Once upon a time there was a fat pony named Ursula. She was so fat that she died. The end, for her; the beginning, for the maggots and the worms. The biggest maggot was named Ursula, named for the earth and god of the maggots, as they understood it. She was born under the most auspicious signs and was jointly the granddaughter of Urlsbook the Great through one bloodline and the daughter of Mandy the Magnificent on the other. There was no doubt that she would do great things in her lifetime - and thus she grew up conceited and selfish.
Other maggots who believed in her legend served her willingly, bringing her the choicest bits of pony organs and withstanding, with pleasure, her various torments and tortures. Ursula grew fatter, bloated, and unable to even wiggle and squirm herself around. If it weren’t for her servants, she would starve and die, but they still served her because they believed in her predestination. All but one maggot, that is.
Surly Sally, a wimp of a maggot until that day, that one day when the verbal abuse of Ursula became too much, was the one to speak out. “Ursula the great? That will never happen! More like Ursula the lazy, Ursula the ugly, Ursula the leech upon our society! That is how you will be remembered!”
Ursula dismissed the shrimpy maggot, who was quickly dragged away and slaughtered, becoming food for Ursula herself. However, the seed was planted in Ursula’s thoughts.
That night she couldn’t sleep. Sally’s body had given her indigestion. As she lay awake at three in the morning, Ursula began to consider her life. Perhaps Sally was right. What had she done? She knew from a young age that she was special, that she was going to do great things, she thought that it was just going to happen whether she tried or not, that it would be easy, that she would know what to do when the time came. But she was aging and still nothing great had happened, and she was too fat to even roll over so that when she puked up Sally’s remains they lay all over her until some slave would clean her in the morning. At that moment, too obese to even roll over, laying in her own vomit, she decided she would seek her own fortune, to take her legend by the antennae and ride it to her glorious destiny. She started to do sit-ups.
Months of squirming and wriggling ensued as Ursula tried to lose enough weight to become mobile. It was the most difficult thing she had ever done in her entire life, one could say it was the only thing she had ever done in her entire life. She hung up posters of hunky male maggots with bulging muscles and female maggot models in bikinis as motivation. Looking at those fit maggots in suggestive poses every morning kept her going, and one morning she looked in the mirror to find that she had become just as fit and suggestive. It was time to seek her fortune. Dismissing her slaves, she squirmed away from her home for the first time.
After months of agonizing inching along, she reached the edge of Ursula the Pony. The way ahead was frightening, there were no rich smells of food, no smells of her brethren; it was bleak. She forged on ahead, inching through the dust, feeling her body drying up but pushing forward because to go back was just as surely death. Exhausted, emaciated, having all but given up, a drop landed upon her. It was water. It revitalized her instantly, only partly due to being refreshed, mostly due to new hope. Was she near a new source of food?
Another drop fell. And another. And another. Soon Ursula was swept up in a torrent, battered this way and that, unable to discern which way was up or down. All she could do was squirm and hope to land somewhere safe. After what seemed like an eternity, the turbulence subsided. Ursula was in a still pool, but it was too dark to see anything. Suddenly, the turbulence started again.
Her environment began a rhythmic sloshing and swishing, and then suddenly it was bright. She couldn’t see well through the water, but there were two large, brightly colored shapes above her. After a moment she realized she could hear them talking, animatedly, but it was too muffled to understand. Ursula, and her water home, were lifted higher and higher, closer to the bright orange shape, and suddenly all was dark again.
Ursula was briefly warm, and the smells reminded her of home, and she was enheartened. Then a terrible pain seized her body, burning her all over her skin. It was all around her, inescapable, she had to do something! She wriggled and squirmed and suddenly found purchase on a squishy, soft wall of some sort. Summoning up all her hunky strength from months of training, she pushed on through.
The other side was wet and warm, and did not burn. Everywhere smelled like food. This, she thought, was what heaven must be like. This is my destiny, she thought, that I will bring this amazing new land to my people, and usher in a new era of prosperity! Our children will multiply into the thousands, she said to herself in the comforting, moist darkness. But how to bring it to her people? After finishing an initial meal, she set off to explore her new land.
An arduous journey let her survey the entirety of her new home; she experienced various foods and various flavors that she had never experienced before, but still had no clue on how to return to her people with her bounty.
One day, as she was sampling one of her favorite pieces of meat, she felt a slight tingle on her side. No, not just on her side, but in the back of her mind. She shifted her body, and felt more tingles. They were not unpleasant or painful, just... strange. She set herself in to explore this new sensation.
She remained in the same place for weeks, contemplating and experimenting with the new sensations, feeding on the flesh that surrounded her. Inactive, she grew fatter, and larger. More parts of her body felt the tingles as more parts of her body came into contact with the material around her. Then one day, she woke up to colors.
Colors she had never been able to imagine surrounded her, and strange shapes. Confused and disoriented, she wriggled around and the colors grew and faded. Over time, she also realized that there was some sort of... feeling. Like something soft was surrounding her. She felt heavy, that she couldn’t move her body. She could hear a muffled noise. This was bizarre, even stranger than the tingling sensations she had been experimenting with for weeks, unable to come to a conclusion as to what they were, but continuing because she felt that they were important. This was, perhaps, just the next stage. She adjusted her body to make the color sensation the strongest, had breakfast, and settled down to contemplate.
As the days went by, the sensations passed in and out, but were in general growing stronger. One day she noticed that the muffled "noises" were more distinct than usual, she could almost make out... voices? She moved parts of her body, trying to make the voices clearer. She strained to listen...
"Yes, aren't cupcakes just the most amazing food ever? I could eat them for every meal."
"If you eat only cupcakes you will get sick. If you finish your beans and alfalfa you can have one cupcake."
"But if I eat all these beans I won't be hungry for a cupcake!"
"Aren't you always hungry for cupcakes?"
"You're right."
The meaning was not at all clear to her, it was in a language she didn't understand. But by the cadence and inflections it was definitely a language. Perhaps in time she would begin to understand. She ate another meal and rested to contemplate, and to listen.
Weeks later her plight became clear, as the colored shapes coalesced into discernible objects, and this reference helped her to make sense of the language, and the feelings akin to touch turned out to be, in fact, touch. Nothing made sense to her at first as the scale was totally alien to her, but eventually everything became clear. She was touching, hearing, and seeing what a pony would touch, see, and hear. She was psychically connected to a being the size and shape of the entire world she had known growing up. But it did not end there.
As further weeks went by, she started to assume control. It was small things at first, a muscle twitch, a short eye movement, but this was just testing the waters. When her pony host fell asleep, Ursula would get to work. She remembered her original purpose. She was going to do great things, she was going to save her people. She was Ursula the Magnificent. Ursula the Paradigm Changer. Ursula, who had control over a god.
The first step, she thought, was to find her original home. However, that turned out to be difficult. She had nothing to go on but some sensations when she was inching along the ground, and it was difficult to link the small world that she knew to the large world that the pony experienced. Also, the Pony’s eyes did not work that well at night, when she was free to run around Ponyville in search of her original home. Passing as silently as she could through the dark, flitting between shadows in buildings, hoping to never meet another pony, she realized that the best way to find her home was through help; she would have to talk to another pony. If the name Ursula was accurate, she could ask someone where was Ursula. But first she would need to learn how to speak.
It was difficult, the fine control required to make the sounds was bizarre. However, she had mastered understanding the pony language just by listening for a few weeks, so this, she knew, would pose no lasting challenge. She would sit up at night, speaking verses to the darkness as the rest of the world slept. She spoke of many things, some random, some testing concepts and words the ponies had, such as “cupcakes” which were foreign to her in her prior life. But sometimes, in the dark, after hours of speaking, she would become introspective and begin to talk, in the pony language, about her past life, about her own experiences and thoughts, about how she truly did consider it a “past life,” wholly different from her current life; she had metamorphosed. She also practiced speaking in her native language. It was impossible to make the pony’s voice high enough, but it was easy to make the sounds as they were relatively simple compared to pony-language. She could still hear and understand the deep speech as it resonated in the cavity she occupied in the pony’s head, so her brethren should be able to understand it too. It was acceptable. It was time to move forward. That morning, the pony she inhabited, Orange Blossom.
“Hello mother!” Ursula called out as she descended the stairs. “Can we have cupcakes for breakfast?” The deception was perfect, as she had been observing this pony for months.
“Silly, no cupcakes for breakfast. But I do have this orange roll for you! It is sweet like a cupcake, and made from our very own oranges.”
“But me want cupcake!”
“Now Blossom, don’t act up today, you know your aunt is coming by.”
“Me cupcake!”
The other pony gave Ursula a strange look. “Are you feeling all right? You are behaving very oddly. And it is ‘I want a cupcake,’ you know that. Let me get the thermometer.”
Ursula watched the larger pony move to the next room. So the deception was not perfect, but now was her chance. She quickly dashed out into the lawn and down the street, slowing only when she was blocks away. Now, who to ask to find her “Ursula?”
She approached an older lady, “Hello. Where is Ursula?”
“Oh is that your mommy’s name? Are you lost?”
That did not work; she tried the next pony. “Where lives Ursula?”
“Sorry, lass, I do not know any Ursula.”
She ran to the center of town, where dozens of ponies were milling about, buying goods at the market, chatting, going about their business. She stood upon a crate of apples and called out at the top of Orange Blossom’s lung’s, “does anybody know where Ursula lives!?”
Ponies ignored her, or gave her scolding looks. Ursula sat down on her haunches, defeated. She had no more ideas on how to find her home.
“Hey kid.”
Startled, Ursula looked up. A male pony stood before her.
“By Ursula, do you mean that big, purple, kind of recluse pony? With the soft voice?”
Ursula wasn’t sure, but she nodded yes.
“I know she lives down at the end of Merry Lane, the small house with the overgrown yard, down that way.”
Ursula didn’t even acknowledge having heard, but ran down the road.
Ursula found the house as described: overgrown yard, small. She tried the door and it was locked, so she went around back. Forcing her way through the back door, she was greeted with an overwhelming stench. Her pony body did not enjoy it, but to Ursula it smelled safe, happy, like home.
Following the inviting smell, she quickly discovered the sunken purple corpse of Ursula, teeming with life and civilizations. Or should have been. Peering closely, Ursula thought she recognized where she had grown up, her favorite places, her childhood playground, remnants of what was her palace. But it was just remnants. It must have been months since the old loner pony had died and in that time had never been discovered, and it was many weeks since Ursula had set off from her home. It was not rich with life, but dried and decayed, with bones showing. It was not a place for maggots to live anymore.
What is the fate of a maggot when its earth dries up and dies? Do they die? If so, where did the first maggot come from, whence the heroics of Urlsbook and Mandy, and their heroic descendant Ursula? If she was not old enough to die, then her subjects should still be alive too. Unless she was too late. Ursula called out, her voice gutteral and strange through the pony’s mouth but hopefully understandable. “Anyone home? It is Ursula, I have returned triumphant!”
She strained her ear close to the dried mass on the floor, trying to catch the voices of her family and comrades. She called out louder, “It is I, Ursula, your queen! If any loyal subject remains, come to me now!”
Again no response. She called out with her own voice, from within the head of Orange Blossom. She doubted it would carry outside, but she had to try. The pony ears picked it up and Ursula experienced the strange sensation of hearing herself through two sets of ears at the same time, one with a slight delay.
Where could her subjects have gone? Could they all be dead? Fortunately Ursula had inhabited this body long enough that she knew just where to find answers to questions like this. The library!
***
Ursula found the library easily enough, the tall treehouse sticking out above the tops of nearby buildings. She opened the door and entered, greeted by walls of books. This looked promising! She moved purposefully towards the nearest stack but was impeded by something purple and furry.
“Excuse me, can I help you?” It was the purple pony, Twilight Sparkle.
“Yes, I am looking for books about maggots. I want to know about maggots. Where do they come from? Where do they go? How do they live?”
“Woah, slow down there. Maggots, huh? Well its not my usual course of study but I think I have a few books and I am always happy to help a pony as eager as you to learn!”
“Yes. I want eager. I mean I am eager.”
Twilight chuckled to herself as she and Spike gathered a few books and set them in front of the filly as she struggled to be patient. “I’m sorry I don’t have any books directly about maggots, but each of these books should have some pages.”
Ursula quickly tore into the first of the pile, reading as quickly as she could having just learned to read in the past few weeks. After some minutes, as Twilight was passing by to check on her progress, she called out loud, “its pointed anterior end contains one or a pair of mouth hooks. The blunt posterior end has a pair of posterior spiracles...” Ursula closed her eyes in consternation. “But what does it meean?” she whined.
“It means the head is pointy and has hooks around the mouth, and the butt end has air holes.” Twilight offered. “Here, maybe I have a book with simpler language for you.”
But Ursula interrupted, “no, no, this is all wrong. This isn’t right at all! The shape, the color, the habits, they live much longer than this!”
“...ok.” Twilight was kind of freaked out. But handled it. “Maybe the thing you saw was not a maggot. Here, search through these books and see if you can find it.”
Ursula was frustrated at being stumped so quickly. She had picked up the word maggot from hearing Orange Blossom’s conversations and thought that was what she was. It was only a name, but still strange to find that what you thought you were was a misconception.
Twilight laid a thick taxonomy reference in front of Ursula, and taught her how to use it. Ursula searched for hours. It was time consuming because she couldn’t read well, but she was picking it up quickly. At first she had to ask Twilight, what is this word, that word, but soon she was almost independent - and became independent when a frustrated Twilight handed her a dictionary as well.
Eventually Twilight interrupted, “isn’t your mother worried about you? No? Well, aren’t you hungry?” At Ursula’s response, Twilight supplied her with some dinner, glad to meet another pony as studious as herself. In fact, Ursula had not felt any hunger pains as she was surrounded by food and ate as she needed to, but reflected that her pony body needed its own refreshment and shouldn’t be neglected. Unsure of how much to eat, she carefully ate the same amount as she watched Twilight do. After the short break Twilight left her alone again for hours, but eventually interrupted again.
“What are they like, can I help you?”
Ursula wasn’t sure how much to tell this other pony, how much she should give away, but at her wits end after the day she conceded a simple description. “Pale gray, fleshy, smaller than a maggot, round, with stubby, fleshy antennae and many legs. Shuffles around. Can live for months. There is a queen, but she does not birth all of them, she just rules over them.”
“Wow, you sure know a lot for not knowing what they are called.”
“Yes... I’ve seen them.”
“Well I’ve never seen such an insect. Perhaps it is new!” Twilight looked upward considering the possibilities of discovering a new creature, right here in Ponyville, and what that would entail. Such notoriety. Such noted entomologists who would visit! She noticed the clock. “Wow, it is getting late! I don’t care if you stay, but I will call your parents to make sure they know you are here.”
“No!” Ursula yelled a little too loud, then remembered herself. “I will go home.”
On the way home, Ursula reflected on whether or not it would be worth going back to the library tomorrow, or whether some other tactic would be better - such as running through the streets yelling like she did last time. Somehow, she managed to quickly fend off her parents by merely mentioning that she had spent the day with Twilight, and went to bed, unsatisfied and for the first time truly worried for her subjects, and not just for the fame and adoration she had lost.
***
Orange Blossom had left, but Twilight felt sorry for the persevering little pony who had worked all day with no result. She quickly wrote down the short description Orange Blossom had given her, and did her own quick search through the books. Eventually Twilight had been at her task long enough that Spike had wandered by and taken interest in what she was doing.
“What are you looking for, Twilight?”
“It’s just this strange maggot-y insect that Orange Blossom was here looking for, it really isn’t in any of these books!”
Spike thought for a moment. “Well, if it wasn’t in these books about normal creatures and insects, perhaps it is in another book, a book about rare creatures?” He dashed off to fetch a dusty tome about magical beings. “This is the most comprehensive book you have, but there is no index.”
Twilight used her magic to quickly ruffle through the pages. In less than one minute she flipped the book open to a double page ornate illustration, colored with foil, depicting a horde of fat, gray, maggot-like creatures with stubby fleshy antennae and many legs marching across a landscape with burning buildings in the background.
“Spike! You are truly the world’s best assistant!”
Spike beamed.
“But what are these things anyway?” She turned the page from the illustration to the text. “Let’s see... The Woordenworm: fat, gray, stubby antennae, many legs, well we knew that already... civilization, rudimentary tools, terrible infestation, mind control... MIND CONTROL?”
Twilight thought to herself the implications of this. No more noted entomologists seeking new insects. She needed to ask Orange Blossom where she saw these things, so they could be dealt with. But, it was so late, she shouldn’t bother young, growing ponies, they need their rest. It could probably wait for tomorrow morning, when Orange Blossom would be back. Twilight slept.
Author's Note
Citation: The sentence fragments about maggots were taken from Britannica.