Use Mi's position of authority over the invaders to your advantage

“Well,” Tally decided, “that’s hardly an offer I can refuse.”

Mi beamed. “So how do we start?”

“You’re going to be giving your subordinates some new orders, on my behalf. My ultimate goal is to de-throne the queen. Do you think you’d be able to spin that idea to them?”

“Hmm,” Mi considered. “Well, there is already a lot of unrest around here. None of us much like being your queen’s lackeys, believe it or not. So, I bet I could get a good majority of the gals on board with that, if I just frame it like we’re going rogue so we can show her who’s really in charge. …But what about any dissenters?”

“Tell her to leave them to you,” Brim cut in, appearing over Mi’s shoulder. “I’m sure I can get them to come round.”

“Just round up everyone who doesn’t agree and leave them to me,” Tally said. “I’ll do the same thing to them that I’ve done to you.”

“Ooh boy, they'll love that,” said Mi, entirely sincerely. Then suddenly, her face became slightly more serious as she took her eyes off of Tally and looked around. “We probably shouldn’t be talking out in the open. We're supposed to be enemies, and people are staring.”

Sure enough, as Tally looked around too, he saw a couple people dotted around the previously empty street. They were intrigued by the sight of one of the invaders having a normal conversation with a human knight, as opposed to just killing him on the spot like usual. They weren't close enough to overhear what was actually being said, thankfully.

“I have an idea,” said Mi. “I’ll take you to my own home, we’ll be safe there. I’ll pretend to be carrying your corpse.”

“My corpse?” Tally stammered. With a jolt of panic, he saw Mi suddenly unsheathe one of her swords form her belt. “Quick, fall over,” she whispered, as she stabbed it harmlessly into Tally’s metal breastplate. Catching onto her plan, Tally melodramatically clutched his stomach and collapsed to his knees, groaning, then crumpled to the ground with one last theatrical twitch. A moment later, he felt himself being lifted up into the air and slung over Mi Iau’s shoulder, held by his legs so that his arms draped over her back. With his head upside-down, Tally's helmet began pressing uncomfortably against the bottom of his chin in a futile effort to fall up and off of his head.

“We fooled them,” he could hear Mi say, just barely, over the sound of his own clattering armor. “We just got past those humans that were staring at us, I heard them talking. They think I killed you. Right, so now I’m taking you up to my home. Just stay limp until I put you down.”

It felt like an eternity, riding uncomfortably over Mi’s shoulder like this. In reality it was probably only ten minutes’ walk, but Tally had no measure of tracking progress, since he could only see the occasional glimpse of passing ground to one side. Brim tried to entertain him by singing comically badly directly into his mind, which was funny for a few seconds before it became incredibly irritating. Of course, Tally couldn’t say anything to get her to stop, because he didn’t know who might be around to hear him speak while he was supposed to be dead.

Eventually he started to hear activity picking up around him, mostly in the form of female voices all around. Some of them sounded like they were jeering directly at him, amused by the humiliating defeat of a valiant knight. It sounded like Mi was carrying him deeper into her territory. “Just ignore them,” he heard Mi mumble again. From here, it wasn’t long before Tally felt the light and quality of the air change; they were indoors, or at least not out in the open. At last, he felt Mi setting him down on the ground.

Tally took in his surroundings: They were in a tent, a large conical tipi-like structure, with what must have been Mi’s personal belongings strewn about the place. As he watched Mi return to the entrance to button the flap closed, he noticed a large chest, sitting open with clothes hanging over the side, a couple tables pressed up against the slanting canvas wall, and a makeshift straw bed.

“This is where we set up camp, before we took over the village,” Mi explained. “Been working from here for maybe a month. There are more of these horrible little tent-thingies outside,” she pointed at the closed entrance flap, “but I’m the only one who gets one all to myself. You know, since I’m the leader.”

Mi had smuggled Tally right into the heart of the lions’ den, where the occupation of the village was based. Here, he would be in terrible danger if discovered. But at the same time, this was a place of rare opportunity. He would never have made it here alive without inside help.

“So, now that we have some privacy,” said Mi, “what do you wanna do?”