Chapters
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Richard was moving out. He already hadn’t been living at home for some time, not for the weeks he had been living with Amy. But now, now that he was welcome to return if he wanted to, Richard intended to never see the house again.Moriah probably wanted to stop him. She’d been fuming up and down the mansion for the better part of a day, as soon as she realized what he was doing. But he was an adult now, a citizen of Alexandria as much as anyone else. Her power might be tremendous but trying to force him…-
187.6 K •
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Alex returned to work a few weeks after that, though she ended up carrying Cody around with her much of the time. With a population as small as Alexandria’s, there wasn’t too much pressure from the other ponies, so long as she got the job done. And Alex could do that. She might not be an expert in any relevant subject, or even an experienced administrator, but the longer she worked the more she read, and anything she read stayed with her forever.Keeping Cody with her was nothing like it might be if…-
107.0 K •
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Alex blinked, opening her eyes in the gloom of her hospital room. There was no pain, only a strange stiffness in her limbs, particularly on her belly. All around her, the room was in shambles. Her own green fur was all over the floor, though none appeared to be missing from her body. There were bloodstains on the edges of the room, splashed near the door or soaked into the mattress. She'd woken quickly enough that they hadn't even cleaned up after her.Her heart started beating, and the monitor beside her…
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107.0 K •
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Alex made her way to the door with halting hoofsteps. Less than twenty feet, but a monumental distance in her current state. If I burn my cookies because of this...Alex had never imagined she would ever have to know the difficulty and physical strain of pregnancy. She knew it now, had known it for almost eleven months. Never again, Oliver. You're lucky I don't stab you right in the— She opened the door with her mouth, swinging it outward.Three ponies waited outside—one who should've known better than…
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107.0 K •
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Lonely Day did not wake again for some time. Though she had not seen it in any form more concrete than a few plates breaking, she had suffered badly during her time being mentally invaded.When next she woke, she was no longer in the basement of the library. Alex couldn’t feel her clothes anymore, or her saddlebags. Instead, she felt a flimsy hospital blanket, and a similarly flimsy pillow behind her. The bed seemed massive to her little equine form. The light coming in from the window was bright orange,…
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107.0 K •
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Oliver had never invested more of himself in a patient than he did in little Alex. In school, he’d been taught over and over about the necessity of detachment. Any personal investment in a patient would destroy his impartiality and create a conflict of interest. Fundamentally, he was to be a scientific technician, compassionate only to the degree it was required for his bedside manner.That detachment had not survived the end of the world. His friends were so rare now; too precious to let death claim.…
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Joseph reviewed the translations around him one at a time. He had read over each thousands of times, both the originals and the eventual descriptions. Even now that he knew the simple code the cult had used, he still shivered at the patterns the letters elicited when written in runes. There was something special about runes, something the books about it described as almost sacred. Runes gave the whole world new instructions. To use them to tear the tapestry apart instead of making it stronger disgusted…
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107.0 K •
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They were all there, the day they had the vote. Everyone but Alex, unconscious as she was in a hospital bed. There were no more attempted suicides; not now that the shock of having Odium gone for good was finally over. That left Alexandria with a problem, of course. What could they do with a dozen ponies that had tried to take over? Moriah participated in several of the proposals that were made, just as all of them did. Rather than keep all of them locked up in little cells during the week or so it took…
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107.0 K •
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Cloudy Skies did not return to Alexandria until near nightfall. Her mission, though important, felt hopelessly mundane. Without knowing when Lonely Day and the other ponies would return from Philadelphia, and with no way to call and tell them, it was her job to find a satellite phone, make it work, then report on what they had learned.It would’ve been far worse than boring to travel off on her own when Blacklight was putting herself into danger with all her other friends. Except Cloudy Skies had company,…
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Adrian was alone in a world of pain. The spirit called Odium pressed down upon his mind, trapping him in his worst moment, stretching into forever. Thousands and thousands of times Adrian watched that memory replay. The pain of the crash was bad, but it wasn’t even close to the worst part. He saw the mare on the roof of the hotel. He heard her over and over, a hopelessness crushed by the weight of an uncaring universe. Nothing he could say made a difference. Eventually, when she thought he wasn’t…
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