Chapters
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Amie studied. Noise echoed through the old mine all around her—bugs shouting to each other, depositing heavy loads, and sometimes singing as they worked. When she had first returned to their cabin, Amie found creatures that were overwhelmed and desperate. Not anymore. She had given them purpose.While they worked, she poured over the book that had cost her a spy. It was written in the same language as the Equestrian writing, which meant Amie could read it. She still did not know why—nor had she even…-
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Amie found the old mine exactly where she expected, beside a huge painted sign just off the highway. A huge hotel blocked the cliffside from view at first, its paint faded and windows covered with boards. A half-dozen cars sat in the lot, mostly rusting old hulks. A few were modern, covered with the dust of months. Interesting."Why are we stopping here?" Pachu'a asked, hurrying to catch up with her. "Your camp is further.""It is," she agreed. "But we're stopping here, for now. I'll be going up in a bit."…
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"I've never captured a pony," Amie said flatly. "I've never attacked one, and I've never hurt one. I don't want to start now."As she said it, dark shapes emerged from the fog all around them—three orange changelings, fully revealed. They'd ditched the saddlebags somewhere too, so their fins stood high and alert on their backs. Otherwise, their stance was much the same—aggressive, ready to break into deadly combat in an instant."Queen—I told you; she was too dangerous. She was going to see through…
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"You must be planning to turn the other way," Amie said conversationally. As she spoke, the mist parted on the mountains ahead. It revealed the even grade of the highway, stretching with three lanes in each direction. Aside from a little debris, the highway was in perfect shape. Without a word exchanged between them, they both stopped walking, staring up the mountain. At this scale, Stella Lacus was relatively hard to see. Its cabins were thoroughly surrounded by the trees, and daytime meant no lights for…
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"Was your farcasting productive, Queen Amie?" Natane asked. She was right beside Amie when her eyes opened, as though she'd been reclining there the entire time. Maybe she had been. But were those her eyes watching, or a far mightier creature, far away?She nodded. Amie was a little out of breath and missing some of her magic. She still didn't know how to measure it exactly—but it felt like less than what she'd gathered from her time with Tailslide. A little love could save quite a few starving bugs, it…
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A bug on the edge of starvation had a feel to them that she would never forget. This was the way starvation manifested in their species. It came with physical withering too, damage to the hardened exoskeleton that never quite healed, and a smell. Those bugs offered her little resistance, far less than when she first worked with Beth and Rick. Physical proximity seemed to help too, or proximity of vision. Reaching them was easier than trying to see the camp from far away."I'm going to help you," she said,…
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Tailslide faced her down “Tell me, Amie. Let's say you go forward. Tomorrow night you're in charge on that mountain, what do you do? Equestria already knows how dangerous a queen can be when her hive is threatened. There's a lot of suffering—a lot of funerals. A lot of ponies who don't come home."Amie stormed over to him, closing the distance in a few strides. She was back to being the smaller of the two, though as a pegasus the difference was less stark. She would still be easy for him to overpower,…
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Amie went to her quarters after that, she needed to be alone to think. Her mission was obviously virtuous, but the odds against her seemed overwhelming. She couldn't turn to Equestria for help, the ponies thought they were monsters and wanted them dead. She couldn't retreat to her camp and organize a united front for survival, because camp wanted her dead too. Then there was Ivy, who might find the key to sending everypony home, or might betray her directly to the princess on a whim. Bud might help them…
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Amie returned to her bedroom a few minutes later, brimming with nervous energy over what she had just done. It felt like a successful negotiation, like she had just made the first steps towards broadening the pool of prospective hunters who could aid the camp. She wouldn't know she had succeeded for sure until Bud actually accepted new bugs ready to work. Until then, it was just one more item on a long list of steps she was taking to keep Stella Lacus alive. That was another easy one out of the way—the…
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Just like that, Amie was back in Agate. Despite the risks of their journey, the trip was far faster by pony train—there was no need to stop at secret stations, to hide their train at random or travel much slower to avoid meeting a legitimate pony craft along the route.The insistence on avoiding too much contact with ponies seemed like a strange one—particularly when Amie was fully confident in her ability to hide.She even stopped for a brief conversation with Sweetie Drops as they disembarked, wishing…
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