“Miss Gleam?”
Gossamer Gleam didn’t turn to address the mare speaking to her, her visage hidden beneath the broad-brimmed hat she wore. “Yes?”
“It’s about to start raining,” Caramel Swirl said tentatively, casting her gaze up toward the gloomy grey clouds that were choking the sky. “Would you rather come inside?”
The lavender unicorn was silent for several long seconds, maintaining her level stare across the receding slopes of Canterlot and out toward the horizon. “No, thank you,” she finally replied, her flat tone only carrying the faintest upward cadence to suggest her sincerity, “I am quite alright. I will be returning home soon.”
There was another pause before the barista warily asked, “You’re not, uh…expecting somepony to come by for a visit again, are you? Like that one…fish…tentacle…pony?”
“You mean Hadalis?” Gossamer said, and this time her neck twisted just enough to glance in her direction. “No, she is currently hibernating. I will not see her again for many years.” She looked back to the distance and her chest heaved with a long exhalation. Her hand absently stroked at her taut midsection.
“Oh…” Caramel bit her lip anxiously and wrung the front of her shirt. “Um…well, everything’s covered, so you’re free to go, but if you decide you need anything, then…don’t be afraid to ask?” She spoke uncertainly, hesitantly offering the words to the gravid mare while not being entirely sure of them herself.
“It’s alright, Miss Swirl.” The corners of her lips curled upward, just faintly. “Thank you.”
Caramel Swirl smiled back and nodded, and she went back into the café.
With her focus undivided, Gossamer Gleam was able to entirely put herself toward the view once more. The other side of the street was devoid of buildings, letting her see for miles down the slope of Mount Canter, along the fields and forests, but not quite all the way to meet with the sky, as there was a haze far in the distance obscuring the details, the coming rain that would wash away the world. She took in another long breath, savoring the smell of the storm, the moisture in the air. Many ponies would think it bizarre of her to favor this weather—not that they didn’t already have plenty of other reasons to hold that opinion—but it was calming to her in a way that sunshine never could be. Sometimes, when there was a storm such as this, she would stand on the observatory balcony back home, completely naked, and let the rain drum against her. The thought was highly tempting to her at the moment, but she couldn’t just do that right away, not because she was in public, rather because she was already dressed, and she wouldn’t want to let her good clothes get wet and muddy if she could afford it.
The mare finally stood, laboriously hefting herself upward. Her hips momentarily caught in the span of the chair’s arms, necessitating a few seconds of shimmying before she was free. The chair would have at least been grateful to no longer be burdened with supporting her weight. She took one last sip of caffeinated dregs from the mug on the table before she started away. She moved with a steady rhythm, bearing the heavy globe that was her stomach, sprawling in front of her and past her knees. Her purple dress cascaded over her form, draped across the swollen shelves of flesh, chest and middle and rump, shifting and rustling as she swayed from side to side with each step.
Gossamer was all too accustomed to moving with this much bulk encumbering her frame—or even more—but that didn’t mean it was easy. It didn’t especially help, either, that the road back toward her home was sloping back up the mountain; it made it easy for her whenever she needed to venture into the heart of Canterlot for her errands, the polar opposite when the time came for the return trip. It wasn’t long before she felt the ache building within her, burning in her legs and chest, heart pounding, breath turning into heavy huffs. Her belly hung to her knees, but when the incline was at its steepest she risked brushing the ground with her underside if she didn’t keep her posture steady, which grew more strenuous by the minute. She might have to sit down or take a nap for a while when she got back, followed by loading up on calories all over again. Being a mother still hadn’t gotten much easier for her even after so many broods’ worth of pregnancies.
As she came to a stop at a street corner to catch her breath, still a block away from the true city limits of Canterlot, she felt the first drops of rain alight upon her, miniscule impacts upon her bosom. With a sigh, she raised the umbrella she’d brought with her in anticipation of such an occurrence and let it unfurl overhead. The broad covering still shouldn’t have been nearly enough to keep her dry, but as the rain continued there was a faint shimmering of light beyond the canvas edges, a barrier which the droplets impacted against. Her investigations into the arcane and occult had yielded a great many results which were beneficial for her peculiar pursuits, and then there were some enchantments which had more mundane applications.
Looking up again, she saw two ponies across the street from her—a mare and a stallion, fresh out of adolescence she’d guess, possibly a couple. They were moving hurriedly, no doubt trying to get out of the rain as quickly as possible. They looked reasonably cute together, by conventional pony standards, which meant nothing to Gossamer Gleam.
She noticed, though, both of them slowing and then stopping, almost in unison, doing a double take and looking back across the street in her direction. Even at a distance, their surprised expressions were easy to identify. Gossamer only looked back out of the corner of her eye, pondering what might have been going through the pony’s heads. Did they know about her, the heiress who lived at the top of the hill, who was pregnant year in and year out, who surely rutted every stallion she saw and a few mares for good measure?
Her gaze pulled listlessly downward, unfocused. Looking down yielded a view that largely consisted of swollen breasts and enormous belly further beyond. She had long since accepted the fact that she didn’t give a damn what other ponies thought of her, she wouldn’t allow them to get in the way of what she loved. That did not mean, however, that she didn’t sometimes lament her lack of meaningful social connections. Caramel Swirl had been a start, but she still didn’t exactly understand Gossamer’s eccentricities, merely tolerated them. She had to clench her jaw for a moment and seize hold of her thoughts before they ran out of control; she was all too prone to thinking lowly of ponies simply because they didn’t hold her interest.
“I wish I could meet somepony more like me,” she muttered dully.
She took a step forward.
Lightning and thunder pealed through the sky and all at once the drizzle surged into a downpour.
It wasn’t the surprise which then caused Gossamer Gleam to stumble and cry out in pain, hunching over, her belly catching on the ground. It was a pang within the core of her being which spread, reverberating throughout her body and seeping into her consciousness. Her grip on the umbrella weakened and she let it slip away, immediately opening herself up to the drenching touch of rain, but she scarcely felt that in the face of the ache which seared across her midsection. She outstretched one hand instinctively, but the circumference of her stomach was far too broad for her to reach the far end where the warding enchantments were etched upon her flesh. They were shielding her from the worst of the pain, she knew.
“I can’t…can’t be due yet,” she wheezed, wincing, while clutching at herself through the thin and rapidly dampening layer of fabric, “not…supposed to be for…”
Something writhed, pushing back at her, from underneath the surface.
The unicorn groaned, guttural and harsh with the convulsive ecstasy that wracked through her. The bodies within her were churning, tumbling about like clothes in a dryer, and she felt them pulling, as if urging her onward, beckoning. She gritted her teeth as she felt the force upon her, an entropic grasp which sought unknown ends, only discernible to her in the way that it shifted her sense of gravity.
“Hey, are you okay?!” She heard the voice that she assumed must have been one of the two ponies who had been watching her, but she couldn’t imagine that the distorted tone she was hearing, like a speaker that was melting, was what they should have sounded like. Looking up, she saw a shape that was coming closer toward her, yet it didn’t look like a pony, it was a mass of colors that were rapidly diverging from each other, and she saw that the same was happening to the buildings around her and the street and the sky, the rain washing away the paint that made up the world.
She was overcome with the distinct sensation of movement, as if sliding across some glassy surface, even though she was staying still. The squirming appendages within her womb were moving nearly as one, all reaching in one direction, clawing their way forward. It was her brood doing this, she understood, calling out to someplace else and opening up a connection in the fabric of space and time between there and here. She managed a pained wince of a sigh—that was one mystery out of the way, at least. The greater dilemma, a problem which could not be averted, was that of where she was being sent, and she would not discover that until it was already too late. What a conundrum.
Gossamer only managed a shallow gulp of breath before a familiar pinching sensation enveloped her, collapsing in on herself.
All her senses erupted in a flood of input that lasted but a second yet felt like eons.
Then it was over and she slumped limply forward. Her belly served adequately as a mattress, her breasts as cushions, just briefly as she lay prone while returning to her full faculties.
For a moment, the mare wondered if anything had actually changed; the ground beneath her felt like the same cobbled street she had been standing upon before. There was a dampness in the air that smelled not unlike that which she’d been exposed to with the oncoming storm, yet now she could distinctly tell that there was no rain. It was only when she wearily stood again, after feeling that her innards had calmed enough, her wards returned to their state of equilibrium, and looked about that she was able to take her surroundings in properly.
She was certainly still in Canterlot. The buildings around her were the same ones she had seen mere minutes ago before the storm began. Structurally, at least, as they definitely weren’t in the same condition. There were cracks cobwebbing across the streets and up along the stone foundations, brick walls collapsed and windows in pieces, and she saw more than one roof that had caved inward. It was a state that seemed more like a derelict slum than the opulent capital of Equestria. It was eerily quiet, and she couldn’t discern the presence of anypony in the immediate vicinity; if there was anypony hiding in these buildings, they were too wary even to look out the windows. She reached for her stomach again, taking some solace in the feeling of life within her whilst surrounded by emptiness.
Then she turned around, looking back down the street the way she had come, and she was met with greater cause to be alarmed. With the buildings of Canterlot spread out before her, she could see that the state of the city deteriorated further from neglected to devastated. Buildings lay in ruin, with domes and steeples that should have been visible from this vantage instead nowhere to be seen, rubble and dust left in their places. There were newer buildings that she didn’t recognize, but they were distinctly of a rough, utilitarian nature, simple boxy shapes that stood in contrast to the Canterlot that she was familiar with. She thought she discerned movement down there amid the streets, but it was too far away for her to be sure if they were ponies or something else.
Most disconcerting of all, however, was that where there should have been the gleaming spires of the royal palace rising up beyond the hill, there was nothing at all. There wasn’t even much of a hill, for that matter, as if a whole section of the mountain had eroded away.
And yet, further out beyond, the lands of Equestria appeared…exotic. There were bodies of water where there had been none before, and there were dense clusters of forest greenery that resembled the distant Everfree. There were patches of color amidst the verdant environment that were atypical to see in such abundance: vivid magenta, gleaming yellow, electric blue, and ethereal violet. She couldn’t be sure of exactly what she was seeing at this distance, but she thought there were strange, tall structures, comprised of stone or crystal or something else, which jutted up from the landscape. Underneath it all, though, she took particular notice of an odd pattern: great trenches that were carved across the plains and hills, not exactly regular in any way, but forming a distinct line out toward the distance, a path between Mount Canter and somewhere else. She was almost certain that there had to be some connection between these scars in the earth and the damage inflicted on Canterlot.
Then, finally, Gossamer Gleam looked up toward the sky and found herself at a loss. It was a late afternoon sky, the reds of sunset beginning to bleed across the blue canvas, and there were a few glimmering pinpricks of starlight peering through the haze. In some way that she couldn’t describe, however, this sky felt realer than any she had known in Equestria. The stars were so brilliant the way they sparkled and flashed, as if she could see their flickering coronas of plasma with her mere naked eyes. Her skin prickled at the sensation of other that hid in the dark corners of the cosmos, countless eyes and other eldritch approximations which looked down upon her just as she held her skyward gaze.
“This world is…open,” she thought aloud, whispering in awe.
A quiver shook through her. She touched her stomach again, and this time she mentally picked through the threads of magic which were woven into her being. Amid the various protective wards, one of them was a dimensional anchor, an emergency contingent which was supposed to be able to return her home no matter what the circumstances might be. There was nothing stopping her from returning to her accustomed relative normalcy, yet she found no sense of immediacy to do so, no rush. She thought there had to be a reason that she had come to be standing here.
Her focus turned back toward her immediate surroundings. Despite her worry over the damage she had seen, she understood immediately that this was not her Equestria. She had been brought…somewhere else, another version of the planet she was familiar with. She was familiar enough with this concept, but she’d never before had to experience a facsimile of her own reality. Something had happened here, not too long ago, something terrible and disastrous, but it seemed as if there might have been some amount of good to come out of the cataclysm in the time since then. At least, it was a kind of good that catered to her interests in particular.
But there was one specific thought that rose to the forefront of her thoughts: if this was an alternate Equestria, then there must be an alternate Gossamer Gleam.
With the state that Canterlot was in, however…
The time that the unicorn had spent reflecting on her surroundings was more than enough to catch her breath, so she redoubled her efforts in climbing the street along the hill. It definitely seemed as if the damage was less severe the farther she went from the heart of the city, and where the royal palace should have been, but that was no guarantee of solace. Gossamer didn’t especially have much fondness for the city where she had spent most of her life, or the planet as a whole for that matter, but there was one specific building which she would hate to see in disrepair, even if it was some alternate dimension equivalent.
As the structures lining the street receded behind her, signifying that she had left the primary territory of Canterlot, she began to slow. It was not because of exhaustion on her part nearly as much as a peculiar cloying sensation which fell over her. It was as if the air were suddenly turning thick and soupy, posing unexpected resistance to her progress. Perhaps she couldn’t have been truly sure, but there was a distinct sense of power in the air, and it was the kind of wild, unfathomable power which ponies seldom had the opportunity to bear witness to. Her innards grumbled anticipatorily as she made the final approach, so much more slowly than she would have intended. Dread bubbled within her as she crested the hill where she would be able to see her family’s estate on the other side.
The property had seen better days, though it distinctly lacked the sense of lifelessness that pervaded much of what she had seen of Canterlot. The lawn was overgrown, tall curtains of grass standing at the edges of the street, weeds seeping up from cracks in the walkway that led to the front of the manor—the local homeowners’ association would have had a fit. The lampposts which stood along the path were similarly tangled in twining vines of ivy, most likely nonfunctioning, but seemingly in their place there were tall stalks with bright blue bulbs perched atop them, glowing with a faint luminescence, growing from the underbrush at somewhat regular intervals. The crabapple trees on either side of the entrance looked hardly anything like she remembered them, grown to such an extent that it seemed as if they had been there for nearly a century instead of just a decade, their trunks twisted and gnarled, their branches reaching high overhead and laden with what appeared to be vivid azure fruit. Nature, it seemed, was trying to reclaim the estate.
Yet the building itself appeared to have not fared very poorly at all in the presence of the encroaching vegetation around it. It was not pristine, she saw as she approached—there were minute cracks and flakes in the paint, roofing tiles that were loose, window shutters hanging slightly askew—but the modest manor appeared intact. Most importantly, the observatory on top showed no signs of wear from what she could see down by the street, the central housing for the telescope completely undamaged. That, at least, was something she could be thankful for.
But who lived in the house, she had to wonder. There were no lights on inside the building, nothing shining through the windows. That same eerie stillness which she had felt while standing in Canterlot was still present, as if it had followed her here. It seemed more appropriate here, though—that kind of atmosphere was far more fitting for Gossamer Gleam than the typical pony. She would welcome it into her home and make it her own.
Slowly, she started forward, taking her time strolling and swaying up the path to the front door. She turned to the side and observed the lawn again, the grass and the flowers waving in a light breeze. She didn’t have to stand very far from the edge of the path for her belly to jut over, the grassy blades brushing against the underside of the heavy globe. There was something new that she noticed, though, and she knelt down to get a closer view: clinging to the stalk of one of those blue bulb posts, there was a silky white tuft waving like a flag, ghostly in its appearance. Looking around, she now discerned that it was far from alone, with more of those ethereal scraps scattered about the lawn, thin strands strewn along the slate stones that comprised the front path. It made her think of cobwebs, and as she advanced further she noticed yet more silvery strings spread along the surfaces of the house’s exterior.
And then Gossamer was standing at the door, half-conscious of her hand reaching forward. She knew that it was her home, yet it was not truly her home, it belonged to somepony else. It wouldn’t be appropriate to just open and barge in, as much as her instincts told her that there wouldn’t be cause for anypony else to be present. At the same time, she was aware as she rapped her knuckles on the door that her own nature wasn’t exactly prone to be inviting toward others—at her own home, she had scrying enchantments in place so that she could observe whoever might be at the door when she heard a knock, and if it was somepony she didn’t care to deal with (which was most ponies) then she would simply ignore it until they left.
As such, she was not entirely unsurprised when she was met with no identifiable response. The silence persisted, no sound audible from within the building, no hoofsteps, no frantic clattering, no voices. Gossamer pursed her lips as she pondered how long she’d want to wait before taking further action, and ultimately she decided that she didn’t care for patience in this particular moment. She didn’t know if the key in her pocketbook would still work here, but when she reached for the doorknob she found that it wasn’t even locked. It appeared as if whatever alternate self lived here was far more trusting than she was.
The double doors opened (Gossamer had grown more thankful of the house’s spacious dimensions as she spent more and more time being pregnant) and she stepped inside. There was a distinct gloom present as day progressed toward night, but it seemed as if much was still the same. The foyer showed no signs of wear and tear, all the same family photos hanging around the walls. Yet she could still see more of those cobwebs, strung up in corners and nooks and crannies. Standing there in the threshold elicited a strange, distorted sensation of nostalgia, the recognition of a place that was deeply familiar to her and yet knowing that it wasn’t the same.
There was something different about it, she knew.
Something…
It wasn’t the cobwebs.
It was the smell. The cool, loamy scent of the earth, freshly tilled. It was far stronger inside than it had been outside, strangely.
And then she looked down, past herself, and she saw something else out of place: a rug that was spread over the floor in the center of the foyer. It was a pale grey color, and there was a ragged look to it, like it was coming apart. Gossamer squatted down, spreading her legs to make room for her gut, and she lit her horn as she reached to touch the carpet. It didn’t have the texture of any kind of rug she was familiar with. It was light and fluffy. Silky.
The hairs on the back of her neck bristled.
The rug—no, the whole floor moved, a panel swinging up in front of her, revealing an abyssal darkness underneath. Gossamer Gleam stumbled, rolling back onto her rump, and with her voice catching in her throat she hurriedly scrabbled away. It was to little effect before something seized her hoof—not organic, not an appendage, something more like a rope, and very sticky. It pulled on her, and for a moment she managed to maintain some degree of traction before more strands took hold, tugging on her legs and all across her stomach, and when one found her hand there wasn’t any further resistance she could put up. She slid across the floor, and she cried out as she started to fall, only momentarily interrupted by a slam overhead when the trapdoor closed, shutting her out of what little light there was, swallowing her in darkness.
She didn’t fall for long, and mercifully her landing wasn’t upon a hard surface, instead something soft and springy that yielded beneath her like a trampoline. Unlike a trampoline, the rebound didn’t send her back upward, and she found that she was completely immobilized, the sticky surface clinging to her, anchoring every limb. The bobbing motions gradually stilled, and she ceased her own movement when she realized that her struggling was proving to serve little benefit, if anything only getting herself tangled further. She fought with herself to reassert her typical calm neutrality, to banish the anxiety and dread which yearned to breach through the surface. The light of her horn had gone out, unsurprising given the concentration-shattering rush she had just gone through, but when she tried to summon her magic again she was met with only a fizzle and spark. She felt a faint tingling upon the furless spire that had to be those sticky threads, clinging to her, apparently choking her magic. She was blind, helpless, and powerless.
Gossamer evaluated the situation while her body fumbled to catch up with itself and diminish her panic. Her wards were still active, but without her own magic she had no way of directly interacting with them, meaning she could not activate her return teleportation. She was trapped. Maybe this was it, then, she thought with grim resignation, the end that had been awaiting her all this time, when her passionate fervor finally proved to be her own undoing. She had come to accept it as an inevitability a long time ago, and there was a part of her that had secretly yearned for it, for the pleasure so great that it would utterly obliterate her. With the dark and earthy smell all around her, it was even almost like she was already in a grave.
The real question was whether she was truly ready for it. She had just been starting to open up her life to others, to have some semblance of a social life, to have friends.
“To think this all started with me wanting to meet people like me,” she whispered to herself.
There was movement in the darkness. She didn’t hear it as much as feel it: the surface beneath her shaking in a steady rhythm, the sign of something else stepping upon it, and she could feel her position shifting as the material distorted. It was coming from below, approaching her legs and vulnerable undercarriage—meaning that even without the darkness she would’ve had difficulty seeing it, obstructed by her midsection. There was nothing she could do in response to this beyond the unconscious tingling of gooseflesh rising across her skin.
“A fly has happened upon our web.” A voice came from the black, echoing in the void. It was hoarse and harsh, rasping in its throat. “What are you doing here?”
A web, Gossamer thought with a grimace, and she might have slapped her face if her hands had been able to move. That had to be what she was snared in, and suddenly all the scraps of cobwebs around the house made some shred of sense. “I came to…to see who lived here,” Gossamer replied, wetting her lips, fighting off the terror and uncertainty within.
There came a rumbling, grinding vocalization, its intent indiscernible. The bulk upon the web came closer, until she thought that surely it might be directly upon her. Something touched her belly, pressing through the layer of cloth and against the taut skin, hands with long, thin, pointed fingers, pinpricks prodding at her. “Vessel,” the thing hissed, “you carry…starspawn.”
“Yes,” she replied. She might have been squirming more if the circumstances had allowed for it; her body eagerly welcomed the stimulation.
Another grumble—a thoughtful hum, perhaps. “Yet…you are still pony. You are bound by destiny.”
“I…I use enchantments to protect myself. They guard me from the worst of the harm I could receive from…the strain of doing this.” Divulging this information might have been inadvisable, as it would expose the one advantage she still had on her side. She suspected, though, that there was little she could have truly done to protect herself at this point.
The hand caressing her midsection stopped over her navel, where no doubt it sensed the focal point of the arcane power which comprised Gossamer’s wards. It made a low growl while the hand pulled on her dress, yanking the hem up over her belly, exposing the runes which were etched upon her flesh. They glowed brightly, sending up an aura of violet light which shone through the darkness.
A face came into view, hanging in the air over Gossamer.
It had eight lustrous dark eyes of varying sizes which glowered upon her and a mouth, jaw hanging agape, full of needle-sharp teeth, glistening with saliva, and a long, curved horn like a scimitar blade.
Yet it also had pale lavender skin and a shaggy mane of wiry purple hair, tied with golden baubles that gleamed in the soft illumination.
Amidst the usual cocktail of emotions which arose in Gossamer Gleam in encounters such as this—the intense xenophilic arousal engaged in fierce conflict with the pony instinct of unbridled horror—she was struck with a twisted sense of recognition, of looking into a funhouse mirror and seeing a grossly distorted version of herself.
“You…” she whispered breathlessly.
The spider-pony face blinked, an asymmetrical wave of lenses across eyes. It came closer, and she felt something else pushing against her gut, soft and hard all at once, as the hand reached to touch her face. Bony fingers brushed her cheek and pushed aside her mane, and they gazed into each other. “You are…me,” the other Gossamer Gleam murmured.
Her horn lit up with magic and Gossamer felt it enveloping her. She could immediately discern how it was akin to her own, but it was altered, empowered with something profound and arcane. It pulled on her, and momentarily the webbing tugged harshly before slipping off of her all at once, even the strands around her horn melting away, and she was lifted into a standing position. The unsteady floor buckled beneath her hooves and she trembled unsteadily before managing to maintain her balance, and once she was confident that she wouldn’t tumble over herself she lit her own horn again, casting a wide arc of illumination in front of herself.
In the abyssal gloom, Gossamer could only see a portion of her eldritch counterpart’s form. There was a torso that looked not much unlike her own, completely devoid of garments, exposing the full breasts and gravid stomach—they seemed about equal proportionally, though this other Gossamer was considerably taller—but the arms were long and sinuous, enough of a span to reach around her obtrusive frontal bulk. Below the waist, however, there was completely different anatomy, an arachnoid thorax with sturdy hairy legs projecting outward, suspending another rotund belly on the body’s underside. There was another even larger mass which rose up and jutted out behind her, but it was too dark to be fully identified.
Perhaps it was appropriate that, of all things, she’d find herself as a spider abomination.
“Who…what are you?” the monstrous Gossamer asked warily, seeming too confused to put up a threatening front. Perhaps she also wasn’t so accustomed to speaking with others anymore—how ironic that Gossamer Gleam had encountered a pony with worse social skills than her own, and it was just another version of herself. “How did you…get here? Where did…you come from?”
“I’m you…Gossamer Gleam. Father called us ‘Gossy.’” That elicited a twinge of pained recognition in her dark eyes. “I’m from…another dimension, an alternate version of Equus. I…I don’t know exactly how I ended up here, it was some kind of spatial resonance. It might have…had something to do with my little ones responding to my desires.” She placed her hands against the sides of her belly, feeling the otherworldly warmth which burned within.
Her other self made a gurgling, crooning noise and looked down at her own stomach caressing it in her gnarled hands. She didn’t seem to understand something about this gesture, about the connection with her young.
There were a great many questions which Gossamer needed to be answered, but she had to suppose that there was one which would address the majority of the circumstances at hand. “What happened to you?” she asked nervously, trying to tread with as much tact as she could. “You weren’t…always like this, were you?”
The other Gossamer made wet clicking noises in her throat and crossed her arms over her front. “No,” she muttered, “changed.”
“Did it have something to do with…whatever happened to Canterlot?”
Her gaze lowered. “Yes.” That was all she said before she started to turn around, multiple legs moving in a coordinated dance to spin about and crawl back into the shadows. The huge mass which had been behind her wheeled into view, an enormous abdomen which now thoroughly eclipsed her upper body as she moved away.
Gossamer Gleam followed with no small hint of trepidation. The webbing under her hooves continued to be unsteady, shaking from both of their shifting weights, and the two of them moving nearly in tandem caused it to be unpredictable. The span of web was nearly wide enough to be a street, though the other Gossamer occupied almost the entirety of its breadth. The idea of falling over still wasn’t very appealing at all, as she wanted to stay as far away from the edges and the abyss as possible. The light of her horn couldn’t penetrate the black enough to reveal any walls or floor, though when she glanced about she did see the ghostly silhouettes of other webs suspended in the air.
“In your world,” the spider-pony called back, “do you know of…the Darkness?”
The words rolled about in her brain, as if savoring the taste. It sounded too specific—capitalized, proper noun, a name. She thought it easily could have been the title of some eldritch entity she might have courted over the years. “No, I do not believe so,” she eventually replied.
Another grumble-hum echoed. “The Darkness came from over the horizon, seething with malice. It came to destroy Princess Celestia. It didn’t care that there was a palace and city around her. They were as flies to it.”
“So…it destroyed the palace.”
“Swatted it and half of Canterlot off the mountain.”
Gossamer thought she could imagine that so easily: a cosmic entity reaching out with one gigantic appendage and effortlessly knocking aside pony architecture as if it were a toy. She grimaced.
“It might have finished off the rest of Canterlot if the Princess hadn’t drawn it away. If the Elements hadn’t destroyed it.”
This tickled something in Gossamer’s memory. No doubt this was referring to the Elements of Harmony, but who was to say that they were the same in this reality either? Even Princess Celestia might have been a wholly different creature. The Elements and their bearers had been involved in a number of incidents throughout Equestria’s history in her own world; it was possible that this Darkness itself had been an alternate version of one of those world-ending threats.
Another shape came into view from the gloom, resolving into what appeared to be a grander structure made out of webbing. There was a great opening which they entered through, and inside it was a large open space, though the other Gossamer occupied a considerable portion of it as she settled into place. Gossamer Gleam noticed that there were a few scattered objects embedded into the web-walls around them—pieces of furniture, long-discarded, possibly brought down from the house which was somewhere above them.
“But what does that have to do with you?” she asked, unable to withhold her curiosity.
There were more clicks and then a long, haggard sigh. The spider-pony looked at herself, downward and then along the side and back along her lower torso, dragging a palm across her back. “Princess and Elements…did something. Unleashed old magic in Equestria. Now…life is changing.” She then held one hand up to her face and dug her fingers into her mane, kneading at her temples. “Don’t…remember…what happened. It’s a blur.”
“You don’t remember?” Gossamer repeated incredulously, brows furrowed. She found that hard to believe, but maybe that was mostly on account of how she was sure that such a process would have been seared into her memory, the twisting and warping of anatomy into new forms.
The monster growled back at her, baring a glimmer of jagged teeth, but it was a half-hearted effort at intimidation, cut short as her expression turned wistful and downcast. “Don’t remember…how long I stayed here,” she muttered, and she pulled her arms and legs closer to herself, a fetal position crossed with the curling death throes of an arthropod. “Didn’t want to…be bothered…didn’t want to be alone…I felt them…in my dreams…” A crackling rattle rose from her throat as she clutched at her uppermost womb.
Gossamer Gleam hesitated to come closer, thinking that the creature needed comfort but also not entirely certain that she wanted it. There was a twinge within her stomach, an impetus imparted upon her by the unborn souls she carried.
She had one other question.
“What happened to your parents?”
The other Gossamer twitched in her direction, glaring with a truly inequine countenance.
“They’re…dead, I’m guessing,” she ventured warily, taking a few steps forward, thinking surely this would be the moment that the webbing tore apart beneath her hooves, but it remained intact. Thinking about this subject almost made her wish it would, though. “My parents…they also passed away when I was younger. It was in an accident. I suppose…perhaps it’s a cruel constant of the universe that Gossamer Gleam always ends up as an orphan.”
The spider-pony at first only seemed to curl up tighter in response to this, clenching her eyes shut. She made no reaction as Gossamer walked closer and reached out to place a hand upon her stomach. Her coat was short and sparse, and the skin didn’t have quite the same pliancy as a mammal’s flesh, yet it was still warm. There were faint shudders throughout her, and Gossamer wasn’t certain if that was her own body or the spawn inside. There was also a smell that she sensed, faint but intoxicating in its heady sweetness.
“They were at the gala,” she whispered.
Gossamer didn’t respond yet, only continued rubbing in slow circles.
“I stayed home…they asked me if I wanted to come…I didn’t want to…be around all those ponies.” Another shuddering quake. “That w-was…when it h-happened…when the Darkness…”
“I see…” She leaned in and placed her cheek against the monster’s stomach.
That seemed to be enough to prompt her to whimper and sob, clutching her face in her hands. Gossamer supposed that she had never even attempted to get any of this off her chest in however much time had passed since the calamity that scarred this Equestria. Really, she had to admit that she had hardly spoken about her own parents’ death to anypony else either. She had kept so much bottled up for so long, and the idea that it could have been wrong to do so had never occurred to her. She had grown so numb to everything.
“Poor widow, spinning your web all by yourself,” she whispered.
And then, abruptly, she ducked underneath the overhanging stomach. The burgeoning globe was heavy, weighing upon her, and she had to be careful not to jab into it with her horn (she suspected that it would do little harm, but she thought it was still a basic courtesy to avoid needless discomfort). In the claustrophobic confines, the illumination of her magic lit up the swollen contours of flesh, and nestled in the cleft where pony and spider anatomy met there were the swollen folds of labia, the source of the sweet aroma she’d smelled, just as she suspected.
“Wh-what’re you—?” The other Gossamer didn’t get to finish the question before the mare thrust her muzzle against the puffy slit, a kiss which turned into a dive, burying herself in the moist warmth. The body around her buckled and clenched, squeezing on her, crushing, but that only prompted her to push in harder still with a groan. Her double groaned in a keening cry that rent the silence, and then there were hands upon her, clenching tightly. They started to pull, and the thought flashed through Gossamer Gleam’s mind that she could have effortlessly been torn in half, but there was another crooning gasp and shudder and then they instead pushed, pinning her in place. She might have smiled victoriously if she weren’t already so focused on her task at hand.
She stuck out her tongue into the fleshy depths and welcomed the taste of the juices seeping out from within, sweet and tangy and sticky, gumming up her mouth. The difference in size between them meant that Gossamer could just about cram her whole face into the yearning dampness. The other Gossamer grasped at her, fingers raking across her skin before finding purchase on something to squeeze, her buttocks or breasts, or kneading into her belly. The pressure prompted her to croon through a mouthful of juices and push forward, but that in turn resulted in another outcry and everything tightening further around her. She only had just enough space in her brain to recognize that her horn had prodded against the other pony’s clitoris, jabbing her with a cocktail of magical power that spiked straight to the brain. The “how” of it didn’t exactly matter too much—all she knew was to keep chasing the stimulation, so she pushed again, thrusting her head against the groin as one would a penis.
Their positions were shifting. The other Gossamer was moving her legs, clambering and reorientating. Gossamer Gleam was largely unaware of her surroundings, her eyes clenched shut and her ears full of howling and squelching, and her brain was swimming. She felt lightheaded in a way that wasn’t merely because of her sexual high, a giddy queasiness that was seeping through her system. Venom, she would be sure if she had the capacity to consider that. It was still beyond her concerns at the moment. She wasn’t one to stop just because something was bad for her.
Gossamer pushed hard, pressing her horn firmly in place while her tongue lapped firmly against the internal folds, and this time there was a splitting shriek somewhere above while the body around her pinched tighter than ever, threatening to pop her like a grape. The labia clenched around her skull and a deluge of cum sprayed over her, matting her fur and hair faster than any rain could, filling her mouth with its pungent taste and gummy texture; she struggled to swallow it, as much as her hunger suddenly told her that it was the most precious substance in the whole universe. The pleasure numbed and washed away her thoughts until it turned into a morass of color and noise assaulting her mind. There was magic in there, imparted through the transfer of fluids, a virulent sparkle of power that sought purchase within her being, but the nexus of wards caught that magic, not unlike a fly in a web, wrapping it up for later.
Gossamer Gleam didn’t know when it ended. She came to her senses in an awkward position, laying on her belly, on top of another belly at an odd angle. The light of her horn had dimmed, so at first she had difficulty discerning that the other Gossamer had laid on her back, spider legs rising up all around them. The giant creature was heaving and gasping for breath in labored spasms. Gossamer was able to stand (feeling the moisture staining her own loins and dampening her underwear in the process) upon her body, perching on the chest of her lower torso while leaning against the upper torso for support. Her breasts and belly cushioned herself upon the taut globe of her stomach. She could just scarcely see beyond the slope of flesh to the face on the other side, maw hanging open while breathing haggardly. Gossamer pondered the nature of her counterpart’s transformation—not only what could have caused her to be this way, but also how she had become pregnant. It certainly seemed as if she wasn’t quite as used to sexual engagements.
She let her eyes close, just for a moment, resting against both her own bosom and the warm gravid dome before her.
She misjudged her balance and started to slip to the side.
All of a sudden, something moved into place to catch her—not a hand but a leg, the hairy appendage effortlessly holding her weight. Looking back over the lavender slopes again, she saw eight eyes staring pointedly at her. “Don’t…leave,” she gasped, and her voice now sounded just a little more like Gossamer was used to hearing, some of the layers of hoarseness scrubbed away. Before Gossamer could answer, there was already a touch upon her other side, another leg pinning her, the grasp not uncomfortable but firm enough to make the point clear.
The stern, emotionless mask that she was used to wearing came out quickly, yet it didn’t feel as whole this time; the hurt was bleeding through. There was nothing stopping her from using her magic now, she could simply activate her return enchantment and leave this behind her—she thought that there was a past Gossamer Gleam who wouldn’t have hesitated to do that—though it wasn’t without risk. No doubt the other Gossamer would register her casting a spell, and it was unlikely that she would take it well. Not to mention that teleporting in such close proximity to another creature could pose undue complications.
“You know I can’t do that,” she finally replied solemnly.
“Please!” Bony hands lunged forward. Gossamer didn’t attempt to avoid them as they clamped to her arms, pulling on her, grinding their midsections together. “I’ve been alone for so long! I don’t want to go back to that!”
“But I don’t belong here,” she asserted, maintaining level breathing to keep herself calm, “I have my own Equestria to return to. You are the Gossamer Gleam of this Equestria.” She sighed and let her head lay down upon the spider-pony’s belly, ear to the skin, hearing the churning within. “Oh, what an Equestria it must be, how I’d love to see it for myself. But to stay, forever? No, I cannot.”
The grasp tightened, but it was a gesture of futile desperation. The other Gossamer whimpered through clenched teeth. “What am I supposed to do by myself?”
Gossamer Gleam mustered a small smile. “I know exactly what you should do.”
= = = = =
The doors opened and Gossamer stepped out into the fresh air. It was night now, yielding a sky that glittered with countless stars. She had to pull herself away from looking at them for too long, so engrossed she became in the sight of alien constellations and shifting lights. She turned back to the doorway and beckoned. “Come along now.”
The other Gossamer emerged, ducking down under the awning and then rearing back upward. Or, at least, that was the motion she attempted. Where the passage had allowed for Gossamer Gleam’s dimensions without much difficulty, her other self couldn’t even fit her upper body through. She tugged for a moment, pushing with her hands on either side of the doors, a loud scrabbling audible on the other side as her legs fought to push. She grumbled and finally relented, and her horn ignited with magic, and all of a sudden the wood and brick of the building buckled around her, bending and stretching as if made of rubber, reverting to normal once she had fully extricated her spider body.
She didn’t say anything as Gossamer led her away from the overgrown house, up to the cresting hill where they would be able to see Canterlot. It served as another reminder of how things were different here; there were far fewer lights on in the ruined city, largely clustered near the newer buildings in the center, leaving vast swathes of architecture cast in shadow. Gossamer wondered if there had even been a time when she would have been glad to see this devastation inflicted upon the populace of the city that had shunned her for so long. Maybe. She couldn’t pretend that the loss of life wasn’t a shame. Perhaps, between the two of them, there was something that could be done to aid this world in metamorphosis. That would have to wait until later, though.
“Do you have any kind of reputation in town?” she asked.
The other Gossamer looked back to her, confused, dazed.
“Are there any ponies who think ill of you?
She blinked and considered. “Probably. I had to…scare some ponies away. A few times.”
Gossamer hummed to herself. “Do you know if there’s anypony else like you.”
“I…yes.” Her eyes seemed to scan across the city. “The magic has…spread far. Many ponies have changed. I don’t know where they are, but…I can feel them.”
“If I were to guess, they’re probably hiding out somewhere away from the main hubs of activity.” She pulled on the monster-mare’s hand and started to walk again. “Come on, let’s take a look around.”
The other Gossamer inched forward slowly even though she easily could have held her ground, digging in with her many legs and leveraging her enormous bulk. There was something strange about such her inequine face turned into such an anxious expression, her black eyes full of worry and her toothy maw locked in a cringing frown. “How can you be so sure we should be doing this?” she asked warily.
“We can’t be sure of anything unless we try. It’s a huge universe out there, Gossy, your neighborhood is only one tiny speck of it, and there are so many sights waiting to be seen.” She looked back with a faint smile, but even in this faint light there was a gleam in her eyes, sparkling with untold excitement and wonder and yearning, intoxicating and inviting. Then she added, “And with how pent up you were, just imagine how many of them must be hoping for a partner or two.”
Slowly, the other Gossamer flashed back her own jagged crescent grin, and she nodded.
They walked into Canterlot together, sticking to the back streets at first, where the buildings were dark and the smell of dampness was heavy. There was still so little that Gossamer Gleam understood about this version of her world; and she was hungry to learn more. Maybe there were other ponies who were more accepting of the changes that had taken place. Maybe there was another Caramel Swirl around here somewhere, one who was just as curious as the one she knew. The possibility of more beings who would be down for a rut, however, was most tantalizing of all.
In the end, she couldn’t deny who she was at her core.
Author's Note
For this year's customary last-minute Gossamer Gleam Mayternity story, I decided to go in a different direction. I considered the idea of "alternate universe Gossamer" and I decided to specifically go for what would be the version that appears in the Eldritchverse setting which I have long tried to get off the ground. So we get vague worldbuilding teasing that I've barely put any thought into. Got strapped for time toward the end so had to rush toward an ending, oh well.
I tried forgoing my usual habit of writing the full pony name every time in the previous story and now I guess I've just decided to go with that permanently, I'm sure some pedantic bronies are happy with that.
Writing scenes with two characters who have the same name is a great idea, shut up.
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