anymore."

"What? Did you not search for him?!" Shadra growled, only for Amore to hold her back before she could do something she would come to regret later.

"It's alright, love," Amore hummed comfortingly, nuzzling my Princess with a gentle care. "You may go now, Basket. We're going to investigate this, rest assured."

"O-of course, Prince Amore," he nodded, scampering away nervously.

"Don't always take your anger out on others, Shadra," Amore scolded her lightly. "It wasn't his fault."

"...I know," Shadra sighed, kicking her hoof in frustration as she glanced away from him, chastised. "It's just... can't we catch a fucking break, for once? This month has gone to shit since... ugh..."

"That doesn't mean you can lose your composure every time something happens, dear," Amore said, rubbing her back softly. "Let's find Quartzite and go look for clues as to what happened, okay?"

I agreed, letting out a (somewhat) reluctant sigh in the process.

While Shadra kinda tended to lash out in one form or another when stressed or seriously pissed off, I tended to blame myself for everything that went wrong. I knew perfectly well that I couldn't be there for everything and some things just happen despite my best efforts to prevent them. It's just... frustrating, being unable to do something, sometimes. No, I guess it was more frustrating to know I could have done something had I been personally there or... or arrived in time to prevent a catastrophe like with Leaf.

Arachne, on the other hoof, was the only one of us that didn't react in an unconstructive way, blaming herself or lashing out at others. She simply looked at a problem, assessed her part in it, and tried to figure out solutions to solve either the problem in front of her or come to terms with having failed in one way or another.

If she wasn't the one with the insatiable libido, I would have thought her to be the most mature one among us. Alas, even she had her flaws, as few in number as they might seem at first glance. The thing about them, though, was the fact that they were pretty bad flaws to have.

On more than one occasion, I've caught my misbehaving Princess teaching our nymphs about sexual kinks and even encouraged them to try them out on each other. It's like she had absolutely no inhibitions in regard to what teenagers (and siblings at that) should do with each other. At this point, I was beginning to think it was a lost cause trying to rein her in. Or my children, for that matter.

Obviously, she thought there was nothing wrong with it as long as consent was given, and... a small part of me couldn't even fault her for thinking like that. In her mind, we probably were already setting a bad example with our love for... well... ourselves.

It wasn't even just her setting a bad example to our nymphs, Shadra and I were just as much at fault for that as she was. My stupidly sexy Princess was pretty much unable to control herself around either of us in the form of a succubus (or the few times where Arachne and I transformed ourselves into a very handsome version of an incubus to tease her about her love for anal sex).

And I? I was more than sexually frustrated enough to beg my two wonderful Princesses to abuse my body whenever they so desired.

It was no wonder to see our nymphs take an interest in that kind of stuff, witnessing their parents being reduced to lustful sex-addicts whenever a tail was raised high enough to give each other a teasing glance of what was hidden underneath, promising a very good time for us that we threw caution out of the window pretty much immediately.

I'm only slightly... Okay, no, that would be a lie. I'm not even one bit ashamed of myself to say I was the main perpetrator behind that tactic of getting my Princesses to have sex with me. What can I say? I really am a whore at heart and the fact that I haven't been able to get at my desired 'drug' within the waking world was driving me up walls.

Achieving orgasm after orgasm, while a dream come true, wasn't really the same without being able to feed on every little 'drop' of lust I could squeeze out of somepony. And feeding on Amore's lust while we didn't really have sex with each other wasn't even comparable to the quality of lust that it had during the act of actual properly exhausting sex (not to mention, during a mind-blowing orgasm). The feeling of a satisfactory meal just wasn't there otherwise.

I haven't even had the opportunity to swallow his cum yet. The simple act of drinking somepony's ejaculate usually spiced up their lust for me in the most wonderful ways. It was a downright crime to be so... prudish, damnit. But Amore has sadly been unable to overcome his stupid little fear of not being good enough for me. At this rate, I was seriously tempted to sick Arachne on him and pretend it was her idea (which wouldn't really be that far of a stretch, anyway). I honestly started to think it would simply be for the best if he were to just take the plunge and get over it.

As much as I want to suck on that juicy dick of his, I do want our first 'proper' sexual interactions to be something special and monumental for our relationship. And, to be honest, the thought of reserving that special occasion for our first night as a married couple (or quintett, actually) was really enticing. I could wait a couple of years (very long and painful years, at that), in the end, it would only serve to make that night more... well, not quite glorious, but definitely grander.

It's going to suck no matter how much I'm trying to rationalize the long wait to myself. Well, it's going to suck in more ways than one, I'm sure~.

Shadra groaned, throwing me out of my musings.

I shot back eagerly, feeling excited already. Just to make sure she would follow up on that promise, I thought exclusively of Amore in very compromising positions. Just to rile her up even further, most of those positions included him giving us a come hither look while his tail was raised enticingly. And it had the desired effect~. Eh heh heh...

"You fucking witch," Shadra growled in a low whisper, making Amore look questioningly over at us out of the corner of his eye while Quartzite's ear twitched in a curious fashion as he led us carefully down the steep decline towards the caverns below. "I warned you, Araneae."

I giggled mischievously. I let out a little shriek in delight as Shadra shoved our faithful Princess into the driver's seat of our body, sending us rolling around on the crystalline floor of the hive mind's representation of the 'finished' Crystal Empire. I was quick to capture her lips as I won the little struggle of who was going to be on top, grinning with a perverted enthusiasm.

"You shameless bug, you~," Shadra laughed herself while she let her hooves wander over my figure. My wings let out a happy chirp as they went lower and lower, tracing my soft curves and the segmented abdominal shell with a gentle reverence. "Your snatch is already so wet, holy shit..."

"Mhh~, Shadra~," I moaned, feeling her softly stroke my dick while I squirmed restlessly around with my haunches, smearing more of my fluids over her. My entrance was like a veritable waterfall and I could tell the smell of it was not only driving my beautiful Princess insane. The fanning sounds of my subject's wings outside of the palace had my pheromones spreading over the entirety of the hive mind in no time, no doubt sending them into a lustful frenzy themselves.

I wasn't really concerned about them doing anything, they were growing 'lings and had needs of their own. It was up to them to decide what was right and what was wrong as long as they kept everything purely consensual. That was one of the harsher lessons we taught them and we made it painfully clear that there was going to be no disobeying that rule whatsoever.

While I would pretty soon find myself in the position where my voice would be the smallest in the hive, I have to make sure that this first generation of changelings would follow those rules to the letter and then teach them to each new generation following theirs. I needed to make certain that when the time came and my only real purpose in the hive was to provide it with more workers and drones (and eventually, my replacement), they would have at least a 'somewhat' good moral compass to guide them.

Heck, even my Princesses are probably going to have more of a say about how things will be done in the hive than I do. It was a humbling thought, wasn't it? Shadra was already more or less the general of the Crystal Empire Hive and Arachne, well... head of research was putting it mildly. My only 'real' power would come from the fact that I was the co-ruler of the Crystal Empire, something that my Princesses were far too happy to leave entirely up to me and Amore.

I can't really say I minded it that much. Even though I was less than enthused about being forced to be a politician, I at least could do my everything to make sure the future was going to be a place perhaps as grand as Earth's present had been. Most of it, that is. Let's just leave all the bad things to the side and take a little bit of pride in humanity's greatest accomplishments. Like computers, the internet, telecommunication, cars and trains, aircraft, robots... and porn, of course.

Speaking of naughty stuff...

I grinned eagerly down on my lovely Shadra, licking my lips in a seductive way. Already, my heart was quivering wildly in anticipation as I slid my slick entrance all the way up her needily twitching length, coating her spear-like dick in a glistening layer of my arousal. I felt her buck slightly underneath me as I reached the tip of that delicious penis of hers and let out a happy and mischievous giggle as it slipped momentarily into my more than ready vagina.

Shadra let out a whiny little grunt as her dick slipped back out due to a lack of reach, her hindlegs squirming around unhappily as she tried to push it back in to feel my tight tunnel around her. I couldn't help but giggle at the look she gave me, her eyes reflecting impatience back at me as the light of the artificial suns in the 'sky' of the hive mind made the empty throne room sparkle beautifully around us.

My Princess gulped heavily as she took notice of the shiny little droplet of pre-cum slipping down from the tip of my own dick and I could tell she wanted to do nothing more than to reach over to it and have a taste of it (despite it being entirely tasteless to our slender tongues).

I slapped her hoof away before she could do so, looking down at her with a challenging look.

"Ara, please..." she begged, making her eyes water like the manipulative snake that she truly was.

Feeling a little bit sadistic, I shook my head while a trembling breath escaped me. "Kiss it."

"...what?" Shadra whispered, disbelief in her eyes.

"If you want it so badly," I said, shuddering all over as a rush of power coursed through me, knowing how mean I was right now but still going through with it. "Then kiss it."

"But..." Shadra whined, squirming underneath me as I watched a war of conflicting emotions within her beautiful eyes. "But A-Amore and... My Queen, please! I-I... I just want to..."

"Kiss. It. Shadra," I threatened, poking her muzzle with a hoof. "If you really want it, then that is how it is going to happen. Besides, you don't really have to worry about 'keeping yourself' for Amore with this, now do you? I'm not going to go anywhere near your snatch with my cock, what are you so afraid of?"

Shadra bit her lip and I saw the desire to try oral sex with me begin to triumph over her last reservations about her old fears of it being 'wrong' and keeping her first time exploring that side of herself with Amore. That mindset has persisted for far too long and I could tell she knew just as much as I did that it would lead to her having a less-than-nice time with Amore if she allowed it to linger for much longer.

I did say I would make her suck my dick one way or another, didn't I? I smiled in satisfaction and perverted glee as I turned my bitchy little Princess into a cock-hungry whore. Oh, how I just loved that nervous gulp as she gazed at my tip, transfixed. It made my aching pussy weep even more and my glee found no bounds.

It was totally degenerate of me, but I couldn't bring myself to care right now. My sadistic side won out over my resolve to stay 'virtuous' and all that crap, feeling the overwhelming need to be selfish. No, not selfish, per se, but my own lust was definitely making all the important decisions right now. I might just allow myself some leeway every now and then when having sex with my Princesses if it always felt this good to cut loose and simply stop giving a fuck. Well, as long as I wasn't deliberately hurting them, that is. Being rough and playing dirty was all nice and so on as long as it didn't end up in literal murder.

Slowly, my Princess leaned up while licking her lips with as much nervousness as she was looking forward to the experience. My heart gave a little spasm of excitement, causing my dick to twitch right as Shadra went in for that kiss, making her jolt slightly underneath me in surprise. Her eyes found mine while a brow of hers hiked up ever so slightly, about to say something when her ticklish breath instead caused me to twitch it again, this time interrupting her as it brushed lightly against her open lips which in turn made a delightful shudder run through my body all the way to the tip of my needy sex.

I bit my lip as Shadra finally gave it a lick, placing a delicate peck on the very tip of my cock afterward with a reverent stare directed up my way. That alone made me hornier than before and I inched my way slightly closer to her, silently telling her to do a bit more than that to satisfy me. It wasn't my intention to humiliate her in any way, but... I had to admit, the thought made me even harder for her and those perfect lips of hers. It was like a forgotten beast had been reawakened from its slumber as the power I had over her got to my head.

It felt good to be in the dominant role, squeezing out demanding begs from my Princess. It felt nice to make her submit to me, forcing her to go through with her own wants that she tried to deny for so long. And it felt great to know I could just play with her, tease her, and deny her the pleasure she so desperately sought whenever she started to rebel against me.

While I couldn’t deny that I was a major sucker for, well... sucking cock and all that good stuff, taking it like a slut in heat... I also quite liked it that I wasn’t the one in that position for once, seeing my bitchy little Princess slowly open her mouth hesitantly while leaning forward. The tongue teasing my sensitive flesh was just an absolute delight and I savored every little moment of it. It was like a wet heaven inside her mouth and the slow licks soon got more and more enthusiastic as she twirled her tongue around the tip of my dick while a few slurping noises escaped from the corners of her mouth.

A moan or two joined the cacophony of my Princess sucking on my cock like the little whore that she was, humming in tune with her happily chirping wings as she took my length further into her mouth as she twisted her body around underneath me while I teased her own spear with my puffy lower lips.

Just... a little bit... more, I thought with a foggy mind while I voiced out my pleasure in the lustful haze both of us found ourselves in. It wasn’t just my pheromones getting to Shadra’s head, her own were driving me more and more crazy for that hot body of hers.

Before long, I actually started to struggle to keep myself from giving in to my orgasm. Shadra really went all out, starting to deepthroat me the more confidence she gained. It was somewhat like a little awakening for her, wasn’t it? Everything that she had feared so much about sucking dick was turned on its head and she, at last, acknowledged that she took enjoyment out of the simple act of pleasuring another in that way. The walls she had put up around herself such a long time ago were finally crumbling to dust in their entirety, freeing the pervert locked inside of her from the last shackles of repression.

And so, I let loose. I couldn’t hold myself back anymore, shuddering with pleasant shivers as I shot my sticky cum down her throat with a heavy moan. My beautiful Princess returned to suckling on the tip of my proud spear, twirling her tongue around while teasing the urethra with a mischievous grin as she looked up at me with that lustful perverted gleam mirrored in my own eyes. That alone caused me to shoot out another two shots before I pushed her down on the ground roughly, my dick plopping out of her mouth with a tiny spring and a popping sound.

“Such dedication is deserving of a reward,” I hummed, my voice vibrating with a seductive twirl. “Mhh~, Your Queen is most certainly pleased with your performance, my beautiful Princess. Let me take care of your needs now, hmm?”

“Oh, fuck, yes,” Shadra breathed, letting out a sharp gasp as I speared myself on her painfully hard length without warning. It didn’t take me any effort at all to fit her in right to the base of her cock and my wings buzzed fiercely with wanton need as I gyrated upon her dick before leveraging myself up the slightest bit before letting myself fall back down on her with a wet smack. “Ara~... Ahn~, fu-ucking shit! Ngh~!”

I laughed with mirth, repeating the same maneuver over and over again but this time with a bit more force to my movements. My lovely Princess let out another gasp followed by expletives as I squeezed her cock expertly by clenching my legs rhythmically and by vibrating my inner walls in the most interesting ways with a quick buzz of my wings. It was like a luxury massage solely for her glorious tool and it had her crying out with a volume that I had previously never heard from my love before.

My own voice got louder and louder, as well. It took me a lot of strength to continue that cycle of lifting myself up from her and ramming myself back down on her faster than the last time, increasing my pace steadily despite the exhaustion setting in as the hive mind failed to keep up with our frantic lovemaking.

And I absolutely fucked my Princess raw. Even long after she began to orgasm, I kept up my pace to prolong the bliss I put her through. I fucked her until she had nothing more to give and even then I didn’t let up on my pace. Only after she signaled to me that she couldn’t take any more did I remove myself from her abused cock, letting her lick me out until it was I that had to tell her that I had enough, lest it started to become too painful to walk in the aftermath of what we just did.

We were nothing more than a panting, out-of-breath mess by the end of it, leaning against each other as our bodies felt like mush. That was one of the most intense sessions we've ever had so far and I had no doubt we would somehow find a way to top even that. Granted, the only thing I could think of that would be able to top that was fucking each other unconscious outright, but who knows? I was always up for surprises, especially with my wonderful Princesses.

Speaking of my other Princess...

Arachne said, throwing both Shadra and me out of our orgasmic bliss. I let out a groan, tiredly dragging myself out of the hive mind into the backseat of our body and what I saw was definitely not a good sight.

It was nothing but carnage that greeted my eyes. Not so much in the way of ‘there were mutilated bodies everywhere’ type of carnage, but... there was a lot of blood glistening around us in the dim light of Arachne’s magic.

I asked, horrified. Our previous activities were all but forgotten as we beheld the literal bloodbath around us, struggling to come up with the right words to properly describe this situation in front of us. From the looks of it, there were quite a few signs of struggle within the narrow tunnel leading away from the underground lake, most likely caused by our missing pony in an attempt to get away from their assailant.

“Unless the umbrum have found a way to gain a corporeal form...” Arachne muttered with a frown, looking down on a hoofprint smudging the drag marks of the blood slightly before letting out a grim sigh. “We have a murderer on our hooves, My Queen.”

Shadra hissed, anger bubbling over to not only me but also to Arachne.