i h/c the meat and candy thing is about ants, whereas the trolls have butterfly wings and start out as pupas (caterpillar esque) and the mothergrub is a winged insect like a moth

cherubs hatch from eggs but have no pupal stage, crave either protein or sugars (ant colonies will take cycles gathering either depending on need) and gots dem mandibles!

i don't know where the alligator dragon form happens, metaphor for the extreme transformations of puberty? or how people of marrying age can sometimes look like impossible monsters to kids? the cherubs die in order to multiply, but it's an exponential loss, two adults for only ever one egg, so maybe there were once healthier cherub dragons that can lay an entire clutch

but that would betray the ouroborous (sp) metaphor, so eh. immortal snakes born to eat their own tails, lest their appetite turn outwards to the doom of all.