"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 seemed.
"Very. I can see it's almost morning—grab what you need, everyone, we're leaving as soon as morning comes, and curfew lifts. Take new forms, we'll split up. Change into the miners somewhere near the north exit, we'll meet up there. I don't want anyone tracing us back to this building."
Her instructions were enough for the hunters. Pachu'a stood, heaving the saddlebags up onto his back.
"Everyone?" Rick asked. "You’re saying I can finally get back? With you in charge, instead of Albrecht..."
Amie spread her wings, stopping him. "Soon, I hope. But I need you here. You and Beth—you've learned what ponies are like, and Bud likes you. You need to stay, so you can keep gathering glamour. Store it away like we taught. We'll get shipments going back and forth somehow."
"That seems fun. I hope my next contract is as awesome as the last one. It should be way more enjoyable now that we're not leaking this awful goop all over the place."
"If you're bored, take that goo to the stove and melt it. Heat will change it back to liquid glamour. But store it quickly, or it will boil away in the air." Natane's voice was still strange, confident in a way that drone had never seemed. The queen was still watching her. "This glamour should not go to waste. You could carry it away in chunks, but I suspect the ponies would notice."
Amie hefted the saddlebags onto her own shoulders. "I will arrange to exchange you with someone else in camp, Rick. But right now, we need every hunter we can. Whatever you think about your skill, you know Equestria more than anyone in Camp Stella Lacus."
The bedroom door opened, and Wes emerged, yawning. "Sis? Are you... are you leaving?"
Amie nodded. "Yeah. You can go back to bed. Rick is going to hunt; you can recover from the trip."
He glanced at her saddlebags, then the hunters. Pachu'a changed into a pegasus, then vanished out the open doorway. "Sure about that? What about the supplies I was carrying?"
"I was going to... carry them. Along with all this extra glamour here." But now that she felt the saddlebags she was already holding, she realized how foolish that idea would be. Only an earth pony could carry so much, which would destroy the unicorn family persona she was trying to build.
Then she had another idea. She opened his saddlebags, picked one of the jars, then broke the seal and drank. She felt a brief rush of incredible—pride. She felt the achievement of many ponies, confident in the things they'd done. Then it passed, and the sealed jar was empty. She set it down and moved to the next. "Woah. I expected that to... fill me up a little more."
"You are a queen," Natane said. Her outline flashed, and an earth pony took her place, with drab browns and cream colors. "You could consume all this. Be mindful of your magic in the meantime—it will be easy to waste the power if it is within your body."
Then she left. The other hunter followed her, leaving only Amie's campers to watch as she emptied canister after canister. If they had been real liquid, she might've quickly filled to bursting. She was already swollen enough.
They didn't fill her that way or stretch her body. She just felt more energetic, mind swimming in the pride of so many ponies. The flavor did have a few qualities to it she could learn as she drank so much—athletic, with a hint of ozone. Pegasi?
"She was serious. Counselor, are you sure about that? You're gonna blow up. It's awful when you have too much magic."
"Really awful," Beth agreed. “You see the result, all over the place. I almost couldn't hold it in long enough to get home."
Amie ignored her, and started on the pots, jars, and other containers her two “hunters” had filled. She finished right as the morning bell rang. Somepony shifted in the other room, tumbling out of bed. A few seconds later the other door opened, and Tailslide appeared in the doorway, dressed for work.
"Where are you going, Amie?" he asked. "Are you attacking today? Looks like you're dressed to move."
"Not attacking," she said quickly. "I still don't have a plan for that. I'm gonna start just by getting my ponies to safety, then feeding the starving bugs. I can take over once no one else is dying."
"Right." He strode inside, then wrapped one wing around her. He hugged her, even though she still looked like a gross bug. "You better be telling me the truth. If you lie and get hurt..." He looked away. "You wouldn't lie to me, would you?"
Is it a lie if I don't know myself? Amie shook her head. "I have campers on the move. I'm going to meet them somewhere safe and get a little... base set up. No fighting, promise."
Tailslide let go. "Come back if there is. I'm still a guardspony, and I've been trained to fight changelings. I'll keep you safe."
He backed away, saluted with one wing, then vanished down the hall. Seconds later he opened the balcony door and took off.
"I need to get going myself," Amie said. "The others will be waiting at the gate. I'm not sure the orange changelings are very good at pretending to be ponies for long periods."
Rick rolled his eyes. He was still staring at her belly, apparently waiting for her to pop. She didn't, or feel any more swollen with magic than she had been before. There was definitely more of it inside her, but Natane was right. She could hold vast quantities of the stuff.
"I might... investigate going north," Wes finally said. "There's something waiting up there for me. Whatever I am, I don't want to waste it. There's a way to share it with everyone else—then you won't need hunters."
Amie darted over to him, then gave him a quick hug. It was her turn for a promise. "Don't leave before I get back, okay? If you're going north, I want to go with you—or at least send someone. It's not safe to go alone."
He hugged back, still delirious with exhaustion. "Yeah. I'll talk first. I won't just steal some bits and run. You stay safe too. Even if you aren't fighting—Albrecht is still mad. Keep your head down."
He let go, then wandered back into the bedroom.
"Don't leave us out in the cold next time," Beth said, as soon as the door closed. "If you can't update us on the intranet, then do your... weird magic stuff. Take me over and write a note. I won't mind."
"Hopefully I won't be gone that long," Amie said. "But if something happens, sure. I'll do that." She closed her eyes, then changed into an earth pony. She needed another shape to get away from the building, before she could change back. "Keep your heads down, do whatever job Bud gives you. And if he gives you a list—that's for me, just bring it in here and leave it somewhere for me to find."
Rick lowered himself into a mock bow. "Farewell, Queen Amie. Blessings of the court upon you. Ye, verily."
Beth shoved his shoulder. "You forget the part where she saved our lives?"
Amie didn’t stay to listen. She locked the door behind her, then hurried out the back. One of these days she really had to learn how to fly. Hopefully soon.
Crossing Agate in the morning was a simple task. There were so many workers in the street that she was just another face in the crowd, barely worthy of a passing glance from the ponies in the road. All she needed was a dark corner, and she was True Silver all over again, ready for her first adventure in Motherlode.
By the time she reached the north gate, she found the orange bugs all waiting there, each in disguise as her “children.” She greeted them with familial friendship, and they set off through the gate, bound for Motherlode.
Pachu'a fell into step beside her, though he kept his voice down. "Are you sure about this? We're leaving in the open, on a pony road."
"A pony road that leads directly past the mountain," she said. "Motherlode is a company town—I bet they don't exchange records with Agate. Nopony will know whether we really made it or not. Unless—"
Amie trailed off abruptly. There was a pony walking slowly ahead of them, a pony who noticed their hoof steps and turned back to look. A familiar mare, because they had eaten together the night before.
"Sweetie Drops?" she asked, beaming. The mare was alone, though carrying heavy-looking saddlebags just like Amie and the changelings. Obviously, she wasn't on her way to join a mining town.
"True Silver," said the mare, turning slowly in place to look back at her. "Headed north?"
Amie's “children” froze. Rather than break down with terror, Pachu'a and his apprentice managed to keep relatively neutral expressions. Yet they radiated fear—far more for the little pony ahead of them than they had even shown for the guards.
Natane remained the calmest of the bunch, strangely. Amie felt no emotions from her at all. "Motherlode," Amie said, without missing a beat. "Hard to beat the offers FlimFlam Regional made. I probably won't last the season—but I sent my son on ahead to arrange everything for us."
"Maybe we should go another day, Mother," Pachu'a said, voice low. "You did say you weren't feeling well this morning—"
Amie read the desperation on his face. If he kept looking at Sweetie Drops like that, she would notice too. Why was an experienced hunter so afraid of one pony?
"I'll be fine," she said. I promised my kids I'd be waiting for them at that mine. I'm not breaking my word. "What about you, miss? Returning from royal business, or going?"
"Going," she said, withdrawn.
She was alone, walking out on the same route that they would follow. Potentially all the way in, if this mare intended to walk across the border. Would she really do that without any guards? Maybe she was just on a reconnaissance mission.
"You can keep me company," she said, beaming back at her. "If you don't mind taking it a little slower. My children definitely do. They'll run ahead. But I just don't have the energy for that right now."
Sweetie Drops glanced up at the mountain, then back at Amie. Her eyes lingered on her belly. "You insist on this, Silver? This road may not be safe."
Amie lit up her horn, grinning. "Unsafe is anyone who threatens my children. I'll make them wish they stayed on their mountain."
The earth pony chuckled in response, then started off. "There's not some Apple in that family tree, is there Silver? I've rarely met a pony as stubborn as you are."
The other changelings watched her follow, before trotting to catch up. Amie waved them past with one hoof. "You know the way; you can go on ahead. Shout if you see any monsters!"
They did. Pachu'a was the first, making a decent show of his impatience walking behind her before trotting ahead up the slope. Agate was already falling into the mist behind them. In the same way, the transformed changelings were soon lost to her sight, though she could still hear their hoof steps. Just so long as they didn't start shouting about how stupid she was to get close to a SMILE agent.
Amie made casual conversation with the mare for a time. Some of that was about the mining she would be doing, since she was obviously pursuing it so energetically despite the dangers. Amie filled in the openings in her knowledge with previous visits to the very same tourist trap she was about to turn into a hive. 1800s mining was close enough, or close enough that she never felt suspicion from the mare.
"Your turn is coming soon," Sweetie Drops finally said, tucking her map away into her saddlebag again. "I know you can't see it, but there's a fork about a half mile from here. I trust your children can read the warning signs enough not to go directly into danger."