This story is a sequel to For the Hive

A few months after the events of Queen Twilight Sparkle's reveal that she and her hive can produce love, the changeling hives find themselves in an arms race. As Aegis Altair watches over her queens haggling with the minotaur emperor, she finds something that just might give Phoenix's Roost the edge it needs to come out on top.

This is a short interlude before hive book 3.

This story is a sequel to Aegis of the Hive

Natural selection. It is the byword of every changeling queen who has ever lived. The chief resource that has always curbed the hives' growth used to be love. Now though, with Queen Twilight Sparkle's bloodline capable of producing love on their own, the old guard of changeling morality has seen fit to acquire this ability for the next generation before removing all of their future royal daughters' competitors.

Some queens are far closer to this goal than others.

Editor in Chief: A Bitter Pill, and Boldish42

On a warm, rainy afternoon, two young ponies take shelter in a gazebo. One is hoping to find a job at a bakery nearby, and just wants the rain to go away so she can make it to her interview. The other isn't really a pony, and just wants the rain to go away so he isn't caught.

Life tends to work that way, I suppose.

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Written for the Outside Insight Fanfiction Contest.
Featured 8-10-14!