• Published 22nd Mar 2022
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Don't Bug Me - Starscribe



Amie was prepared for a difficult season as a camp counselor. She wasn't prepared for her entire summer camp vanishing from Earth, and reappearing in a strange new world. Now they're bugs, in a world that seems to hate them. Survival not guaranteed.

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Chapter 40

The boat barely rocked beneath Amie by the faint light of dawn. The lake water was crystal smooth, like a single sheet of glass not yet broken by wind or recreational swimmers. Her nesting place was similarly comfortable, tucked inside the sleeping bag with Tailslide beside her. She no longer smelled much like a bat anymore—but she also didn't want to.

She lay there for a little while, feeling the rocking boat beneath her, and listening to the songs of morning birds. Her bat body wanted to keep sleeping, but she fought through that. A few minutes in the water would wash away any trace of tiredness. Unfortunate that it would take Tailslide's ozone and lightning scent away too—but that would make things less awkward for Wes.

Assuming he didn't figure out on his own. Why else did two people take a romantic trip into the woods?

She couldn't lay there forever, no matter how much she might want to. Sunrise drew closer, and orange light spread across the sky. Finally, she nudged Tailslide with her wing, prompting him to sit up. He scanned the boat around them groggily, then saw her laying there. "Morning, Amie."

She sat up, stretching her wings to their full size. She still felt sluggish—something about being a bat, maybe. There was an awful lot of skin to keep warm between the two of them. "I'd let you sleep, but I don't want to give them an excuse to fire you. I think you'll have to fly to make it back to Agate before first whistle."

Tailslide yawned, then stretched in the usual pony way. "I really should've expected that. You're a changeling. I've seen earth ponies with less endurance."

She giggled. "I told you I hadn't been with anyone for six months. I'm happy to be past that period of my life." She nudged him up into a standing position. "I'd rather spend the day with you than go back to Agate. But you have to hold that job down, and I have to... save the world. Life is cruel sometimes."

He nodded, then froze. His stomach rumbled so loudly that she could feel it through him. Or... wait. She felt it too. A sensation so foreign to her that she hadn't realized it was there. It had been months since Amie felt it... but now that she did, it was impossible to ignore. Amie was starving.

"Is it okay if I steal some breakfast from your place on the way in?"

She dug into her saddlebags, then dropped a little pile of bits in front of him. "Too suspicious. Buy something instead." I don't want you to meet the two new bugs who are probably waiting in there without introducing you first.

He leaned over to her, then kissed her on the forehead. "Sure you can handle bringing the boat back without me?"

Her wings fluttered, and her chest puffed out. "I got it here, I can bring it back. Just... please don't tell my brother about us. I want to tell him."

She watched Tailslide take off about a minute later, vanishing into the early morning air. Amie would need to follow him back to the city, and the weight of responsibilities festering there. Unless something was disastrously wrong, there were two bugs waiting in her building, and not an army of royal guards that wanted her dead.

Amie's hunger didn't flee as she packed things up on the boat, though. The longer she sat there, the more she felt her stomach grumbling. Strange, given that her magical reserve was still there, more powerful than ever. A night with somepony who loved her was about the most filling thing she'd ever enjoyed. She would've exploded with magic, if it wasn't for the new depth of her reserve, filling eternally but always with more room for power.

This was the older hunger, the kind she could only satiate by eating actual food. More proof I'm changing into my brother? she wondered. He can eat food, now I can too.

The thought of Agate's many street-vendors with their greasy, large portions of miner's food did have a certain appeal to her. But at the same time, so did the lake she was floating in, full of fish just beneath the surface. Despite the forges and metal refineries close by, this lake was teaming with life.

Warm, juicy life. Amie didn't have a fishing pole, or knowledge of how to operate one for that matter. But what she did have was magic, and her memory of her sole conversation with Rent-a-Friend's hippogriff. Stratosphere had talked about a childhood spent leaping from the cliffs of her homeland, catching fish and bringing them up to fry. Before the island was attacked and its population scattered and vanished, that was.

Amie was not the only one on this planet to suffer.

She could make a spear to hunt, but why not do what she already knew she could? All she had to do was make sure no pony was flying overhead, and that she could hear no other boats along the river. It was still so early she had little reason to fear either one.

She picked airy blues, whites for the hippogriff she imagined, with a lean body and sharp claws instead of hooves on her forelegs. Those alterations made, Amie leapt in for her morning swim.

As a human being, the task would've been impossible. For a pony, it would've been even harder. It took a hippogriff less than an hour to catch a half dozen large fish, gut them with her claws, and hang them over a makeshift campfire to grill on the shore. She didn't even feel the cold—her feathers were built for swimming, keeping her insides dry no matter how many times she leapt in after a fish.

I was right, there is an instinct to a body. Like tapping into a piece of their genetic memory.

Four large fish were much more than she should've been able to eat. Even one their size would've fed her whole family back on Earth. She devoured all of them, and only when she was finishing the last of her catch did Amie finally began to feel a little relief. She could easily get back into the water for another few—if someone hadn't flown down to join her.

They came from higher on the mountain, flying with a small group of others. Upon seeing Amie sprawled on the shore beside her campfire, one broke formation and began to descend.

She had a few seconds to collect herself, but not much. Amie considered fleeing into the trees, but abandoned that plan quick enough. She smelled like fire, meat, and lake. Anypony with a nose could probably follow her for miles. And if she changed... the pony would have to be pretty dumb not to connect the dots to the changelings kept “contained” in Camp Stella Lacus.

He landed on the shore, avoiding the smoke rising from her dying fire. "Good morning, Amie," he said, waving one wing. "I thought I would find you in Agate, not out here. This is a fortunate accident."

She sat up, more slowly than usual. She was so full that she wasn't in any particular hurry to move too quickly. Just a few inches closer to her saddlebags, and the gun tucked inside. "What makes you think that's my name?" she asked.

He rolled his eyes. "Because hippogriffs produce viable emotions. They're half pony, after all. But your feelings are... veiled. Fascinating. You're a more powerful hunter than I remember."

Amie stood, then washed her claws in the water, before holding one out to shake. "You'll forgive me if I don't change how I look, Pachu'a. We're close to Agate."

He offered a hoof in exchange, and shook briefly. "That is wisdom. You have learned somewhat, since we last spoke."

She nodded. "How'd the expedition go? Do you see the potential for Camp Stella Lacus? The technology I told you about..."

He claimed not to know how she was feeling. If that was true, he wouldn't see her nervous anticipation, and her dread. This man had the power to save her tribe, or to doom them.

She could feel his emotions just fine, though. Pity was the strongest of all, along with a hint of greed. There was something he hoped to gain from this diplomacy. "I have never seen bugs more in need of assistance. We found their state so pitiable we offered our trail rations as well, resolving to hunt for food on the return trip."

He rested a hoof on her shoulder then, forcing her to meet his eyes. "You didn't tell me they were starving children. What are we supposed to do, leave them to die?"

Hadn't she? Amie had been light on details about her camp, for fear she might make them seem too weak, and not a worthwhile trading partner. She didn't want to invite another tyrant to invade and take over, either. They had enough of those.

"I hoped you wouldn't," she said. "Our outlook was grim. But I know those campers—they're brave, smart, and resourceful. With the right opportunity, we could really build something out here. Some of—" She stopped abruptly. Explaining the mesh network Rick had already built was only sharing more than she needed about their technical abilities. "We deserve a chance."

"The Elders may agree with you," he said. "If you can convince them, the Queen may hear you. That decision is not mine to make, and it is not yours." He gestured up into the air. "We return. You have an oath to keep now, Amie Blythe. You and Wes Blythe will return with us to the city, and present yourselves. As agreed."

Now? Amie's mind raced with sudden panic. She had only made things official with Tailslide last night. She could still smell him, though his scent was greatly diffused by fire and lake water and blood. Mostly blood.

"I need time to prepare. There are some things I need to leave running, while I'm gone. Give me until nightfall. My brother and I will join you outside the city."

He settled down beside the campfire. "That is acceptable. Do you have any glamour to offer to my party, while we wait? We carry no rations."

She winced. "You mean that liquid magic stuff? I... have no idea how you get it? I've got more magic than I know what to do with, but I've never seen any. I keep a little bottle in my pack whenever I'm with ponies, waiting for it to collect. But none ever does."

Pachu’a froze, looking her up and down. Then he broke into laughter, loud and sincere. "You are... you're not serious! You don't know where it comes from, do you?"

She reached into her saddlebags, undoing the flap and removing the little bottle. The insides were still dry, courtesy of royal guard engineering and wax. She uncorked the bottle with her beak, then offered it to him. "Is there something I'm missing?"

"Many things, I suspect," he said, congenially. "But I'm certain you have none to offer me. There are fish bones between us, and the smell is fresh. You are eating meat to survive. Glamour cannot be made from this. It is barely enough to sustain you, as your friends and colleagues in the mountains have seen. It is the last resort of the desperate and starving, nothing more."

I did feel hungry this morning. She still did, so powerfully she was surprised he couldn't tell. "But if I did..." she continued, casually. "How would I share it?"

"Some vessel sealed away from the air," he explained. "If it is exposed too long, it will harden into wax. It can be mixed with sand and gravel to make an exceptionally strong concrete. To extract it, use your fangs, and bite through. That's why there was wax over the canteen I gave you. It can be filled when pride is plentiful, and emptied again when it is scarce."

Amie didn't stay to interrogate him further. She had now reached the end of her time in Agate. Could she set everything in motion in a single day?

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