Pearl's Travels 2: Canterlot

As I waited for Meadowsweet to figure out what to ask me first, I could see Forsythia and Camellia start off to join the other three near the next jailcell.

The sound of her hooves quickly disappeared into this odd white noise which clung to the jail's interior and I was reminded of what Deadbolt had said about a spell which suppressed the noise.

It was clear that the hallways we were in were under an effect like that, or our hooves hitting the hard ground would have echoed through the space. Our voices would have become a cacophony of noise as we spoke and had echoes return moments later.

The sounds of prisoners shouting out from their jail cells in the first, second, or third sections would have rang out without this magical soundproofing, but it had mostly been a quiet, peaceful atmosphere we had found ourselves in ever since we entered the jail proper.

The sound of Camellia and Forsythia's hooffalls quickly disappeared as they made some distance away from us. I could see Deadbolt address my sister Burst and brother Crook both, but his voice did not reach us.

Meadowsweet's ears were trembling atop her head as she sorted her thoughts out, and I was sure she had realised the soundproofing as well. That might have been the reason she wanted us to walk away from the others as we had done.

"Pearl," she finally started, then clammed up again.

"That's my name, yes," I offered back with a smile which I hoped would help her feel more at ease.

Meadowsweet lifted her right foreleg up, then placed her hoof down again with a soft thud.

"I don't know where to begin, I mean... You say you were a different species than you are now?" she suddenly exclaimed. "How is that possible?"

Just the question I didn't want to have to answer.

"Don't take this the wrong way, but there's a type of special resin very few of us Changelings can make. When a pony or other non-Changeling is cocooned up in that resin, they will slowly become a Changeling themselves," I tried to explain to the best of my abilities.

"It's rarely used; we have enough trouble feeding ourselves with the numbers we already have, as you have heard us tell time and time again these past days. It's not going to help us to change ponies we rely on to feed us into those who need to be fed," I pointed out.

"But I was something else before I became a Changeling, yes. I don't think there's a way for me to change back, so I'll be a Changeling for the rest of my life," I considered.

"Oh," Meadowsweet responded flatly as she considered my last statement. "So you're... going to get those holes I saw in the others then."

"If I don't feed often enough, yes. Those holes grow into our legs when we get hungry, like our bodies are eating themselves in a way. There were some interesting theories about how that worked exactly back home," I explained.

I looked down at my forelegs and lifted my hurt right leg up.

"You know, back home it was thought that we Changelings don't have muscles or such. That we would move our legs much in the same way as insects would back home. We're pretty much insects as it is, after all. I don't... feel a difference compared to how I once used my limbs?" I considered, more to confirm with myself than anything else.

"I also thought I'd have more trouble with my hooves than I ended up having," I continued. "Sure, I smacked myself in the face once or twice since coming here, but overall I'm... pretty comfortable the way I am?"

"Comfortable, even if you have to feed on others?" Camellia asked pointedly, with some emphasis to the word 'feed'.

"Stupidly enough, yeah," I told her with a nod. "Remember it's love that we Changelings feed on. Love or just being accepted by friends, I guess. Sitting around the table with you all at Camellia's house was nice. It felt somewhat like a warm blanket being wrapped around you by someone who cares for you."

I chuckled at remembering my encounter with Pinkie Pie. "Of course it was nothing compared to Pinkie Pie. She just accepted me for me, no questions asked. She's a special sort of pony. One of a kind."

"I can't imagine," Meadowsweet muttered, her eyes moving in their sockets as she looked me over.

"How... in your.... If you had to say, from what you know of us ponies... how different are we?" the royal gardener forced out.

"Ponies and Changelings you mean?" I wondered, tilting my head slightly.

"Yes," she agreed.

"Not so different, really. I actually knew more about ponies than I did Changelings before I came here. I had to learn what I could about how we Changelings do things by be..."

There was a sudden movement up ahead behind Meadowsweet and it distracted me a moment.

I could see four Changelings fighting among themselves, the three ponies near them keeping their distance.

"Sorry, looks like they opened the jailcell and whoever was in there is having trouble keeping themselves calm," I pointed out to the earthpony in front of me. "Where was I?"

"You said you had to learn to be a changeling?" Meadowsweet reminded me.

"Yeah, that was a shock, honestly. The way we're treated by ponies makes us distrustful of you, until we come and live among you for an extended period of time," I suggested. "A lot of my brothers and sisters have lives among you, as you've heard Burst, Crook, and Forsythia say earlier. We don't do that to try and take control or anything. It's not an invasion."

"You just want to be loved," Meadowsweet started to understand.

"Yeah. But for us it's a necessity, because, well, the holes," I brought up again.

"Are you afraid of getting holes in your legs as well? Like the others have?" she asked.

"Not really, no," I considered after a brief pause. "I mean, look at my siblings; they all have holes in their legs and wings. They're doing fine even with those holes. I actually am starting to think that it's just part of life as a Changeling. A lot of them are surprised when they see me without holes. I'm more of an oddity for not having them."

"Because you're new? I think I'm getting it," Meadowsweet spoke.

She closed her eyes and shook her head slowly from side to side.

"I'm such a dumb little filly for doubting you just because of your looks," she berated herself. "The way you talk with us, the way your siblings talk with one another, the way Camellia just accepted Forsythia after realising who she was... and here's me with those shivers running down my back thinking that you're going to do something nasty to me if I look away."

"I won't do something nasty to you. You've seen me spit my resin at Oval; that's about the worst I can do to anypony," I explained to her. "I'm not a fighter."

"But you are, Pearl," Meadowsweet pointed out. "From the first moment I met you over at Cam's place, you were fighting to get accepted by us. You wanted Camellia to accept you, you wanted me to accept you, you wanted Twilight and Applejack to accept you. You've fought here, in this jail, to get the guard Deadbolt to accept you as well."

"If you hadn't fought so hard to gain our acceptance, to explain to us that you Changelings are not so different from us ponies, Deadbolt would have never agreed to help us out," the gardener stated factually. "Do you have any idea how long he's been a jailer here? He's been a part of the palace guards for as long as I can remember."

"It's not a small feat to change the opinion of somepony as old as him; most elder ponies are stuck in their ways. They have specific opinions about how things should be and what should happen, and they get grumpy when those opinions are challenged," she continued now she had found her voice properly.

"And yet, you went into that cell with him, spent a few minutes talking in there, and managed to turn him around to your view on things," she finally concluded. "That just doesn't happen, Pearl."

"Well, I mean, I just... explained to him what was going on. I stuck to the facts as far as I could explain them to him. I told him what was what," I protested. "Clearly he appreciated the facts. If I had tried to lie to him, we would all be in individual jail cells now."

"I didn't suggest you had been lying to him," Meadowsweet coughed uneasily. "I'm saying that you have a way with words."

"Tell that to my addled brain," I snorted. "I so often am lost for words when I need them."

"It hasn't been noticeable," she pointed out. "I think... if I can get rid of these shivers, I would want to be your friend, Pearl. I'll try to get over my fear, because I want to be able to call you my friend."

I felt the glow of love pouring into me again, and tears started to well up in my eyes.

"You really mean that, I can feel it," I spoke while my emotions tried to get the better of me.

"Hey, now, don't cry," Meadowsweet started, her own eyes starting to show signs of water welling up in them as well. "I can't take it when ponies cry. Or Changelings, apparently."

"But I can feel your acceptance radiating toward me, and I know how hard it was for you to get here, and I don't think I deserve it, and I kind of want to hug you now, but I know you're still struggling, and I can't stop these tears," I babbled as tears started to leak down my cheeks.

"That's no fair," the earthpony complained, her own tears leaking down. "Promise not to bite me?"

"I won't bite you, I Pinkie-promise," I told her. "That's the biggest promise I can give you; Pinkie told me that a Pinkie-promise can't ever be broken. It's a very important thing to her."

"Okay, I'll accept it if you Pinkie-promise," she said. "I'll Pinkie-promise to do my best to be a good friend to you, then."

"You don't have to do that," I protested, wiping at my cheeks while trying to stop crying. "How was it again... Cross my heart,"

"and hope to fly," Meadowsweet added.

"Stick a cupcake in my eye," we both said together, poking at our faces with our right hooves.

"Come here, you dumb foal," I spoke immediately after.

I moved to embrace Meadowsweet and she did the same, our forelegs wrapping around one another's withers.

"Hug me, you scary creature," she bounced back my playful insult.

The intensity of the love radiating into me from my new friend increased and I wallowed in it as my tears flowed freely down my cheeks and landed on her right shoulder, hers doing the same to mine.

I could feel her soft warm fur against my colder skin, the tears coming off her leaking down my back, past my wings, and down my right side.

We just sat and hugged and cried together, and Meadowsweet's shuddered as she let her emotions fly free.

I, for one, could not believe how much I had needed this kind of a hug from a pony other than Pinkie Pie. This kind of an acceptance of who I was, as a person, Changeling or no.

Pinkie Pie was one thing; she was everypony's friend. There was no challenge to getting accepted by her.

Meadowsweet was an entirely different case.

Even Camellia had kept a respectful distance, as one would with fresh aquaintances.

This was a deeper feeling, and I didn't know how badly I needed it.

I held myself to her, trying to keep my fangs from touching her back, holding her as tightly as I dared yet loose enough that she could escape from my hold at any point if she needed to.

But she kept on hugging, kept crying, until we were both spent.

I don't know how long it was before we both calmed down again, before Meadowsweet finally moved her forelegs to pull back from me, but when she did and I looked upon her red-rimmed eyes and wet cheeks, I knew that I was looking upon the tired face of somepony I would be able to trust now, and in the future.

We both wiped our cheeks dry the best I could, and I fluttered my wings a little in an effort to dry the one on the right; soaked as it was by my friend's tears.

Meadowsweet looked curiously behind me as I did, and I turned a little so she could see my wing fluttering behind me.

"You have a horn and wings, both. You're all like a weird sort of alicorn, aren't you?" she posited.

"Hah, I wish," I threw back. "I don't have nearly that amount of power, or weight among ponies to throw around. I think there's enough Alicorns in the world as it is, though."

"Took you long enough to calm down," Burst mused, walking up to us from the other side of the hallway. "Are you ready for the others to come on over? We have a few more family members to introduce to you."