//------------------------------//
// FoME's To Bodily Grow (RK_Striker_JK_5's "Where No Pony Has Gone Before") 
// Story: Never the Final Word (Vol. 2) 
// by FanOfMostEverything 
//------------------------------//

After a knock on the bedroom door and a few seconds of waiting, Shining leaned his head in. "Honey, are you... feeling alright?"

Cadance seemed perfectly normal if one ignored the charred bits of crystal flooring. She shrugged her wings. "Sure, aside from the occasional mood swing."

Shining glanced outside their chambers, where frantic crystal ponies were assembling a new staircase in the hopes of appeasing their glorious and terrible empress. "Yeah, I noticed." He took a deep breath. "Just... wanted to be sure."

"Thank you, dear." Cadence smiled, then brought a cloudy, white chunk of crystal to her mouth and started nibbling on it.

"Is... is that dilithium?"

Cadence nodded. "Took me a week to figure out what I was craving, and another two to get the dragon-tooth spell working."

Shining did the math. "So... you've had this craving since that tour of the Enterprise?"

"I guess so. Why do you ask?"

With great difficulty, Shining managed to dismiss the mental image of an infant performing matter-antimatter reactions. "No reason. Love you. A lot."