With gifts, there invariably come surprises. Hearth's Warming brings many surprises.
Hearth's Warming is a time for ponies to come together and offer gifts to each other while basking in the mutual warmth of their relationships to each other. Sometimes, however, one finds themselves presented with a gift from outside that immediate circle.
Friends of friends. Estranged family members. Work associates. Strangers.
From out of nowhere.
Here, we see a few individuals receiving unexpected gifts, and the side effects which come along with them.
= = = = =
Only a little late for the holiday season.
All parts contain: anthro, NSFW to varying extents, some form of embiggening. Nightmare Moon: intersex, hyper (breasts, cock, balls), BBW, inebriation, cock vore, stealth Onyx and Ivory content. Spike: hyper ("breasts", butt, cock, balls, lips), bimbofication, bustyboy of sorts, puffy chest, extreme corset usage, cartoon anatomy. Fluttershy: hyper/inflation (belly, butt, breasts, head, lips), bimbofication. Chrysalis: hyper (breasts, butt), muscle, questionable invertebrate anatomy, surprise princesses. Rarity: exhibitionism, drastic plot swerves, TF to eldritch abomination, implied apocalypse.
Nightmare Moon’s eyes flicked up promptly from the book that had previously been the object of her attention. The calm of the moment had been summarily broken, alerting her to her surroundings, the crackling and popping of wood in the fireplace, the tromping hoofsteps of a pony approaching. The rotund mare stood in the corner, as if trying to push herself in against the wall, to make herself less noticeable. A difficult task given her immensity.
“I instructed that I was not to be disturbed, Rainbow Dash,” the alicorn grumbled, the words growling in her throat, just loud enough to be audible across the chamber.
“I am…yeah, I know,” the cyan mare replied with a labored sigh, “but there was a…well, you received something.”
That piqued Nightmare Moon’s interest and curiosity, and as she watched Rainbow Dash revealed an object which she had been holding tucked against the side of her gut. It was a package, covered in wrapping paper, rounded and oblong like a partially collapsed cylinder, a shape that at first made her think of a telescope. As she stood, though, and the maid came closer to place the parcel upon the desk that stood between them, the larger end facing down, her evaluation shifted. She picked up the object in one hand, fingers partially grasping around the wider end, and she discerned its contents shift in a distinctly liquid fashion, sloshing about—a bottle, then, in all likelihood. The packaging was brightly colored, clashing with the midnight tones that made up most of the palace (even the fire in the fireplace was ghostly blue), red and white and green, and there was a bit of gold twine wrapped around the top of the bottle, keeping the paper sealed, with a folded piece of cardstock dangling from it. She lifted the card and read on the front of it “Happy Hearth’s Warming.”
“Oh, Hearth’s Warming, that’s right…” Nightmare Moon muttered to herself, a thin, nostalgic smile creasing across her muzzle, “I keep forgetting about it, truly.”
Then she opened the card and read the interior.
Dear Princess Moonbutt,
I sure hope you don’t still have a stick wedged firmly up your ass, but just in case you do, here’s something to help you loosen up. It’s the least I could do for a pony who’s livened up the country so much in such a short time.
Sincerely yours,
An Anonymous Fan
The glib, disrespectful tone soured her somewhat, but the thought of somepony who genuinely admired her efforts was enough to keep her on her ever-volatile good side.
“And we have no knowledge of who sent this…gift?” she asked while continuing to turn the package about in her hands.
“Um…n-no, Mistress,” Rainbow Dash admitted, gaze turned downward, “it was simply found in the reception hall next to your throne. Nopony was seen leaving or entering to place it there. The investigation is currently ongoing.” She spoke that last sentence with a certain wistful longing, as if regretting that she wasn’t involved with said investigation herself.
“Hmm…I see.” Nightmare Moon then proceeded to tear the wrapping paper away, revealing what she had suspected: a dark glass bottle, its murky contents faintly visible within, churning about. “Well, I’d best inspect it for myself then,” she declared while twisting on the stopper.
“Wh-what?” Rainbow Dash sputtered at her in disbelief. “B-b-but, Mistress, that can’t possibly be safe! It could be poisoned! You can’t afford to—!”
“Excuse me, Rainbow Dash,” the alicorn curtly interrupted, and in that moment it seemed as if her full height was that much more than the pegasus before her, looming over her despite her more willowy frame. “Since when does a lowly maid tell me what I can or cannot do?”
She blanched and promptly bowed her head in supplication. “F-forgive me, Mistress, I didn’t…I j-just meant…it could be d-dangerous!”
“Oh I doubt it,” she said with a smirk whilst continuing to examine the bottle, “no self-respecting winemaker would allow their product to be adulterated in such a way. And it would be so antithetical to the spirit of the holiday, too. Perhaps you should stick around, if you’re so worried; then there will be somepony present to take responsibility for the incident and ensure that I do not expire. You can handle that, can’t you?”
Rainbow Dash stared back, baffled. “I…y-yes?”
“Very good.”
Then Nightmare Moon finished twisting the cap off the bottle. She held the opening up to her nostrils and sniffed a deep breath of the sweet aroma that came wafting out. She was a regular connoisseur of the wine industry, but this particular concoction did not immediately line up with any comparisons in her memory. There was something about it, though, that elicited an electric tingle of anticipation in her brain, enticing her further. Her loins twinged with newfound desire.
Since the wine was a gift to her specifically, it stood to reason that there was no need to bother with the formality of a glass, so she simply tilted the whole thing back toward her open mouth and began to drink. The sweet taste washed over her tongue, and she allowed it to fill her maw for several seconds before she stopped long enough to swallow and to exhale a contented, purring breath. “Oh, stars above, that’s the good stuff,” she remarked, syllables extended slightly in satisfied moans, “now this is a real Hearth’s Warming gift. When we figure out where this came from, we should make them do this every year.” She paused in the middle of starting to drink again and added, “Or every month. Every week. Every day? I’m certain they’d love to have the chance to please me further, whoever they may be.”
She was only dimly conscious of the way Rainbow Dash stared at her longingly all the while, desperate, no doubt, to taste some of the wine herself. The poor thing, doubtlessly too terrified to think to just ask, but Nightmare Moon wasn’t just going to give it to her; she had to put forth her own effort. Just because she was now covered in so much luscious flesh, so many swollen curves, so soft and pliant and delectable, didn’t mean that she was no longer capable.
The alicorn was less aware of her penis coming loose from its confines, the dark shaft having slipped out from her thong and stiffened to life as it jutted out before her. When she did stop drinking long enough to look down at herself, she could only stare for several seconds as she attempted to rationalize the sensations of her own flesh, her cock and balls tingling with an excitement that the rest of her had yet to catch up with. The sudden erection wasn’t terribly unusual, though the feeling of swelling which coursed through her was more unusual, something which usually only transpired after ingesting very special drinks. “Oh, fuck,” she mumbled under her breath before taking another sip from the bottle.
And then, before her eyes, her straining dress split apart around the mass of her breasts, leaving the heavy mounds to hang free as they billowed outward, inflating with each intake of breath.
“Oh, ffffuuuuck.” Nightmare Moon cupped a palm against her skull. She genuinely didn’t know if she was starting to feel a buzz—it had been more than a millennium since the last time she drank enough to experience anything of the sort. She was definitely getting aroused, though, she could say that much without a shadow of a doubt. The sweet fire coursed through her, inflaming her senses and her erogenous zones, filling her with the desire to…well, she didn’t know what it was yet but there was certainly a lot of it.
“M-Mistress! Nightmare Moon!” Rainbow Dash’s voice came drifting to her, shouting from what seemed like the other side of a vast chasm even though they were right next to each other. “This can’t be right, that stuff has to be spiked! You need to stop so we can—!”
“Stop?!” She shouted, but it was fortunate for the pegasus that she was too unfocused to truly make a show of anger in the way that she typically would. Nightmare Moon staggered as she turned about and leveled herself in the direction of the shorter and yet broader mare, though that discrepancy in mass was in the process of growing smaller and smaller. The shadowy figure bore down upon Rainbow Dash with four huge black orbs, breasts steadily occluding her torso and balls hanging further and further past her knees, and a dark cock that bridged the gap between them. She didn’t put much care into the fact that this position meant the flared tip was prodding into the other mare’s stomach, but she didn’t particularly care (and, judging by her blush, Rainbow Dash might not have minded much either).
“What makes you think that…that we need to stop?!” Nightmare Moon bellowed, and she gestured to herself by clapping the half-empty wine bottle against her bosom. Then she threw her head back and laughed. Her starry mane rippled ethereally all around her, a swirling, inchoate nebula that was only loosely connected to her skull. “We can keep going for as long as we feel like! We are the ruler of this realm—our word is law! If we desire to drink this nectar every day, then we shall do so!”
Rainbow Dash struggled to come up with an appropriate response. She was having a hard enough time standing as the battering ram shaft continued to push against her, even without its owner taking any steps forward. The formidable length was like a tree trunk, throbbing veins running along its length, testicles now resting firmly upon the floor. The flare pushed up along the slope of the pegasus’s gut and into her breasts, the quivering urethral opening pointing toward her face, drooling with viscous fluid that was already staining her uniform. Her cheeks were flushing a deeper and deeper shade of red with every passing second. “B-but…” she cried plaintively, “you shouldn’t—!”
Nightmare Moon took another long swig of wine and her body ballooned again, another huge surge outward. Breasts and balls swelled into globes that supplanted the rest of her anatomy, except for the shaft which emerged from between the four of them. The tip shot out and pushed directly against Rainbow Dash’s face for a lewd approximation of a kiss. She might have protested louder if this motion hadn’t resulted in her muzzle being wedged directly into the gaping urethra. The heady stink of cum made her squirm, fighting with her internal urges to muster the motor controls to free herself. There was some terrible irony that she had been yearning for penetration, but this wasn’t the kind she imagined.
She pulled, but the opening around her muzzle was sealed shut, not budging an inch.
And then it pulled back on her.
Nightmare Moon kept drinking, not listening to the muffled cries of alarm, not paying heed to the tension that came from her shaft stretching and distending. She was already thoroughly inundated with sensory input from her overgrown frame. She didn’t have much need to think of anything being out of the ordinary when there was the distinct sensation of something passing through her, a mass that was steadily growing greater and greater as Rainbow Dash’s bottom-heavy frame was swallowed up, shoulders and then breasts and then belly and then enormous buttocks and thighs. She squirmed down into the alicorn’s innards, tumbling out and settling into her scrotum, more than doubling its volume as it stretched. It was just more swelling, in the end.
She couldn’t wait to do this again, just as she couldn’t wait for the explosive orgasm that was coming onto her.
= = = = =
Rarity looked down upon the alicorn lying in the bed. She was peaceful. She was serene. She was so unlike how she was during any of the times she was awake. The dark mare looked…almost innocent, the way she smiled, facial features twitching faintly every few seconds. Perhaps she was dreaming, enjoying herself (could she give herself good dreams?).
Less innocent was the penis which jutted up from beneath the covers, and which had just shuddered and vomited up a splash of cum, glistening white gobbets staining and seeping into the sheets.
“Every time,” she muttered to herself exasperatedly, shaking her head, “I hope Hearth’s Warming was worth sleeping in.”
It had already been a wonderful Hearth’s Warming. Spike had been overflowing with the warm fuzzy feeling that came from receiving gifts and being in the presence of friends and loved ones. There wasn’t much more he could have asked for.
Yet, when he retired to his bedroom and found that there was another colorful package resting upon his bed, his excitement surged back to the forefront of his thoughts immediately. The dragon remained young at heart, unable to completely quell the eager delight that came from being presented with a gift. Of course, he was also wise enough now to know better than to take such offerings for granted, and he was prepared to offer his thanks to whomever had given this to him (he assumed it was likely Twilight Sparkle). Despite this, however, he found that there was little to suggest a source; the card attached to the package only read “For Spike” with no indication of a sender. Even the wrapping paper, which didn’t resemble that used by any of the ponies who had come to the gathering earlier, was a generic holiday pattern, red and white and green—it could have come from just about anyone.
He shrugged his shoulders and maintained a calm smile while he worked on tearing through the wrapping with his claws. It was still clearly intended for him, so that meant there wasn’t any shame to be had in accepting it, surely.
That excitement lasted until the moment when he fully unveiled the long, flat shape, revealing a cardboard box, and he muttered automatically, “Oh, more clothes.” It might have been funny, to someone other than him, that a dragon who had spent so many years crushing on a seamstress was so unenthused with the idea of receiving clothing. He was old enough by now to at least appreciate the pure functionality of such a gift, but that didn’t make it any less frustrating whenever he was met with the discovery of yet another shirt instead of some toy.
When he proceeded to dejectedly open the box, however, he discovered that it wasn’t holding just another shirt.
The object that he picked up from the container, pinched between his thumbs and forefingers, steadily unfurling and dangled as it was pulled from its confines, was not even the kind of thing he would wear. It was dark and silky, a gossamer garment so fine that he nearly thought it would tear asunder if he were to so much as tug on it. It was a long expanse of cloth, its shape inscrutable for a few moments, before he brought the two ends together into a loop, with their leathery clasps that neatly met up with each other, holes drilled along their sides, with a length of lace that could bind them together. He could now discern a “top” where there were two cup-like shapes molded into the fabric, and he knew those were supposed to support the chest. The breasts.
It was a corset.
Someone had given him a corset.
He could feel the indignant embarrassment within him—the urge to exclaim “Yuck!” and react in the way boys were expected to when presented with feminine objects. He could have imagined this exact outcome if he had opened this gift during the festivities, to put up a strong front in the presence of whatever jeering comments and laughter there might have been on the sidelines—from Rainbow Dash or Pinkie Pie, most likely. They had probably been the ones to get this for him, actually. Them or Discord.
But in the privacy of his bedroom, Spike found that he lacked the impetus to act upon that base desire. Instead, all he could do was stare at the black shape and ponder. Someone had gotten this for him. It was almost certainly a prank, but if it wasn’t…that meant someone had genuinely thought he would enjoy it.
Did he?
He placed the corset over his front, holding it flat against his torso.
Only a vague impression, though; he would have to get the real experience.
Spike took off his shirt and moved to stand in front of a mirror in the corner of the room. He couldn’t remember the last time he had actively sought out his reflection in a manner like this. He usually tried not to think about how his physique tended to oscillate between svelte and pudgy depending on how poor his dieting had been recently. Unsurprisingly, the holiday excess had pushed him a little more toward the soft side as of late. He didn’t need to think about any of that right now, though.
Hesitantly, he wrapped the corset around himself. It was, as expected, a rather tight fit, although he couldn’t exactly tie it shut anyway, lacking the dexterity or coordination necessary; he would have needed someone else to assist him, and he wasn’t exactly ready to bring another pony into this delicate situation just yet. All he could do was hold the ends of the garment together behind his back, squeezing. It constricted around his stomach, though there was a fair bit of leeway at the top, owing to his lack of breasts or even pronounced pectorals. Around the other side, the upper hem of the silk nestled just underneath where his wings sprouted from his back. There was a jarring contrast between it and the plain pants which he wore below it. There was something inherently suggestive about it, the way it pinched in his middle and exaggerated the shape of his chest and hips, but he knew that he wouldn’t be able to gauge the exact effect without properly tying it up. All he could do was imagine it, the curves along his sides, the shapeliness, molded into shape.
The dragon didn’t stop to consider when he had let go, busying his hands with tracing along his sides, leaving the corset to go loose. Or, at least, it should have, but he failed to take notice of when the lace, like a serpent, threaded through the holes and tied itself in place, securing the two sides together, and the pressure abruptly amplified.
“Ah!” He yelped, and the sound was shrill and high-pitched as the air was forced out of him. He thought of calling out for Twilight Sparkle, for anyone, but the sound died in his throat as a tiny wheeze. His hands reached back around to find the lace loops which were keeping the corset secure, and he found them completely cinched up, too tight to budge an inch.
There were immediately questions rising up in his brain, bubbling to the surface one by one.
And promptly, without any further thought, he announced, “Oh, it must be a self-tying corset! That’s convenient.”
He chortled to himself while mentally throwing out the question of “How did this happen?” which had unconsciously been bundled up with the unanswered question “What do I do about this?” It was unimportant when he was now faced with the possibility of the true shape that he had desired.
Spike looked back toward his reflection and found that the effect was already clearly pronounced. The corset squeezed around his midsection, simultaneously reducing the prominence of his developing paunch and emphasizing the shape of his chest and hips, flaring outward above and below. He held his arms up behind his head, arching his back and stretching out his wings, and he smiled and batted his eyelashes. He didn’t think about why he now had shades of emerald painted around his eyes and lips, glittering faintly like gemstones in the light—it just looked right, therefore there was no reason to complain about it.
“Wow, this really does make me look a lot sexier,” he mused aloud, the pitch of his voice just a tad higher as the corset squeezed him. With a slow, steady rhythm, he wiggled his hips from one side to the other, and he stared into the mirror, ogling himself. It was hypnotic, losing himself in the motions.
And the corset pinched yet tighter, and his hips pushed further outward, their breadth surpassing his shoulders, accompanied by creaking and popping as the seams on his pants began to tear open. In addition to the lavender scales making themselves visible as they ripped through the fabric along the sides, the crotch of the pants tented sharply outward. He made a low cry of delight, as if the squeezing had forced it out of his lungs.
“Gosh, this is so great,” he said, licking at his lips—the mounds much plumper than they had been moments ago, forming a natural pout by default. He kissed and winked at his reflection while placing a hand upon his chest, which now filled the cups of the corset far more adequately, a rounded swell that wasn’t quite breasts but far too pliant to be muscle. “How much more can it go?”
As if in direct response, the corset constricted once more, the lace yanking itself as hard as it could.
Spike made another shrill cry, a sharp coo of delight, as he practically jumped out of his skin. Amid the cacophony of tearing cloth as his pants and underwear gave up entirely, there was a loud bwoomph sound, as of a balloon inflating. His chest exploded outward, a bulbous uniform mass of green scales, wobbling faintly as it settled within the confines of the corset, pushed upward to be nearly level with his chin. His hips jutted out to the sides in broad shelves, and with his pants obliterated the shape of his legs was all the clearer, pert buttocks and thigh thighs, scales smooth and glossy. There was no hiding his arousal anymore, the length of his cock jutting from his loins, deep amethyst shaft lined with thin barbs, testicles dangling heavily between his legs. His waist, by sharp contrast, was almost nonexistent, squeezed so much by the corset that the span between the chest and hips was nearly as thin as his biceps, the question of where the space for organs had gone left up to someone who had more concern for such matters.
The dragon laughed and crooned and moaned all at once. He seemed to have difficulty making any sound that wasn’t tinged with a labored tone of passion. “Oh my…now this is really perfect,” he muttered to himself, words now turned muffled and indistinct as his bulbous lips wobbled at each other with every syllable. He was unable to resist the urge to grope at himself, his supple chest and throbbing groin. He turned about and looked back over his shoulder so that he could shake his rotund ass at the mirror, tail swaying about all the while. “Haha, yeah, yeah, just want I wanted for Hearth’s Warming!” he declared with all the conviction and longing as if it were really true.
“Ohhh, but…” In looking down at himself (past his voluminous chest), he noticed the tattered remains of cloth which littered the floor around his feet. “Now I’m going to need some new clothes!” He giggled to himself as he imagined what kinds of ensembles he could go strutting about in. “I should totally go check on Rarity and ask if she can whip up anything for me.” He giggled again at the thought of what else they’d be able to get up to.
Fluttershy was never going to say that she didn’t like Hearth’s Warming. The spirit of the holiday was one that spoke to her deeply. It was in her nature to be kind to others, so of course she continued to act in much the same way that she did every other day of the year.
The celebratory get-togethers were another matter entirely, though. The pegasus certainly enjoyed being in the presence of those closest to her, but she simply didn’t have the social energy to keep up with those events. It was never a surprise when she was the first one to retire for the night, to be exhausted, not necessarily because she was tired, but certainly no longer able to keep up with the flow of the party.
So before long she would find herself back home, shutting the door and blocking out the cold and the snow. “Brr,” she murmured to herself, audibly shivering, keeping her bulky winter clothes on and clutching her arms around herself. She shook herself and a layer of snow and frost came off of her, clinging to her wings and mane and tail. Sometimes, she had to wonder if Rainbow Dash was purposefully trying to outdo herself on the winter every year. At the moment, though, there was only one thought racing through her head, repeating on loop over and over again. “Gotta get warm, gotta get warm, gotta get warm…”
The first step was to get a fire going in the fireplace—a rare circumstance in which Fluttershy would deign to handle such a dangerous implement, daintily holding a match away from herself after she had lit it and then tossing it toward the wood. That wasn’t enough, though, and she certainly wasn’t going to forgo her bastion of warm clothes until the heat had sufficiently filled the cottage. In the meantime, while the logs began to crackle and pop, she wandered into the kitchen and started another fire with the stove, setting up a pot to boil. There was already a smile on her face as she gathered the materials to make hot cocoa; it was going to help warm her up, but it was also simply going to be delicious.
And it was in the midst of these preparations that a realization occurred to her: there was a package resting upon the counter. A little box, wrapped in holiday colors, red and white and green, right next to the shakers full of powdered sugar and cinnamon. She found herself puzzled that she hadn’t taken notice of it sooner and simultaneously understanding that it made perfect sense not to observe the presence of something so slight. She was certainly well-accustomed to going unnoticed herself.
The cooking process and the hunger to get warmer occupied the vast part of Fluttershy’s thoughts, but she couldn’t stop herself from fussing with the box. She picked it up intermittently between handling ingredients—it was about the perfect size to fit within her hand. While waiting for the chocolate to melt in the pot, she checked the tag which was taped to the parcel, but all that was written on it was “For Fluttershy.” She pondered who could have left it for her while she stirred the soupy mixture. Discord seemed like the only reasonable possibility, but she was also certain that he would have been more overt about anything he gave to her.
It was fortunate that the cocoa didn’t take long to finish cooking, as the pegasus couldn’t have withheld her curiosity any longer. She tore at the wrapping paper ravenously, revealing the container inside, plain and unassuming, and when she opened that she discovered something…unusual. It lay in the center of the box, a spiral shape coiled around itself, dark and thin and long. She picked it up in one hand and let it unfurl, a leathery length that terminated on one end with a clasp shaped like a butterfly—designed similarly to those making up her cutie mark. It looked akin to a belt, but it was far too small for even the skinniest of ponies to wear, surely.
And then Fluttershy laughed softly to herself. “Oh, I get it.” She promptly wrapped the choker around her neck and fastened it in place. She couldn’t see it anymore, but she could clearly feel it, resting gently against her throat, a hint of the metal points of the butterfly clasp prodding into flesh. It tickled her, not in a purely physical way, amusing her with the thrill of exoticism. She wasn’t exactly a pony known for making ”statements” with her outward appearance, unlike some of her showier friends. She didn’t know exactly what wearing a choker would say about her, hugging tightly around her neck, but she thought it was just the right mix of distinctive and innocuous for her.
It was growing mercifully warmer in the cottage, enough that she felt comfortable shedding her jacket, leaving only the sweater that had been underneath. She had a little more pep in her step, striding confidently—she might have allowed herself to be still more energetic if she weren’t balancing a mug of hot chocolate in one hand—as she walked back through the halls to settle in the living room, reclining upon the couch. The toasty warmth of the atmosphere was already beginning to suffuse her, but she felt it in earnest when she took a sip from the cup, the sweet molten nectar lapping over her tongue and coating the inside of her throat. A contented sigh escaped her as she settled in, listening to the ambient noises both inside and outside the building, and the heat built within her.
Oh, it was so hot already. She was sweltering. It was like a summer day all of a sudden.
Fluttershy sat down the mug just for a moment so she could pull her sweater up over her head and fling it away. Being freed of the cloying garment’s grasp immediately diminished the pressure which she felt upon herself. It also let her frame be more readily on display, bosom pushing against the fabric of her blouse. The lower hem of the wrinkled shirt was riding up over her stomach. Then she took another swig from the mug, and as the heat swelled within so too did her midsection, bulging outward like a balloon filling with hot air—quite possibly exactly that, even. Her burgeoning gut filled her lap, spilling beyond its bounds, a dollop of butter-yellow flesh, continuing to rise with the building heat even after she stopped drinking.
“Ooh…wow…” She looked down into the cup, still swirling with molten brown fluid. Her swollen torso, which resembled that of a mare in her third trimester, filled the background. She chuckled to herself. “It’s so tasty…and so warm…!”
This time she stood so that she could not only remove her top but also her pants, putting them aside haphazardly. Even wearing naught but her pink undergarments, the cold didn’t even remotely register to her at this point. Her belly hung heavily in front of her, rolling over her waistline, sides bulging and convex, surfaces smooth and taut. She took another long draught of the hot chocolate, the heat burning in her mouth before she swallowed, yet that only served to make it all the more enjoyable. Her midsection swelled yet further, the rate of its expansion increasing dramatically, spreading noticeably with every passing second.
Fluttershy cooed gently as she caressed her stomach, relishing in the intense warmth which she felt within it, seeping out at her touch as if wringing water from a sponge. The way the skin squished and compressed didn’t raise a question in her mind even for a moment. All she needed to know was that touching herself like this made her feel warmer.
So she squeezed harder, pushing in against her gut with both hands. Despite the haze over her mind, she did notice when the warmth shifted, forced inward and outward. Her chest bulged, straining at the cups and straps of her bra, and her thighs and buttocks swelled as well, momentarily giving her a wedgie as her underwear stretched. A gasp of surprise escaped her, heart fluttering. She felt a strong pressure within her neck, the heat attempting to rise, but it couldn’t escape.
The pegasus laughed again, overtaken by the sensations of heat seeping through her, warping her. She let go, and the hot air settled within her middle once more, wobbling faintly in time with her laughter. She wasn’t entirely conscious of herself anymore, acting entirely on impulse, driven by the heat which filled her. Again she squeezed on her belly, this time starting from the bottom and working her way up, forcing the air upward. As her midsection shrank, her chest bloomed, bosom expanding to make up for the difference in bulk. Her bra strained and then finally snapped apart, leaving her breasts to flop about freely, buoyantly, up until the moment that she had finished flattening out her stomach and began squeezing against them next. She kept giggling, unable to resist the sensations which had overtaken her, failing to consider what she was doing as she continued to squeeze upward. That tension rose in her throat once more, the surge of hot air held fast, unable to get past the tight choker. Still, she kept squeezing, kept pushing, the warmth growing ever more intense.
And then, with one final press, she managed to pull in her breasts all at once, past the choker.
If asked, she wouldn’t have been able to say what else she had expected to happen.
Fluttershy’s perception of the world around her suddenly became muddled. There was a rush of air in her ears, and then everything sounded muffled, as if underwater. Her balance shifted, turned unsteady, as all at once there was a whole lot more mass atop her shoulders, yet its weight was negligible. Her perspective had changed, as she saw that the ceiling was closer to her, but she had difficulty looking down or in front of herself, field of view obstructed by bulbous slopes extending to the sides, with a pinkish wall in the front. That was all in addition to the swooping curtain of her mane which hung over the side of her face as always.
“What?” she asked aloud, although the sound came out more like “Mbfwhapht?” The pink mounds wobbled at the same time. She reached up to herself and felt the contour of her cheeks, squishing inward at her touch. They extended too far and too round for her to reach the upper portion of her skull. She traced around the front to her muzzle and the swollen balloons which could only be her lips, pert and bulbous, mashing together.
A low groan escaped her as she caressed her overinflated head. She pressed on her cheeks, but there was no effect this time, the warmth remaining in place. It might have been because of her sapping strength, or it could have been because, as she would have been aware in more lucid circumstances, heat naturally rose higher, meaning it was more predisposed to remain at her peak. Her brain felt like it was swaddled in blanket upon blanket—warm and comfortable, but also dulled, lethargic. Her head was so full and warm, and it was both confusing and delightful.
But she felt that the cold was seeping in once more. All of the heat had gone to her head, leaving nothing for her body. That just wouldn’t do. She picked up the mug again—blindly reaching for it, as she couldn’t see the end table she’d set it on—and extended her arm far out so she could mash it between her bloated lips for another sip. All that only to come to the discovery that it was empty.
“Oh no,” she mumbled blearily, glum and defeated, nearly appearing to deflate just for a moment before perking up in a way that would make Pinkie Pie proud. “Good thing there’s more in the kitchen!”
Fluttershy continued to laugh blearily through her haze of glee as she walked, unsteady, shaking like a bobblehead toy. She would have about a dozen paces to work out the best way to manage her gait before she had to then squeeze her cranium through the doorway to the kitchen.
Changelings did not know what Hearth’s Warming was, though to their credit they were willing to put their best hoof forward in attempting to understand it, in their own misguided way.
Queen Chrysalis, however, especially did not know what Hearth’s Warming was, and there was not a single fiber of her chitinous shell that had any desire to learn about it.
Not that she was especially aware of the holiday’s existence. Or any day’s existence, really. She thought she had been keeping track of the days gone by, so that at the moment of her escape she would be able to hiss the exact length of time she had been imprisoned into her captor’s ear before twisting their neck. In reality, she had been too busy fuming to think much about that. The truth was that she scarcely even remembered what series of events had led her to being locked in this cell in the first place.
So the only way that she had any reason to know that this day was going to be any different from the others in this interminable span happened to be when the guard came by to deliver her meal.
“Hey.” The gruff voice called out to her, lying on the hard rock floor (she staunchly refused to rely upon the comfort of the cot which was afforded to her).
She groaned angrily and twisted about, grimacing up at him. He stared at her with undeniable sternness, but the softness in his eyes disgusted her. It was in most of them now: pity. They pitied her, the enemy. The very idea was anathema to her. Instinctively, her hate flared within her, but her crooked horn only throbbed dully; the iron ring which encircled the base prevented her from casting magic.
The guard—another plain stallion wearing golden armor, nearly indiscernible from any other—only continued to regard her with that detestable gaze. “Here’s your usual meal,” he said, and through a slot in the bars he levitated a small object, a lumpy marble-like shape, green on the outside but radiating a pinkish light from within. It was a changeling love-sac, a portable container full of love which changelings could use to feed when they lacked a proper source—that is to say, a victim to drain dry. She had assumed that some changelings—traitorous ones—must have told the ponies how to make them in order to feed her. Her only consolation in gnashing them between her teeth was imagining that she was devouring the gonads of these damnable guards. For the time being, though, she would content herself merely with batting it around on the floor.
“And, uh, something else.” Chrysalis looked up again and saw another object floating through the slot. It was a plate, and perched upon it was a…some food she didn’t immediately recognize. A muffin? No, a cupcake. Another infernal pony confection. The dough looked reddish, almost as if tinged with blood (devil’s food, she wanted to say, something that only stuck in her memory because of how appealingly sinister it sounded), and the frosting was white, vanilla, with little green sprinkles. She snarled at it, wanted to toss it aside, smash it beneath her foot, but she scarcely had the energy for that. She could only stare at it venomously while the guard’s magical aura deposited it upon the floor.
“Look, uh…” The guardspony glanced aside whilst rubbing at the back of his head. This must be something outside his typical protocol. “The Princess said…she instructed us to give you some space today. So we’re not going to be posting anyone here in the dungeon for the rest of the day. If you need something, though, just call and somepony will come by.”
Chrysalis only made a defiant scoff in response.
He sighed. “Yeah. Right.” Then he turned away, but before he left he added, “Happy Hearth’s Warming.”
“Hearth’s Warming?” the dark equine repeated, muttering under her breath, once he was out of earshot. She wasn’t sure she recalled what that was from her time spent among the populace of Equestria. Some terrible pony holiday, she could only imagine. She sneered to herself whilst staring at the damnable cupcake. She rolled into a sitting posture, grunting at the aches of her body, and she picked it up from the plate, rolling it about in her claws. It was still so tempting to destroy it. At a time like this, however, though she was loath to admit it, she needed whatever precious moment she could get, anything to latch onto in the midst of this monotony.
So she, being perfectly mindful of pony customs, shoved the whole thing in her mouth. Inelegant garbled noises escaped her while she chewed, gnashing the cupcake into paste between her teeth. There was a sweet taste on her tongue, but changelings were largely numb to the idea of taste and so it hardly fazed her. All she could think was eventually to swallow, and in the process she nearly choked as the cloying mass passed down her esophagus. “Why do ponies even like these—”
But then Chrysalis doubled over, clutching at her stomach. She felt that something was happening within her. She knew that changeling digestive tracts weren’t as accustomed to normal food, but this had to be more than that, churning and rumbling. Had those ponies poisoned her? The idea almost made her want to laugh, to think they finally had the guts to do something so underhanded, to behave in the way a changeling would.
And then she felt her body buckling. All at once, her skin, her shell, felt too tight around her. She knew this sensation, but the last time she’d had to molt was many, many years ago. The intensity of it also made it feel like she had sorely needed to molt in all that time as well. She was crackling and crumbling all around. She looked at one of her arms, and she observed that the outer layer wasn’t merely peeling away, it was being torn apart as the limb beneath bulged and swelled beyond its confines. Her chest grew taut, restricting her ability to breathe, and she looked down at herself just as her bosom billowed outward, obliterating both her shed exoskeleton and the rags she had been wearing. The changeling’s yowls of confused dismay steadily morphed into primal growls, hungering and angry, while her frame bulged and distended all around.
When Chrysalis finally moved to stand, her claws left imprints in the stone beneath her. She rose to her full height, which had been tall to begin with, but now her horn scraped against the ceiling. The cell suddenly seemed incredibly claustrophobic in general, hardly enough room for her to move, her immense, hulking frame occupying most of its volume. She had an urge to reach out and flex her arms, to feel the strength which lurked within them, but there was scarcely any room for that. Even her wings, buzzing impatiently behind her, were cramped.
“Finally…finally…!” Chrysalis bellowed with laughter. “I can finally—!” Only to then, upon reaching up to her forehead to yank off the inhibitor ring around her horn, be met with a numbing shock. “Ugh, fine, still no magic,” she grumbled, then pulling away the loose scraps of skin which were still hanging from her horn, mixing in with the stringy blue mess of her mane. “This should still be more than adequate for my purposes.”
She leaned over and placed her hands upon the bars of the cell, and with a casual flexing of her musculature the metal lattice was rent and thrown aside, the stone frame crumbling as she brusquely shouldered through. There was a little more room in the hall outside, giving her more freedom to relish in her newfound enormity. It wasn’t exactly easy to get a full sense of herself without the benefit of a mirror, but it was still plain to see how much of her there was. The dark flesh spread out from her, heaving breasts which spilled out from her chest, thick arms down beyond the shoulders, bulging with contours of muscle. It was harder to see below the canopy of cleavage, but she could still feel the way her legs tensed and flexed, thighs grinding together, and there was just a hint of wobble in her buttocks.
“Ha…now I think I can understand how Tirek felt,” she remarked with a toothy grin while curling her fingers and elbow and shoulder, watching the way the sleek black surface distended. “I just need to find someone to take this damned inhibitor off and then I can be completely unstoppable! But until then…I can still wreak as much havoc as I feel like!”
The changeling queen cackled with mad laughter as she stomped forward, out through the halls of the dungeon. True to the guard’s word, there was nopony present, all of them having left to attend to whatever task had been deemed so important that they didn’t need to be here, watching over one of the most dangerous criminals in the country’s history. It wasn’t exactly like they were needed for anything else—Chrysalis had been the first prisoner in the palace in quite a while; the ponies were too soft to deal with dissidents in a more punitive manner.
Chrysalis didn’t exactly know where she was going, taking several minutes to remember the way out of the dungeon complex, but she didn’t mind much at first as there was plenty of destruction for her to make along the way. She raked her claws along the walls, gouging stone and metal alike. She ripped doors off their hinges and threw them aside like they were paper weights. She found the empty guard station and made a mess of it, overturning everything inside. Everywhere she went, she left a trail of prints etched into the floor, spiderwebs of cracks stretching out erratically. Her laughter echoed throughout the empty halls.
Eventually, inevitably, though, she made her way to the exit, ascending the stairs to a large door. She was prepared to burst her way out into the palace proper and make her presence known with all the bombast she could muster. The gate fell before her just as easily as any other, two halves wrested from their hinges and falling aside. She bellowed victoriously.
And then she emerged and found herself surrounded by a host of royal guards. She might have hoped to catch some ponies unawares so she could easily swat them aside, but they were all brandishing swords and spears and mana-lit horns, as if they had been waiting for her. It wasn’t just a meager handful of them either—they filled the room, seemingly the entirety of the guard packed into one space.
But even that wasn’t the most pertinent detail that she observed.
“Well, would you look at that, Sister,” Celestia announced with a sly smirk spread across her muzzle, “it’s the star of the show.”
“Took her long enough,” Luna replied with a huff, “I was just beginning to think she would not take the invitation.”
The two alicorns stood across from Chrysalis, and they were enormous. It was still not exactly easy to gauge her own size, but she had a suspicion that she was looking at two mirror images of herself. The princesses were outrageously muscular, of a scale that would put bodybuilders to shame, only outdone by their own curvaceousness, huge breasts which defied the spans of their arms and broad hips and thighs. The most distinct difference was that, while Chrysalis had rendered herself nude, they wore matching spandex singlets. The uniforms weren’t colors suited to their royal palettes, rather the same mix of red and white and green, an oddly familiar combination.
“What…what is this?” Chrysalis demanded, fighting with herself to maintain her sense of importance.
“You know, Chrysalis, I’m just going to get straight to the point,” Celestia admitted, still bearing that enigmatic, infuriating smile, “we were bored and decided we wanted something to entertain ourselves with, so why not have a wrestling match with our resident criminal mastermind? We were sure that our guardsponies would appreciate it as well.”
There were a few tentative cheers from the crowd.
“And we thought that you, at least, would appreciate a good show of strength,” Luna added, glaring venomously across the clearing at the changeling, her expression far stonier. “Be thankful that we decided to make it an even playing field for you.”
“But please, don’t think too much of our little spectacle,” Celestia then said, and she extended her arms and open palms, “should you be victorious, you shall be free to go.”
Luna didn’t look quite as pleased by those words but made no interjection.
Chrysalis stared back at them, disbelieving. Her hate boiled within her—hate for being tricked, hate for having the rug pulled out from under her, hate for having her sense of power taken from her. But, more than anything else, Chrysalis thrived on hate.
“Fine!” she spat, gritting her teeth and clenching her fists, “I’ll take both of you on! I’ll take on all of Canterlot if I have to!”
“I have been waiting for this,” Luna growled, crossing her arms over her bosom and cracking her knuckles.
“This shall be a Hearth’s Warming truly worth remembering,” Celestia mused, her grin widening, wings spreading out grandly behind her.
The door to the boutique flung open and Rarity came strolling inside. “Ah, another wonderful Hearth’s Warming, come and gone,” she remarked with wistful delight as she shed the red coat she had been wearing. She toted along a big bag which carried the presents she had received from her friends, although it had been much fuller at the start of the holiday when she went into town with her bevy of gifts, ready to hand them out to all manner of acquaintances. Another pony might have felt dejected by the knowledge that they had given up so much more than they had been given, but to Rarity that was just the nature of the holiday, to offer as much as she could. The heartfelt thanks and smiles which she got in turn were more than enough for her, to keep her heart warm. She pressed her palm over her chest, the plush softness of her bosom, and felt the steady beat of her heart. Her fingers tapped against the sapphire necklace which hung just over her sternum.
“Now how shall we occupy the remainder of our time for this evening?” she mused aloud, tapping at her chin. She set down the bag of presents by the door; she could have occupied herself with investigating them further—the fashion catalog Twilight Sparkle had given her had been an enticing acquisition—but she felt that that wasn’t especially vital when it could be done at any time. She turned and looked back out through the windows at the wintry landscape outside, snow littering the streets and yards of Ponyville, a scant few ponies still enjoying themselves in the final minutes before dusk fully settled over the land. It was tempting to take a little stroll herself, but it was just so much work to go out and about while bundled up in bulky clothes, the sort which even she could only do so much to make fancy. She turned back toward the interior of the building, pondering if there were any fashion designs lurking within her mind which she could churn out some work on.
And then she stopped in place. There was something sitting upon the boutique’s front desk, something which she was certain had not been there before she left. It was a small boxy shape that could only possibly be a present, wrapped in red and white and green. There was a tag on it, and she saw that the only words written on it were “For Rarity.” “Ooh…a secret gift? From an admirer perhaps?” she murmured, lips curling into a smile. For the time being, she didn’t consider the question of how it had ended up inside the building while it should have been locked up. She picked up the package, which fit neatly in her palm, and in doing so discovered that it was remarkably lightweight, with no sounds produced by it when it shifted about in her grasp. “Hmm, strange,” she commented, though that wasn’t enough to discourage her from peeling apart the ribbon and wrapping paper and opening up the box which was contained inside.
There was nothing inside.
The box was empty.
Rarity’s smile faded, her brow furrowing. She turned the box around, peered at every surface and corner, reread the tag, even doublechecked the wrapping paper. All her searching turned up nothing of note. The gift truly was nothing.
Once again, another pony may have found this incredibly disheartening. To receive a surprise gift only to discover that it actually wasn’t anything at all didn’t offer much in positivity. At best, it was an accident, and the giver had neglected to include whatever they meant to offer, which surely spoke to some incredible thoughtlessness on their part. At worst, it would have to be some form of cruel prank.
But Rarity was not like most ponies. Rarity was an artist. She understood that there were sometimes deeper meanings than merely that which was visible on the surface.
“A gift…of nothing,” she whispered to herself, deep in thought. She absentmindedly tapped at the necklace resting on her chest.
And then, after a few moments of this, her eyes lit up all at once, and she gasped. “Oh, of course!” she cried, slapping a palm against her head as if the answer should have been obvious all along. “I don’t need anything else! I don’t need any more gifts!” She looked down at herself, and she traced her hands over her chest and stomach and thighs. “I have everything that I need right here. And I should let everypony know that.”
She brusquely removed her blouse.
Shortly thereafter, Rarity was strolling naked through the streets of Ponyville.
The unicorn mare moved with the utmost purpose and not the slightest hint of discomfort—neither for the scene which she was creating nor for the cold which suffused the air all around her. Her gait was proud and refined, that of a model strutting down a runway, one leg in front of the other in a steady rhythm, hips and thighs swaying from one side to the other, corkscrew tail swishing over her plump rear. The curls of her mane bobbed, unrestrained, with every step, as did her pert, round breasts, purple areoles plainly visible through the fine layer of alabaster fur. Her necklace, the only remaining article on her, dangled tantalizingly just above her cleavage.
Having devoted her whole life to fashion, Rarity knew that there were certain tenets worth adhering to, and one of them was the simple notion that, sometimes, less was more. She didn’t know how it had taken her this long to consider the value of nothing. It was plain, perhaps, even mundane, the exact opposite of what she typically strove for, but it meant making a statement of herself in her purest form, and she certainly believed that she had gone to great lengths to make herself the pinnacle of beauty, to craft a form that was appealing to those around her.
She assumed that that was the kind of response she was getting from the ponies whom she passed by. There was not a single pony who did not stare at her, in awe, at least briefly. Some quickly proceeded to turn away (especially parents who had to shepherd their bewildered foals away). Others were more vocally pleased by this demonstration—she heard a few catcalls as she turned one corner. More than a few, though, simply continued to stare, dumbfounded.
Rarity smiled as she felt that warmth welling in her chest again in spite of the winter chill. She was more than willing to offer herself up to her friends and neighbors, even if only a few truly appreciated the gift, no matter what the cost may be.
“Rarity?!”
She turned when she heard the familiar southern twang of the voice calling to her, and she saw another group of awestruck ponies, but these were some who held particular importance to her. “Oh, good evening, girls!” she called out gaily, waving one hand, “What brings you here?”
“Rarity, what the hay’re you doin’ paradin’ yourself about in your birthday suit?! In the middle o’ winter no less!” Applejack interjected sternly. The farmhand was decidedly not one of those ponies petrified into stillness, coming striding across the street to face her directly. Pinkie Pie and Rainbow Dash followed behind her—the latter very clearly staring straight at the unicorn’s chest, and the former bouncing with every step, as carefree as ever. All three, of course, were far more sensibly clothed for the weather.
Rarity huffed and rolled her eyes; she knew that Applejack, the most blunt and bullheaded of all ponies, wasn’t going to just understand something like this so easily. “It’s a statement, darling,” she replied coolly, placing her hands on her hips. “I am presenting myself to the world so that all may bask in my beauty.”
“The only ‘statement’ you’re gonna be makin’ when you get arrested for this is ‘public indecency!’” Applejack glanced furtively about and seemed to try to position herself in such a way as to shield Rarity from bystanders’ view, but it was a futile effort. It was especially difficult given that Rarity actively shifted herself so that she continued to be on display, her breasts and buttocks pointing in opposite directions so that they couldn’t both be fully concealed.
“Maybe she’ll have to take an insanity plea,” Rainbow Dash muttered, “you’ve gotta be crazy to not go out bundled up in this weather.”
“Aw, come on, don’t be that way,” Pinkie Pie said, clapping the pegasus on the shoulder, smiling, “If Rarity decides that she wants to be a nudist then that’s up to her. I think it’s real brave of her to do this when it’s so cold out! Maybe she can use her nipples to cut some gems!”
“Pinkie!” Applejack snapped back over her shoulder.
“D’you think I should go tell the others about this so they can have a chance to see for themselves before Rarity stops being nuts?” Rainbow Dash asked in a low whisper.
“Consarnit, we need ponies to not see her!”
But while Applejack was distracted with her bickering, Rarity shirked away from them. “Hmm…I suppose this isn’t really enough, is it?” she muttered under her breath.
“Rarity…!” Applejack turned back to her, exasperated. She seemed for a moment to falter, staring downward, before settling on a proper gaze. “We’re just tryin’ to look out for you here. Now let’s get you inside somewhere so you can—”
“I thought I wouldn’t need to resort to this,” Rarity continued, heedless of the other mare following her. She delicately caressed her necklace. “But it is necessary, isn’t it? I must bare everything.”
“Rares, c’mon, you can’t keep—”
But when Applejack reached for Rarity, she lurched out of the way. With unnatural, contorting movements, twisting around and over herself, she clambered up a nearby streetlamp until she was perched at the top, straddling the metal between her thighs. She looked down at them, the ponies she had known, the world she had known, and she breathed a heavy sigh and slowly put on a smile. “I know it may seem strange to you,” she called to them, “but I promise that I only want you to experience my true beauty.”
And then she undid the clasp on the golden chain and removed the necklace which she had worn for as long as anypony had known her.
Like a blooming flower, Rarity’s body unfurled and billowed outward, rising toward the heavens and spreading outward, a colossal mass of shimmering white, a canopy of appendages and extremities spreading over the town.
“Sweet mother of…” Applejack gasped breathlessly while staggering backward.
Rainbow Dash was screaming.
“Ohhh, now it makes sense,” Pinkie Pie remarked plainly, and she cupped her hands to her mouth and shouted, “I dig the tentacles!”
The Rarity-thing rumbled thunderously with what might have been laughter before her marshmallow flesh descended upon the world in a living avalanche, the greatest gift that any pony would ever know.
