An army had passed through her hips, its work surrounded her, and she smiled. No hideous cutie mark rested across her flanks, for she needed none to know her one and only purpose in life: Her destiny was to consume love and convert it to her kind. All other life existed to provide love to them and for no greater purpose, despite whatever some mark contrarily claimed. A familiar sensation brought itself to the forefront of her mind, and she closed her eyes tightly. She felt no less than three foals clustered at her cervix, each seemingly vying to be first of the brood. She would have to try a new brooding position with the next pregnancy. She was days away from giving birth. Instead, she would have her born child returning with her drink serve as a piece of furniture for a time. It always pleased her to rest on her maternity while her legs were propped up in some way, and she didn’t care if that way were a child struggling to hover behind her. She opened an eye to look at one of her children, and wondered just what task he’d perform for her in the future.

Like a cork from a champagne bottle, a foal shot out through her hips—she could feel that he was head first—and remained mostly lodged inside for the moment; she could feel the second to be out lined up behind him. Queen Chrysalis clenched herself around him as best as she could. She didn’t need a torrent of newborns falling out of her and onto the stone cold floor. Like a cork, he was still able to plug her up well enough, sans the puddle of fluid she could now feel running down her belly and pooling on the floor. She breathed deeply and slowly through clenched fangs, neck erect, legs tensed, staring straight ahead, unblinking. Her born—and grown—child would return soon with her drink, and then alert the hive. She only had to keep them inside of her body for a short while longer.