The Weight of the Crown

by Non Uberis

Rating: teen
Tags: Slice of Life, Twilight Sparkle, Anthro, Drama, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Alternate Universe, Rarity, Other, Fetish, Comedy
Length: 21429

Following her ascension, Twilight Sparkle discovers that there are certain quirks that come with being an alicorn. Perhaps it has something to do with obesity being so commonplace in Equestria.

Twilight Sparkle's years of study in the magic of friendship have finally culminated in her becoming an alicorn. Amidst the litany of changes that she is having to contend with in her life as a result of this, she comes to notice something alarming: no matter how hard she tries to limit herself, she is putting on weight at an alarming rate. It might have been an inevitability—considering how many ponies consider it in vogue to be overweight, she almost certainly would have followed suit sooner or later—but she remains uncertain of what it is that she truly wants. In her mind, she continues to be a mere scholar, not somepony worthy of the adoration that comes from so much bulk.

= = = = =

Contains the following: fat and hyper, BBW/BHM, incrementally progressive weight gain, one (1) dream sequence of extreme weight gain and light slob and vore, blob sizes, mass compression, the usual emotional self-confidence rollercoaster, and surprisingly little overt sexual content for once.

Cover art by Dufel and myself. (DB ID 3073290)

Now translated into Spanish.

Published 2023-04-06 17:20:00 UTC
Last updated 2023-04-11 15:55:53 UTC

Day 0

After having spent years of study on the subject, Twilight Sparkle had plenty of reason to believe that she was well-versed in the nature of magic. She knew her way around cantrips and abjurations and invocations and enchantments and illusions. She had mastered teleportation and telekinesis and telepathy, pyrokinesis and cryokinesis and hydrokinesis and trichokinesis. Though she wasn’t necessarily one to brag about the subject, she was certainly proud of the knowledge and skill which she had managed to accrue throughout her years of hard work. She had come to understand the full extent of the applications of magic, the many situations which it could be used for, and the dangers which it presented if used improperly.

That changed when she experienced ascension.

In that brief moment in which she had felt the power of her dearest friends, channeled through the Elements of Harmony and into her, mingling with her deepest essences, Twilight Sparkle had felt more than she had ever known. The flood of sensation had surged through her, filling heart and lungs, igniting veins and nerves, exploding within her brain, mana in its rawest form, tinged with the colors that made up each pony, savory sweetness soothing her. It was a deluge, and for as short a time as it lasted she knew that she was a hair’s breadth away from tipping the balance and losing herself—maybe even more if the discharge were to be sufficiently disastrous. All she could do was continue to hold on, riding out the storm until it was over as she felt herself being eaten away.

The rest of it was hazy. Like walking through a dream. She remembered the mighty form of Celestia appearing to reassure her as the metamorphic process carried out to completion. The princess had embraced her, and Twilight Sparkle thought that she was aware of her in a way that she hadn’t been before, but in the moment she didn’t think much of it. The soft warmth was enough to distract her up until heat bloomed within her chest and the ethereal plane faded into light.

Then reality had reasserted itself, and she was faced with the reality that her unicorn horn had been joined by the wings of a pegasus and the strength of an earth pony. Her friends had all been there for her, and together they had cried joyously as their emotions bubbled over. Twilight Sparkle found herself faced with a new wealth of possibilities for her life, and as much as change terrified her, she couldn’t wait to see lay in wait for her.

However, there had been something else.

Amidst the spark of power which she had felt nestled within herself, waiting to be stoked into a fire, Twilight Sparkle had felt a peculiar sensation while she lay awake in bed. It was queasy and uncomfortable, steadily gnawing at her. For a while, she hadn’t been sure what it could be. She thought it was just her nerves, as to be expected of Princess Celestia telling her that the very next day there was going to be a coronation held for her in Canterlot. It might have been the fact that she couldn’t find a good way to sleep now that there were two feathered appendages projecting from her back.

Eventually, though, she realized the truth was far simpler: she was hungry.

More than that, she had a particular craving.

So, after accepting that she wasn’t going to be sleeping any time soon, Twilight Sparkle left her library home to make a trip to the Hay Burger, silently thanking the princesses that it was open all hours of the day. The tired stallion behind the register went wide-eyed and slack-jawed when he took notice of her wings—not helped by how she still struggled to keep them folded against her back, fidgeting and twitching at random. They went through the transaction process and she could feel the eyes of everyone in the building (which, to be fair, wasn’t a lot at that hour) boring into her as she left with the hot paper bag in her hands. She wondered how long it would take ponies to get over this development, though the question of how long it would take her to get over it might have been more pertinent.

The mare walked aimlessly through Ponyville for a while before deciding to stop and sit on a park bench. She looked wistfully up at the moon and stars for a time—wondering what Luna’s perspective on this matter might be, having not yet had the chance to meet with her, to say nothing of Cadence, or the rest of her family, or so many others—before a growling from her stomach reminded her of her purpose in being away from home this late.

She opened up the bag and hastily sampled its contents, grabbing a few handfuls of fries and shoving them into her mouth one after another. Oily residue and crumbs quickly built up along her fingers as she relished in the delectable salty taste, humming contentedly to herself. Next she reached in to take out the burger, fingers gripping tightly around the bun, and her jaws opened wide to tear a bite out of it. The patty of condensed beans and grains and mushrooms, buried in toppings and sauces, prompted an explosion of greasy flavors upon contact with her tongue, and there was a low groan in her throat before she rapidly consumed the rest of the sandwich. She licked her fingers clean afterward, not wanting to waste a drop, even though she missed some crumbs and droplets of sauce that had tumbled over her front. It was everything she could have hoped for.

And then, without thinking, her hand plunged into the bag once more, only to be met with the discovery that it was empty.

Broken out of a trance that she hadn’t been aware of, Twilight Sparkle took stock of herself once more, really thought about what she had been doing. She had gone out in the middle of the night to get fast food, no doubt wreaking havoc on both her sleep schedule and her dietary routine. Worse still, she wasn’t entirely certain that she had been sufficiently sated—the hunger seemed to be gone, but the craving was still there, yearning for more. She placed a hand upon her stomach, feeling the faint softness of its convex surface, and the way it churned just underneath.

“If I’m not careful…” she said under her breath with a wry chuckle, “I really will end up just as big as Celestia.”

The thought tickled at her in a way she couldn’t have described.

Author's Note

The prompt for this story was simply that alicorns are fat by default and so Twilight Sparkle starts gaining weight once she becomes one. I took this and rolled with it, imagining a series of scenes detailing the progress of Twilight's journey to hugeness and sprinkling in bits of worldbuilding and character development along the way. I envisioned it being something like Royal Radiance. I'm sure, considering that Royal Radiance had expanded well beyond my expectations to begin with, that that would bode well for this project.

You can't tell me it's not canon for Twilight to go nuts with burgers.

No relation to other crown-related stories.

This story was a prompt suggested and voted for by my supporters on Patreon. Consider pledging your support if you enjoy my work and would be interested in participating in these selections in the future.

I also have a Ko-Fi for one-time donations.

Day 47

The bell over the entrance to Carousel Boutique jangled loudly. The melodious voice of the owner came ringing out from further within the depths of the building. “Coming!” This was followed up by a steady rhythm of heavy tromping hoofsteps that grew steadily louder as they approached until finally Rarity emerged into the foyer, business smile on full display, prepared to dazzle whoever might have entered.

There was a time when it would have been a particularly rare occurrence that an alicorn entered the boutique—for although Rarity had the esteemed honor of tailoring for all three of Equestria’s princesses in the past, it was usually in the setting of their palace halls rather than her own store. That had changed when her very dear friend Twilight Sparkle ascended to alicornhood, and for more reasons than either of them might have expected.

The lavender mare was wearing a baggy and very tacky maroon tracksuit, the kind of unfashionable outfit that most ponies would know not to bring within a block radius of the boutique. It was typically what she wore when she was exercising, especially for her regular flight training sessions with Rainbow Dash. However, the bulky garb showed no markings of sweat, suggesting that Twilight Sparkle hadn’t merely just been out for a jog, but at the same time, her listless, forlorn stance, her ears and wings drooping, gave the distinct impression that she was exhausted regardless. The uniform served an additional purpose, one which the two ponies were particularly aware of, and it seemed like it might be reaching the full extent of its usefulness in that regard, judging from the way it was stretched taut around her waist.

Detecting that the atmosphere was going to be particularly melancholic today, Rarity allowed her expression to soften—still smiling, but less exuberant, less forceful. She couldn’t suppress the nervous tic of her ears flicking. “I see that you are a little early for our daily check-in,” she said sympathetically, “I suppose that my newest ensemble didn’t last as long as we hoped?”

Twilight Sparkle gave a heavy, exasperated sigh and an emphatic shrug, arms flapping up and then clapping against her sides. There was a ripple through her form, discernible even through the layer of fabric. “Yup.”

Rarity clicked her tongue and sighed in turn. “Very well, come on back then, dear.”

She beckoned for the alicorn to circle around the front counter and follow her into the back of the building. Twilight Sparkle obediently did as she was instructed, hooves shuffling along the floor. She tried not to flinch when she felt Rarity’s hand upon her shoulder, followed by the unicorn sidling up beside her, walking in time with her. She knew that it was merely intended as a gesture of reassurance, something which she so desperately needed at the moment, and she longed for nothing more than to lean into the warm, soft, pliant embrace as she would have in the past, but nowadays it was increasingly becoming something which she desired to have on her mind. That might have been the absolute worst part of the whole situation that had been gradually evolving.

“So I suppose Regimen Delta was a bust, then?” Rarity asked while they entered the fitting room, breaking away to check on her supplies.

“No, it…I don’t know,” Twilight Sparkle muttered frustratedly as she came to stand in front of the array of mirrors, from which she had grown so accustomed to seeing her reflection peering back at her. She didn’t want to look at her face, to see the softening of definition which was present in her features. “I did everything exactly the way I had planned it, Rarity.”

“The exercise routine?” she queried.

“Ten-minute jog in the morning and after every meal. Assist Applejack with the harvest in the afternoon. Flight training with Rainbow Dash in the evening.” The lavender mare rattled them off of the top of her head effortlessly. “I should be burning calories like nopony’s business.”

“Well, you’re not taking in too many of those, are you?”

“Absolutely not, every meal has been measured down to the slightest grain of salt, I’ve been eating exactly as much as I should be.”

Rarity came over with her measuring tapes and her notepad, red spectacles perched upon her muzzle. There was concern and wariness etched across her face, but Twilight Sparkle also discerned a hopeful glimmer in her eyes as the corners of her lips curled faintly upwards. “Please don’t say it,” she murmured in exasperation before the words could come out.

“Come now, Twilight,” Rarity cooed, patting her on the back, just below the gaps in the suit where the wings slotted through (adjusting a pony’s whole wardrobe to account for the addition of new appendages had been another challenge for her). “You’re an alicorn now! You’re a princess! It only makes sense that you should really look the part. You’ve always been a Canterlot pony, now you’ll finally be able to measure up to their standards. Pretty soon, you’ll be on the same level of magnificent massiveness as Princess Celestia herself.”

Twilight Sparkle made no attempt to respond to this. Her gaze shrank away and her ears folded downward.

Likely sensing that there wasn’t going to be any further progress on this issue today, Rarity sighed and said, “Well, regardless, we are left with the problem of how to approach your present dimensions. If you would please extricate yourself from that gaudy suit, we may get this underway.”

Twilight Sparkle complied, all too eager to be free of the itchy cloth material anyway. She unzipped the front of the suit and peeled herself out of it, stripping down until she had nothing but her underwear on, and there was nothing that could be done to hide herself.

Despite Rarity’s longstanding efforts to convince her otherwise, Twilight Sparkle had never been especially invested in the sight of her reflection. The way she looked was not a matter of concern to her when there were so many others that were more vitally significant—her studies, her friends, occasionally saving the world, to name a few. It had never bothered her that she had been on the skinny side, relatively speaking. She had spent a significant portion of life being a little soft around the edges, a little pudgy, a little out-of-shape, an inevitability for one such as her who spent the majority of their free time cooped up in their study with books for company. It was a look that was born more out of negligence than any concerted effort.

It was an entirely different affair nowadays. For the early days, the only concern had been the obtrusive wings which now loomed behind her at all times, an unavoidable reminder of what she had become. So often, though, she had taken to wearing baggy, concealing clothes, like the damned tracksuit, because they made it easier to hide what was happening beyond her control, and because it was her only option for maintaining her decency in public. Standing before the mirror in naught but her undergarments, the truth was plain to see.

Twilight Sparkle was definitely no longer “pudgy”. Even “chubby” didn’t feel sufficient in describing the potbelly which jutted out past her waist and the sloping breadth of her hips and thighs. Chubby ponies didn’t have to deal with underwear riding between their rounded buttocks like this, or bra cups and straps digging into the soft flesh of their bosom. Chubby ponies also typically didn’t have to deal with their waistline increasing at a daily rate no matter how much they exercised and dieted.

There was only some slim consolation to be had in the fact that she was standing next to Rarity, who almost made her seem thin by comparison, though the margin between them was shrinking more and more. It only made sense that the mare who had dreamt all her life of leaving behind her country roots and making it big in Canterlot would go so far as to make herself big in order to fit into their decadence. Rarity was one of the largest ponies in all of Ponyville, and she carried all her weight in profound curves that made her particularly pleasing to the eye, swelling out and in and out again, and since she was her own tailor that meant she always had the best dresses to accentuate her frame. Today she dressed casually, with a crop top and jeans that clung closely to the shape of her chest and hips, a hint of the dollop of white flesh that was her stomach hanging over her waist visible underneath the overhang made by her bosom. She was the one who looked like a goddess deserving of reverence; standing beside each other, Twilight Sparkle only looked like some overweight shlub.

But Rarity caught the way the alicorn was listing as her thoughts got the better of her, and she patted her side, a clap that sent ripples through her form. “Come now, chin up, Twilight,” she said warmly, “it’s not the end of the world just because you’ve finally started gaining. Lots of ponies do it, there’s nothing to be ashamed of. Now, here, we should get started.”

The first step was one which Twilight Sparkle could have done at home, but it was best that they do it here along with the rest of the process for the sake of consistency. The tracksuit hadn’t been the only thing that was out of place in the chic boutique; there was also a metal pad which sat upon the floor, having been brought here from its previous location in Rarity’s closet at the start of this whole rigmarole. The alicorn stood upon it, and she faintly heard the inner workings creak and groan in response. She had to suck in her gut in order to see the result on the display after the dial inside finished spinning about—every time she did this, she thought about how long it would be until she was no longer able to even do that much. The fact that the number was consistently climbing higher every time didn’t help matters.

“Two hundred and…seventy-eight pounds,” Rarity murmured, writing the number down. “That is less of an increment than the last time; your efforts weren’t in vain after all.”

“More weight is still more weight,” she grumbled under her breath.

Rarity shook her head and tapped the pen on the clipboard. “Glass half-full, darling, not half-empty.”

Twilight Sparkle stepped off of the scale and then stood as still as possible so that Rarity could go through her battery of measurements, starting with using her levitation to hold a tape completely vertical, one end on the floor and the other up toward the mare’s head. “Hmm…” She squinted, looking close; her natural eye for detail made it all the easier for her to take exact measurements. “It looks like you’ve gained another half-inch.”

There was another low groan in the alicorn’s throat. They had to account for more than just her width during these refitting sessions, as she had begun to experience intermittent growth spurts as well, gaining as much as an inch in height every week, stretching out her proportions yet further. Rarity would have insisted again that it only made sense, knowing that the alicorns of Equestria were considerably taller than the average pony by default, but that didn’t do anything to assuage her doubts in this situation.

“So, Twilight, what would you like to do about your wardrobe situation now?” Rarity then asked while the process of measuring went on, measuring length and width and breadth and circumference all across the lavender mare’s body, pen scratching away in the background.

“I’m…going to see about meeting with Celestia soon,” she eventually announced, a shudder wracking through her, “so I’m going to need something I can wear for the trip to Canterlot.”

“Ah, wonderful, darling!” Rarity patted her shoulder. “I’m sure she’ll be able to provide you some much-needed guidance. As for the clothes, though, we are still facing the problem that it’s difficult to get you anything that will adequately fit as long as you continue to grow like this.”

“We can still extrapolate something approximate from the data we’ve taken so far, right?” Twilight Sparkle replied. “If I…maintain the schedule I had for this week, then the growth should stay constant, and we should know what to expect.”

Rarity gazed back at her shrewdly. Twilight Sparkle knew that she was stepping into territory that she wasn’t fully knowledgeable of, and the seamstress would be quick to make her dissatisfaction apparent if something fashionably incorrect was said in her presence. Eventually she replied, “Well, we certainly could, Twilight…but there’s no guarantee that it will be perfect. Making sure that clothes fit requires the utmost of precision, and accurate measurements are paramount in that regard.”

“I know, I know, but we don’t exactly have any better options.” She paused, and after a few more tapes wrapping around her thighs she said, “There’s something I’ve been thinking about, though.”

“Oh? What would that be?” Rarity asked curiously.

“What if it was possible to…make the clothes bigger?”

“Twilight, resizing clothes has always been an option, but the simple fact of the matter is that there’s only so much that can be done in that regard.”

“No, I mean like…magically.” With her arms free to move, Twilight Sparkle was able to gesticulate in the vaguely grasping way that only an experimental thinker could. “Imagine if you could take fabric and…feed it into a dress. The dress takes the raw material and adds it seamlessly to its design. That way, you can continue to make something as large as you may need it to be.”

Rarity tapped the end of her pen against her chin, her brow furrowed in thought. “I’m not sure I like it, to be completely frank,” she said with a shake of her head, and then she shrugged, “it seems like a stifling way to work with one’s wardrobe. That is to say nothing of the economic impact it could have on me if somepony didn’t have to come back to me for new clothes anymore.” She snickered and smirked, and Twilight Sparkle smiled sheepishly back. “I suppose, given the circumstances, though, that may be the best option available to you, assuming you can get it to work.”

“Oh, I’m pretty sure I can, I’m already working on it,” Twilight Sparkle said plainly, “I was also hoping I could get some rolls of fabric while I was here.”

That made Rarity outright laugh, her form jiggling. “Now that’s the kind of proactive Twilight I like to see.” With all of the measurements taken and noted, she leaned in and pulled Twilight Sparkle close for a hug. “But before I give you that fabric,” Rarity added, whispering into her ear, with a slight wiggle of her hips, “how about we go out and get some ice cream?”

“What, but…” Twilight Sparkle suddenly felt like the embrace around her was the grip of a vice. “Rarity, I’m supposed to be dieting, remember?” In spite of the severity of the situation which they had been discussing, she found herself unable to put much conviction into that assertion.

“Pish posh, darling, every mare deserves to splurge once in a while,” she replied with a scoff.

Author's Note

There were some revisions made to this chapter as I had to rein in my urge to go for excessive quantities of character drama with Twilight being mopey about the situation she's been put in. Never say that I don't have some sense of mercy for you.

I wanted RariTwi to be a major part of the story but there ended up not being as much room for Rarity and her tits.

I still barely know anything about fashion, crop top was something that just happened to come up recently.

This story was a prompt suggested and voted for by my supporters on Patreon. Consider pledging your support if you enjoy my work and would be interested in participating in these selections in the future.

I also have a Ko-Fi for one-time donations.

Day 62

“Twilight?”

The voice calling out to her was almost lost over the sound of Twilight Sparkle’s heavy breathing, panting and gasping, whooshing through her throat and skull.

“Oh dear, you really are struggling.”

There was a shimmer, and she felt a tingling all across her body as golden light manifested around her. With an effortlessness that she could only wish to muster when she was trying to fly, Twilight Sparkle was lifted into the air, weightlessly drifting upward until her hooves were allowed to touch down on the floor once more. She looked down at the stairway she had just ascended, and the hall which extended from its base in the direction of the throne room. That was only the latest part of this journey, following the climb through the sloping streets of Canterlot up toward the palace. “I…I never…” she panted breathlessly, “considered…just how much…walking…there really was.”

“It is quite a lot, isn’t it?” Celestia admitted. “The altitude doesn’t help matters much either. I’m somewhat surprised that it became so popular to be overweight even with that difficulty in place.

That size still hadn’t been enough, though, to impede the Princess from making her own climb up the stairs, or from continuing to saunter forward at a plodding but steady pace. Twilight Sparkle had been around the alicorn for enough of her life that she had become desensitized to her bulk, but now she couldn’t keep her eyes from wandering. It was hard not to look when there was so much to take in. The flowing white gown which Celestia wore, made of enough fabric to form a balcony awning, couldn’t completely disguise the sheer breadth of the shelf that was her rear end, buttocks that could smother ponies and couches alike and required a throne that was more like a mattress. The sprawling globes wobbled within their cloth confines as her legs ground together with every step forward, as did her relatively smaller upper body; even from behind, Twilight Sparkle could discern the swells of belly and bosom jutting to either side and swaying about.

It was enough to take one’s breath away, and she hadn’t had much of that to spare in the first place.

“It’s just ahead here, Twilight,” she said, calling back over her shoulder. “Do you require any further assistance?”

“N-no,” the lavender mare hurriedly blurted out, “I’m…fine, I can…handle the rest of it.”

Oh how desperately she wanted to believe that, but her body was all too eager to betray her. The ache inside her flared up abruptly as soon as she began to walk once more, from her hooves up through her legs, heart and lungs burning. She might have hoped that gaining the strength of an earth pony would make tasks such as this easier, but she had already found that she still underperformed compared to Applejack or even Pinkie Pie—it was her capacity that had increased more than any innate power, and she still had to tap into that side of herself. Seeing Princess Celestia in motion now, though, really served to highlight the absurdity of it to her; she had difficulty believing that any amount of physical strength by itself would be enough to make it effortless to have that much mass attached to one’s frame.

With Celestia holding the (double-sided and very wide) door open for her, Twilight Sparkle turned and stumbled into the private chamber. The room was one part study and one part kitchen, the shelves and table on one side standing opposite to a counter with basic cooking amenities, ideal for making small meals and snacks while researching. The musty smell of old books was just enough of an incentive to give her the extra willpower to shuffle over toward the table. She used to be skinny enough that the oversized chairs of the palace would make her feel like a foal when she sat in them, now her rump filled the seat as snugly as the pants she wore, the waistband constricting uncomfortably against the underside of the gut now that she was reclining (despite her best efforts to make accurate estimations of her projected dimensions, Rarity’s warning had proven true and the new clothes had turned out to be ill-fitting for her, and, worse, ended up on the side of tight rather than loose). When Celestia came over to sit across from her, the chair she sat upon was more like a bench, ornately carved wood reinforced with metal, and it still groaned ominously under her weight.

“I suppose it would be for the best if we got straight to the point,” Celestia said while her horn glowed with magic once more. She didn’t even look at the motions of the teakettle floating around a counter that was set into the wall behind her, filling with water from a sink and then setting upon a stovetop to boil. “Perhaps you should start by telling me what you have learned on your own.”

“Um, well…” Twilight Sparkle took a moment to shift gears into presentation mode, summoning up all the information which she had been going over on the train ride to Canterlot. She shrugged off the messenger bag she’d brought with her and set it on top of the table with a heavy thud (that added weight admittedly hadn’t helped her during the climb), then removed a series of books and papers from it. With her magic, she lifted several the books and flipped them open to the relevant pages, keeping them held up to serve as visual aid.

“I have observed in my study of Equestrian history that references to you and Luna always seem to plainly depict that you are…fat.” The books showed pictures of ancient paintings, dating many centuries ago, even before Luna’s banishment. They depicted the alicorns in a number of regal and lavish contexts, but the clear trend among them is that they are shown to be exceptionally large—sometimes not quite in the manner they appeared today, sometimes in more impressionistic styles, but certainly always of a size larger than the ponies around them.

“And what do you suppose the reason for that might be?” Celestia said nonchalantly, at the same time that the teakettle began to steam and cry in the background, and she proceeded to levitate it over along with cups and saucers and teabags. “Many ponies in Equestria are of a decidedly heavy body shape, it has quite the appeal.”

“Yes, well, most of the reason that that trend has developed is because you, specifically, are overweight,” Twilight Sparkle asserted while flipping through more pages. “Many sources allude to the attractiveness which you demonstrate, which many in turn have sought to emulate on account of the great respect which is lavished upon you. It may not be unanimous appeal, but there has been a clear upward trend in rates of obesity among the Equestrian populace over the course of your reign. I even found…” She sifted through her notes. “That there was once a member of your cabinet who thought that you and Luna were unfit for rule because you were…um…” She had written down the exact words she found but she hesitated to actually say them out loud in front of the Princess.

“That we were slovenly pigs who had stumbled into the throne room on the way to the charnel house,” Celestia finished for her, and there was a dry chuckle in her throat. She poured tea for herself and then took a sip from the cup while the floating kettle did the same for Twilight Sparkle, adding a scent of lemon and honey to the room. “Lady Prim Proper, that was the one. She tried to rally a coup against us. We made a point of quashing her forces without any assistance from our retinue. It did not fare well for them, I assure you.”

Despite Twilight Sparkle’s knowledge of the mare’s fearsome magical prowess, in this case she couldn’t resist imagining her defeating her enemies simply by crushing them beneath her rear.

“But why, then, do you suppose that we are fat in the first place?” Celestia then asked, bringing the conversation back around.

“Well…” The mare desperately didn’t want to believe that it was true, but it was the point which she kept coming back to no matter how much she tried to reinterpret the circumstances. “It has to have something to do with being alicorns, right? Something about being an alicorn…just naturally leads to gaining weight.”

“And what do you think is the cause for that?” Celestia asked next.

Twilight Sparkle pursed her lips, her ears flattening, but she held her tongue regarding these leading questions. “It’s…likely something to do with an alicorn’s naturally increased magic, though I don’t understand how exactly. The best explanation I could come up with is that it’s…because the fat is used as storage capacity in some way, more fat means more magic to use, but…that just doesn’t make sense.”

“It doesn’t?” Celestia asked between sips, sounding intrigued even though she certainly knew the answer already, “And why is that?”

“It’s…that’s just not how it works!” She spoke emphatically while slowly sitting up straighter in her chair. “We don’t store magic in ourselves. We channel it through the ley lines that run across the planet. It comes up through us when we cast a spell and then gets released and dissipates back into the ether.” She was starting to breathe more heavily again. A fire had been lit in her belly, a fire that was stoked by her very extensive fields of knowledge.

Celestia hummed, turning and churning her cup of tea. “You are indeed correct, my dear pupil,” she declared with a faint hint of pride, “I am glad that your studies have proven so fruitful in your endeavors.”

“O-oh, well…” Twilight Sparkle deflated slightly, still proving to be unable to resist the Princess’s praise. “It was just a little basic research…”

“But please, Twilight, do take care of yourself.” Golden light pushed the teacup in front of her a little closer. The alicorn smiled gently, reassuringly.

Twilight Sparkle pursed her lips, exhaling a huff of hot air through her nostrils, before she took the cup and saucer in her hands. It was still hot enough that she couldn’t just gulp it down, which was unfortunate because she had underestimated how much she needed that precious moisture in her system.

“It is true that we do not simply store magic within ourselves,” the older mare then said, clearly diving into her own prepared explanation regarding present circumstances, “body fat is nothing more than a series of triglycerides, after all, it would be inefficient to try to contain that much. The truth lies in the nature of how an alicorn channels magic.”

She held up an open palm, and within it she conjured three images spinning around each other: a pony’s hooves, a horn, and a pair of wings. “You see, Twilight, the process of becoming an alicorn is more than merely gaining the capabilities of all three pony tribes.” The three icons coalesced and merged together into the outline of an alicorn, and there was a faint rainbow light strobing around the horn, wings, and hands and hooves. “Ponies have tried, through varying means, to have all of these at once, and there have even been some who succeeded, but they still were not true alicorns. Alicorns are, in fact, so attuned to magic that it encompasses their entire being.” The image changed once more, the form of a pony becoming entirely comprised of the rainbow light. “Your whole body is now like a prism, concentrating and refracting magic to a degree that you never would have been capable of previously.”

There was a pulse within Twilight Sparkle’s skull while she listened with rapt attention. It was the surge of activity, the electricity coursing between neurons, that came from her brain going into overdrive about the implications of something that she had just heard. It took a great deal of willpower to silence those thoughts and focus on the matter that was directly at hand. Eventually, her brow furrowed, she muttered, “But…but why…do I keep getting bigger?”

“In a roundabout sense, your growth is actually more akin to that of muscles than fat.” Her eyes narrowed slightly, concentration intensifying, and her fingers flexed, and the alicorn image in her palm distorted, gaining depth, changing from a flat image to one that was three-dimensional. A current of light began to flow through it, circulating within the body before emerging and fading from the horn and wings and hooves. “The more that your body processes magic, the more capable it will become, and it will reflect this by expanding in order to better facilitate that process. However—” In the midst of the projected alicorn growing steadily bulkier, thicker, rounder as the flow of magic ran through it, Celestia spoke pointedly to deter Twilight Sparkle from the question that was inevitably on the tip of her tongue. “It is not merely a matter of the spells which you cast, as I’m sure you are concerned of. You see, the other factor, and the one which is perhaps even more significant, is the alicorn’s domain.”

“Domain?” Twilight Sparkle repeated, perplexed, “You’re talking about…how you’re connected to the sun, right? And Luna to the moon and Cadence to love?”

“Correct,” Celestia replied with that same pleased teacher demeanor once more, “much like how ponies have their cutie marks, alicorns have a particular kind of magic which they are most in tune with, be it the sun, the moon, love, or…” She began to gesture toward the pony across from her, but then she faltered, and her expression shifted—not just sad; there was a very distinct sense of worry etched across her features—and she sighed wearily. “This is where I cannot beat around the bush any longer.”

Twilight Sparkle felt a particular sense of weight manifest within her, buried heavily in the depths of her gut, not truly physical and yet so burdensome in its presence. Dread gnawed at her, feeling that some terrible realization was looming over her.

“Twilight…” Celestia lifted her hand, started to reach for her, only to realize that their positions didn’t exactly make that conducive. Golden light rose up from beneath her as magic manifested around her seat, lifting her whole body up into the air and rotating around the table so that they were closer to each other. Twilight Sparkle obliged by reaching forward to let her take her hand so that she wouldn’t have to stretch as far across the breadth of her hip and thigh. “You know that I’ve only ever wanted the best for you,” she said softly, solemnly, “I’ve always known that you would be capable of great things. You might not always think that you’re prepared for them, but I know without doubt that you will always find the solution to whatever challenge you face.”

“Celestia…” she murmured back. She felt her emotions welling up within her, ready to burst forth. There was a bittersweet warmth in her heart.

“So I must be honest with you when I tell you that…I may have given you too much this time.”

Twilight Sparkle blinked. “What?”

“I was prepared for these concerns to arise, and I was prepared to help you with them, but at this magnitude…” With another flash of magic, the scrolls that Twilight Sparkle had sent to Celestia appeared on the table before them. The letter was also accompanied by a transcript of the data she and Rarity had been keeping, and Celestia held that up, going over the numbers. “The rate at which your growth has been progressing…it’s far greater than anything we expected. You have already surpassed the weight Cadence had been at in the first year after her ascension.”

“Wait, wh-what?!” Blood pumped fervently through Twilight Sparkle’s veins. She wanted to panic, to jerk away, but the Princess’s touch was keeping her anchored in place, unable to decouple herself from her warmth. “It wasn’t supposed to be this fast?! But then…why is it happening so quickly?!”

“It’s because of your nature, Twilight, because you are so capable,” Celestia replied urgently, and she reached around herself, other arm crossing the breadth of her torso, so she could caress the mare’s wrist with both hands, desperate, pleading. “Your magic was already so great even as a unicorn, and now it is becoming bolstered ever further by your domain. Twilight…” They stared into each other’s eyes. “You are the Princess of Friendship, Twilight. Your domain is based upon your friendships with others.”

Everything became still and clear.

The lavender mare remembered her flight training sessions with Rainbow Dash. The pegasus would fly circles around her, though she would still stop to encourage her to continue forward, taking note of every breakthrough which was achieved.

Providing assistance for the harvest at Sweet Apple Acres. Applejack didn’t much like when she used magic as a replacement for bucking individual trees, but she appreciated the support nonetheless, especially where financial planning was concerned.

Helping out at Sugarcube Corner wasn’t nearly as easy. Pinkie Pie may have been too much of a whirlwind of energy for her to keep up with, but that wasn’t going to stop her from trying, not when there was so much that needed to be done.

Sitting in Fluttershy’s cottage, calmly conversing over a light meal. It may not have been the most engaging activity, yet it was pleasant simply to be in the presence of another, to discuss each other’s interests and desires.

Standing in the boutique, listening to Rarity prattle on and on about fashion and occasionally tease her about some aspect of her wardrobe she had failed to consider before giving her a warm hug and then insisting that they do something to treat themselves. Oh how her heart would flutter and bloom every time.

She remembered that feeling, the warmth in her chest, expanding and magnifying.

“Oh,” she blurted out, “oh…oh…”

She might not have been sure, but she found herself distinctly feeling that her waistband had grown ever so slightly tighter in the time since she came to the palace.

“I would understand, Twilight, if…if you don’t think that it is fair for this burden to be placed upon you.” Celestia’s voice wavered, trembling. The façade of her resolve was failing, and to witness the Princess looking so demoralized was perhaps one of the most alarming things for any pony of Equestria. “I want you to know that I am willing to support you no matter what your decision is, even should you decide that you don’t feel up to the task that is presented to you or the difficulties which it may present. No matter what happens, Twilight…I will always care for you.”

Twilight Sparkle stared back at her, breathless, wordless, nearly thoughtless, at a loss for any form of response. She didn’t have to look down to be aware of the older mare’s sheer size, the extent of her bulk, so much larger than she was now, but it was apparent now that she would inevitably be approaching that threshold sooner rather than later. What would it be like, she had to wonder. There were already so many difficulties to be had with tasks and matters that would have been basic parts of everyday life, she wasn’t sure she was ready for what else she might have to face.

The younger alicorn stood laboriously from her seat. In doing so, she slipped out of Celestia’s grasp; she tried not to take in the look of forlorn anxiousness that overtook her face. She lumbered around the study, feeling the way her body moved, so inefficient, grinding and wobbling about. Her thighs were unavoidably pressed together, chafing against the interior lining of her pants. She was still plagued by the tightness of her clothes and the griminess of sweat that came after even light activity.

She clutched a hand over her chest. There was no pain, no strain left over from the exertion of the ascent to the palace, no shortness of breath. No, quite the opposite. That warmth which welled up within her was still present, its soothing calm spreading through her, quelling the doubt that had manifested in her mind. She had known this feeling before, the warm fuzziness of happiness, but it seemed so much more distinct now, even more after becoming aware of the exact source of it. It filled her with an impending sense of doom, the knowledge that a part of her life had ended and something new was about to take its place, yet she couldn’t deny the pleasant joy which it brought to her.

“I…I don’t think…there’s any going back from this,” Twilight Sparkle announced.

“We can find a way, if that’s what it comes down to,” Celestia insisted, with no smaller amount of clattering as she rose as well. “I don’t know if there is any existing way to…to undo an alicorn’s ascension, but I’m willing to put everything aside and—”

“No, Princess.” Twilight Sparkle turned back toward her, her expression solemn and morose, yet coolly determined. “Even if it was possible to do that, I don’t think there’s truly any way to avoid…becoming this. The pursuit of magic and friendship is too ingrained in me for me to stop now. I’m almost certain that I would just end up ascending all over again, sooner or later.” She looked toward the shelves of books that lined the study walls; she recognized many of the titles that were written upon their bindings, tomes that she had pored over in her relentless thirst for knowledge during the time that she had spent in the palace as Celestia’s pupil. “I could go back to the way things used to be,” she muttered, “holed up in my room, doing nothing but reading. After already experiencing what it’s like to have friends, though, there’s no way I could go back to that, and it certainly wouldn’t be fair to my friends either.”

Celestia seemed as if she wanted to be pleased with this revelation, but her worries lingered. “You are certain, then,” she asked warily, “that being this way does not bother you?”

Twilight Sparkle’s gaze drifted back down toward herself, along the sloping shelves that comprised chest and stomach and thighs. She was already beginning to experience struggles in holding her gut within the span of her arms, and she couldn’t even see her hooves while standing straight. “I honestly don’t know what I can say,” she replied with a beleaguered sigh, “I’ve never cared that much about the way I looked, no matter what it was like to grow up in Canterlot. I wish it wasn’t so…inconvenient. The part that bothered me most was that I couldn’t figure out why it was happening. I came to you with the hope that I could understand it better, and now…well, I can’t say I don’t understand.”

They faced each other, and Twilight Sparkle mustered the energy to put up a weak smile. “You are right about one thing,” she said wryly, “I’ve never been able to back down from a challenge before, and I don’t think I’m ready to do that now.”

Celestia chuckled heartily. “That’s the Twilight I’ve always believed in.”

They came together and embraced. Before, Twilight Sparkle would have had to rest her face upon the taller mare’s belly, throwing her arms wide around as much of its circumference as was within reach. Now, she was able to stand up to her bosom, and with her ear pressed to the soft mounds she could faintly hear the beating of her own heart within her chest. Soon, they might finally stand eye to eye with each other. Hugs might still be made difficult, though, if they each had their own frontal mass acting as obstruction.

“You know,” Celestia whispered with a hint of mirth, “your mother once expressed concern to me that you were still so skinny even though you were under my tutelage, she thought you would’ve plumped up some more.”

“What?!” Twilight Sparkle gasped in disbelief and then laughed. “It’s not like being fat is infectious or something!”

“Well, in a sense I suppose it is, under these circumstances,” she replied.

They continued to hold onto each other while they laughed, rippling from one to the other, the warmth of their bodies intermingling.

Author's Note

A part of the appeal for this idea was that it would allow me to go into headcanon blahblah regarding the nature of alicorns and magic. This chapter also saw a significant amount of rewriting though because I didn't like the way I had written it originally, Twilight got too sad and mopey, as much as I want that to be a significant part of the story I thought it was too extreme and really distracted from the main point.

Celestia had to engage in so much self-restraint to not eat forty cakes throughout this whole conversation.

We're switching up the body emphases from Royal Radiance, just to keep you on your feet.

This story was a prompt suggested and voted for by my supporters on Patreon. Consider pledging your support if you enjoy my work and would be interested in participating in these selections in the future.

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Day 95

Twilight Sparkle could see the disappointed look on Rainbow Dash’s face as she made the final approach toward her, huffing and puffing with every step. The pegasus was jogging in place, pumping her legs up and down, bouncing on her hooves, making the act of motion look utterly effortless. She yearned for that ease of motion, as much as she knew that it was beyond her. At least now she would be able to take a rest, however briefly.

“Y’all doin’ alright there, sugarcube?” There was a gentle pat on her shoulder from her other exercise partner, standing beside her. While Rainbow Dash had long since passed them to run a second lap around the course, Applejack had set herself to match the alicorn’s pace so that she could keep track of her. It was mostly in case she needed assistance from an earth pony, but of course she also appreciated having a friend at her side regardless.

“Yeah…I’m…I’m doing alright,” Twilight Sparkle replied between gasps. She leaned forward and planted her palms on her knees while catching her breath, a motion that required spreading her legs to the side in order to reach around her gut, the protuberant mass oozing toward the ground. The pose wasn’t merely for support; in running her palms upon her legs, she also felt the currents of mana which ran through them, a subtle heat that was separate from the pumping of blood vessels. The raw power of the earth was different from what magic she had experienced before, more physical, heavier. With Applejack’s assistance, she had learned how to draw it into her, and with that she had been able to provide herself with stronger support and strength, yet the effort of calling upon this power was a considerable strain in itself, so the net gain was minimal.

“Here.” Rainbow Dash tossed a water bottle toward them and Applejack snatched it out of the air, unscrewing the cap and liberally pouring it into her waiting mouth. There was something breathtaking about the sight of her, rivulets of crystal liquid cascading from her jaws, meeting with the sweat-dampened fur along her form. She shook out her long blonde mane before depositing her signature Stetson back onto her head.

“Don’t stare too hard, Twi.” There was a knowing smirk on her face as she handed the bottle over again.

“Good thing nopony’s inviting stares, huh?” Rainbow Dash commented in the background—certainly not without her own eyes roving about. In contrast to Twilight Sparkle’s tracksuit (the same look as before, but a new, larger one now), the pegasus wore a sports top and pants that conformed snugly to her figure. Applejack was closer to the latter, except the only thing she wore above the waist was a broad crimson sash tied around her chest.

Twilight Sparkle took a long draught of the sweet, life-giving nectar, relishing in the sensation of it passing down her throat. “Maybe…maybe I should take a page from your wardrobe, Applejack,” she muttered after coming up for breath. She pawed at the scratchy fabric of the suit over her front. The bagginess would only be a consolation for so long, and it felt so claustrophobic to wear. “I’m getting tired of tracksuits…”

Applejack barked out a booming laugh that made her exposed body quiver. “I’m sure Rares’ll be glad to hear that if nothin’ else.”

“If you fatasses are done,” Rainbow Dash interjected harshly, “we should move on with the rest of the exercise before our portly princess loses her pace.”

“Hey now, Dash, no need to be like that,” Applejack replied while sauntering over to her, and though her voice was stern there was a smirk upon her muzzle, “if you’re so concerned about our fat asses, you can just ask and we’ll bury you between them.”

Rainbow Dash snorted but stared back unflinchingly, her defiant gaze silently saying, “I dare you.” Twilight Sparkle, looking on, chuckled quietly.

With her two coaches standing beside each other, the distinction between them was all the more apparent. Rainbow Dash was among the slimmest ponies she knew, as was typical of her tribe—pegasi trended toward far lower rates of obesity than unicorns and earth ponies, as necessitated by their need for flight, and there were few who needed flight as much as Rainbow Dash. Virtually all unnecessary fat had been shorn away, leaving a slender, toned physique, sleek sides meeting a slight flare of the hips and thighs. Applejack was just about the polar opposite, an earth pony in her prime, her frame broad and dense and powerful, every ounce of fat paired with an equal portion of muscle. There was no sag to her body, only bulging and burgeoning, rounded gut and breasts and buttocks accentuated by limbs thick with cords of sinew. The two of them had a rivalry streak a mile wide, but there had been a time when they competed more directly in athleticism, until, shortly after Twilight Sparkle’s arrive in Ponyville, Applejack had started gaining more drastically in order to better support the work at the farm, then they could no longer race with each other. Rainbow Dash may have had no intent of abandoning her dreams of being a renowned flyer, but that could change if Applejack managed to coax her into too many eating competitions.

“Well, I’ll leave y’all to what you gotta do,” Applejack chortled before starting to walk away, “I’ll be takin’ a stroll ‘round in the meantime. Just holler if you need anythin’, Twi. And don’t be afraid to drop on top of Dash if she’s givin’ you a hard time.”

“As if I’d just let that happen,” Rainbow Dash shouted back at her.

Applejack gave one final glance back over her shoulder, another sly look that suggested “Is that so?” before sashaying back toward town.

The pegasus rolled her eyes. “Alright, fine, you ready to give this a go, Twilight?” she asked with a sigh. There was a rustle as her wings snapped open, feathered fans spreading to their full width in an instant.

The mare gulped. “Y…yeah.” There was a moment of hesitation, but she was able to get her own wings to open smoothly. She had managed to muster a smooth level of control over them, if nothing else. Now she just had to be able to use them.

As with running, Rainbow Dash was effortlessly able to flap her wings and, with a gust of wind, take off from the ground. Twilight Sparkle had to raise an arm over her face as dust and leaves kicked up at her, which she knew was counter-intuitive—she was supposed to be watching to get an idea of what she had to do. “Now remember!” Rainbow Dash called down to her, “It’s not just a matter of flip-flappin’ about like a chicken! You gotta feel the air currents in your feathers! You gotta pump the feeling through yourself!”

Grimacing nervously to herself, Twilight Sparkle flapped her wings. She felt the way her feathers rippled one after another in sequence, and the faint tingling of the magical energy which they sifted from the loose particles of air in the atmosphere. Again in stark contrast to earth ponies, the magic of pegasi was very thin and sparse, easy to gather but difficult to work with. It gathered in the lungs, pumping out with every breath, circulating throughout her.

She started to run. Her hooves and legs ached, so she drew on the power of the earth again for support. These conflicting powers warred with each other, making it all the more difficult to maintain her concentration. The profuse jiggling of her body at the same time certainly didn’t help matters, her rump vigorously bouncing about behind her with every step. Her wings fidgeted uncertainly before managing to settle into the motions of flapping.

With a stamp of her hooves on the ground, she jumped. In the split second of weightlessness that followed, she pumped her wings, batting at the friction of millions of microscopic molecules. The exhilaration filled her chest. But it wasn’t enough, and gravity pulled her back down. Ache exploded in her ankles and knees as she landed, yet she kept going.

“That’s good, try again!” Rainbow Dash’s encouraging voice rang from overhead somewhere. They both knew it was at least better than usual; often Twilight Sparkle would lose her balance upon landing and fall in a heap.

She fought with herself, drawing on the sources of magic that were alien to her. Her instinct was to focus through her horn, but it wasn’t time for that yet. Run, drawing from the hooves up through the legs and into the body. She could feel the power within her with every quaking motion that her body goes through, wobbling gelatinously. Gusts churned around her as she flapped her wings in time with her steps, each push getting her a little more airtime. The circulation through her chest eased the strain upon her vitals, a cooling system to offset the burn produced by her internal machinery.

Twilight Sparkle bent her knees, and she looked straight up at the blue sky, and she didn’t think about how overweight she was, she only thought about flight.

The alicorn kicked off and beat her wings at once. She didn’t hear the boom of her cannonball bulk erupting from the ground all at once over the rush of air in her ears. She dimly registered passing by Rainbow Dash, her face stricken with surprise and amazement, an expression that likely mirrored her own. The grass and bushes and trees fell away beneath her and her mane and tail trailed out behind while the wind rustled through her fur and feathers. Along the roads leading back toward the buildings of Ponyville, she could see Applejack jogging away, now so much smaller. Mirth bubbled up from her and left her through her laughter.

“Twilight!”

There was a sudden blankness in her mind where before there had been thoughts.

“Twilight, keep going!”

She looked down, and she saw the earth now some dozen or more meters below her. And it was getting closer.

And before she realized what was happening, she was tilting forward, tumbling uncontrollably, and everything was spinning around her. Rainbow Dash was shouting at her, probably winging fast in her direction for an interception.

The unicorn in Twilight Sparkle’s brain was panicking.

The earth pony was screaming.

The pegasus was calm.

She knew that she had mere seconds to take some kind of preventative action. Rainbow Dash might be able to get her out of this, but likely not without significant injury to either of them. Getting herself hurt would be one thing, but she couldn’t tolerate the idea of getting one of her friends hurt over her own mistake. Something would have to be done.

She stretched herself out, letting the air drag on her rotund frame, and prepared to extend her wings to brace her fall. She understood the motions that she had to go through from her training drills, she knew that this was something that she was capable of. What she also knew, however, was that no matter what Rainbow Dash taught her, she still wasn’t going to be a pegasus, nor an earth pony, nor even a unicorn. Twilight Sparkle was an alicorn now.

The falling mare opened her wings. She knew that, with how great her weight was, she would have to put a great deal of effort into her hold on the air currents in order to sufficiently slow her descent. It was even possible that she would be able to succeed in an endeavor like that. At a time like this, though, she felt that she had to resort to alternative methods, even if it meant going out on a hunch. It was a tickling sensation at the base of her skull, an inkling of an idea that welled up from her subconscious, something that she knew without even being told.

While still maintaining the force in her wings, her horn lit up with brilliant sparks of magenta. Unicorn magic may not have been conducive by itself for the purposes of a pegasus, but in the hands of an alicorn it could be combined and repurposed. She drew in mana from all around her and suffused it throughout her body. Self-levitation might have been an option, a spell that few unicorns were able to master due to the precision that it required, though that still wasn’t what she had in mind. Instead, she used this magic much as an earth pony would, bolstering her physical structure, but this wasn’t for support as much as alteration. A churning, giddy sense rose up from her gut, and at the same time the strain upon her shoulders lessened, the struggle of keeping herself aloft considerably diminished.

Her downward trajectory slowed, tilting toward the horizontal, sailing forward over the land. She opened her eyes, not realizing that they’d been closed all this time, and she saw the ground beneath her; she had slowed considerably with mere feet to spare, but the landing was still fast approaching. Knowing that it was going to be rough regardless, she channeled through her horn once more to fashion a modified barrier, so fine that it was like a glossy sheen over her form. When she finally crashed, sliding across the grass and dirt, she barely felt the impact at all. She only allowed her concentration to falter once she had come to a complete stop, and she fell limp. She wasn’t gasping for breath, but she was still exhausted, her consciousness blurring, vision fuzzy at the edges.

“Whoa, Twilight, what was that?!” Wind rolled over her back as Rainbow Dash alighted beside her. “I thought you were totally going to beef it there but you pulled through at the last second! How’d you do that? I barely felt any currents from you.”

“I…I cast a spell to lower my body’s density,” Twilight Sparkle muttered. She tried to look up at the pegasus, but that slight shift was enough to make her feel dizzy.

“What?! Aw, come on!” Rainbow Dash groaned and slapped a palm to her face. “This is supposed to be flight training, not egghead training!”

“Sorry, Rainbow, but I just…thought I had to try.” With some great labor, the alicorn managed to haul herself into sitting upright, flattening yet more grass beneath her rotund rump. This mental exhaustion was almost worse than any of the physical exhaustion she’d felt thus far.

Rainbow Dash only grumbled under her breath, crossing her arms over her chest and turning away.

“Look, you’ve been a real help for understanding pegasus magic, you really have. I just…I’ve come to a realization that I’m going to have to use all of my magic in tandem if I’m really going to get the most out of it.” After a pause without any response from the rainbow-haired pony, she added, “Think about it this way: next time I can try that right from the start, and maybe then we’ll finally be able to do some real flying drills, no more beginner stuff.”

The pegasus glanced back toward her. “You wanna try doing a loop?”

Twilight Sparkle gulped at the thought of doing more dizzying tasks, but she still replied, “Yeah, sure.”

“Yeah, that’s more like it!” Rainbow Dash pumped her fist triumphantly.

Twilight Sparkle put off her dread for what might await her in the days to come for now. At the moment, what was most concerning to her was what she was going to have to eat. The granola bars Rainbow Dash had brought with her weren’t going to cut it.

Author's Note

More magic headcanon stuff, I'm sure inspired in some capacity by various other horse stories I've read. I wanted there to be more scenes like this, Twilight learning how to handle being fat and using her magic, but that was before I underestimated how long these scenes would be. I thought that maybe they could start being shorter after the exposition was over with, buuuut not really.

I guess it's kind of unavoidable to have Applejack and Rainbow Dash paired together.

How many times have I written flying panic scenes before?

This story was a prompt suggested and voted for by my supporters on Patreon. Consider pledging your support if you enjoy my work and would be interested in participating in these selections in the future.

I also have a Ko-Fi for one-time donations.

Day 138

“Shiny,” Twilight Velvet said, “would you go check to see if the food is ready yet?”

“Just a moment, Mom!” The stallion’s voice called from the other side of the dining room where he was busying himself with reaching for the plates from the high cabinets.

“I can do it,” Twilight Sparkle interjected, already in the process of lumbering around the table.

“Oh, no, Twilight, that’s quite alright,” the older mare said dotingly, quickly shuffling to stand in her way, “you don’t have to worry yourself over something like that.”

“Mom, I’m a princess,” she replied with a sigh, “I have to worry about things far worse than this on a weekly basis.”

“You may be a princess, but you’ll always be my little filly, sweetie,” Twilight Velvet stated with a chuckle while reaching out to pinch the alicorn’s cheek. The supposed littleness being asserted here seemed harder to believe in when she had to distinctly reach upward in order to complete this gesture. There was some irony, no doubt, that Twilight Sparkle had occasionally thought she might one day look just like her mother, a plump old mare living comfortably into the latter years of her life. Now, she had considerably outstripped the grey pony, and that disparity was only going to grow larger over time. This meal they were about to have certainly wasn’t going to help much in that regard.

“Well, if you must, go on ahead,” she finally said, relenting and allowing her passage, “and make sure neither of them are sampling too much of the food before it can even get to our plates either!”

“Yes, yes, I know.” Twilight Sparkle replied, shaking her head with a smirk. Her hooves made muffled thumps against the carpeted floor as she waddled around to the kitchen doorway, from which there were the sounds of bubbling and clattering and a savory spicy aroma. She positioned herself at the threshold and leaned forward to poke her head through, just enough that she didn’t have to worry about the concern that doors had begun to pose upon her, or the space that she knew was at a premium inside the room. “Hey, cooking crew, how’s it going in here?”

“Just about ready, Twily,” Night Light said without looking up from the platter he was preparing, pouring rice and steamed vegetables together. He used his magic for this, levitating the various morsels into position, as the broad expanse of his gut would have made it difficult for him to reach the counter anyway. He preferred this way anyway, as taking a step back helped him with picturing the presentation. “I hope that you’ve brought your appetite with you today,” he added with a smile curling across his muzzle, “we made sure to prepare enough for two princesses instead of just one.”

“And don’t worry too much if you don’t,” Cadence added while tending to the pot on the stove, “I’ll gladly take the rest of your servings if you don’t want them.”

“You’d eat the whole dinner if we let you, Cady,” Night Light commented, and they both laughed.

Twilight Sparkle felt that she should laugh as well, and she wanted to, but she found herself distracted. Her eyes remained locked upon the pink mare, her huge mass taking up a significant portion of the kitchen, which her father already occupied a large part of. In much the same way that her perspective on Celestia had changed, there was some strangeness to be felt when she met with Cadence now, and this feeling had lingered since she and Shining Armor arrived from the Canterlot station. It wasn’t quite the same, however, because although she looked up to Cadence, her former foalsitter and now sister-in-law, she didn’t quite idolize her like the other Princesses. This was a more personal sentiment.

She wanted to speak, but her mouth was dry suddenly.

“Twilight?”

She snapped to attention. “H-huh?”

Night Light was standing in front of her with the platter between them. “I appreciate your eagerness to get your hands on the food,” he said with a chuckle, “but I’ve gotta get it to the table first.”

“O-oh, uh, sorry.” Twilight Sparkle stepped to the side so he could pass her, and Cadence came out right behind him, a living boulder pushing aside whatever stood in her way.

The moment had passed her by.

When she came back to the table, she found that Shining Armor had finished putting out all the plates and utensils, and Spike had emerged from wherever in the house he had been hiding. They each took their seats around the table, their positions ordained by traditions that had only slightly been updated over the years—not that they necessarily had a choice in the matter, given that each family member had to have seats that were catered to their particular size. Twilight Sparkle’s own chair had already been retired, and the replacement which had been allotted for her was a tad snug as she sat down. Her growth had begun to take a particular direction beyond merely getting big all over, and perhaps it was only appropriate that the bookworm horse who spent most of her time sitting around and reading would experience a particular emphasis in the hips and buttocks; a little extra cushion wherever she sat, at the cost of occasionally getting wedged into the arms of chairs. Maybe Celestia was proud of her to be following in her bottom-heavy steps.

“Here, Spike,” she offered to the dragon as he settled in beside her, bringing the platters closer to him so that he could take his fill. Being a family of unicorns meant that it was quite convenient for everypony to serve themselves, all except for Spike, so they would let have his share first. He was the youngest of the family anyway, so it only made sense to give him this preferential treatment.

“Thanks, Twilight,” he replied, beaming up toothily at her before pouring some of the vegetables and a heaping helping of curry onto his plate, onto which he added hot sauce and a few rubies from a bowl he had next to his spot. The young drake had always had a more than healthy appetite, but even as he grew older he still hadn’t grown quite enough to catch up with the rest of the family, owing to his draconic metabolism burning up calories so much more readily. There was a hint of thickness to his frame, undeniably stocky, but it would be a few years longer before there would be any development on that end. Of course, in a few decades, he wouldn’t even be able to fit inside the building anymore.

“And make sure you get enough to eat yourself, dear!” Twilight Velvet took her daughter’s plate for her and piled it high with food, to which she sighed in turn but made no attempt at objection. Sitting to Twilight Sparkle’s right at the head of the table, Twilight Velvet might have been the smallest pony in the household at this point, merely a chubby mare with heaping helpings of softness around her form, but even with two princesses under the same roof as her, nopony was going to question her authority here.

“Careful, Twily,” Night Light chimed in with a chuckle while he worked on buttering some rolls, “your mother’s been waiting for this day for years now. She’ll make sure you eat until you can’t move anymore if you let her.”

“Really, Mister Night?” She turned on him with a sneer. “I’m only serving my darling children the meals that they deserve. If you’re so insistent on this, perhaps I should give you another round of my famous twelve-course casserole. I don’t recall it going so well for you last time.”

The older stallion clutched at his gut and groaned in an exaggerated manner that suggested equal parts regret and longing, and the others laughed.

“So, Twily,” Shining Armor shot across the table while his mouth was still full of half-chewed food (Cadence narrowed her eyes at him, silently scolding), “how’s it feel now that you’ve been a princess for a few months?”

“Um…” Twilight Sparkle glanced at Spike, who shrugged back at her, so she shrugged in turn. “I dunno, I still haven’t really had to do much yet.”

“That’ll all be changing with the function coming up at least, right?” Night Light asked, “You’ll get to rub elbows with all the bigwigs in Canterlot. Nopony will be able to forget who you are any time soon.”

“Just so long as she properly looks the part, of course,” Twilight Velvet added while at the same time adding another splash of curry to Twilight Sparkle’s plate.

“Mostly my experience with being an alicorn is that it’s really…uh…” She pursed her lips for a few seconds before squeamishly finishing. “Heavy…?”

“Nah, that’s just what being a Sparkle is like, and now you’re finally making up for lost time,” Shining Armor said proudly while rapping a fist against the side of his stomach, and then he reached over and prodded Night Light’s sprawling gut as well. “Isn’t that right, Dad?” The two stallions, sitting side by side, were very similar to each other in terms of overall size, son having come to match father. Where Night Light was mostly fat, though, his bulky, flabby body the result of spending so much time at home now that he was retired, Shining Armor reflected the training that he had undergone for years as a soldier, flesh bolstered and firmed by layers of muscle underneath the surface.

The older stallion chuckled wearily. “Well, if that’s what she wants. With how great her appetite for books is, I think if she wanted to transfer that over to real food then she would’ve eaten us out of house and home by now.”

Twilight Sparkle absently looked down at her plate, which, despite her mother’s attempts to refill, had still been nearly halfway cleared away. The sweet and spicy taste overflowing in her mouth told her that she had certainly been eating quite a bit. She was already scooping up another spoonful of rice and curry to bring to her mouth, to savor in the hearty, decadent flavor and the satisfaction that came from it sliding down her throat and into her stomach. She found herself wondering if food had always tasted this good, if there was something about being an alicorn that just allowed her to appreciate the texture that much better, or if it was simply a matter of not having been home to experience her father’s cooking in so long.

“In any case…” There was something about Cadence’s voice—very likely to do with her alicornhood—so clear and melodious and powerful, that always made everypony in the room turn to look at her gently smiling face. “I’m sure Tia has already told you a great deal,” she said while looking across the table at her fellow Princess, “but you can always come to me if you ever need help with anything. I heard that you’ve been getting the hang of flying lately?” Her wings, visibly projecting behind her shoulders even while folded, twitched slightly.

“Yeah, well…getting better at it, at least.” Twilight Sparkle smiled outwardly, though she shared another conspiratorial glance with Spike, who responded by patting her comfortingly on the thigh. Her understanding of the process she would need to undergo in order to achieve flight was largely complete, but she was having to compensate through magic more and more to make up for her weight. Despite Rainbow Dash’s patented awesomeness training, it wasn’t looking like she was going to be able to maneuver much better than a cannonball.

“As long as you’re making progress, that’s good to hear,” Cadence replied, the radiant warmth of her countenance felt even at a distance, as if the heat of her enormous body was that of a furnace, “it’s not as easy being an alicorn as one might think. I’m sure you all might have thought that I, being a pegasus at birth—” Her wings flared out, seeming to fill so much more of the room all at once. “—would have had an easier time figuring it out, but it was actually harder. I had to unlearn just about everything I knew about flying so I could do it the alicorn way. I was tumbling over myself for months before I got the hang of it.” She laughed, and so did the rest of the table, many folds rippling in the process.

“Thanks for the assurance, at least,” Twilight Sparkle said with feigned enthusiasm. She couldn’t resist her gaze shifting downward. Even with those huge wings, it was hard to imagine Cadence being capable of flight with how gargantuan she was. She sat as close to the table as she could, which was still farther away than her arms could reach, her gut mashed against the counter, a sprawling pink marshmallow mass that hung nearly to the ground even while she was standing. Not that her breasts, heavy globes the size of yoga balls that rested on top of that vast shelf, their enormity ill-concealed by the dress she wore, did much to help matters either. She would have been in a great deal of trouble without the horn she gained from her ascension, as reaching anything directly in front of herself was just about impossible.

Yet Twilight Sparkle knew, implicitly, that a fate along these lines was what would soon await her as well.

“Um…Cadence…?” She spoke so quietly that she thought she might have just been thinking it in her head (Fluttershy would be proud of her), but Cadence heard her regardless and looked expectantly in her direction, as did the rest of the eyes around the table.

“Yes?” The way her smile creased into her cheeks, framed all around by her flowing tricolor mane, was just like Celestia’s.

The lavender mare wasn’t sure if the sensation of sweat trickling over her brow was from her anxiety or the curry. “…N-nevermind, it’s nothing…” she hurriedly muttered before looking back to her increasingly empty plate. This wasn’t the right moment, surely. She should wait until after dinner. Or later tonight. Or tomorrow.

But then there was a low hiss of “Twilight!” beside her as Spike pushed hard at her, shaking the wobbly meat of her leg. He glared pointedly at her with his fiery emerald eyes. He, of course, already knew what it was that she wanted to say, having had to listen to her agonizingly mull over it for days now, and he wasn’t going to have her putting it off any longer.

“Twilight?” This time it was Cadence again, looking back at her with worry. The activity around the table was gradually slowing and quieting.

Feeling the pressure upon her, there was nothing she could do now but to continue ahead. “Cadence…” Twilight Sparkle slowly worked through the words that had been in her head, eagerly awaiting to be let out into the world. “Did you…want this?”

The other alicorn’s brow furrowed. “What do you mean?”

“You know, being…” She gestured vaguely to her with one hand. “The way you are now.”

Cadence tilted her head quizzically. “Well…I suppose I never really thought I’d be an alicorn, but…I did always want to be able to make a difference in the world, so I’m really thankful to Celestia for giving me the opportunity to—”

“No, no,” Twilight Sparkle interrupted with an exasperated sigh. “I’m not talking about being an alicorn. I meant…” She felt the pressure upon her all the more now. Cadence, Shining Armor, and Night Light each regarded her with uncertainty, their meals forgotten. Twilight Velvet, though, bore more distinct worry on her face, motherly intuition telling her that there was something very wrong here. “Fat,” she finally spat out. “Did you want to be fat?”

The air of confusion and concern in the dining room seemed palpable. Everypony stared at Twilight Sparkle, who had to put all her effort into resisting the urge to look at each family member in turn, focusing instead on Cadence in particular. Cadence, in turn, looked back in surprise, her wings fidgeting again. Her hands clutched at her belly, seemingly protectively, yet her fingers clenched tightly at the pliant flesh. Then Shining Armor reached over to place his hand upon her, caressing her wrist, and her posture slowly relaxed.

“To be honest…” she began with a sigh, her eyelids heavy, “no, I really didn’t. When I first came to Canterlot and saw how…large the ponies living here were…I didn’t exactly mind it, but I didn’t particularly care for it either. I hadn’t wanted to become like that, even if Princess Celestia was that way. And yet…” Another sigh, shaking her head. She looked down at the plate in front of her, which had been mostly emptied, crumbs and smears left behind. “As my time as an alicorn wore on, I found myself putting on weight, no matter how hard I tried to avoid it. I went to Celestia, and I had a talk with her much the same as the one you did. I…I didn’t take it very well.”

“I’m…I’m sorry,” Twilight Sparkle murmured.

“It’s fine, Twilight,” Cadence replied wearily, “this was a long time ago. I sulked for a while; I wouldn’t let Celestia speak to me, but I had to go on with my life eventually. As much as I hated it…I couldn’t deny who I was, and I knew that I wanted to help other ponies. There was no way I could just not be an alicorn.”

Twilight Sparkle gave a hollow chuckle. “I suppose that was the same conclusion I came to in the end.”

“That’s because you’re smart, Twilight,” Cadence said with a thin, warm smile, “you’re good at figuring things out, even if it takes you a while to get the bigger picture.”

“She definitely knows a lot about ‘bigger’ now,” Spike commented, then snickered to himself up until the moment that a glob of curry was levitated onto his face by a magenta aura.

“Did you ever…change your mind, though?” she then asked, “You seem okay with your situation now.” In her memories from her foalhood, she had always known Cadence to be a portly mare, something which had made it easier for her to look up to her on account of the similarities to her mother.

“Well, of course.” Cadence laughed and smirked before looking up and around the table. “I met all of you.”

“You never could resist my cooking any time you came over,” Night Light chimed in, patting his gut.

“You were a part of the family even before you and Shiny got hitched,” Twilight Velvet added, her eyes misty.

“And by the time we did get hitched—” Shining Armor stood so that he could shuffle over to Cadence and give her a kiss on the cheek and an affectionate nuzzle, leaning into her profound bulk all the while. “—I made sure to show her all the fun she could have with being overweight.”

“It was perfect timing, considering that being exposed to the love of our relationship caused me to put on even more weight,” she replied before leaning over so they could kiss each other, muzzle to muzzle, their horns knocking together.

Twilight Sparkle felt a shade of that sense of warmth in her chest, as love and friendship weren’t so dissimilar to each other and often intertwined.

Spike cringed in disgust. “Why do they always gotta do that lovey-dovey stuff?” he muttered. In return, another wad of curry was delivered to his cheek by cyan light before he had finished cleaning up the first blow.

“If we’re all done playing with our food,” Twilight Velvet interjected, swiftly levitating all the rest of the plates away before any more shenanigans could take place, “I suppose that means it’s time for dessert!”

While still pondering this, Twilight Sparkle was betrayed by a loud groan from her gut. She was sure that she had eaten more than double what her allotted caloric intake for this meal should have been, yet she couldn’t deny a longing for more.

“I’ll take that as a nod of interest,” Night Light mused with a grin while he stood and began to waddle back toward the kitchen, “you’re going to love the pie I made, Twily.”

“H-hang on,” she interjected urgently. It may not be much, but she felt she had to do some form of activity to stave off the onset of her imminent tonnage. She gripped at the arms of her chair, pushing hard in order to free herself from the snug confines. “Let me lend you a—”

But Twilight Sparkle failed to consider something: her gut was wedged up directly against the edge of the table. What’s more, it was packed full of undigested food, making it firmer, tauter, like a fleshy wrecking ball. And when she put her unfiltered force into standing up, this was directed straight into the table. A part of her was left to watch, in terrible slow motion, as she continued to move, unheeding of the way the whole counter was tipping over, slowly clattering as utensils and dishes slid away until finally culminating in a thunderous crash as it landed on its side and the whole mess splattered everywhere.

Everyone could do naught but stare, aghast. Twilight Velvet was paler than usual, looking ready to faint.

Slowly, Twilight Sparkle eased herself back into her seat, her cheeks burning up. “Um…maybe I’ll just…wait here,” she muttered, smiling sheepishly.

Author's Note

Different kind of worldbuilding, this time showing actually showing Twilight's family, and since they're all supposed to be Canterlot ponies that naturally means that they would be in the thick of the thickness. Also of course getting perspective from Cadence on what being an alicorn is like.

Surprisingly little emphasis on eating during the dinner scene.

I haven't written enough Spike buttmonkeying.

This story was a prompt suggested and voted for by my supporters on Patreon. Consider pledging your support if you enjoy my work and would be interested in participating in these selections in the future.

I also have a Ko-Fi for one-time donations.

Day 924

There was a great stir at the gala that night. Everypony was abuzz with excitement and anticipation regarding Equestria’s newest alicorn. And how could they not be, when she had just announced her engagement?

A number of stallions and mares were disappointed, naturally—not that they would have dared to say so out loud. They would have thought that, surely, they were far more desirable specimens, being born and bred of Canterlot stock, not to mention gorged upon the finest meals available to those in the country’s capital. Their horns were long and their forms were plump, the ideal that any unicorn could hope to achieve, for unicorns tended to be the largest of the three pony tribes by far, on account of the sheer extent of convenience which they were afforded by their malleable magic. It was considered the greatest symbol of status to be utterly enormous, borderline immobile, and yet still perfectly capable of functioning on account of the spells at their employ.

And to think, for all that, they had been passed over for a mere seamstress from Ponyville!

“Well I, for one, think it is a splendid development,” Fancy Pants remarked with a hearty chuckle that set his jowls rippling, “I did always think that you had the makings of a pony who would be right at home here in Canterlot, Miss Rarity.”

“Thank you kindly, dearest Fancy,” Rarity replied with a series of giggles of her own when Fancy Pants took her hand for a chaste kiss. Neither was particularly fazed by this act requiring the stallion to wade into the bulk of the other unicorn’s bosom, pressing in with his own portly chest and gut. “It always was my dream for a handsome prince to sweep me off my hooves, you know, but I suppose a princess will do just as nicely.”

“Oh, I’m sorry Rarity, I forgot about the sweeping part, but I can still fix that.”

Magenta light surrounded the unicorn and all at once, in spite of her sheer vastness, lifted her effortlessly into the air. She gasped, clamping her hands down on her skirt as she rose over the crowds, though there was only so much that could be done to cover the thick trunks that were her legs or the plump mounds of her rump. Her body twisted about independent of her volition and she was deposited into the waiting arms of the mare who had summoned her. To say that she was being “held” might have been a bit of an exaggeration, as there was only so much that could be contained by even the most muscular of arms, but where the levitation spell might have failed there was still a sprawling mattress of belly beneath her. The sentiment was ultimately still there, however, and they could each feel the beating of the other’s heart, the warmth that pumped through and between them.

“Twilight, darling,” she said, batting her eyelashes, “every now and then you still manage to surprise me with how delightful you are.”

Twilight Sparkle chuckled quietly. “I suppose I am a mare of many talents.”

“Many talents.”

The positioning of Rarity’s breasts made doing so rather awkward, the huge globes squishing and compressing between them, but the two still managed to bring their muzzles together for a kiss. Fancy Pants started clapping good-naturedly, and that prompted a wave of cheer to pass through the hall and overtake the chatter. The loudest voices were their other friends, looking on with eager glee from wherever they were scattered throughout the room, a sensation which Twilight Sparkle felt in the core of her being as much as she heard it. There were so many ponies she knew here, and even among those she had no personal relation to she could still sense their own binding ties, the sprawling network of connections which linked one to the next. It stirred something within her, eliciting a faint rumble that shook through her; she disguised this by rocking her hips from side to side, prompting the ponies around her to shy away from the girth which threatened to knock into them, in awe of the sheer size on display.

“Does this mean you’re ready to be taken away to the fresh beginning of our new life together?” Twilight Sparkle asked in a low whisper.

Rarity pouted at her. “Twilight, the party has hardly even started! There’s so much socializing we have left to do!”

“Sorry Rarity, but if you’re going to spend the rest of your life with me then you’re just going to have to accept that I’m not as much of a social butterfly as you are.”

The unicorn huffed and turned up her nose (technically more sideways at this angle, leaving her curling mane to dangle downward). “Very well, then we shall alternate. Today we may retire early, but next time I’m going to keep you dancing until the sun comes up.”

Twilight Sparkle laughed. Compromise was inherent to the nature of any relationship, romantic or otherwise. And anyway, who was to say that, given enough time, either of them would choose to change their mind?

“Let us away, then!” Twilight Sparkle put a shade of Royal Canterlot Voice into her words to command attention from her surroundings as she stretched her wings. Their span was impressive, far broader than that of a typical pegasus, though it was almost an afterthought given the immense breadth which was already present in her hips and thighs. She beat her wings and pushed off with her hooves, and all at once she was over the crowds and Rarity was whooping and hollering—mostly in excitement, only a tad uneasy; she knew better than to look straight down by now—along with the surge of exhilaration that brimmed in the alicorn’s chest. There was another cheer, and it only might have had something to do with her audience being treated to the sight of the two curvaceous mares soaring overhead, a trail of indigo and magenta and purple left in her wake by her tail. She definitely heard Rainbow Dash amidst the cheers—the pegasus had mostly come to terms with the fact that her flight was more a tenuous tightrope performance of using magic to provide the support she needed to become airborne more than any physical maneuvering contributed to the act.

She sailed over the thronging herd of ponies, through the ballroom, coasting at a leisurely height, gliding more than flying except for when she needed to gain more height to follow the incline of a stairwell. The crowds steadily thinned as they left the gala behind, and eventually Twilight Sparkle banked to the side through a balcony and out into the cool night sky. Rarity clung tighter to her, their mutual softness mingling, and she was able to spare a moment to nuzzle against her, affectionate and comforting; the process of flight had become almost like second nature to her, but she still had some difficulties with multitasking. They climbed effortlessly toward the peak of the tower where their quarters were, and after alighting on the floor she finally let Rarity down, though not before they shared one more brief kiss, pressing into each other, muzzle and chest and belly.

“I don’t know how it took me so long to appreciate just how amazing you are, Twilight,” Rarity murmured while draped upon the front of the alicorn, resting over her cushy frame, head nestled into the cushy folds that circled her neck.

“You probably always did, Rarity,” Twilight Sparkle replied with a chuckle that reverberated through her, “it just took an extra push for you to realize that it was a romantic feeling.”

“Goodness, I wonder just what that might have been.” She snickered while one hand reached around to squeezed a fold of the other mare’s belly.

They both finally walked toward the wide double doors, each panel surrounded with a different shade of magic and swinging open nearly in sync with each other. Rarity managed to pass through the opening without much difficulty, but Twilight Sparkle felt her hips brush against the frame on either side. It didn’t pose any worry to her, if anything it only elicited a tingle of excitement running up her spine, and a hint of impatience. She was smiling as giddily as Pinkie Pie without even thinking of it.

Rarity came to a stop in the center of the spacious chamber and turned back around to face her. It took a few seconds for the wobbling of her body to completely cease, the hypnotic jiggling of her ponderous bosom, so generously framed by the neckline of her dress. Twilight Sparkle was aware that this was true of her as well, her rump quaking long after she had finished walking, even within the confines of her own clothes. Both outfits were Rarity originals, unsurprisingly, there was no way the mare wouldn’t have made their own clothes for an occasion like this.

“Rarity,” she murmured, feeling a goofy, bashful smile crease into her cheeks, “you really are the most beautiful pony I’ve ever known.”

“Oh please, Twilight, you don’t need to flatter me like that anymore,” the unicorn said, a scoff turning into a chuckle, “though I will certainly accept the flattery every time. I must hope, however, that you are giving your own beauty the credit that it deserves.”

She stepped forward, pressing herself against the other mare, her chest mashing into her long before she was close enough to place her palms upon the doughy mass. The two of them standing so close to each other served to put their relative sizes into perspective, Rarity’s huge breasts together only just matching the width of Twilight Sparkle’s belly, the dollops of flesh compressing into each other. And for as delightfully plump as her rear was, the cheeks extending in a broad shelf behind her, Twilight Sparkle knew that her own was so much larger, buttocks like boulders grafted to her bottom, jutting out behind and to the sides, the upper slopes even rising toward her shoulders, yet they still did not quite touch the ground while she stood, hovering only a scant few inches above the floor.

“Well…I suppose I do look pretty good,” she replied, faux-begrudging, sticking out her tongue.

“Pretty good now, perhaps.” Rarity batted her eyelashes and looked up at her with a hungry glimmer in her gaze. “But what about the full extent of your grandeur?”

Twilight Sparkle grinned back, sharing in that sense of yearning. “If you’re so eager for it, then I’d be glad to show you—”

“Ah-ah!” Rarity cut her off with a pinch to her gut before she could begin casting anything. “Not until you take your ensemble off!”

“Aw.” She pouted. “But tearing out of my clothes is half the fun.”

“You should know better than to think that I would allow such defacement on my watch, darling! Now, off!”

Twilight Sparkle sighed. Then her horn lit up and all at once her dress was gone, reappearing with a pop a moment later, articles neatly folding up and settling over each other in a pile.

“There, much better.” Rarity smiled wide once more while taking a few steps back to get a better view, and as a safety precaution. She made no attempt to hide the way her eyes roved across the alicorn’s form, taking in the lavender-furred hills and plains, the stars that were painted across her flanks, the majesty of her wings and horn and flowing mane and tail. “Now…” She raised her hands, beckoning, like a conductor signaling to an orchestra. “Begin.”

Twilight Sparkle smiled as she mentally undid the safeguards that were keeping her in check.

All at once, she surged outward.

The immensity which had before seemed so impossibly vast was now like a far cry in comparison, a gap which was widened with every passing second as Twilight Sparkle expanded like a balloon filling with air. Her stance shifted as her thighs pressed harder into each other, and then her rump met with the floor, colossal beanbag chairs let her sit while standing, at least until the burgeoning thickness of her calves, swallowing up her hooves, finally forced her into a prone position. Her gut spilled out in front of her, spreading inch by inch by inch, a lavender avalanche that would have smothered Rarity if she hadn’t already gotten out of the way, breasts splaying to either side of the flabby mountain slope. The alicorn reveled in the warmth and the softness, welling up and overflowing within her, even as her mobility fled from her, limbs sinking inward, neck swaddled in rolls, cheeks encroaching upon her muzzle and field of vision. Furniture was pushed over and buried beneath her (all enchanted in advance for durability) and finally she felt her mass pushing up against a vertical surface, the tide crawling up the walls.

Hands and hooves grabbed onto her, gradually pulling upward, crawling against the flood. Twilight Sparkle crooned languidly at the sensation of pressure, the weight which compounded upon her own enormous bulk. Eventually, Rarity came into view, climbing over the crest of the hill, huffing lightly for breath, strands of her mane hanging loose, but no worse for wear as she finally settled upon her living mattress, lying down flat upon the pillows of her gut and bosom. She took hold of the blob-mare’s face and leaned, alternating between kisses and nuzzling into the folds of flesh. There was little Twilight Sparkle could do other than to reciprocate the affection offered to her, like putty in her lover’s hands now.

But then Rarity stopped so that she could exhale a lamentable sigh.

“What’s wrong?” she asked, her voice heavier, dulled by the layers of fat weighing upon her throat and lungs.

“Oh, it’s nothing,” she said with a wry smile, “just…fantasizing, I suppose. I simply can’t help wishing that I could be…even half as decadently enormous as you are.” She reached to the side and pressed her palm into a neck fold, sinking in past the wrist. “Oh to be a princess—a true princess, an alicorn,” she murmured wistfully, “that would be the perfect existence.”

Twilight Sparkle stared back at her in breathless wonder. She knew, in that moment, that this was a dream which she would devote herself entirely to bringing to life. It was, of course, easy to say that she would do whatever she could for the mare she loved, or even before when they had merely been friends, just as she would have offered her assistance to any other. It was in her nature to offer herself and all that she was capable of to those who were close to her.

But she would have been lying if she hadn’t said that a significant motivating factor had been the mental image of the sprawling morass of alabaster flesh that the unicorn might one day become.

“Well, Rarity,” she whispered, “nopony ever said it was impossible.”

The unicorn turned back toward her, misty-eyed. “Do you really mean that, darling?”

“Absolutely,” Twilight Sparkle said, only slightly regretting that she couldn’t place a comforting hand upon her right now, “no matter what has to be done, I will find some way to make it happen. I would move mountains for you, Rarity.”

Rarity chuckled and smiled even as the tears trickled over her cheeks. “With all due respect, your majesty, you’d have to move your fat ass first.”

Twilight Sparkle smiled back.

Then her horn lit up again.

The mountain of mare rumbled and quaked. Rarity gasped as the incline shifted, threatening to send her sliding back, but the pliant flesh kept her in place. Twilight Sparkle’s body heaved upward and forward, her belly tilting into the wall ahead of her, fat spreading over the marble and supporting columns and the cool glass (all also magically reinforced, thankfully). Rarity finally found herself pinned against the hard surface and between the alicorn’s breasts—even those having eclipsed her own—with Twilight Sparkle’s flab-encircled face inches away from her.

“As you can see,” she quipped, “mountains are no obstacle for me.”

“I never would have expected otherwise,” Rarity responded.

This time Twilight Sparkle was the one who leaned in for a kiss, tilting her whole body, and Rarity eagerly welcomed it even as she was engulfed by lavender bulk in the process. There would be plenty to do in the future, but for now this was all either of them could ever want: each other, their hearts beating in tandem, and several tons of beautifully sculpted fat between them.

Author's Note

This is where I must admit I had to make significant compromises in this story. I had wanted to have a scene taking place at the gala which would feature drama with Twilight and Rarity's relationship and Rarity admitting how she wants to be an alicorn, then an epilogue farther in the future in which both of them have settled down, but at this point things had gone on way too long so I just combined those two scenes into one. I guess it all still came together in the end, just not as much RariTwi as I might have liked the story to have.

I should have had scenes with Pinkie Pie and Fluttershy too but between the rapidly inflating word count and not having any ideas I opted to forgo that.

Just barely avoiding outright sex.

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Day ドリム

There was a great stir at the gala that night. Everypony was abuzz with excitement and anticipation regarding Equestria’s newest alicorn. And how could they not be, when she was demonstrating the very pinnacle of what a princess ought to be?

There she was, at the buffet table, doing what princesses did best: consuming everything that lay in her path. Whether it was entree or appetizer or dessert or drink, sandwich or salad or soup or cake, all of it vanished into her maw as soon as she got her hands upon it. Well, “hands” in a figurative sense, given that she could barely use hers, her arms swaddled in folds of flab that drastically inhibited their movement. Instead, she used her magic to seize her food and bring it over to her, cramming morsel after morsel into her maw.

Her hunger dictated that there was no time to waste on any attempts at manners or cleanliness, thus the debris of her rampage, the juices and crumbs of her victims, had steadily accrued around her cheeks and neck and chest, all the voluminous folds nearest to her mouth. There were scraps of cloth left around her body, the remains of an unfortunate dress that she had chosen to wear with her to the gathering, long since obliterated by the continued expansion of her dimensions. She dragged herself across the floor, scarcely able to more her legs between their profound breadth, as thick as tree trunks, and the gargantuan gut which hung like an apron in front of them and the behemoth buttocks which stretched out to the rear, pink and white stars emblazoned upon her flanks making it all the more unmistakable who she was. Occasionally she dropped something on the way to her mouth, but it rarely went far, landing upon the sprawling shelf that was comprised of her breasts and belly where it could easily be scooped up once again.

She knew what she was becoming, but there was no time to think about the repercussions involved. All that mattered was the tastes upon her tongue, the filling of her stomach, and the growth of her form, steadily taking up more and more of the ballroom. That was what it meant to be an alicorn.

“I say, Lady Sparkle,” said a stuffy and very stuffed noblestallion who came up to her as the contents of the buffet table were finally drying up, “don’t you suppose that you’ve had enou—”

He yelped as the magenta magic seized him and promptly dragged him into Twilight Sparkle’s mouth. She struggled for just a moment to work her jaws around his portly mass, but she managed to swallow nonetheless, a groan rising back up from her straining throat. The panic that began was promptly quelled as the all-consuming alicorn took each guest in turn into the grasp of her levitation and pulled them toward her, swallowing them one by one. Her gluttonous growth increased exponentially, spilling across the marble floors like a living landslide, crashing through furniture and architecture. The palace sundered, walls splitting open, debris carried away on the tide of lavender flesh. The slopes of Mount Canter were steadily consumed, though not before everything edible, whether or not it desired to be, was taken up to be added to the mass of the blob.

“Oh, Twilight,” Princess Celestia said while her hips were being crammed into the alicorn’s mouth, “I knew you’d be perfect for this.”

Twilight Sparkle swallowed.

Twilight Sparkle gasped.

She clutched at herself, arms crossing over her front to clasp at either side. She wanted to stay within the comforting warmth of covers and mattress, yet she also didn’t want to sleep, so she threw off the blankets and rolled to the side onto the floor. A hand reached to her throat, felt at the skin running down to her collarbone; the phantom sensation of distension yet lingered, the feeling of her anatomy straining in order to accommodate so much intake. The thought of eating suddenly seemed utterly unbearable.

No, wait…something wasn’t right.

Her skin was firm to the touch, hardly any squish to it.

She looked down at herself, and she could see her hooves.

Then she looked around, and in the bed cast in shadow on the other side of the sleeping nook there was no sign of Spike.

And she wasn’t sure about her wings. She thought that she still had them, yet there was no physical sign of their presence, nothing happening when she flexed those muscles in her back. It was that dream-sense in which one felt certain that something was there even though the details were too hazy to identify it.

Dream, yes.

“I must admit,” a voice called out from elsewhere, ringing and echoing, “I am rather surprised that it took you so long to experience a nightmare such as that.”

Turning out toward the main space of the room, Twilight Sparkle found that the library appeared different. She walked down the steps (with so much ease of motion that it was almost alarming to her) to the floor, where there were far more rows of books, forming a dense network of corridors. She didn’t know when exactly the material of the environment changed, shifting from the hewn living tree-wood of the library she was familiar with to darker shelves and a smooth marble floor. There was a cool mist around her, hanging low to the ground, faint blue clouds dotted with sparkling starlight.

She didn’t know where she was going as she wandered through the stacks, but she didn’t particularly think about it either, and it wasn’t long before she arrived in a clearing. No, a room; she looked back and found plain walls and a door that had already closed instead of the sprawling library. The space was reminiscent of the private study in which she had spoken to Celestia some time ago, though the colors were distinctly darker, as was the mare who sat at the table in the center.

“I apologize for not taking the time to meet with you sooner, Twilight Sparkle,” Princess Luna said without looking up from the book she’d been reading, “I have been most busy as of late.”

“That’s okay, Luna,” she replied with a sigh, feeling at least a modicum of comfort in not being alone in this dreamscape.

“But are you okay?” the alicorn asked pointedly in turn, only then turning her sharp azure eyes upon the younger mare.

“U-uh…” Twilight Sparkle fidgeted, unable to make eye contact.

There was a clamor, seat grinding and groaning as Luna pushed away from the table and stood. She dropped her book, letting it vanish into her cleavage without a trace. “I would think that you are not, if I have had to visit you like this,” she stated plainly while bearing down upon her.

Twilight Sparkle’s heart pounded loudly in her chest, blood pumping in her ears. She resisted the feelings of intimidation that were welling up in her, being well-aware of the truth that the princess was not somepony to be feared, but it wasn’t easy. It certainly didn’t help matters that she had lost her alicorn height in addition to her girth, and that meant that Luna was just as imposing as she was used to. As she came closer, her stern face became framed by her cleavage, a sloping valley between her immense breasts, so much of the blue acreage exposed by the narrow straps of the dress she wore—Luna’s bluntness lead to her having no qualms in presenting herself to others, even if the most prominent part of her figure was more inherently sexual in its appeal in comparison to Celestia or Cadence. There was something unavoidably and delightfully tantalizing about having those huge mounds directly in front of her, mammaries large enough to smother a pony, though Twilight Sparkle might have preferred those of a certain white mare.

“I…um…y-yes,” Twilight Sparkle dully admitted, brushing aside the locks of her mane from her eyes. “I guess I’ve…wanted to believe that I’m fine…but I’m still just worried about what I may become.”

Luna hummed thoughtfully and replied, “It is quite understandable, given the circumstances. Your old life has been uprooted and now you are adrift in uncertainty.” She held up one hand and conjured a cloud of starry mist akin to her mane which manifested in an image of a scene in the palace of Canterlot. The events of Twilight Sparkle’s nightmare played out in miniature, the lavender alicorn gorging herself on food and ponies alike. She winced. “You have been presented with the opportunity to become far more than an ordinary pony, but in doing so you have also become exposed to the threat posed by your own hunger. The more power you gain, the more weight you will accrue, and you will have to resist the urge to expand beyond your control.”

Twilight Sparkle huddled upon herself, folding her arms again, ears drooping. She wished she could fold her wings around herself for extra comfort. “No matter how much control I exert, I’m still going to keep growing,” she muttered forlornly, “I want to be a pony, not a blob.”

“It is an unavoidable aspect of being an alicorn, I regret to inform you,” Luna said with somber severity while stepping closer still, circling around to one side. “Alicorns are like forces of nature, Twilight Sparkle, embodiments of magic, and we continue to grow ever stronger over time, and our bodies reflect that change. With enough time, there would be few things an alicorn couldn’t do, only limited by the physical encumbrance of their form.” She turned around so that the two of them were standing side by side, then leaned over, reaching past her bosom to pull Twilight Sparkle into a sidelong embrace, braced against her cushy hip and torso. “You have already succeeded in accomplishing so many things that other ponies could only dream of,” she whispered with a thin smile—it didn’t feel quite as comforting as Celestia, or even Cadence, yet there was something more personal about it, like an older sibling looking out for their younger companion. “Just imagine what you will be capable of in the future.”

Twilight Sparkle looked up at her, sniffled quietly, and didn’t say anything, but still nodded slightly to herself.

“And who knows,” Luna said, gently caressing her shoulder, “there may yet still be time for you to turn around on this matter, just like Cadence did. If not, you will always be able to compress yourself to your satisfaction.”

Sighing through her nostrils, Twilight Sparkle dimly reflected on everything that she had gone through thus far, all the inconvenience which she had been forced to endure by her alicornhood, trying desperately to hone in on the positive aspects so she could—

Her brow furrowed.

“Compress?” she repeated, turning back to Luna.

“…Yes?” the Princess said back, puzzled, “You know, compression magic?”

Twilight Sparkle only stared back and blinked, equally bewildered.

Luna’s eyes widened. “Celestia didn’t tell you about compression magic?!”

“N…no?!” she sputtered.

“Oh, for the love of…!” Luna covered her face with her palm as she stood straight and turned away. “Of course, the fear of uncontrollable excess,” she muttered, “it all makes sense now…I swear, Celestia, you and I are going to have a chat in the morning. Actually, she should still be asleep, I could go to her dream right now and—”

“Luna!” Twilight Sparkle shouted and waved at her to get her attention. “What are you talking about?! What…what is compression magic?!”

Slowly calming, Luna looked back toward her. She was angrier now, even more intimidating, but since Twilight Sparkle was upset as well, a fire lit in her (much flatter) stomach, she was less inclined to back down. Eventually, Luna grumbled, “Very well, I suppose I should fill in where my sister so egregiously failed in her duty as your teacher.” She assumed a firm stance, pushing out her chest and planting her hands on her hips while turning toward Twilight Sparkle—though, viewed head-on like this, her upper body was largely occluded by her breasts. “Tell me, Twilight: do you suppose that my sister and I ought to be larger than we already are?”

“…Wh-what?” she blurted out, only finding herself even more confused than previously. That was, until this question settled into the clockwork gears of her mind, and it happened to fit neatly with something that she had just been told, and her pupils shrank. “If…if alicorns are…constantly becoming more adept with their magic then…” She looked at Luna, taking in the breadth of her form, and although she was thin in her dream-body she was aware of how fat she was in the waking world, and she knew that she was not much smaller than the elder alicorn now, or her sister, or even Cadence for that matter. Even with the knowledge that her rate of gain had been so much faster than any of them, however, there was simply no way that it was enough to overtake the sheer advantage that the other alicorns, especially the sibling diarchs, had in terms of time.

“We have been alicorns for centuries, Twilight,” Luna said plainly, “and in all that time we have passively grown stronger, year by year, pound by pound.” She tapped at her chin. “Perhaps it would be easiest to simply show you.”

The dreamscape shifted. Twilight Sparkle felt a lurch within her, the jolt that came from waking up abruptly in the midst of drifting to sleep, and she stumbled and nearly fell over. The imbalance was exacerbated by the feeling of the ground beneath her hooves, which was far less stable, compressing beneath her as she sank in, a consistency somewhere between quicksand and gelatin, yet the warmth suggested one thing very distinctly: fur, skin, flesh. She looked around herself, and through the haze of dream matter she saw sloping dark blue surfaces, a steady hill which she stood upon and two steeper mounds which rose to either side. Then she looked up and saw Luna standing higher up at the head of the valley, where the two mountains converged at their bases.

“This is my body, Twilight Sparkle,” she announced, “my true body.”

The lavender mare walked up over the slope, approaching and then passing Luna. Beyond her, there was a small heap, a pile of tiered folds. There was something at the center of the fleshy mass, its shape difficult to discern, buried as it was beneath layers and layers of fat, but there were at least key features which could be used for identification: equine ears, a long horn, and an ethereal mane of blue dotted with stars.

“Oh, Celestia…” she whispered, aghast, as she turned back toward Luna’s dream avatar, “you…you use magic to make yourself appear smaller?!”

“Correct, that is compression at work,” she replied with a nod. “The excess mass is displaced from the body and stored in a pocket dimension.” She reached around her breasts, their span too broad for her arms to encompass, but then as she squeezed inward they began to shrink, as did the rest of her figure, slimming down gradually to a size that might be construed as merely chubby and buxom. “This allows us to assume a form that is more convenient for everyday tasks and public appearances. Even with magic, we only would be able to accomplish so much if we were blobs.”

Twilight Sparkle looked around and beyond the head region of the Luna-mountain-body. There was scarcely any distinction between the neck and shoulders and arms, which seemed to have sunken inward, reduced to useless sleeves of flesh. The sides of the torso ran down toward a broad plain of thighs and buttocks which surrounded the central mass. “And you’re…you’re all this fat?!” she asked incredulously.

“No,” Luna said plainly. “Cadence is still far smaller; her total mass is a little over double what her outward appearance would suggest. She has only been an alicorn for just over a decade, after all. Celestia, though…” There was a thinly restrained sense of bitterness to her tone as she said, “She is even larger than I am, on account of gorging herself on cake while I spent the last millennium on the moon.”

Twilight Sparkle felt such a chill in her veins that she thought surely her face must have turned completely white. “Th-then…” She looked down at the fleshy floor and imagined it a lighter shade of lavender instead of blue. She whispered, “It’s only a m-matter of time bef-f-fore I…”

“You do not have to worry, Twilight,” Luna replied, her voice calm and level, “you will have the magic necessary to cope with your circumstances.”

“Why…why can’t I just…use it now?” she asked desperately, “I could have done that all this time…I wouldn’t have had to worry about gaining weight!”

But Luna frowned ruefully and said, “I am afraid there are certain complications with that. There are two reasons that we do not simply make ourselves thin. The first is a simple matter of necessity; because our bodies are focal points for channeling magic, we need to be fat in order to use our alicorn power to its fullest capacity. If you made yourself as thin as you were before your ascension, you would be drastically kneecapping your potential.”

Twilight Sparkle gave a prolonged groan of despair, clutching at her face. “Okay, fine…what’s the second reason?”

That prompted Luna to finally let go of herself, and her body rapidly reinflated to its previous profound size. “Because we enjoy being this way, Twilight,” she stated, and this time she hefted the underside of her bosom, lifting the huge globes until her face was nearly obscured, “do you suppose that I would go parading about with tits like these if it was not something that I found enticing?”

“I-I…” Twilight Sparkle could only stammer and blush.

“And I can assure you it is the same for the others too.” Luna let go of her breasts, leaving her form to bounce and wobble, revealing a thin smirk on her muzzle. She pushed out her rear and swayed her hips and tail from side to side. “Celestia adores the way her rump feels when she shakes it, or when she grinds it on something. Or somepony.”

Now Twilight Sparkle’s face was turning redder and redder. She couldn’t help envisioning the sight of the white alicorn’s behemoth buttocks looming upon her, coming dangerously close.

“And Cadence—oh, Cadence.” She moaned exaggeratedly as she reached beneath her bosom and clutched at her relatively small but still considerable gut. “Such lurid fantasies she envisions in which your brother ravishes her middle with the most delectable—”

“That’s a little too close to home, thank you very much!” Twilight Sparkle desperately didn’t want to imagine anything of that sort, yet the images were prying at her subconscious mind.

Luna only smiled at her.

“Okay, fine, I…I get it,” she muttered. “I still don’t understand why nopony thought it would be pertinent to tell me this sooner.”

“I can only surmise that my sister thought you would be better off without that knowledge, so that you might adjust to your new state instead of trying to stave it off.” Luna sighed heavily and looked upon Twilight Sparkle sympathetically. “For what it’s worth, I would have told you sooner.”

Twilight Sparkle smiled wryly back and said, “I appreciate that.” She crossed her arms over her front, and she was distinctly taken by the flatness of her stomach and how much slighter her breasts were through the thin cloth of the gown she wore. “Perhaps it ultimately was for the best…I suppose I simply wish the choice had been there from the beginning.”

“Well, Twilight Sparkle, you have that choice now.” Luna spread her hands wide, as if to emulate the arms of a scale, weighing either side. “Only you can decide what kind of alicorn you wish to be.”

They stood there quietly for some time, neither saying anything.

Twilight Sparkle couldn’t have said when the dream shifted again, returning them to the simulacrum of her home, shrouded in mists of night.

She wasn’t entirely sure, either, when the breadth of her midsection pushed so far outward, straining the span of her arms. She looked down at herself, at the fleshy slopes which comprised the body she had grown so accustomed to. She pushed her palm into the cushy mass, tracing around herself, over her front and around to the back, kneading gently at her voluminous buttocks. Warmth seeped from within the pliant bulk, and she exhaled in relief. The thought of how incomplete she had felt hadn’t occurred to her until her new sense of normalcy had been restored to her.

Luna chuckled, the sound echoing. Twilight Sparkle looked up toward her and saw that, without moving, she was sliding away, receding into the dream-haze. “It seems that your mind has settled upon what it desires without you realizing it.”

“But Luna!” She called out after her, but stepping forward didn’t do anything to close the distance. “What do I have to do to know what I really want?”

“Twilight, have you really not learned already?” The alicorn’s grin lingered in the gloom, hanging like a crescent moon. “There is only one thing which any of us want you to do, and that is whatever makes you happy.”

Then Twilight Sparkle woke up.

Later that day, Spike belched up a letter from Celestia in which she profusely apologized for neglecting to tell her about compression magic, inviting her to come to Canterlot at her soonest convenience so that they could begin the necessary lessons and so that she could make the reparations that she thought were owed.

There was also a letter from Luna, informing her that if she ever thought that Celestia was neglecting her in some form again then she should say the word “banana” to her.

Author's Note

So of course we had to have Luna in the story too, and what better opportunity for that than Twilight having a bad dream about the hyperbolic worst-case scenario? Also the obligatory reveal of size compression plot convenience for the blob-impaired.

I haven't really been able to write a lot of content taking place in the old treebrary.

I could have sworn that the word count on this was closer to 5k.

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