Cavernous Love

O=C(N[C@@H]1[C@@H](O)[C@H](O)[C@H](O[C@H]1O)CO)C

SMILESª formula of β-D-(Acetylamino)-2-deoxy-glucopyranose†

†Fancy-talking IUPAC name for the monomer of chitin
ª Smiling Molecular Incantation, Luminous Encoding Standard

Cave? Check. Canterlot? Check.

Was this more of a tunnel than a cave?

The mission was simple: check for changelings and then begin diplomatic negotiations. Unbounded complexity, however, met Prince Igor as he mapped more potential hiding locations for a changeling hive or, worse still, staging places for one.

At least, Prince was how he styled himself: if all the alicorns in Equestria were styled as Princess, he would make for a worthy Prince. The name Igor was chosen as his diplomatic name after his travels brought him in contact with a novel documenting the daily life of one Mr. Igor Pro. Igor[Pro]’s skills at data analysis sure would come in handy, thought Igor [the Prince]. These infernal tunnels only ever lead to trouble. If only he were a fellow changeling with astute chemoreceptors, he might have detected the lurking dangers observing him. But, alas, he was equine.

Now that his eyes had adjusted to the dark, he was beginning to see more signs that these catacombs were not so abandoned as ponies assumed them to be. Instead, long-forgotten larders and hoards peppered the offshoot chambers. No pony had been down here in a long time, yet the signs of intelligent life were unmistakable.

He cast an illumination spell and took out his intelligence briefing: the manufactured orogeny of Canterlot had not occurred until after Luna’s banishment. She would not be the Princess who may know their secrets. Celestia is known to know that there are secrets down in the gaps from the magical construction of the mountain, but it is suspected that she prefers not to know specifics.

Igor’s blood ran cold at seeing the floor. His wings flared instinctively before he folded them again: there was no flying out of this pickle.

“Hello, dearie,” cooed an echoing voice his ears could not locate.

The faint trail of goo on the ground confirmed his worst fears that it was not a solitary changeling. Instead, that kind of mess accompanied a queen (or at least her court).

Which way had he entered? It did not matter much in this setting. Her Majesty may be closer to the entrance. The critical action was to find a way away, not necessarily a way out.

Our Prince squinted his eyes in the gloom and saw a passage without changeling royal jelly that would lead to his respite.

“Over here,” he heard from a side chamber of the clean passage.

Igor saw the opening ahead, cast an illumination spell, and readied offensive magic. Inside was a pink pegasus poking her head around the corner into the tunnel.

“I’m so glad to have found you,” she said seductively.

“C’mon, let’s get out of here!” Igor was willing to rescue the pony. Perhaps she remembered a landmark from when she was dragged in here.

“It’s so quiet and secluded down here,” whispered the pink pony. “Let’s have some fun before we leave.”

“No, this place is full of changelings. I’ve seen their slime trails.”

“This room is quiet. It’s the perfect opportunity for you to father some secret bastard foals on your diplomatic mission and then enjoy a civil war in your kingdom after you’re dead.”

“I am loyal to my queen,” Igor said as he led the way back into the clean passage.

The pink pegasus made a quick risk assessment. One choice may warm up her quarry without spooking him; however, it also risked being too low-impact to earn the physiological response she wanted. The other option would be a sharper escalation in either direction. Raising her gaze slightly, she chose to live dangerously and waited for him to swish his tail.

Her opportunity quickly arrived when his right wingtip brushed against a stalagmite, causing him to flick his tail to swat the imagined fly. Before it could return, pink feathers stroked along his ponut, making his wings flare.

“Now is not… not the time for that,” he stuttered as her other wing took the safe option and caressed his balls. His ponut twitched as his body took the wing stimulation as its cue to start filling his erectile tissue.

“Changelings are attracted to sexual frustration, you know,” the unnervingly calm pegasus informed. “I’ll help you drop the frustration so we can make a clean escape.”

Igor turned to face his companion and, exasperated, sighed, “I don’t even know your name” as he lowered his head to meet hers.

“Myrmecochorous Cadenza,” she flubbed. The fact that his expression only betrayed puzzlement at the pronunciation, not the mistake, confirmed her suspicion. “But you can just call me Cadence,” she clarified. Then, as she nuzzled Igor, she appealed to the vanity she hoped to find, “I’ve never seen an alicorn prince before. I want to be covered and bred here and now before some worthless guard rants at us about pure royal bloodlines.”

“Not until we escape from this changeling hive!” insisted Igor as he turned to lead the way on their escape.

The pegasus flashed into a changeling with equal stature to Igor. Before he could escape, his hooves were inviscated in her glutinous ectoplasm.

“My changeling hive,” the changeling queen said, ovipositor at the ready.

“No, no, not that… put that thing away,” stammered Igor as he struggled to free himself.

The queen stepped back as rings of green flame covered her body. The pink pegasus before Igor had self-promoted into an alicorn princess.

“You actually thought I’d waste that on you?” sneered pink Princess Phony. She continued, “Nonetheless, where are my manners? You are a prince and deserve a mate of equal rank.” Her horn highlighted itself during the final four words.

It was not merely a self-illumination spell. The rocks glued to Igor’s forehooves forced him into a rearing position as they rose and attached themselves to support columns. The stones were too heavy for him to shake loose during their transit from floor to pillar. The fake Cadence—now Princess Cadence—strode to face Igor and readied her magic.

“Ow!” rang out a shocked alicorn (female). Princess Cadence backed away to say, “So that’s how you want to play?” in her increasingly harsh voice. A new spell now gathered magic on her horn. This spell will hurt, she thought, but still less painful than attempting to mate with an alicorn biting on her horn.

Cadence reared up, made contact between her horn and the left side of Igor’s face, and slid her horn along his. The massed discharge left her ringing and hollow, but she had to stick to her new plan. While Igor was still stunned by the attack, she summoned her remaining energy and began pumping all her focus into him. Her eyes glowed green; she felt faint. This should not have taken so long. If it failed, explorers far in the future would find two hollowed husks in a distinctly BDSM configuration.

As the disguised queen’s attention began to falter, Igor’s eyes finally matched her viridescence as her own as his body relaxed. She breathed heavily in her equine form, not wishing to risk breaking the spell with a transformation. That spellcasting was possible without breaking the disguise was one advantage to offset the massively increased magical requirements of mimicking unicorns and alicorns. She felt boxy horse lips gently nibble at her withers as Igor recalled the proper way to treat a mare.

“Now that you’ve remembered your manners, I once again wish to be bred by you,” said Cadence. “Now that you know the truth, I’ll even make you a deal: give me a maregasm, and I free you to find your escape; cum and fall soft before me, and I may elect to reconsider my position on oviposition.”

“I can’t buck you properly with my hooves tied,” was Igor’s reply.

“Your hooves will be free momentarily,” the fake Cadence said as her horn lit up with the same spell she planned to cast before his bite attack.

The excitement had retracted Igor’s penis back into his sheath, so Princess Cadence lit her horn to massage his undercarriage. Once her telekinesis was locked in the correct position, she spun around with her tail tucked to the side. She closed her eyes to concentrate and remember the balance of chemicals that mimicked a mare in oestrus as a few drops splashed onto the cave floor.

Igor lowered his head to sniff the signals (and probably sneeze from the dust), but his fixed position meant his nose went straight to the source instead of picking them up from the ground. His thoughts were now mostly empty and vague. He felt the sensations of smelling a horny mare (or at least what he assumed was a competent replica) along with magic tickling at his sheath and balls.

Fake Cadence heard wings flare, and her plot was greeted by a warm tongue as Igor strained forward to make a proper connection. Even the little touch he could achieve was enough to break her spell, not that it was necessary anymore. Igor’s lower horn now grew on its own without her insistence. Cadence turned around, lowered her head, stepped forward until her nose was next to his stones, and her horn made its way out under where his nutsack joined his leg. Her marehood and ponut remained tantalizingly close to Igor’s face as she enjoyed his tongue’s futile licks at the base of her tail.

Now that she had a good angle of attack, she let her head’s presence provide stimulation on his balls and cast her telekinesis to massage his ponut. Her ingenuity was soon rewarded with a faint thump as his lower horn drummed against his barrel. Igor’s legs shook with anticipation as his ponut took a magical pounding and his balls took an incidental tickling. Finally, his member drummed against his barrel again, causing the changeling to stop her stimulation. Perhaps he had leaked some pre, but he remained ready to perform his stallion’s duty—not the one that involved spherical Bessel functions.

Cadence pulled herself out from under him and cast changeling clean-up magic on his hooves. Then, before he could get to the mounting position, she stepped away and cast a levitation spell on the flat side of the pillar that had previously imprisoned Igor’s hooves.

“Relax. I need the exercise more than you.” She pointed to the makeshift bed with her wings.

Igor did not need additional direction to roll on his back and spread his wings. Cadence straddled over him, then lowered herself to meet wing-to-wing and horn-to-upper horn. She pressed down on his wings and shuffled her hind legs forward, almost popping a squat before her entrance found the lower horn.

Intromission was first achieved when she took in only the tip before it was time to retreat and let her juices—unconsciously produced by this point—do one of their many jobs. Igor felt himself flare without the urge to cum. Next, she could make it about halfway between his head and medial ring before needing to re-lubricate herself. Her third attempt put her just beyond the ring. Igor flared twice and tried to suppress his instinct to buck his hips into hers. Finally, the escaping air made squelching noises as she sat down and hilted herself. The funny sounds relieved Igor as they momentarily withdrew his mind from the eroticism.

Relief was short-lived as Fake Cadence nickered seductively into his face, and he instinctively returned her calls and pressed his haunches into hers.

Igor vaguely remembered a threat against orgasm and tried to keep the thoughts of the silly sound in his mind as the Princess once again demonstrated why mares were the dominant sex in Equestria. It was an ultimately futile task once his stallion’s instincts came online, but it would buy him a couple minutes.

Cadence flapped her wings to interlock with her lover’s feathers, binding the pair tightly in shared orgasmic destiny—at least locking each other in their lover’s embrace until she was satisfied. Her prey may be equally worthless as a drone to sire her next clutch of eggs than as a target for her ovipositor, but it just felt good to be a mare, estrus and all. Good and right, if only for now. Winking her clit was an activity she genuinely missed in her natural form. Doubly so when it was teasing some poor colt’s cock and making him lose his bet.

Igor’s breath alternated between stifled whinnies and stifled whimpers from his conflicted emotions. His clouded conscious thoughts obscured his biological urge while his primal needs cut through the remains of his mind. Sometimes, his lower legs futilely kicked; others, his wings beat uselessly. He forgot about his horn. That amount of concentration had long since vanished.

The phony pink Princess lowered had enough. Horns touched. Intimate magic flowed between the partially-unwilling couple, unconcerned and unaware of the unilateral nature of their romance. She briefly considered a mind control spell to hurry along the process. But, before she could summon the magic, she had hilted and felt the excess of her lustful lubrication on Igor’s coat surrounding his crotch was enough to tease her teats. No, the risk of a ruined orgasm to win her bet was not worth it today. She needed this even more than him. Forcing the magic would merely leave her worked up with a spent male at her mercy, not like the natural magic would need to do its job for long—if the contractions around his rod were an accurate indicator, which they usually were.

The pink horn stroked along the upper horn with action was soon echoed by the lower horn. The disguised queen hazily noted to visit the tasty subterranean spring after mating, disguised or not, and then was overwhelmed by the build-up shared mana pool between their reproductive organs. Igor’s subconsciousness worked hard in its pointless attempt to sublimate the building sexual energy or, at least, shift it back to the account of the changeling. It was a valiant effort, but the tension increased upon itself with each horn-on-horn stroke. The direct magical connection dominated their shared pleasure over the mere intercourse of the naughty organs.

Each stroke of Cadence’s horn up Igor’s raised the level of shared erotic throbbing one vertebra up. The down strokes, when they occurred, lowered the vibration, but the next upstroke increased it as if it had never reduced in the first place. Tendrils and streamers from her purloined marehood fought to meet a leader reaching down from her horn to make the final connection over the breezy cross current from their interlocked wings. The strength of accumulated magic made breathing difficult despite clear airways in both alicorns. Let the dam bust, one of the two thought, the separation temporarily having retreated far past even mere formality.

Cadence flexed her spinal muscles for the optimal alignment of magical throughput and felt her quarry’s member flare inside her from that modest extra stimulation. This is the real deal, she thought to herself (or at least she would have imagined it to be a private thought if she were still in a thinking state). While she retained any control of her body, she let her head, neck, and wings revert to their natural chitinous forms, then dialed down her venom from kill to stun and timed her bite perfectly. As the first rope of Igor’s seed shot off inside her, she sunk her fangs deep into his neck and enjoyed orgasmic bliss in her mouth as she felt her venom squirt out. Synchronized pulses continued to tie the pair together as each unloaded fluid inside the other. Igor’s twitches abruptly stopped before his natural cooldown from orgasm had completed.

Chrysalis pulled away and waited as she breathed heavily in the afterglow, her fangs still ringing with pleasure. Igor’s stunned eyes finally snapped to life as his body was engulfed in three uncontrolled green flashes. Another changeling now lay before her, and Chrysalis suddenly understood several oddities. First off, she got to work wrapping Igor in a containment pod. He may prove helpful alive and in stasis.

“Seriously, a male alicorn?” she chuckled, “What kind of foals do you think these ponies are?”

It’s no wonder why Canterlot stepped up security if this is the best and brightest other hives have to offer, she thought. She sniffed the goo now that Igor’s natural scent had diffused into it. Yes, his pheromones were those of a decently high-ranking caste of a foreign hive.

In either case, an accelerated timeline was now necessary for her plans. This dry run in her new form mainly was successful. She changed plans and emitted pheromones to signal the change of plans to her hive. Instead of swapping with the bride in the morning and being married by the afternoon, she would soon be absentee until the wedding, as the grand prize would need to be kidnapped a week ahead of schedule so the other hive could not claim her first.