Regina contemplated the reflection in her mirror. She particularly contemplated the enormous heft of her abdomen, the skin flushed pink from strain. Her stomach was utterly full, though she had no recollection of what she’d eaten or when.

She tried to remember what she could of the previous night - between docking the ship and waking up in bed with her shirt missing. She was trying to pull a third consecutive all-nighter - the Firion desperately needed to reach the trade station in this sector for resupply, and while Jessica had fixed the autopilot, there was still the constant threat of the Imperial police force. Or worse, her old boss could show up. The ship would need to be piloted vigilantly, and since Aesirko wasn’t a pilot, Regina moved the coffee pot to the bridge and settled herself in for a lengthy shift.

Late into that third night, the Firion managed to reach the station after all. Docking procedures were lengthy and tedious, and throughout it all Regina felt a gnawing pain growing in her stomach as her senses slipped in and out due to exhaustion. Finally, Regina retrieved her jacket from the back of her seat and left the Firion and its slumbering crew to go find something to eat.

The next thing Regina could remember, she was leaning over the counter of a food stall, talking to a particularly affectionate ice cream vendor in a frilly pink apron. The lovely mint hue of the merchant’s skin had made her stomach rumble. She’d noticed it at the time, but attributed it to fatigue crossing wires in her brain. Then the scent of the vendor’s perfume, a vivid aroma of cherry. She asked about cherry ice cream, driven mad with hunger by the smell, but unfortunately the vendor’s selection was a little limited at this time of night. Restock comes around breakfast time, she’d explained. Regina understood, but her stomach began to lose patience. She was standing there at the stall, that incredible aroma in her nose, salivating, her stomach ravenously twisting and churning, her hands shaking - and then she could remember no more.

Regina lifted the bloated form of her gut with both hands, frowning to herself. It was rather solid in there in the middle, with a layer of inevitable softness outside, her fingertips sinking into her flesh.

Ice cream. It must have been ice cream. She nodded resolutely, shaking her stomach gently. It churned and bubbled in response. Just a load of dessert. She’d gotten overly hungry, and in her weariness, purchased and ate way more ice cream than she should have. It wasn’t exactly unheard of. She’d had these hunger spells a lot recently... ever since her ordeal with the cartel, her appetite would spike every so often. Thankfully, the Replicator wasn’t so hard to maintain (once you had the proper parts). But when the base material ran dry, it was hard for Regina to sate that appetite on whatever dry goods were left in the distant corners of the ship’s tiny mess.

So she went out and binged on ice cream. That was all. Regina sighed to herself and chuckled. She wasn’t sure why she’d been so nervous. It all made sense when she thought about it. But since her dream the other night - a dream in which she swallowed the ship’s engineer whole - she’d been on edge. Jessica had also been a bit jumpy since then, oddly enough, but there was no way it could be related to that dream.

Right?

Regina stared at her swollen middle in the mirror for a bit longer. She pressed her hands to its sides, warm palms squeezing into soft flesh which groaned in reply. From the depths of her abdomen, Regina felt something bubbling up, and before she could catch herself, she loosed an embarrassingly loud belch, a rush of air rising from her gurgling belly.

She went pale as she realized it tasted like cherries.

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