A Conspiracy of Order

Mayor Mare spent the next day more distracted than she remembered being for a long time. Not since she was a younger mare had she thought so hard about some lucky stallion somewhere, and even then she hadn’t been quite so…moist…thinking about him in the first place. Her sex ground against her lounge in the back of her office throughout the day, and she had more than a few close encounters when a petitioner came to ask her for some help. She always managed to cover it up, and the open window meant that there was plenty of ventilation to hide the scent, but the brown-furred, gray-maned mare constantly found herself wishing that they would go away so that she could get back to her self-gratification.

It was…intense, to say the least, and she wasn’t entirely sure that she made the best decisions the day after the debate, but she did her best. She pushed through as she had always done before, but as soon as the work day was over she felt…a need. An intense need, for that matter, and she knew there was only one person that could scratch it.

Sending a runner off to the Dapper-Bit Twist campaign, Mayor Mare got up from her lounge chair, groaning as she cracked her neck and hip slightly. Relieved, if only slightly, she trotted out of her office and into town. Her opponent would get her message soon enough, and he should get the picture of where to meet her.

She’d been graphic enough in the note, at the very least, that any stallion should know how lucky they were to be invited like this.

It turned out that he was there before her, and the blue-black stallion turned to smile at her as she arrived. There was something almost a little teasing about it, and she blushed, feeling like a younger mare again.

“I didn’t expect you to want a second round,” he said.

“Well, call me a fool, but you did such a good job last time…”

“Well, I tried. I didn’t think that I’d be able to keep up with you, but it seems that age has barely dulled you at all.”

“Dulled me? No. Just made me that much more…needy.”

And needy she was; she didn’t know where all this arousal came from, considering that she was well-past her heat cycle, but she had been dripping all day. Her juices ran down her hind legs as her fantasies continued running through her head. It was like she couldn’t think of anything but Dapper-Bit, and the earth pony was clearly picking up on that, considering his slow-dropping dick.

Mmm, come to mama…

She sidled past him, her tail flicking under his nose. A little chuckle of embarrassment escaped her muzzle as she leaned nearer to a wall, putting her forehooves against it before flicking her tail to the other side.

“How do you want it?” Dapper-Bit asked as he moved behind her, his shaft hardening against her hind legs.

“I want it…in my ass tonight…”

“Oh? Old lady like you still likes it back there?”

“Just because I get a little older doesn’t mean I don’t like it a little…dirty.”

“Well, dirty we can do.”

He was on top of her a second later, and his fat shaft was sliding between her rump cheeks. He only gave her a few little teases before starting to grind against the other hole, and the sheer girth of him left her huffing under her breath.

That was always part of her fantasies. The sheer size that he had down there felt impossibly large, like he was some well-endowed, cursed stallion from some erotic novella. She shivered as he worked it against her other hole, teasing, nudging, greasing it up with his juices. It tingled in a way that she had only felt in her fantasies before, and she rolled her hips back to meet him, teasing him back.

Nudge, nudge, squelch.

Nudge, nudge, squelch.

The kiss of his cock to her hole left her whimpering slightly, feeling like some inexperienced filly getting her first time with an experienced lover. She wanted it, needed it, and the tingles that spread from her hole with each little ‘kiss’ of that flared head made her feel more and more lightheaded. She wasn’t thinking clearly, and she knew that, but at that moment, she didn’t really care.

She needed him.

She’d have him.

Thrust.

Thrust.

Squelch.

And then he was in, and her mouth fell open as her tongue lolled to the side. The rough, heated, so naughty feeling of a cock like that inside of her other hole, the naughty hole, made her moan out loud. Her eyes rolled back in their sockets, and only the sheer pressure of the stallion on her back kept her from just rolling her hips back to fuck him her way. She was getting used now, his hips starting to buck against her rump hard and fast, and the soft smack, smack, smack of his balls against her pussy was enough to keep her wet and willing.

Even as the heated, lustful haze that she vaguely remembered from last time descended on her, she felt the hunger coming through hot and strong. The hunger for pleasure, the hunger for him.

More.

More.

More.

The next day, they met in the inn, and she leaned back on the bed, her head on a pillow and her legs sprawled out to the sides. She felt like some strange whore, almost, coming to bed with a stranger that was paying for her services. It was such a delightfully strange feeling as Dapper-Bit loomed over her, his forehooves on the bed and his cock sliding past her sex to her belly, and then back down again.

“Take me…”

She’d been thinking about him all day again, barely able to get any work done. All that mattered was the thought of his cock, his balls, his seed. There was something addictive about having him inside of her, something that she couldn’t get away from, and all she wanted – all she needed – was to get through the day before she could have him again.

Squelch.

He was inside of her again, the slick, slimy feeling of being filled and stretched overwhelming her almost immediately. He pushed in deep, and her juices squirted out around him, running down between her legs to her puckering anus. His first little squirt of pre-cum left her wide-eyed and oozing, dripping like mad. It was like every time he filled her, she found something that she liked even more than the last time that they’d been together.

She craved him.

She needed him.

There was nobody else that could make her feel like this.

So, she spread her legs and let him have her, begging him with every thrust to take her harder. She might have been the mayor outside of the room, but with Dapper-Bit, she was nothing but a good little whore, and she loved it.

In.

Out.

In.

Out.

It was just after their last debate, the day before the election, and she couldn’t bring herself to go back to her office. She needed him right then, right there, and he’d been willing. And more than that, he had brought friends this time.

Mayor Mare looked at the other stallions that had come with him, ranging from some unknown from his campaign to Big Macintosh, and she blushed worse than she had ever done before. The feeling of having so many stallions staring down at her, knowing what she was there for, nearly sent her running off with her tail between her legs. Nearly, but that need that came whenever she looked at Dapper-Bit made her take it like the experienced mare she was.

“Ah, ah, ah!”

She moaned behind the stage, the old mare gasping for breath as she took Big Mac’s cock in her pussy and Dapper-Bit stood in front of her. Each thrust was something new, hitting her so far into her core that there was nothing she could do but stand there and take it. Take it. Take it. Her eyes were rolling back in her head, leaving her spasming and cumming her brains out. Three times already, her body wracked with the pure pleasure of being their toy. Their whore.

“Open.”

She barely had a chance to do as she was told before Dapper-Bit mounted her face. He thrust past her lips, grinding into her muzzle and sheathing his cock down her throat. It was the first time that he’d done that to her, and the first time that she’d given him a blowjob. A part of her wondered how they had managed to avoid doing that this long.

She was just starting to swallow and suck as she remembered doing to stallions when she was younger when –

Hsssss.

“Nnngh?!”

It was almost enough to shock her out of her lusty state when she felt the heated stream of piss running down her throat. The mayor tried to pull back, but with Big Mac over her back and Dapper-Bit rammed balls-deep down her throat, there was nothing she could do. She could only swallow desperately, breathing around it –

“Mmmph…mmm…”

And then…

Then it hit. Her head rolled back as the humping got harder, something in the piss stream taking her right out of herself. She felt light and floaty in a way that she hadn’t felt since that first night with him, and even that was small compared to this. She drank it down without thinking, unable to stop herself as she swallowed again…and again…and again. Each pulse of his cock sent more piss down to her guts, and each time she swallowed –

“Nnngh…”

Her pussy clenched around the red stallion, her orgasm hitting her hard, but…but not overwhelmingly. It was like…like she was having a harder and harder time feeling connected to her own body, like everything that she normally thought about and felt was further away.

Drink.

Drink.

Drink.

It kept going down, her head feeling stuffier and floaty. She couldn’t get a thought through her own skull, and Dapper-Bit didn’t stop. He just held her there, relentless and firm, while Big Mac humped away. The squelching, thrusting, sexy feeling of being pinned and used was still there, but even that was distant compared to what she had felt only a few seconds ago. It was just…it was there, but she wasn’t quite there to be connected to it. She felt…disconnected.

And it felt…good.

Dapper-Bit pulled out, and so did Big Mac once he came. The squirting heat through her guts was…intense, to say the least, and she shivered as she stared up at the stallion that had become her lover. He looked into her eyes without the same smile that she’d come to adore. None of that teasing confidence, none of the cocky knowingness. It was empty, blank. It was dead.

“She is ready.”

“This host will take her to the farm.”

“This host will accompany.”

Host?

Farm?

What?

It was a long journey by wagon to Sweet Apple Acres, and every time that Mayor Mare thought that she was waking up, she was visited by either Dapper-Bit or one of the other ponies working with him. Sometimes it was a stallion, sometimes it was a mare, but either way, they would straddle her face and force her mouth against their sex. The stallions would piss down her throat, while the mares would grind against her lips until she opened her mouth and then piss over her tongue.

Every time, it pulled her back to that sleepy, not-quite-there place, and each time, she felt herself drift further, falling away from the world and just laying there, horny and helpless.

Time was a funny thing when you couldn’t do anything. She wasn’t sure how long it took to get from Ponyville to Sweet Apple Acres, but they arrived just before sunset. Big Mac, Applejack, and even Twilight Sparkle were there, helping lift her out of the wagon and carrying her to the barn. She couldn’t keep her hooves under her; if anyone had seen her, they would have thought that she’d hit the cider too had and needed to take some time to sleep it off. Should she be embarrassed about that?

She didn’t know. She didn’t know anything.

The door to the barn opened. She saw something, wriggling things in the dark, the smell of sweet apples mixed with the earthiness of sex and humping creatures. She felt her hooves being dragged over something slimy, wet, something that felt somewhere between muddy and something more sensual. She didn’t know what to think; all she knew was that she was dragged further and further into darkness.

They turned her around, facing her toward the door. One forehoof on her back pushed her hips down, down, down, until she felt it grinding against the edge of something more phallic. Her needs were so high that she wanted to push her hips down on her own, but her body wouldn’t let her. It was completely out of her control.

Down.

Down.

Down.

Big Mac pushed her hips down onto it, and the soft swell of something spreading her asshole was enough to leave her feeling satisfied, at least physically. Her pussy clenched on nothing, her mare-hole wanting the same spreading that her ass was getting, but it was denied. At least, for now.

Tingle. Another little shock that went up and down her spine, but more concentrated than anything that she’d gotten from the stallions. It rattled her from head to hoof, and she would have collapsed if…

If it wasn’t for the fact that the thing in her ass not only was huge enough to hold her up, but was also starting to send little shocks through her lower half, making her shift her position, giving her a little more of a grip, making her sit upright in a way that kept her from falling over. It was…it was controlling her. It was seizing hold of her, and there was nothing that she could do about it.

Clench.

Clench.

Clench.

It was like a rhythmic pulse. The thing inside of her would send a tingle up her spine, and that tingle would cause her asshole to clench around that thing. Her rump would spasm, her cheeks would pull tight, and something…something pulled further and further out of the tendril inside of her. It was climbing in, pulled further and further towards her core with each forced clench that she was made to do. Tingle, spasm, clench. Tingle, spasm, clench.

Her pussy drooled, but before she could think to question it, or feel fear, or feel anything, Dapper-Bit appeared. He didn’t comfort her, nor save her. He just reared back, his cock in her face, and pushed the head past her spread lips. She had no strength to resist him as he pissed down her throat again, the soft taste almost too far away to register, and she just stared straight into his belly as he forced his urine down her throat.

It banished the last of her fear, leaving her just staring straight ahead, her mouth open, her eyes half-closed, and her body just wracked with pleasure.

As the pulsing continued, and the clenching followed, she felt something poking out of the tendril inside of her. There was something that was getting closer and closer to sliding into her, she realized, something that…that didn’t really…

No moan escaped as it hit her with a harder shock, one that spasmed right through her body. Every limp bit of her went tense at once, her hooves clicking gently against the barn floor. She stared straight ahead as the shocks stopped disappearing, leaving nothing but an intense flow of tingles that was almost too much for her to take. It spread up her spine, then out through her legs, down her limbs to her hooves. More of it spread through her middle, touching at her womb, her dead womb, and then up to her heart and lungs.

Tingle, tingle, tingle it went, almost overwhelming her. If she had been at all sober, she was sure that she would have been screaming. As it was, she stared forward as dead to the world as any of the other creatures around her.

Pulse.

Squeeze.

Pulse.

Squeeze.

The little tingles started to fade, but not before there was a little ripple of testing down her legs. She felt it. Each muscle tightening, bulging, showing itself through her fur before relaxing again. This here, that there, almost like some filly or colt pressing buttons that they didn’t understand. Touch, and this reacts. Stroke, and that reacts. Here, there, everywhere, even one that clenched tight around her bladder and –

She would have moaned, or hissed, or something if she had been completely allowed. The pressure around her bladder made her more aware of just how much urine she had consumed in the last…who knew how long. It wanted out. She needed to let it out.

And the strange control made her let it all out, all at once, all over herself.

Mayor Mare stared straight ahead, not even a blush on her cheeks as the thing inside of her forced her to release, her bladder slowly condensing in as it was clenched by the muscles around it. Pulse, throb, pulse, the heat running through her inner parts, down through the space between her legs, then forcing its way out through her urethra. She felt it puddling under her, wet and hot, and…and…

She didn’t care.

She didn’t care.

She didn’t care.

There was no shame, embarrassment, or even pleasure as this thing pushed her to relieve herself as it tested every part of her. It was like all of those feelings had been tossed into her bladder and forced out with the rest of her waste. It was just…gone, and she was little more than a shell for –

“This host…is learning…”

The words came from her lips, and she could hardly believe her ears. She felt her head turn, looking through eyes that moved and darted about the room in a way that she didn’t ask them to.

She didn’t stand, but she felt her forehooves moving, tapping, shifting, adjusting her balance. She felt her body push itself back down, lodging something against her sex, not inside it, but against it. A little tingle followed, almost like an electrical shock that bounced off the thing in her anus.

“This host is already enticed to join.”

“It is broken in?” Dapper-Bit – no, Dapper-Drone, Mayor Mare realized – asked.

“It was broken when it was brought in,” she said, her mouth again moving without her consent. “It is…eager. It wants this.”

“She hid it well.”

“It is no longer hidden. She is with the Nest now.”

Nest.

Just the word sparked something for her, and she found that she loved it as much as she was capable of loving anything in that moment. She kept staring straight ahead, straight at Dapper-Drone as more was shoved up through her ass, along her spine, and into her head. The thing that burrowed into her, that thing that she had milked out of the tendril with each clench of her ass cheeks and puckered hole, continued to learn and speak through her lips.

“A visitor is coming, coming soon,” Mayor Mare felt herself say.

“The Princess of Love.”

“And her husband.”

“Future hosts.”

“They will be infested.”

“Plans?”

“Being made.”

“Sync yourself. There is much to know.”

Mayor Mare – soon to be Mare-Drone – felt the shocks of pleasure increase rapidly. She had no choice but to open herself up and sink deeper into the welcoming tendrils of the Nest, her parasite inside already taking control.

The knowledge of the Nest filled her, and everything she knew went back the other way. She was nothing but a conduit, a thing for the parasite inside of her to use to spread the Nest further through the pony population.

And just like what had happened to her so far, she didn’t care. She wasn’t allowed to care. All she had to do was serve.

And as she had been a civil servant most of her life, that was an easy role to slide into.

The election was set up for the next day, and all of Ponyville came to the polls to cast their votes. It was the biggest turn-out that its population had ever seen, and most of the polling centers were completely overwhelmed with the numbers that they had to deal with. Some ponies were asked to go to different stations entirely, and some of them were pushed to wait their turns for hours due to the sheer number of them that turned up.

Unlike past elections, well before Mayor Mare had taken her position, the two candidates were not separate. They spent most of the morning together. Not fucking, of course – the need for that was past, now that Mare-Drone had become a thing – but rather listening and watching, and waiting for the spies that the Nest had along the road to report that the Crystal Empire and its royalty were approaching. They were not going to be caught off-guard.

Mare-Drone was impressed at the sheer power of the Nest, or at least, she was as impressed as a host-drone could be about the network that the Nest had put together. It controlled over a third of Ponyville directly through its parasites, and there were others that it controlled by having ponies in high-ranking positions that were making sure that certain orders were carried out. At first, she was more shocked that it hadn’t already taken over without pushing for the vote, but then she had been given more information. Mare-Drone didn’t need it to follow through, but perhaps some part of the Nest had learned how to gloat, or perhaps it had decided to filter the information through her head to avoid making further mistakes for any further expansions by seeing what she knew.

In either case, Mare-Drone had been informed about the tunneling roots, and she had been horrified. Not because of what they could have done – she had been completely brought in through the night, dragged through the same indoctrination that Rainbow Dash had, hurried but effective – but rather because of how it could have gone so very wrong.

With the Nest burrowing through the town, all it would have taken were a handful of failed infestations before they were completely exposed. Lacking the support of Twilight Sparkle, the hospital, and several different high-profile ponies that could have talked down the dangers, the Nest would have been exposed, dug out, and then likely set on fire so that nobody else would be harmed.

The only reason that hadn’t happened was because most of the town’s power structure had been infested before that had started happening. Their way of spreading out and infesting buildings was a powerful tool, and the way that it allowed the various hosts to network with each other while they were connected to the roots was powerful, but it was a tool that had to wait until they had both infested people in power and had ponies in the Nest that were able to direct the new sapling to the right pipelines to its targets.

It was something that she could feel that the Nest took on and would store away, waiting for a different day to do it right.

Dapper-Drone and Mare-Drone were both connected to the Nest, being fed plans and scripts for whoever happened to win, when the notice came through. One of the plugged-in scouts at the edge of town had just seen Cadance and Shining Armor approaching with their entourage. It was time to start taking action.

Dapper-Drone and Mare-Drone disconnected at the same time, standing in unison as the Nest tendrils in the mayor’s office retracted from them. It was time for them to get ready to greet their guests. The last thing that either of them felt was the Nest sending out commands to all those still attached to run and find the other hosts, ensuring that they were all on-script for the royal visit.

Every host had a list of other hosts to check in on. Everyone would find them soon enough.

The plan would go on without a hitch.

Twilight-Drone and Mare-Drone were there to meet the Princess of Love. As Twilight-Drone gave the prepared story of practicing her scrying magic and keeping the Princess busy with a warm greeting, Mare-Drone looked at the rest of the entourage that had been brought along.

Most of them were no great worry. A few Crystal ponies had come along, but most were soldiers that Shining Armor had trained during his days in Canterlot, as far as she could tell. They wouldn’t be a great threat themselves, so long as they didn’t have their leader. She doubted that there would be any great issue with Twilight-Drone handling Shining Armor; the Nest had already put that plan forward.

“So, Mayor Mare.”

Mare-Drone looked up at the alicorn. Cadance smiled down at her, gentle and loving as she always was. Her parasite kept her face knowing and experienced, with a little bit of the usual elder compassion.

“Yes, Princess? How can I serve you?”

“I’d like to hear from you just how bad the situation is.”

“How bad?” Mare-Drone asked, cocking her head to the side. “Goodness, have you been hearing something I haven’t?”

“…Do we need to talk privately, mayor?”

“I – if you feel that there is something that we need to talk about, then I would appreciate some privacy, yes. If there is some state secret –”

“Heh, looks like it might have been Fluttershy getting worked up about nothing, dear,” Shining Armor said, shaking his head. The white-furred, blue-maned stallion chuckled. “I told you that she was probably seeing things.”

“Hmmm, I’m not sure that we can just dismiss it, dear. I want to spend some time around Ponyville, just to be sure.”

“Well, that’s fine with me. More time with my sister, eh?”

Shining Armor dashed past his wife to his sister, and Twilight-Drone emulated all the affection that a little sister could have for her big brother. They danced about in a circle, and even to Mare-Drone, it was almost impossible to tell that there was anything faked or manufactured about their affection.

The Nest was perfect. The Nest knew exactly how to blend in.

“Miss Mare?”

“Yes, yes, dear. Coming.”

When Cadance left her office, Mare-Drone had a better picture of what their visitors were concerned about. It wasn’t as bad as the Nest had feared, but it was still something to keep an eye on.

Cadance had arrived with the thought that the things that Fluttershy had seen were remnants of old Sombra’s power, and she wanted to take a long walk through Ponyville and its surrounds to see to it that the old king had nothing left. She didn’t quite suspect that there were parasites around, but that was why she had brought the Crystal ponies: they were more sensitive to that power than regular ponies were, and it would give her the chance to find it and, if it existed, root it out.

Mare-Drone had been happy to give her access to the woods around Ponyville, but had also asked if she wouldn’t mind giving the results of the election that night as the honored guest. The Princess of Love agreed, and that had been the end of that.

Mare-Drone looked at the closed door once Princess Cadance was gone, already imagining what might happen next. The Nest had a great need to bring the Princess of Love into its embrace; with her power, the spread of the Nest in the Crystal Empire would be all but guaranteed. With Shining Armor also under its control, it would be able to spread through the kingdom’s military, as well; all it would take would be the excuse of ‘military exercises’ to bring other ponies from other lands to the isolated kingdom, and then they would be sent back with parasites and a new sapling ‘gift’ that they could maintain connection with.

And that would only be the start.

What had been the Mayor of Ponyville had become nothing more than a host, a drone in service to the Nest. What had once been a mind dedicated to maintaining the status quo was nothing more than a font of information for how to change it. Everything that she had been devoted to – peace, happiness, the stability of time – was thrown out the window and replaced with what the Nest wanted.

Order.

Predictability.

Hosts.

Always hosts, more and more of them, waiting to be lined up and given a new parasite to carry around to further the ends of the Nest itself. And those ends?

To spread.

To grow.

To take root and hold tight for as long as it lived. What did they want at the end of the line? She didn’t know, and either the Nest itself didn’t know, or it wasn’t telling any of its hosts. And at the end of the day, it didn’t really matter; they were there to accomplish its will, not to question it or understand it. All they had to do was follow through and make it happen.

Mare-Drone looked out her window at Ponyville. On the surface, it still looked so very like the town that she had looked after for most of her life. The trees were there, though expanded compared to her childhood. The library tree still stood over all the other buildings around it. The expansions that the town had gone through since the childhood of Twilight Sparkle and the others were so mild compared to what she remembered of how the town used to be.

But things had changed. And they would change far more before they were done.

Soon enough, the library tree would be the Nest tree, and all would be infested and connected to it.