Pearl's Travels 2: Canterlot

by Makitk

Rating: teen
Tags: Applejack, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Alternate Universe, Drama, Changelings, Original Character, Mystery, Adventure, Twilight Sparkle
Length: 113759

A continuation of Pearl's travels.

The Human-turned-Changeling Pearl and her adoptive clutch-sister Oval leave the safety of their hive to venture deeper into the pony lands of Equestria.

First stop: Canterlot, where unforeseen circumstances cause a delay the pair of Changelings can't afford...

(Image done by AeylinFaith)

Published 2017-06-12 08:30:06 UTC
Last updated 2024-11-25 12:27:39 UTC

Chapter 2

The train I was in lumbered on in the direction of Canterlot while I observed the lands to the North of our tracks, and it only took half an hour before I could see the Neighagra Falls in the distance. Our train rushed through a station positioned nearest to the falls without stopping, and soon they were behind us as the tracks turned away from them to lead us further South-Southwest on an almost straight path to Canterlot.

"You did say there were no stops before we would reach Canterlot," I remarked to Oval while falling back into a comfortable position on my seat. "Does any train stop at that station?"

"I think the line between Canterlot and Manehattan does. It's a tourist spot and very crowded in mid-summer," Oval explained. "You noticed Hollow Shades is a tourist location as well thanks to its secluded nature and the hot springs, right?"

"Yeah, I got that notion while in town," I agreed.

"For some reason the ponies don't want to connect the two with a direct line," Oval shrugged. "This one goes between Canterlot and Fillydelphia, but we can't take a train to Hoofton from Fillydelphia. We need to take the one between Canterlot and Baltimare instead. There's another line to Fillydelphia, coming from Canterlot, but it doesn't go through Hollow Shades."

"It's as confusing as the transportation back home," I remarked with a sigh. "You'd need a Master's Degree to figure out what line went where."

"Yeah, don't get me started. I travel across Equestria 'for work'," Oval suggested with a wink, knowing I had seen the great collection of donated items which our Changeling family had brought to the Hive, "so I take this line a lot. The transfer time from one train to another in Fillydelphia is just not worth it. The atmosphere in Canterlot is also vastly different from that in Fillydelphia."

"Vastly different in a good way, I expect?" I pressed, and Oval smiled at me.

"You'll see. I've come to enjoy my short stays there ever since we had that... thing," he coughed uneasily. "I'm glad we're not doing another one of those."

"So am I," I agreed. "I'm kinda curious about Canterlot, really. That show from back home did show it a few times, from various angles, but it was only enough to whet my appetite. I want to see more."

"Maybe we can take a longer trip there in the future? There's too many guards there to risk an accident, so I would want to see you handling the crowds in Hoofton or Baltimare first," Oval explained.

"That's fair," I agreed. "Are we there yet?"

"I think we're half an hour out," Oval pondered, looking between the left- and right-side windows to check our location. "You're not getting bored, are you?"

"Tired, more like it. I may need to take a nap on the way to Hoofton," I suggested. "Having left Hollow Shades, I guess the pressure of being in charge of organizing certain things has left me. It kind of forced me to keep my wits about me more. Now there's just the trip up ahead, I'm coming down from that rush."

"Or you're just getting hungry," Oval smirked. "If you can hold out to Canterlot we can figure out which it is and sort things out. We'll get a snack, a map, get our stories straight for my mare, and hop on the next train when you're ready for it, okay?"

"Sure," I agreed with a wry smile. "I don't think it's hunger, though."

"Pearl, you haven't felt it yet," Oval reminded me. "Not truly. Our group kept you fed while the others starved."

"I know, I know," I agreed, letting myself fall sideways on the seat I was on. "I told you I would let you know if I started to feel hungry."

"You should be feeling hungry, by all accounts. Did you even take from the lines this morning?" Oval wondered, not reassured by my casual reply.

"Yes, like every morning since you guys taught me how," I replied lazily, pulling my hooves up to my barrel. "I'm not saying I don't feel a bit of a pit growing in my tummy, but it's no worse than what I've been used to."

Oval stared at me. "You're not seriously trying to get some sleep, are you? We'll be in Canterlot in a matter of minutes!"

I frowned at him. "I told you I was feeling sleepy."

"And I told you to try and hold on to Canterlot," Oval bounced back, slipping off his seat so he could poke a hoof at my side. "Go on, push up."

"I'll tell Blaze on you," I mumbled defiantly, but his continued prodding forced me to sit upright again.

"We most likely won't see her for a year at best," Oval remarked. "I'll take the chance you'll have forgotten about this by then if that means I don't have to carry you out of the train on my back."

"You're a bother, cousin," I grumbled, trying to shake off the drowsiness I was feeling.

"I'm just looking after you, Pearl. You don't want to miss out on seeing Canterlot with your own eyes," he chuckled, moving onto the seat next to me. "I know a restaurant which I'm sure you will enjoy eating at."

I let myself sink sideways against his larger form and sighed. "Here's hoping they have this world's equivalent to coffee..."

Oval raised an eyebrow, turning his head to look down at me. "What's that?"

"Coffee? It's ground-up brown beans which contain caffeine. Perfect for staying awake on," I explained meekly. "One of the many things I'm pining for, although I think I kicked my cigarette addiction by now; rarely think about the things anymore."

"Addiction... sounds like those salt bars they have in the Southern Pony towns," Oval thought out loud.

"Or our hunger?" I suggested, peering up at him.

"Yes," Oval agreed with a wry smile. "But then all kinds of food or drinks are an addiction. We'd die without the love we take in, as you should know by now."

"A necessity," I mumbled.

"As is staying awake, Pearl," Oval chuckled, giving me a nudge with his elbow.

I grumbled at the nudge, but straightened my back and forelegs again. "Yes, yes, how much longer?"

Oval brought his right hoof up to point through the window at the tall mountain which quickly drew near. "We'll go through a tunnel in a moment, but are very nearly there."

I gave a slow nod. "Can't wait."

It did not take too long before the tunnel's darkness took possession of the train, and we sat in silence while waiting for it to pull into the station past it.

Just as the train started to slow down, and the unmistakable screeching of the brakes were heard, a blue flash passed through the cart, and I felt a spell of nausea hit me. It quickly took possession of me, and I noticed Oval was straining to keep his composure as well in what little light we had from the cart's lamps.

"What was that?" I asked, feeling worse with every breath.

"I have no idea," Oval returned in worry, stepping down from the seat and taking a few strained steps through the cart. "Some magic spell?"

My vision blurred and I felt like I was about to puke, all thought of holding my guise leaving me in favor of holding down my liquid breakfast. The green flash of my Changeling magic soon passed over me as I lost control of my guise, and Oval snapped to in surprise.

"Pearl, focus!" he all-but shouted at me.

Sitting on the seat as my Changeling self, I felt the nauseousness pull away again until I could actually focus on my guise again. The green flash moved over me as I returned to my Earthpony appearance, but the queasy feeling that had tried to overtake me before came back just as strongly not a moment later! I lost control again in mere seconds, much to Oval's distress!

I stared down at my grey bug-like hooves and licked around my fangs. "I can't hold my guise," I realized out loud, while a flash of green passed over Oval as well.

I looked up to see her going through the same motion of restoring it, then having it falter again.

"Whatever that spell was, it was aimed at us," she realized at once. "I can't keep my guise any more than you can, and I have a few years of experience on you."

I gave a slow nod as daylight returned to us, the train finally reaching the other end of the tunnel.

"I get physically ill when I try to hold it," I told her, even as her green magic left her horn for her to gather her belongings from the seat opposite mine.

"We can't stay on the train," Oval decided with great haste behind her words. "We have no option other than slip off before it hits the station; there are too many guards in this city. Get your stuff and follow me quickly!"

I slipped off the seat I was on as well, used my magic to lift my bag onto the blue chitin covering my back, and ran after Oval as she made for the back exit of the traincart.

We slipped out of the last traincart as the locomotive rolled into the station, and jumped off into the shadows beside the station platform, our bags falling around us in the bushes. As the train came to a stop, the Canterlot Royal Guards moving in to check its contents, the two Changelings they were searching for were huddled together in the bushes beside the station, desperately hoping nopony would spot them...

Chapter 3

Oval and me lay huddled up between our bags in the undergrowth of some bushes planted next to Canterlot's train station while we listened to the sound of armed guards walking to and fro on the platform so close to us we could easily touch it with a hoof from our current position.

My heart was racing in my throat from fear of getting discovered, and I had buried myself in against my Changeling sister for comfort. Oval held on to me for much the same reason, I suspected, but we were as quiet as we could be so as not to draw attention to ourselves.

The train was emptied, checked by the Royal Guard, and then turned around for the return trip. After the passengers had boarded, it quickly sped past us to disappear into the tunnel in which that strange magic spell had been placed. It picked up speed far too quickly for us to hop on board, Oval shaking her head at me as I motioned at it.

Not half an hour passed before the next train pulled past us into the station, and the events repeated; passengers and cargo were checked by the Royal Guards, the train was turned about, and new passengers were let on before it pulled out of the station again.

And all the while we were huddled up like grey stones in the plants we had rolled into, not seeing a way out until the business would slow down.

I could not stifle a yawn, and Oval gave a nod to me as if to suggest I should try to get some sleep considering how tired I had been on the train. "I'll keep an eye out," she whispered at me. "You're going to need all the energy you can get once night falls."

Even through the fear and the noise, I managed to fall into a restless slumber against my sibling, too tired to fight it. When I woke up again, it was to the lighting of lamps on the street a few steps beyond the bushes as twilight settled over the land.

Oval's blue bug eyes moved slightly as she caught me stirring, and I knew they settled upon me even if we had no pupils to indicate such. She quickly shook her head as I opened my mouth to speak, and I closed it slowly while looking around. From what I could see past her insectoid body, there were quite a few ponies out on the street, and I caught a pegasus flying over to a nearby lamppost with a lit wick to set the lamp alight.

If we remained still, we could be mistaken for just a couple of rocks placed in amidst the plants, I expected, and few ponies who glanced our way by accident repeated the act. It slowly but surely settled my immediate fears of being noticed and captured by them, and I noticed Oval's breathing was far calmer than it had been shortly after we crashed into our current position.

A few hooffalls up above us drew my attention to the station platform just in time to see a halberd swing through the air as the guard holding it turned away from us. His armoured hooves made slow but deliberate steps away from the edge of the platform, and Oval finally let out a sigh I had not been aware she was holding.

"That guard had been standing there for way too long," she whispered at me.

"I didn't even notice them until they moved just now," I whispered back.

"That's why I shook my head earlier; he would have heard us. What was it you wanted to say, Pearl?" Oval explained.

"How long did I sleep for?" I asked.

"Half the day. I made sure you did not snore," she returned. "You really needed it. You think you're ready to go for a run? We don't have long before another guard will move to stand up there, and they stay there like statues for far too long to chance not being seen. They will soon carry torches with them, and we can't hide from that."

"But what about the crowds?" I asked, motioning at the ponies on the street.

"They don't carry weapons on them. We need to run fast and I need you to stay on my tail as close as you can. No matter what turn I take, take it with me. If I jump into a building, follow. Don't pause, don't think, just follow," Oval pressed.

"I think I can do that, Burst," I agreed. "Do we take the bags along?"

"If we leave them here, they will be found. If we take them along, they may slow us down," Oval pondered. "Take them anyway. If we're getting pursued we can throw them at the guards."

"When do we go?" I asked, reaching out for my bag with my mind, ready to let my magic grab hold of it.

"Now," Oval decided, letting go of me and rolling away, her magic erupting from her horn and grabbing her own bag as she rolled into a standing position.

I followed her lead, and we were soon running down the small slope to the street below, barrelling through the carefully tended bushes we had been hiding in.

We must have been quite a sight for the inhabitants of the city as we came bursting out of the bushes, our green magic flaring around us to make sure our bags followed; a pair of Changelings, out in the open as if we had no fear of being caught.

The resulting panic sent the ponies fleeing in all directions, but I kept my focus on Oval's rear end and followed a hooffall behind it. I barely took note of the buildings as we rushed by them, the sound of ponies crying out in panic lost to my ears, and we weaved our way deeper into the city as fast as we could.

Oval appeared to know which way to go, even if she must have been making decisions on the fly as to whether to turn left, right, go under something, over other things, and - indeed - suddenly through an open window into a building!

I flew through it after her, kicked some dirty dishes off the kitchen cabinet beyond with my left back hoof as I made a wider turn than Oval, and we barely managed to avoid trampling a foal playing with their toys in the house's living room as we raced through it.

Oval sped out the door, through a group of ponies who were only just starting to respond to the chaos following in our wake, and through a back alley. My bag caught on something as I rushed after her, and I let go of it as instructed; nothing it held was as important as getting to safety.

Oval dove into a hole in the ground, and I not a moment after, setting my hooves down in some of the most foul-smelling water I had ever come across. As I sped through the tubular cavern after Oval, trying my best to keep up what with the sudden slippery ground, my mind made the connection I rather wish it had not; sewers.

We continued through the sewers underneath Canterlot until Oval shot up through an open manhole, her bag inches behind her. I jumped up to follow, but had to buzz my wings to get enough momentum to reach the pavement above. As I managed to set my hooves down on the stones, I stopped to find Oval directly in front of me, her bag set to her left. Beyond her stood a unicorn, horn charged with yellow magic, blocking our way.

"We're not your enemy," Oval spoke, her own magic doused and her pose one that clearly attempted to convey she was not ready to pounce upon the unicorn.

I lowered my head slightly as well, mimicking Oval's pose in an attempt to show the unicorn there was nothing to fear.

"You're really not catching us at our best," Oval continued as the unicorn remained silent.

"You're changelings," the other finally stated, narrowing her purple eyes set under her yellow mane.

"Can't change that," Oval agreed, taking a careful step back to me. "We can't allow ourselves to be captured. Please get out of our way?"

The unicorn gave a quick look past her purple flank on which a white flower sat as her cutiemark. Her yellow tail flicked as the sound of guards rushing down the streets drew nearer.

"Back down?" I whispered to Oval, mentally steeling myself to head back down into the sewers again.

The unicorn turned back to face us again, her eyes meeting mine for a brief moment, and then her magic doused. "Follow me, quickly," she spoke, turning tail and running off into the street to our right.

Oval grabbed her bag with her teeth, then gave chase, with me close on her tail.

The unicorn led us down the street, then opened the door to a house and remained standing in front of it. "In here, there's a door under the stairs, get in there, close it, and be quiet."

Oval and I rushed past her, and Oval's magic pulled the door under the stairs open for us to rush into a cabinet filled to the brim with spices and assorted dried plants. She pulled the door closed again behind me, and we sat in the darkness of the cramped room listening to the sounds of heavy hooffalls drawing nearer.

The front door to the house closed with a soft click, dampening the sound even more than the cabinet door already had, but we could still hear the sound of a dozen guards as they came ever closer.

I swallowed strongly as they came to a sudden halt, and we could hear a male voice speaking in a demanding tone of voice. The twin doors between us kept us from hearing what was said, but it was met with the sound of the unicorn's voice. The two voices had a conversation which we could only guess at, and then the male voice spoke up again in a clear command. The hooffalls continued immediately after, now drawing away from our location.

I felt Oval's breath on me as she sighed out in relief, and leaned in to give her a soft nuzzle. That could have ended much worse for us. With the guards now drawing away, we were no longer in immediate danger... unless that unicorn turned out to have a hidden agenda.

Chapter 4

Oval and I, sat in the storage cabinet under the stairs of a Canterlot pony's home, could only wait in darkness as we heard the front door to the house open, and somepony walking in at a casual pace.

The door clicked close again after them, then clicked again as a lock was put in place.

The sound of hooves falling gently on the wooden floor of the house drew near, and a yellow glow lit up the door's handle before it was gently pulled open to reveal the unicorn mare looking in at us.

"So... you're changelings," she started, finding Oval and me huddled together, our adrenaline still rushing through our forms, "but you're not here to fight? Colour me curious."

Oval and I just stared up at her, realizing her purple eyes were going over our forms as if she had never had a moment to truly see one of us in the flesh, so to speak.

"My name's Camellia, and I welcome you to my house as long as you don't intend to bite my head off or anything like that," the unicorn continued as neither Oval nor me spoke up.

I brought my tongue out to lick around my fangs, knowing full well they looked more dangerous than they really were. "I don't want to bite anyone's head off," I mumbled.

"Well, that's good, then," Camellia offered with a weak smile. "Are you two going to keep sitting around in my pantry, or can I get you to join me in my living room? The blinds are closed for the night, so nopony outside can see you."

Oval swallowed strongly next to me, and then gave me a soft nudge. "I think she's as safe as anypony can be for us right now, Pearl."

"Yeah," I agreed, pushing myself away from my sibling and onto my four hooves to carefully walk out past the unicorn. "My name's Pearl, and that's Oval," I introduced ourselves to our host, giving the room I entered a good look.

Several soft chairs were set around a low coffeetable, while a large cabinet held books on botany and flower arrangements. It was something the unicorns' cutiemark had already made me expect to find, but I still smiled at seeing them. I slowly paced around the coffee table to one chair in particular, one set with its back to a wall on which a painting of a lush flowerbed in full bloom had been placed.

A low thud behind me indicated Oval having placed her bag on the floor, and I looked up to see her still standing halfway in the doorway to the pantry, eye-to-eye with the unicorn.

"Why?" Oval asked with a frown clear on her face. "You must have been here during our attack a few years back? Why risk it?"

The unicorn mare named Camellia gave a soft shrug. "I take things at face value. You could have ran through me. The two of you could have overpowered me. We could have stood in the streets fighting with tooth and hoof and magic until the guards had caught up to you," she started, closing the door behind Oval with her magic as she finally moved out enough to allow it.

"Instead," Camellia continued, "you withdrew your own magic, set your bag down, and backed away. You said you did not want to fight, and I had no reason to doubt you given your actions."

Oval carefully made for a different chair than the one I had moved to sit on, keeping one eye on the unicorn at all times as she moved, and Camellia made a point of taking a seat as centered in our view as possible. Both Oval and Camellia were acting as if they walked on eggshells, and I could see the tension in their muscles even as they spoke as potential friends. They were both still ready to respond if the situation turned sour.

With the three of us seated in our respective seats, I felt my fear subside slowly but surely. I realized the same must be true for the others, as an uncomfortable silence settled on the room we were in.

Camellia's eyes flicked between Oval and me, and I was sure she was drinking in every little inch of our appearances. We were so vastly different from the ponies when we could not use our magic to mimic them, what with our sleek grey skins and chitin plates, the big blue eyes on our sharp faces, and our fin-like mane and tail alternatives. I was sure the pony took notice of the holes which marred Oval's legs, fins, and wings, compared to mine which were still unaffected by the effects of our species' hunger for love.

"So," I finally started, which caused Camellia to jerk in surprise. "am I right thinking you're a botanist?"

The unicorn relaxed again at the question, and gave a nod. "Florist, but I dabble in botany in my own time. I have a small garden in the back, but you will be seen if you go there."

"I noticed your cutiemark and the books," I explained. "You've been looking us over since we got here, so I am sure you noticed we don't have cutiemarks ourselves."

"Yeah, I did," Camellia agreed.

"Our species doesn't get them," I pre-empted her.

"I see," Camellia answered with a nod.

"We could overtake you whenever we want to," Oval mumbled while looking at the wood floor in front of her seat. "You have no idea who you invited into your home."

Camellia tensed up hearing that, focusing her eyes on Oval again.

"We won't," I quickly added. "We will honour our host's trust in us, won't we sis?"

"Well, yes," Oval mumbled, her blue eyes meeting mine. "But we're going to need to figure out where to go from here. Before you get too hungry and lose control."

"Lose control?" Camellia asked, and I could sense the air around us becoming charged with magical energy even if her horn was not lit with it yet.

"Oh, well, short lesson about our species: We feed on love. That's what we need to survive," I explained. "I'm relatively new to this myself, and I still need to learn to deal with this hunger. I fed this morning, but Oval makes it seem like I might turn into the Hulk if I don't get fed before long."

"What's a hulk?" Oval asked, but I shook my head at her.

"Not important right now," I decided, keeping my focus on Camellia. "I don't know if we would have made it to a safe place in this city on our own, Camellia. Thank you for your help. I will do my utter best to not betray your trust, and I am sure Oval will as well. If there are any questions you have, please let us know?"

The unicorn fidgeted a bit on her chair, looking between us with a mixture of fear and trepidation. "I'm not sure I know where to start," she spoke honestly. "You look so much different from us..."

"We're not supposed to reveal ourselves to ponies," Oval brought up. "There was some kind of spell in the railway tunnel which made us lose our guises, or we would have looked just like you."

"We could have looked like your twin if not for that spell," I suggested with a smile, but Camellia winced as she looked in my direction. "Oh, right, fangs," I realized. "I'm trying to make a joke here, is all. Attempting to lighten the mood?"

"Yes, the fangs," the unicorn agreed. "I keep fighting the urge to flee."

"I don't think we can do anything to stop you feeling that," I sighed. "That has to come from you. We're not going to do anything to you. We're not the dangerous ones here; we're just trying to stay out of harm's way. We weren't even supposed to stop here for longer than an hour or so?"

"Two hours," Oval corrected me. "We only came here to take a train to Baltimare. I live close by there."

"You live near Baltimare?" Camellia asked as if she had some difficulty believing it.

"A lot of our siblings live in pony towns, Camellia. We're not as dangerous as ponies make us out to be. We just live among you without harming any of you," I explained. "There's a few who are supposed to live here in Canterlot as well, although I don't know if that spell...?" My voice trailed off as I spotted realisation hit Oval's face.

"...if that spell hit them, they would not be able to hold their guises either." she gasped, shaking her head in growing terror. "There's no telling how many of them were outed. We've had dozens of family members pass through here recently thanks to Canterlot being a travel hub. Any one of them could have gotten noticed by accident. Most likely one of the hatchlings, but it could have just as easily been one of our more experienced siblings..."

"Wait, you're saying there are dozens of Changelings in Canterlot at this very moment?" Camellia caught up, watching the both of us nod in her direction. "That explains why the guards have been on high alert for the past weeks."

"How many weeks?" Oval demanded. "How long have they been mobilized?"

"Three, four? They suddenly rushed through the streets one day and closed off all the gates, set up checkpoints, and started to harass anypony trying to go in or out of the city," Camellia answered. "It led to delivery problems for a lot of businesses here."

"You think Blaze made it through?" I asked of Oval, knowing Blaze having left the Hive a few weeks before us - headed for Vanhoover to meet with her circus troupe.

"If Blaze were here, we would have heard of her already," Oval chuckled half-heartedly. "Nothing can hold Blaze captured against her will for long."

Chapter 5

Camellia, the purple-coated unicorn with her yellow mane and tail, sat peering between Oval and me as we tried to figure out which of our siblings left prior to Canterlot suddenly going on lockdown. No word of it had reached us in the Hive near Hollow Shades, so the guards must have intercepted any of our siblings who might have grown wise about it up to now. Before we knew what we were doing, we were listing the hatchlings we had seen leave in the past weeks to one another, trying to deduct which of them might have been the instigator thanks to having trouble holding their respective guises.

"Breeze is coming this way soon as well, isn't she?" I realized in growing horror, and Oval frowned deeply at my words.

"Unless we can get word out to steer clear of this place, yes," Oval agreed. "She was planning to go West as well, and most train lines heading there pass through Canterlot."

"I'm hearing so many names from you two," Camellia spoke up suddenly, catching us by surprise. We had almost forgotten she was there with us. "And you seem genuinely upset at the thought of something having happened to them."

"Well, yeah, they're family," I answered. "You care about your family as well, don't you?"

"I'm just surprised by it. I didn't expect changelings to have feelings like that," Camellia explained, and Oval let out a deep sigh.

"We're not too different," Oval stated bruskly. "I've been married to one of the most beautiful pony mares you can imagine. I care about her deeply. There are so many of us integrated in pony society that it would cripple your government if we were to suddenly all disappear at once. We have the same feelings you have, but we just look different from you. There's so many false preconceptions about us that we are forced to hide from you instead of coming out in the open. It drives me mad that I can't just be myself in front of my own mare because she would run from me in terror..."

Camellia's face blanked at the sudden stream of words from Oval, spat out by my sister in growing frustration at the situation.

"Keep calm, Burst," I warned, motioning at the closed blinds. "Shouting draws attention."

"Who's Burst?" the unicorn asked, and I nodded at Oval.

"Names are finnicky things," I chuckled. "You need to realise that we can take on the identities of a great many different ponies, at will. We change names as often as you change clothing."

"Doesn't that get confusing?" Camellia wondered, which actually made me laugh.

Her innocent question could have come from me not half a year ago, and I was reminded of how naive I had been back then. How alien Changelings had been to me. I had been turned into a Changeling, and had been forced to live with them day after day, and still it had taken me months to get comfortable enough among my siblings to identify them even from a distance, no matter the guise they had taken on.

Before that time, the thought of changing names, changing looks, and the huge amount of siblings running around without clear indication of a pattern made me as confused as this unicorn mare must be feeling right now. And she was only faced with Oval and me. Forget a whole Hive of changelings.

"Believe me or not, but it was confusing for me in the beginning as well," I told Camellia. "I'm not actually native to this place, but when I woke up as a newly hatched Changeling, my life was turned upside-down and I had to learn about all the new rules and things unique to our species. That took me a few months, so don't worry if you don't understand something after just a few minutes with us."

"She still doesn't know everything she needs to," Oval added.

"Oh, thank you for that," I snorted in her direction.

The unicorn mare looked utterly out of her depths, her ears drooping and her face a mixture of various emotions as she tried to make sense of it all.

"You wouldn't have tea in the house, would you?" I asked of her. "I think we could all use something to drink, and preparing it may give you some time to sort your thoughts out about us?"

"Tea? Yeah, I have tea," Camellia agreed, slipping off her seat and onto her hooves. "Do you have any preference?"

"Something calming, like a white tea?" I suggested. "Take your time preparing it, we won't go anywhere."

"If you've got a Summer Meadow mix, I'd love that," Oval piped up as Camellia walked off in the direction of the kitchen. "It's my mare's favourite."

After the unicorn left us for the kitchen and we could hear her rummage about, I put my attention back on my sister. "We're going to need to figure out how to get around this spell, don't we?"

"All magic dissipates eventually," Oval remarked quietly. "It's just a matter of time."

"But you've mentioned your mare too often since we got here," I suggested. "I've come to know you in these past months, Burst. Sure, you talk about your mare from time to time, but not this often. You're agitated as well. You're thinking we won't make it out of here, aren't you?"

"We're stuck in a random pony's house in the middle of the pony capital, with pony guards roaming the streets looking for us specifically. We have no idea how many of our siblings are stuck in their dungeons, we don't know what they know or what spells they have to identify us, and we can't reach out to anyone outside of town to keep others from arriving here," Oval listed. "I've never been this deep in the shit before, and I've been infiltrating their society for decades now."

"You mean this is worse than that open magic battle between Blaze and Moonshine over in the spa?" I asked, "Or when our Queen caught all of us and was ready to pretty much take our heads for going in against her? Or when we were trying to get small groups of Hatchlings out of the communal halls and watch each of them break down when they realized there was no way they could go back to their old lives?"

Oval let out a deep sigh at hearing me list it all. "It's been an eventful year, hasn't it?"

"We have the support of one of the pony princesses," I told her. "Sure, she's over in Ponyville, but I'm sure she will come over and try to help us if she becomes aware of the situation here. If I know Twilight Sparkle, she can't let this go on without her meddling in it."

"I did mention not being able to get a word out, right?" Oval coughed. "I mean, we're safe now, at this moment, but what if this unicorn turns on us? What if we get spotted by a guard? Until we get around this spell they put on us, we'll stand out like a lone tree in a grassy field."

"I'm surprised you got a few decades of experience on me but I'm the one trying to think our way out of this while you're giving in to your fears," I suggested calmly. "I mean, I get it; I know you're afraid that everything you've built up so far will come crashing down if we make the wrong move. You mentioned it a few times when we were dealing with the impending invasion. But we stopped that. We stuck together as a clutch and convinced our Queen to give us a chance. We convinced Starlight Glimmer to be our friend, for Moonshine to study with Twilight Sparkle... we can just do this one pony at a time."

I noticed a shadow in the doorway between the living room and where the kitchen was, but kept it to myself. If Camellia wanted to listen in, let her. She took a giant risk taking us in, and I was giving her the benefit of the doubt as well. Trust had to come from both directions if it was to work.

"You're forgetting that they're all spread out across Equestria now," Oval protested. "With Blaze in Vanhoover and Breeze back at the Hive, there's not much of a clutch to speak of."

"I'm here, aren't I? You guys adopted me into your clutch for a reason. I'm not going anywhere. No matter what happens, I will be there for you, Burst," I entrusted to her. "We can try and find out what happened to our siblings who were here in the city once we figure out how to get around that stupid spell, and maybe we can find out how to get the ponies' trust so they may let the rest of our family go, but let's take it one step at a time? Let's keep ourselves from getting overwhelmed by things?"

The shadow at the doorway moved as the boiling water made the kettle whistle, and I could hear it being picked up and water poured out while Oval tried to collect her thoughts.

"I think that's the reason it worked out," she finally said in a half-whisper. "You're taking things as they come. One thing at a time. The rest of us, we just... Breeze is so random, Blaze far too hot headed... and I just get overwhelmed by things. You helped us stay on track, keep focus on the important things."

"If I don't focus on one problem at a time, I'd get overwhelmed as much as you would, sis," I sighed. "I mean, remember how we met; I was tossed into a different world, into a different life, completely unable to change my situation. I was forced to adapt to it. You've seen how it affected the other hatchlings; we simply weren't given a choice but to adapt at such a fast pace. When they were finally given time to deal with their emotions, they broke down. No exceptions. They swallowed it, but cried in their sleep, or cried openly. They blamed us, shouted angrily, kicked about themselves, blew parts of the hive up from their errant magic releasing thanks to their anger. None of it was pretty."

Oval gave a thoughtful nod at that.

"You think I'm doing any better, sis? I'm held up solely by your acceptance of me. By being included in your clutch and the plans you had. By your love. But it's still a fucked-up situation, if you pardon my French," I continued. "If I let it all wash over me, I'll break down just as much as the other hatchlings have."

A tray floated in-between Oval and me and landed on the coffee table, a trio of teacups filled with steamy hot liquid on it, together with a small bowl filled with assorted cookies. As the yellow glow of the unicorn's magic receded from it, Oval and I turned our attention to our host standing a short distance away, noting the wet fur underneath her purple eyes.

"I'm sorry, I've been listening in from the other room," Camellia spoke softly. "I don't understand it all, but I get you're in it to help your family out. If there's anything I can do to help, please let me know? Family is everything to me as well and you sound like good people, no matter what you look like on the outside."

Chapter 6

Oval and I tried our best to get the unicorn mare up to speed as quick as she was able to absorb it while slowly sipping at the tea and nibbling on the cookies which Camellia had set down for us.

The idea that there were thousands of Changelings living in the pony lands unbeknownst to their neighbours was something that she clearly had some difficulty with, even if Oval stressed the different array of jobs and relationships they held were beneficial to pony society as a whole.

The idea that a smaller number of Changelings were now prevented from returning to those lives because of the anti-transformation spell which held Canterlot in its grasp, caused a grimace on the pony's face. The realization that others like us were now forced by it to hide away, lest they be captured and incarcerated in Canterlot Castle's dungeons, was truly upsetting to the unicorn pony.

Family meant everything to her, and hearing about the potentially large amount of families which would be torn apart by the effects of the spell made her all the more determined to help us out.

While she was a unicorn herself, she had no idea what kind of spell could have been used to take our guises away from us, as her magic had been largely used for her job as a florist or her attempts to branch out to the greater field of botany.

She knew just what was needed for plants to grow big and strong, for flowers to last for weeks and months even after their stems were cut, and how to splice different plants together in order to create a new species which had the benefits from both parent species and none of the weaknesses.

We briefly talked about how we thought Changeling magic worked compared to Unicorn magic, and how we could sense the energy patterns at times, but Camellia was entirely out of her league in that respect. It just didn't connect, and she was not going to be of any help in that area.

As a unicorn, and an employed resident of Canterlot, she was open to gathering supplies for us during daytime, and figuring out of there were others who might be able to help us out where she could not. Oval stressed to no end that Camellia had to be very careful, considering the way we were being viewed by ponies in general. Camellia acknowledged each of Oval's fears and did her best to silence them, but it was clear she was worried about the consequences as well.

As the evening went on and the three of us started to yawn, Camellia led us up to the first floor and into a messy room which smelled like dirt. Her magic quickly moved her botany experiments out of the way until there was ample room on the floor, and a set of sheets flew in after so she could lay out a rudimentary bed for us. As the unicorn retreated to her own room, Oval and I made ourselves comfortable and were soon fast asleep.

The next day arrived with the sight of Camellia standing in the doorway watching Oval and me sleep. I blinked my eyes open to see her standing there, an odd look on her face, and tried to connect her facial expression with an emotion. Failing that, I wurmed my way out of Oval's hold and stood up from the ground.

Camellia took a step back as I approached her, motioning for me to join her in the hallway. She closed the door to the other room behind me with her magic, and sat down in the small hallway. I followed her example, but moved my forehooves up to rub some sleep out of my eyes once I had sat down opposite her.

"Apart from your looks, you sleep like my nieces do," Camellia suggested. "There is a lot of love and trust there, between you two, something far removed from the angry mob I saw descend upon my city a few years back."

"That was a mistake," I told her directly, my feelings about it only having grown stronger over the past months due to my conversations with Blaze and others while in the hive outpost. "Our Queen has been having the same problems with understanding you ponies as you have had with understanding us. There has never been a proper dialogue between our species; All that exist are the preconceptions which just stack up on top of one another with no hope of being put to rest. Oval and other siblings of mine have been trying to fix that for decades now while living among you; trying to play the Devil's advocate, so to speak."

"And this situation we're dealing with now is destroying their work, isn't it?" Camellia realised far more quickly than I had expected her to. "We're faced with you being unable to hide among us, unable to do your work, and with ponies who let their fears of your outward appearance get the better of them?"

"Pretty much," I agreed. "We were just on our way to Oval's home in Hoofton, a place where she has a job and a life as a pony stallion. She has a wife there, friends, and is part of a larger pony community there. But we can't go there now, looking like our true selves; nopony would accept us. As they taught us where I come from; individuals may be smart and willing to listen to alternative viewpoints, but groups are dumb. If a group starts to panic, there's no easy way to make them listen to reason again."

Camellia closed her eyes and sat in silence with me for a moment. I could hear Oval's slow breathing from the other side of the door to my left - my clutchsister clearly still fast asleep.

"You have an aura around you of someone who is to be trusted," the Unicorn opposite me finally spoke up. "If you had not come up out of the sewer when you did, I would have released my magic onto your sister and called for the guards. I don't feel like I can trust her as much as you."

"I do? Er... well, thanks for not doing that, I guess?" I stumbled. "I'm not really sure what to do with that?"

"I might know somepony who is ready to listen, but they need to meet you. Without your sister Oval present. Would that be a problem?" Camellia asked directly.

"I don't think it's a problem, but we're kind of confined to your home right now," I pointed out. "I can't go elsewhere to meet with them, and Burst is going to be in the house here as well."

"I'm not sure I can get their name right; Oval, Burst, you seem to be mixing them up as much as I do in my head," the unicorn stated with a wry smile. "If you can convince them to stay out of sight until my friend is ready to meet with them as well, I can get you in contact with someone who has access to the palace and may be able to find out whether they're holding your family there or not."

"I can't promise all of my family are as trustworthy as I seem to be, Camellia," I mumbled. "They do mean a lot to me, though. We told you yesterday how important it is for us to be able to feed. Stuck in a prison cell without the ability to feed, we'll go feral... we won't be able to feed if we can't mimic a pony's looks. All of this can go wrong so quickly by inaction as well as by taking the wrong action..."

"There are some plants which require live food, like the dionaea muscipula, but that does not make them any less precious than the harmless blooming flowers I work with on a daily basis," the unicorn offered up. "I've been thinking of you along those lines; you look similar to us, but you just need a different diet. As long as I respect your diet, we can co-exist, true?"

I gave her a slow nod. "I had not thought of it that way yet, but that sounds like a good analogy. I'm pretty sure we're insects, though, not plants. Have you seen our wings yet?"

With that I turned my back on her a little and brought my wings out from under the chitin covering my back so Camellia could have a look at them.

"I saw them on the others during the attack," Camellia agreed, but still leaned in to get a better look at my wings as I kept them still for her. "I think you're right; those are insect wings as far as I can judge. Now I'm feeling like I should not have mentioned the flytrap as an example of a flesh-eating plant."

"Meh, I'm big enough not to get swallowed by one," I chuckled with a wink. "I'm fine with a little humorous jabbing at my expense, please don't worry about offending me."

The unicorn pulled back from me with a careful smile. "This is what I meant; everything about you tells me I should trust you. It's the only reason I've even thought of inviting my friend here to meet you. Your sister there? There's something off about the way she acts; she just feels wrong somehow."

"I can't comment on that, really. Burst has done so much for me over the past half year that I can't but trust her," I sighed. "Our family is a complicated one, especially thanks to the problems we have with feeding and getting others to trust us when we can look like anyone else we meet. Some of my family members throw themselves at that role of the evil antagonist; they like scaring others while trying to take from them what they can. They don't care about what they leave behind. But there's a growing group of us who are invested in long-term relationships. Who don't want fast food, but want to nurture our crops, if I can use a botanical term."

"And you're one of those," Camellia stated as a fact more than a question.

"Well, no... I'm not from here. It's complicated, but I do want to go back eventually. I don't belong here with the rest of you. Oval is the one who wants to get things working right. She wants so badly to return to her mare and have a long life together with them," I explained while looking over to the closed door between my sibling and us.

"You may not get the right vibe from her, but she can't help that. She really wants to figure out how to bring ponies and changelings together on friendly terms. She wants this to work out. And this situation here, the potential for this to turn into a war between our species," I paused to shake my head at the idea. "The thought alone is tearing her up inside."

The unicorn reached up with her left foreleg to brush some hair out of her eyes, letting my words work on her mind. "Nopony I know wants a war. It could do such harm," she finally emitted in a worried tone of voice.

"None of the changelings I know want one either," I told her. "We almost had a war half a year ago, and it's only thanks to Oval that we managed to stop it before it started. Our Queen was about ready to take Equestria by force, which would have done irrepairable damage to all of us. There would have been no coming back from that for centuries. Oval and her sisters recruited me to try and get our Queen to change her mind."

"Given that there was no war half a year ago, I take it you succeeded?" Camellia deducted with a wry smile. She was really not liking the topic, and I could not blame her.

"You'd think that, but no; I failed," I told her honestly, much to her surprise. "We had this big plan to get our Queen to listen to me, an outsider who could bring a fresh voice to the table, but when it came to me to talk to her, I became overwhelmed by her pheromones. I was completely out of it; didn't know who I was or where I was, only that I wanted to do everything I could to keep my Queen happy so I would continue to smell that precious smell of hers. The only reason we eventually succeeded was because of two ponies which we had managed to sneak in with us. Starlight Glimmer and Pinkie Pie managed to..."

"Pinkie Pie?" Camellia interrupted with a start. "I know her; she's friends with the Princess Twilight Sparkle, isn't she?"

"Er, yeah. I think Pinkie is friends with everypony, including Oval and me, but you're right," I agreed.

"Yeah, I know her and her sister Maud Pie. Maud studied geology at the same school where I studied botany," Camellia explained calmly.

"No kidding?" I replied in honest surprise. "I haven't met Maud myself, but Pinkie is definitely a friend of mine. I'm glad to hear you know her as well!"

"Pinkie is a good judge of character. I have to wonder, though; what would you have looked like if that spell had not taken your magic away?" Camellia asked out of the blue, and I folded my wings back under my chitin as I straightened up again.

"Well, er," I started carefully. "I do have a look which is kind of my... identity... I mean, I'm called Pearl because of a bit of a stupid story. I didn't quite mimic anypony in particular, but I would have sat here as an teenage earthpony mare with a light grey coat, a light aquamarine mane and tail with lighter green highlights, bordering on grey... deep yellow eyes, with a cutiemark of a brown conch shell with a pearl in front of it."

The unicorn mare's eyes scanned over me as if she was trying to imagine it as an overlay over my insectoid current form, the corners of her mouth rising slowly. "I can see that," she finally spoke to me. "I can see your words coming out of somepony like that, yes. Almost like a fresh cucumber sandwich. Is that what you feel like on the inside? Past the dark skin and sharp fangs?"

"I don't know, I haven't really gone through any other guises for any length of time to get used to them as much as that one. I guess it's as much my identity as anything else right now? I would feel more comfortable looking like that right now, than I do sitting here bared to you and anypony else who may see me, if that's what you're asking?" I returned, reaching up with my left hoof to rub at my left cheek.

"I dunno, I... I haven't really spoken with anyone about it yet. My clutch have all been in this thing longer than I have, and they each have their own guises to fall back on. Blaze and Burst have pretty permanent ones, but Breeze skips between them like she has no attachment to them whatsoever," I rambled. "Pinkie just accepted me for who I am, no matter what I looked like when she met me. I don't think Starlight wants to talk about it in depth since we remind her of a bad period in her past, but she appeared accepting of us as well."

The unicorn's purple eyes flitted across me again, and I was starting to get a little uncomfortable as I realized just how much information I was giving her, and the way in which she got me to spill it. What was she thinking, exactly? Where was she going with it? If Camellia ended up not being trustworthy, I would have given her so much information that she could ruin me and all other Changelings roaming through Equestria.

I was starting to feel nauseous again, but this time not due to some magic spell keeping me from taking on a pony guise. This time it was due to the full weight of the situation finally coming down on me like the hammer I evaded for over half a year now.

Camellia noticed the change in me, and her ears flattened. I started to become aware of a draft pulling in her direction and realized she was charging herself with the ambient magic surrounding us. It made me feel weary and defensive as there seemed no reason for her to do so.

"What are you doing?" she spoke carefully to me, as if something about me was as startling as what she was doing herself, and stood up to take a step back away from me.

"I should ask you the same question," I returned to her, hearing the sharpness of my Changeling voice hiss the words at her. Just my appearance was enough to make anypony worried, but the voice did not help in the least bit to calm them down when they were already on edge.

"I tried to help, invited you into my home," Camellia muttered, her horn starting to glow with a soft yellow light as if she was building up a magical charge in it.

I took a step back when I recalled the fight between Blaze and my Hatchling 'brother' on the mountaintop; there was a minimum distance between two fighters which I needed to maintain if I wanted to have any hope at all to dodge an incoming attack.

"You've been asking a lot of questions. How do I know I can trust you?" I voiced my own unease to her, feeling the muscles around my resin glands twitch. My body was ready to meet the challenge of a potential fight, even if my mind was trying its best to try and find the right words to prevent it from happening.

Both Camellia and I were struggling with our rising fears, and it was clear on her face as much as it should on my own. We had been so comfortable not a minute before, chatting as friends, and now we were standing ready to give the other a beating they would remember for a long time to come. And there was no reason for it...

A dollop of resin leaked out of my resin glands onto my tongue and I swallowed it down quickly, knowing my body would just digest it. "Please, stop this. We need trust between us, not this," I voiced my concern in a hiss through the space between my fangs.

Camellia's eyes were scanning over me, even as she continued to back away from me, but her facial expression told me enough; there no longer was any trust behind them. The pony was faced with a creature which had plagued her nightmares ever since her city had been attacked by a vast army of them, and while she had tried to give me the benefit of the doubt before, there was just no way we were going to overcome that in just a single night and couple of chats.

I felt terrified at the prospect of Camellia doing something she might regret later on. She had the upper hoof in this; she could have the guards come down upon us in force by just the smallest of actions. All she needed to do was reveal us to her neighbours, and I feared this would start when she would release the magical charge from her horn...

As the pair of us stood facing off against one another, waiting to see who would take the initiative, there came a sudden click to my left. The door to the room Oval and I had been sleeping in swung open not a moment after, and I barely caught a glimpse of my sister's blue eyes from my peripheral vision.

The thought of having to face off against two Changelings sent Camellia over the edge, and yellow lightning burst from her horn! I responded in almost the same second by shooting green resin out of my mouth, but I was thrown backwards by the sheer ferocity of her magical attack!

Unfortunately for me, behind me was a flight of stairs leading down, and I quickly realized that her magic spell had been intended to paralyze me when my wings refused to come out from under my chitin plating. With no way to slow my descent, I hit the wooden floorpanels in front of the staircase with enough force that I blacked out on impact, even as more sparks of magic flew across the landing above...

Chapter 7

There was the strange sensation of floating. Floating in a dark void in which a low thumping sound reverberated in a familiar rhythm. Every thump came with a disorienting blurring of my vision, as if I could not properly focus on the world around me while hearing the sound at the same time.

Even with me drifting in what was essentially a pitch black void, there was the hint of a dark blue light surrounding me even if there was little it could illuminate. I could faintly see the outlines of my own form, which only disoriented me more as I put my focus on it.

Rather than my Changeling self, I appeared to be Human once more, with human arms and human legs drifting uselessly through the void. Strangely enough I had no control over my limbs, even when I tried to focus on moving them. All that did was increase the blurring of my view and make me feel nauseous.

I slowly became aware of another form near me, but could not focus enough on the blue shape to recognize them. The thumping sound and blurry vision just drowned out all details of the form, other than the general shape of a winged pony drawing slowly nearer to me as if they were able to walk in this strange realm where I was stuck drifting without any control whatsoever.

A soothing female voice spoke to me in a maternal tone, but the words sounded like utter gibberish to me. The intonation made it sound like a question, then a statement, but all I heard were guttural sounds. Guttural sounds uttered by a most beautiful voice, but no less useless than my limbs were to me in this strange place.

Another question was uttered while the thumping grew ever louder. The blue figure before me slowly started to pull away, even as they started to move their hooves as if walking forward. As they did, a blue light erupted from their forehead, enclosing a large horn protruding from their head.

The more they pulled away, the more their motions seemed to indicate they were trying to counteract it by first walking, then running, and finally spreading their wings in an attempt to fly closer. What magic they attempted to manifest, fell away without form or substance; I was clearly utterly beyond their grasp.

One final guttural sound was voiced as if from a far-away place as the figure disappeared from sight altogether, and a wave of nausea and pain washed over me to replace the dreamlike state I had been in.

I blinked my Changeling eyes open to the unexpected green tone of soft resin surrounding me. The thumping continued to hit me in its rhythmic pattern, now accompanied by a spark of pain on the back of my head.

It took me a moment to realize the thumping was actually my heartbeat, pumping blood to what must be a wound, and that strange realm I had been just moments before could have well been a fever-dream.

I tentatively moved my Changeling limbs, noting that my front right leg felt stiff as if it was held by harder resin than that which I was floating in. It gave me flashbacks to limping through the outpost's hallways after the first playfight I'd had as a Changeling had gone sour.

It had just about been the one and only reason I had been goaded into helping my siblings with their plans to stave off a Changeling attack on Equestria, thanks to my hurt leg having taken me out of the regular Changeling training sequence. The time they had spent with me while my sprained leg healed had given them the opportunity to fill me in on the state of affairs which would otherwise not have been possible.

The fact my leg was feeling stuck yet again made me think there was more wrong with it than I had initially considered. It was very clearly a weakness I would have to keep in mind from now on.

There was a pain in my back as I tried to stretch my wings out in the resin, but I blamed it on the thickness of the resin and the flimsiness of my insectoid wings. They were probably bending in an odd way as I tried to get them out from under my chitin shield. Probably.

Having come to terms with being a Changeling again, who was clearly suffering from a weak right leg and a headwound, I tried to move my attention outward - beyond the confines of my own situation. The resin pod I was stuck in was dangling from the ceiling of the room Burst and I had slept in just the night before, with Camellia's botanic items still haphazardly put away so as to create room for us.

I attempted to swing my pod by moving my lower legs through the resin, as I had when I first woke up in one back at the Changeling hive outpost, but it did not give way at all. I could potentially cut my way out of the pod with my fangs, but the pain in the back of my head made me think it was better to stay where I was. For all I knew the pod was filled by a Matron's healing resin, after all.

After settling into the idea of waiting until someone could fill me in on what was going on, knowing I was about as safe as I could be while in a resin pod, I just let my thoughts drift.

Not all of it made sense to me, not the least of which the odd way in which Camellia's behaviour had changed just before I woke up in this pod. We had been talking on a friendly level, or as friendly as a pony and Changeling could, and then suddenly there was that buildup of tension coming out of nowhere!

The attack was unwarranted, and I was obviously no match for her magical abilities. I remembered flying backward down the flight of stairs... and then waking up in the pod. The floaty fever dream was most likely induced by the way my head had hit the floor below. I would be utterly amazed if I had not ended up with a concussion from it.

This was what a concussion felt like, right? The painful thumping of my heartbeat, the way my memories were seeming a little more jumbled than usual, the way I felt like I was drifting in-and-out of consciousness even while I was thinking things to myself?

I honestly had no reference for it, and I was prone to overthinking things.

It took an undeterminable amount of time before the door to the room opened and Oval wandered in, her bug eyes giving me a good looking over before she opened her mouth.

"How long have you been awake for?" I heard her speak through the layer of resin, which was not unlike hearing someone on the edge of a swimming pool speak to you while you were yourself submerged in the water.

There was no way for me to answer her while I was stuck in my resin pod, of course, so I just raised an eyebrow at her.

"Ah, right. Well, I had to put you in there so you would stop struggling; you were still trying to fight back even as Camellia and I moved you up here," Oval revealed. "The fight's over, and Camellia is downstairs. Why did you have to attack her?"

Wait, Camellia thought I was the one attacking her?? I slowly moved my head side-to-side in the resin to protest, but Burst's eyes narrowed slightly at my response.

"She said you just became ever more agitated while you were talking to her, and she had to defend herself so you would not feed off her," Oval continued. "I don't know you as someone who would risk everything like this. Blaze, perhaps, but not you. You've shown yourself to be more levelheaded than me and my sisters, so this makes no sense to me!"

I shook my head more, even if it made the pain and dizziness spike up from my movement.

"Well, you'll have a chance to explain yourself once you're healed, okay? Camellia has sent for a friend of hers who might be able to help us out where she can't herself, so your fight with her doesn't appear to have caused too much harm," Oval muttered. "You should get some sleep; you've been out for most of the day and the sun has gone down a few minutes ago. That's why I came up, actually; to get some sleep myself."

I watched as Oval closed the bedroom door and laid herself down on the ground between my pod and the door. Her back was turned to the door as if she trusted our host to not rush in during the night, and she was facing me with a small amount of distrust.

Obviously Camellia's experience of the fight had been different from mine. To me, Camellia had seemed to be the agitator; having forced me to defend myself against her. Yet Camellia had spun that around as if I had made the first move? It made no sense, but thinking about it too much made the pain in my head rise to the point where my vision became blurry again.

I took a page from Burst's book and closed my eyes to get some more rest. The pod would heal me as long as I was in it, so I would just have to wait until Oval thought I had recovered enough so I could be let out again.

The green glow of my resin pod and the, near-black, blue glow of the strange void I had been in before, bled through one another as I had more fever dreams during the night. At one point I woke to find Oval had gone again, but I had not seen her leave the room. The whole thing was just one disorienting moment after the next.

When I finally started to make sense of things again, I realized I had been staring at the worried face of Oval for more than a few seconds, my sister having moved to stand right in front of me at some point in the recent past. She was looking at me as if she had asked a question, her forehooves placed on the pod's exterior wall so she could keep herself standing upright on her back legs to get on an even height with me.

I blinked a few times, then shrugged noncommittally in an attempt to make my sister aware that I had only just regained consciousness again.

Oval sighed in worry, her breath barely fogging up the resin between us. "I asked if you were still in pain, Pearl. Your wound has healed to the point where I'm not sure my resin will do much of anything for it anymore, but I'm not sure you should come out if you're still in pain. I'm not a Matron, so I'm not sure if I'm judging it right."

I thought about it a moment, realizing the pain had lessened to nothing more but a background nuisance. It was still there, but it was no longer causing me nausea or blurriness.

I shook my head in the resin, a bit stronger than I probably had in the previous day when Oval had asked me about my fight with our pony host, and immediately regretted it as the nausea returned with a vengeance. I must have visibly winced, as Oval prodded my pod with her right hoof while staring me down with a frown.

"Please don't lie about your health, Pearl," she chided me.

I shook my head again, slightly slower this time.

"Hmm, if you're sure you're ready to come out," my Changeling sibling responded in a questioning tone? After another slow nod from me, she appeared to make a decision in my favour and leaned forward while preparing me for what was to come; "Okay, try to keep your weight off your right hoof there. I'll cut you an opening and try to support you where needed."

I gave another nod as Oval sank her fangs into my pod and dragged them down as she let herself sink down until she was on all fours again. The resin around me washed out of the gashes her fangs had made, splashing over her, but she barely seemed to mind.

I breathed out the resin from my lungs so the air could replace it, then opened my mouth and gave a quick cut sideways wih my fangs pressed against the wall in front of me. With the two cuts Oval's fangs had made, the slice I gave it made the resin wall before me fall forward so there was a large gap for me to escape out through.

Keeping Oval's warning in mind, I landed on my left foreleg more than my right as I fell out onto the now wet wooden floor, and immediately found my sister standing shoulder-to-shoulder with me for extra support, her breath landing on my wet back.

"Thanks, but I could've cut myself out, you know?" I mumbled back to Oval, shivering a bit to the cooler air of the room outside the resin pod I had just left. Her body was slightly warmer than the ambient temperature, but mine had been sitting still for too long and simply needed to adjust.

"Sure, but it would have taken too long; Camellia's friend is waiting for us downstairs, which is really the only reason I'm willing to pull you out of this right now," Burst responded flatly, giving a slight nudge with her right shoulder to mine. "My resin doesn't have the best healing abilities, especially not compared to Matron, so it would have been better for you to stay in there for a few more days."

"How long have I been in there now?" I asked, letting my chin come to a rest on Burst's chitin backplating.

"A day-and-half now, it's just past lunchtime," my sister replied calmly, reaching up a hoof to my flank to rub some resin off. "There's probably still some sandwiches left if you feel like eating?"

I sighed longingly at the idea, but then moved my head away from Oval's back to look down at the hard resin covering my right foreleg. It was a situation I had been in before, and I knew how bothersome such a cast could be when trying to go places. "I'll have to stumble down the stairs, I guess, but I could definitely do with a sandwich or two."

"I didn't want to take the chance by not encasing your leg, considering your luck with that particular one," Oval pointed out in a half-joke, detaching herself from me to look back past our forms at the cast as well. "We could chip the resin off later today so you can check whether it's fine, but let's go down first. You'll have to meet Meadowsweet."

"Meadowsweet?" I replied in surprise as Oval turned around fully and then walked past me to get to the door, even if we were both still dripping with green resin.

"You'll see," Burst spoke enigmatically, pulling the door open for me and nudging her head at it.

Chapter 8

As I limped down the stairs of Camellia's pony home, I could hear the voice of our host speaking with another. Since the staircase had no door between it, the front door of the house, nor the living room, and was factually placed within the living room's four walls, I could set my eyes upon the other pony before I had fully descended it.

An Earthpony with a pink coat sat on the couch near Camellia, her flank speckled with little white flowers collected in a cluster. Her dark green mane was bundled up in a knot on the back of her head which sat at equal distance from both of her ears, while her green tail had been trimmed to a short tuft. I could just hear Rarity's voice from an episode so many seasons back "Short tails are in this year" reverbing through my head at seeing this.

With the thumping of my resin-cast leg on the steps, it was impossible to approach the new pony and our host Camellia without drawing attention to myself. Before I had descended the final few steps to reach the ground level of the building, their eyes had already landed upon my grey Changeling appearance and that of my sister waiting patiently at the foot of the stairs until I had joined her.

Burst took the first step into the open space of the living room and nudged her head back in my direction. "It's against my better judgement, but I have woken Pearl so the two of you can meet. I'm not sure if there's another moment for it, considering what you said about your work schedule, Meadowsweet?"

The new pony looked straight past Oval at myself, and I tried to produce my best non-threatening fanged smile as a response, hobbling after my sibling as I did.

"That stuff will evaporate over time, right Oval?" Camellia asked pointedly, a slight undertone of worry to her voice, while Meadowsweet and I shared a moment of silent observation between ourselves.

The Earthpony's keen yellow eyes peered at my own blue ones, quickly darted sideways as if to do a comparison between me and Burst, and then back to me again. Finally, then, her ears perked up and she reciprocated my smile.

"Every flower has it's own little identifying marker," Meadowsweet started in kind of an odd way of introducing herself. "While families of them may appear the same at a distance, a closer observation often helps to make one realize from which root they stem."

I felt the world shift as I involuntarily tilted my head ever-so-slightly to the right, and had to spread my legs out a bit wider to not feel like I was losing balance. I was sure to attribute it to the problem which also gave me a headache rather than suppose the world actually did shift. Thanks to the nauseating effects of my ailment, I produced a fairly educated "Er, wah?" in response to Meadowsweet's words.

"While the two of you were upstairs, Camellia and I were speaking about her issues keeping the two of you apart," Meadowsweet explained. "You definitely appear like you are from the same family but, much like the flowers in a field, there's enough differences between you to make you unique to one another."

Oval sat herself down on her rear, and used her new position to extend her right hoof in my direction. "It's the cast, isn't it? I should spit some resin on my own leg so we look the same again."

Camellia groaned at Oval's attempt at a joke, and I from a bout of nausea. "You ponies don't have something like an aspirin in here, do you?" I inquired, sitting down as well.

"How about I make you some tea with Meadowsweet?" Camellia returned, slipping off the couch she was on.

The other pony raised an eyebrow at the suggestion. "Why do I have to help making tea? You're the Unicorn here; just use your magic."

"I meant with the herb," Camellia muttered as she walked past her friend and to the kitchen. "It should clear her head."

"Oh, in that case I'd love to have a cup of myself, for me as well," the Earthpony called after her, before turning back to face me with a glint in her eyes.

"I've been the butt of quite a few jokes since she arrived," Oval entrusted to me from the sidelines. "She's a tricky one."

"So are you two, if I can make an observation, Oval," Meadowsweet returned with a more solemn tone to her voice. "And the other members of your family, in so far I have seen them or heard of them."

Oval spoke up again, drawing my attention to her. "Meadowsweet says there's a small hundred of our siblings down in the Canterlot dungeons. None of them are able to transform themselves, and some of them are close to starving after having been there for weeks now."

"They are certainly not behaving as civil as the both of you," the Earthpony offered her observation. "Snarling, kicking, biting... few of them go willingly."

"I can't imagine why anyone would be upset when dragged into a dungeon," I remarked dryly. "Have there been any more sightings of that shadow?"

"What shadow?" Burst wondered, but Meadowsweet startled ever-so-slightly.

"When Camellia and I were talking the other day, shortly before we started to become agitated, there was this shadow drifting between us. You must have seen it as you came charging out of the room, Oval?" I explained.

"No?" I heard my sister return with some reluctance. "All I saw was you and our host preparing to kill each other, so I jumped in as best I could."

"I've heard talk of a shadow before," Meadowsweet let out. "Ponies in this city have been acting up, not just the Changelings who once hid among us. Others as well."

"Oh, right, Meadowsweet did explain how this whole hunt for Changelings in Canterlot got started," Burst remembered. "Apparently one of our siblings was goaded into attacking a guard in broad daylight, was knocked on her ass, and ended up forced to reveal herself. That made them mobilize the guards en masse, and led to them deploying the spell which hit us while we were in the train."

"But, that doesn't make sense," I returned, trying to wrap my head around this. "No Changeling who was born in this world, nor any who were brought here against their will and went through our crashcourse would do such a thing. There's no gain in attacking ponies; even our Queen saw that!"

"And yet, you and Camellia were caught fighting just a few days ago," Burst reminded me. "The way Meadowsweet explains it is that ponies are basically losing their heads over the littlest of things."

"Is there anything you remember about that shadow, Pearl, was it?" Meadowsweet asked carefully.

"Yeah, don't ask where I got the name from. I guess there was... a queasiness," I remembered. "Camellia and I were just talking about regular things when I started to feel as if I was trying to transform, you know what I mean, Burst?"

My Changeling sister gave a slow nod. "I know the feeling, yes. But you weren't trying to transform?"

"I had no reason to; I know there's this spell which basically stops us from transforming, and there was nothing in the conversation leading up to it," I explained.

"I've heard say there's this sense of fear," Meadowsweet mumbled softer. "Something like the feeling of being watched, a sense of paranoia perhaps, before somepony lashes out at others around them."

"Paranoia is a good word for it," I agreed with a very slow and careful nod. "I was starting to believe that Camellia was attempting to lead Burst and me into a trap, that she was silently plotting to capture us and give us to the guards. Or that her charging of her magic was to kill me there, and then. No matter how much I tried to reason against it."

"And here I thought you were going to tear into me with your fangs, finish what we started when we last invaded Canterlot," a returning Camellia interjected into the conversation while levitating four cups of tea to the coffeetable near us.

While placing the cups around a plate with a few sandwiches left upon it, she added with a smirk, "I felt mortally afraid that you two would gang up on me, especially with Oval sleeping in the room so close to us."

"I could barely dodge her paralysis spell when I came charging out," Burst chuckled awkwardly. "You're a good shot, Camellia."

"Hmm, yes, but while we can laugh about it now; there's something entirely too awkward about this situation," the Unicorn suggested, slipping back on the couch next to her Earthpony friend.

"Well, you're not alone in this," Meadowsweet stated. "I'll put my feelers out while I'm at work in the Royal Gardens, see if I can't bring it to the attention of a few of my friends who work in the palace interior."

"Nothing too overt, I hope?" Oval asked worriedly. "We have no way to blend in, and my sister's leg needs healing. We're as stuck here in this house as our family members are down in the dungeons."

Camellia coughed while her eyebrows lowered in a frown and her ears flattened slightly and Burst ducked her head down an inch in response.

"Not that this isn't a very nice place to be stuck in, with very nice ponies who make very nice sandwiches, and Pearl you really should try some of these," she quickly rambled, then took a sandwich off the plate and all-but forced me to take a bite from it.

To be fair to Camellia and Burst both; it was a good sandwich! Between two slices of wholegrain bread rested lettuce, a few flowers I could not immediately recognize, and a light sauce like a mayonnaise or such. The whole thing was as rich in taste as a similar sandwich with an egg in it instead had been on Earth, except for the flower which just made the egg seem like a poor replacement.

While I did not particularly need the nutrition, what with my Changeling physiology expecting a different kind of food to nourish me, it was definitely a good sandwich, and I eagerly devoured it.

"The poor thing must need extra vitamins to help her heal," Meadowsweet remarked, looking at me with clear pity.

"Not really, we just need to get in touch with a Matron," Oval chuckled bemusedly, pushing a second sandwich in my face once I finished the first. "Our species can heal most wounds over time. Most that remains is a bit of scar tissue here or there."

"Lucky you," Camellia snorted jealously. "If we break a leg or a horn or a wing or such, we can end up crippled for life."

"Yeah, well," I threw back with a half-filled mouth, spilling some bread around me, "we're insects and you're mammals. I started out as a mammal, but hey, here I am. These are some good sandwiches, by the way."

"We're not exactly insects," Oval muttered back with a frown. "There are some really dumb insects out there."

"Like mosquitos," Meadowsweet realized with a grin. "Instead of draining blood, you drain love."

"Please don't go there," Oval whined half-heartedly.

"Too late!" the Earthpony returned in clear amusement, and much to Oval's chagrin.

All Camellia and I could do was share a glance between us while I finished my sandwich.

Chapter 9

With the joking left aside, my sister Oval, our Unicorn hostess Camellia, and her Earthpony friend Meadowsweet filled me in on some more topics of interest, all the while feeding me more sandwiches until the tray they had been on was left empty on the table. And let's not forget the cups of tea I was forced to consume as well, drawn as it was from the Earthpony's namesake plant, which slowly but surely got rid of my headache as I took in more of it.

From the initial scare a few weeks back, and the occasional freak outburst from one or the other, life in Canterlot had basically just resumed the way it had always done. Businesses and their patrons had quickly adapted to the patrols and extra security checks, and the ponies who had once had dealings with the Changelings had... not reacted well.

Some homes, occupied by Changelings only a few short weeks ago, had already been put up for sale, or in the worst cases had already switched owners. Businesses who had once employed our kind had distanced themselves from us to the point of open hostility towards the very idea of having once employed a Changeling.

It did not matter that our family members had integrated in all levels of pony society; every level had its own overnight disdain for the ones exposed by the activation of the spell now covering all of Canterlot. None of our kin could transform anymore, and all ended up in the dungeon.

As far as the ponies knew, through hearsay or having witnessed it themselves, we were the only two free Changelings left in the city, and we would be unable to avoid being seen in case we needed to get out of the city on short notice.

Meadowsweet's idea to bring the shadow to the attention of some more learned pony friends of hers who may have access to the princesses or the books in the palace library was seen by all of us as the best start right now. Camellia would try to get a message through to a friend of her from Ponyville; Roseluck, who was also active in the Florist business.

It was really our best hope to reach Starlight Glimmer and Moonshine. Through them, perhaps, Princess Twilight Sparkle and friends could help us figure this thing out.

"And I thought I had staved off the worst when we stopped the invasion last year," I had sighed out as I felt the weight of this new situation settle on me.

The problem with lunchtime was that it had all come and gone too quickly, and both Camellia and Meadowsweet had to return to their respective jobs for another few hours. Thus leaving Burst and me by ourselves.

We lounged a bit in the living room until Oval brought up the resin mess we had left upstairs, and I limped back after her to help her clean up. It took us almost an hour for Oval to bite chunks out of my pod and me to mop them into a pile in a corner, and by the time we were finished, we were as splattered by it as we had when I came out of the pod earlier in the day.

Exhausted from the work, I collapsed to the floor with a wet sound and sighed out as my thoughts came back to me again. Oval dropped down in front of me, green goop dripping off her as well, and carefully positioned her head in such a way for her crooked horn to gently bump into mine.

"How are you holding up, Pearl?" she asked, genuinely concerned for my well-being.

I looked up at her blue eyes inches away from mine, and sighed out deeply. My forceful exhumation of air sent splatters of green resin from the tip of my nose to hit Oval in the face, but she barely flinched from it.

"What are we going to do, Burst?" I asked, not at all sure I liked the potential paths my mind had been exploring while we had been cleaning the room. With my hurt head, and resincast leg, I was once again delivered fully into the hooves of others. My future was reliant on others making the right decisions around me, and two of those others were ponies who could potentially get me thrown into a dungeon by simply revealing to the wrong pony where it was that we were located.

"Now we wait for our host to come back," Oval returned with a weak smile, "and hope she has better news for us."

"If worse comes to worst," I started, staring into those blue eyes of hers, "you know I can't run. You could make it out of the city and get to Ponyville or the hive if you're not bogged down by me, but I'm kind of stuck here. And that scares me more than anything else."

"Yeah, I might be able to escape on my own," Oval pondered, but then immediately dismissed the notion, "but you told me the other day that you would not leave me alone, that you would stick with me while the rest of our clutch was spread so thinly across Equestria. I can't forgive myself if I leave you now, now you need my support the most. Whatever happens, happens. We just have to trust that Camellia and Meadowsweet get the word out to the right ponies, Pearl."

I stared into her blue eyes while we both lay on the floor with our horns touching, and realized once again how deeply the four of us had bonded over the past half year; Blaze, Breeze, Burst, and me had truly become sisters in all the ways that entailed. Here Burst was, on the floor with me to give me the support I needed, even if I knew the weight of our situation was weighing her down as well. This was what sisters did for one another; whichever one was stronger at the time would help the other stay upright.

I could not hold back the tears of relief at realizing the unbridled truth in her words; she would not abandon me, just as I would not abandon her in her time of need. They had adopted me into their clutch, and that meant I had a family to back me up even in the darkest of times. I could only hope those of our kind stuck in the dungeons could find solace among each other in a similar vein.

Oval's eyes filled with water as well at seeing me cry, and our foreheads met as she leaned in a bit closer. As she did, her crooked horn slid along mine and I found it was an oddly comfortable feeling, counter-balancing the topics we were discussing. There was something intimate about it, especially with our heads so close together that I could kiss her if I wanted to, but I did not feel the desire to.

Between our sisterly bond, and the knowledge of her mare waiting for her in Hoofton, there was only that odd sensation of two kindred souls sharing a moment. The comfort came from the shared burden, knowing that I did not stand alone in this, and that we had beaten the odds once before already.

A thought occured to me, and I frowned lightly while pressing back more tears. "Why would a botanist need a paralysis spell?"

"Huh?" Oval returned as if I had broken through her own thoughts.

"I mean, is there just some standard set of spells these ponies learn in school before they branch out in more specific directions?" I continued, blinking away the remaining moist from my eyes.

"Like I would know," Oval chuckled, blinking her tears away as well. "You should ask Starlight Glimmer if we ever make it to Ponyville."

"So, why did you lay down with me like this, Burst?" I asked, moving my own head to slide my horn a little along my sister's now. "I mean, you never did this in the hive. I never saw anyone else do it there."

"I don't know," Oval responded with a smirk. "I've seen unicorns do it from time to time, and since you've got a welt healing on the back of your head, I guess I thought it the safest way to make physical contact? Just so you know I'm here with you?"

"Well, it's... oddly comfortable," I told her.

"Isn't it? I'm surprised by it as well," Oval chuckled. "Remember, I'm usually an Earthpony, so I don't have to deal with having a horn in my daily life."

"I guess I'm more comfortable as an Earthpony as well," I pondered. "Not being able to take on my guise makes me feel like my identity was stolen away from me. I really don't like the feeling."

"Yeah," Oval agreed. "My own guise blindsided me as well. It's strange how attached we can get to these identities."

"All four of us except for Breeze, right?" I noted.

"Breeze has a small collection of favourite looks as well, but she has no room to settle. She keeps mimicking young foals, so she is at greater risk of being outed," Oval explained with a frown, as if she was not entirely happy with it. "I think she's just looking for a family to settle in with. I kinda joked around adopting her once or twice."

"Because Celery and you can't have kids of your own?" I blurted out, and Oval closed her eyes with a sad hum.

"Yeah, we're going to have to go for adoption anyway... there's no other choice," she agreed, looking glum.

"I'm sorry, I think my brain-to-mouth filter got damaged when I fell down the stairs," I quickly apologized to her, reaching forward with my left foreleg to bump against her right. "I didn't mean to make you sad."

"No, it's okay," Burst deflected. "As you told the ponies earlier; we're insects and they're mammals. We're just hopelessly incompatible with them. It's a fact of life."

"Well, I guess that prevents the accidental outing of one of our kind when they get a half-Changeling child," I tried to swing the conversation. "I mean, can you imagine them changing into other foals while at daycare? Suddenly getting picked up by unsuspecting pony parents?"

The idea of a changeling child growing up in pony society must have been so preposterous that Oval actually let out a genuine burst of laughter, which forced us to break contact between our foreheads and horns respectively, lest I wanted to get headbutted by her.

As she came down again from her laughing fit a few breaths later, she quickly got more serious again however. "I really hope Camellia can get a message through to Ponyville. Word needs to get out so our other siblings won't end up stuck here as well."

"Twilight Sparkle and her group of friends can do so much more than we can do on our own," I agreed. "We really need their help right now."

"Especially if we need to gain entry into the palace somehow to get to our other siblings," Oval pointed out.

"Yeah... we can't let them stew there. We got our Queen to change her mind, so we should be able to do the same thing to the pony Princesses, no?" I reasoned.

"Heh, you still nearly drowned in her pheromones, though," Burst chuckled.

"Yeah, yeah," I snorted defiantly. "So we're just going to have to stay here chatting until Camellia comes home with more news, then?"

Oval's smile faded, and it took her a while before she responded to my question with one of her own; "How's the hunger, Pearl?"

"After several sandwiches, you mean?" I retorted.

"You know which hunger I mean," Burst bounced back.

"Still manageable? Barely noticeable, really?" I responded awkwardly, not really sure how else to answer the question. "I mean, the resin at home sustained us just fine, and I've been sleeping in the pod, but I still feel as full as I did when we first arrived here. Almost no difference from how I felt while hiding in the bushes with you after our trainride."

"I've noticed that as well," Oval started. "I haven't felt hungry yet either, Pearl. Peckish, yes, but I wake up feeling like I've eaten a full meal every time. It's almost similar to what I feel when at home in Hoofton thanks to Celery sustaining me."

"Camellia watched us sleep together during our first night here. She said we looked adorable; like two of her nieces cuddling together," I offered up. "Is it possible she's sharing her love with us without realizing it?"

"I guess that's possible," Oval agreed. "I had been wondering if there had been some kind of ambient love hanging over Canterlot or something, but that would not make sense with the reports of spreading paranoia. It's a bit creepy to hear we're being watched by a pony while we sleep, but if that fills us up with love at the same time, I'm all for it."

"Yeah," I agreed, although there was a nagging feeling growing in the back of my head. It was most likely the effects of the herbal tea wearing off, I reasoned, and tried not to focus on it too much.

Chapter 10

Oval eventually felt I had rested for long enough, and motioned for me to join her to a room across the hall. It turned out to be a bathroom with a bathtub in it which she could have rested comfortable in even while in her bulky Earthpony guise. Our two slim changeling bodies fit in it together with ease.

Oval made a point of helping to clean me, especially where it concerned the back of my head, and I felt the pain of her dabbing at the place the open wound had been. While the skin had healed over the spot, it was clear there was still some damage underneath it and I would be sore for days or weeks to come.

My sister made sure to clean me of any blood and resin residue sticking to my body, and mentioned once more how this was the second time I had damaged my right foreleg. She kindly suggested I should be called 'Limpy' from now on, but a few splashes of water to her face made her agree never to bring that suggestion up again, and especially not around our other siblings.

With the both of us glisteningly clean from our bath, Oval moved into the room we had left before to take a nap, having been awake for far longer than I. She suggested I should wait in the living room downstairs for Camellia to return.

I managed to traverse the flight of stairs again with some difficulty, but made it down without tripping by simply taking it slow. Left to my own devices, I naturally limped over to the books on botany and skimmed over the various titles. I was happy to find a book in there which I knew from the show; "Supernaturals: Natural Remedies and Cure-alls That Are Simply Super".

I pulled it from its place on the shelf and placed it on the coffee table, sitting down near enough to it on the floor. I idly leafed through it, but the cures I was looking for were not found in the book. None of these herbs could mend a welt on the back of a Changeling's head, or help me deal with the nausea from what I was sure to be a concussion.

I did find a bone-strengthening elixer halfway down the book, and gave a glance down at my hurt leg, but I quickly reminded myself that I was effectively an insect, and not a pony, so my bones were most likely made from chitin or some other such material. I did not have the faintest idea whether the potion described in the book would do anything for me at all. Most of Changeling medicine was based on our resin, from what I had seen so far, the material being pretty much a cure-all for anything.

Need a building material? Use resin. Need to feed? Resin. Glue something in place? Resin. Everything could be done with resin, even if the composition of it changed depending on what it needed to do.

I put the book back on its shelf and pulled out another one; "The Genealogy of Grass", it was called, and I took a long hard look at the cover.

"You got to be kidding me..." I sighed out while putting it back on its spot. Reading about the various grasses and the way they had evolved over the years would be as interesting to me as going out and actually watching it grow.

I plucked another book from its place and smiled as the cover had a far more interesting title; "Carnivorous Plants and their Feeding Habits".

I licked my tongue around my fangs as I opened the book to a random page and spotted a drawing of what looked to be a typical pitcher plant like the ones from back home. Given Camellia's plant analogy shortly before our fight, I was eager to read up on the local carnivorous flora. It also helped to make sure not to run into any which, according to thickly printed warnings, either emitted 'an intoxicating smell which will lure even ponies to their doom', had the ability to shoot 'toxic darts at any warm body of sufficient size', or had 'nimble vines' which could reach out and ensnare any who may come too close.

And those were just the non-magical plants. There was another tome on the shelf which was entirely dedicated to magical plantlife. I leafed through it until I found the Zap-Apples I knew were harvested by the Apple Family in Ponyville and smiled noticing the book's author had failed to convince the Apples to reveal the exact rituals associated with them. It was better for that to stay their family's secret, I reasoned.

Going from one book to another, skipping past the boring sections and focusing just on the interesting plants, I barely noticed time passing by as fast as Rainbow Dash on her way to get some cider, and my reading was soon interrupted by the front door opening.

I quickly dove down behind the coffee table, hoping to be able to hide from whomever may peer into the house from the outside, and only dared to look up over the table's edge again after I heard the door had closed again.

My eyes settled on a purple unicorn dressed in a blue hoodie, her yellow mane sticking out from underneath it. I quickly scouted her flank to spot the white flower on it and recognized her as our host Camellia.

I brought my left forehoof up to give a wave with. "Hi Camellia, welcome home!"

The unicorn lowered her hood to her whithers and focused her eyes on me. "You're not Oval," she realized after a brief moment.

"Ah, no, I'm the one you accidentally tossed down the stairs," I chuckled, lifting my right leg up to show off the cast on it. "Oval's upstairs, taking a quick nap."

Camellia gave a quick glance up the stairs, then turned her head to face me again. "Good to hear she's getting some rest. How is your leg doing, Pearl?"

"I guess I'm doing pretty okay," I answered with a smile. "The headache has been back for a while now, and I still feel a bit dizzy if I move too fast. But it's nothing that won't heal over time."

"Do you want me to make you some fresh tea?" Camellia asked while using her magic to levitate a bag over from beside the door. She quickly upended it over the coffee table and a baker's dozen worth of apples rolled out onto the table!

She promptly caught them with her magic, stacking them into a neat little pyramid near the center of the table. "I brought some apples home, given how you went through those sandwiches like you needed to breathe them."

"I only did so because Oval pushed them into my face," I protested, but sent my Changeling magic out to grab hold of one of the apples and awkwardly pull it from the stack. "On another note, did you get the message sent out yet?"

Camellia laughed at my eagerness to take an apple, and she gave a nod while folding her bag up with her magic. "Yeah, I'm sure I can trust Roseluck to deliver it to the right pony."

Her eyes fell on the book I had dropped on the table while diving for cover. "I see you've made yourself familiar with my books?"

I was temporarily distracted while bringing the apple I was holding closer to my snout. I drew air in through my nose and sank my teeth into the soft skin of the fruit, the sweet smell filling my nostrils like a badly missed friend. "It's been a while since I last had one of these," I mumbled with my mouth full, savoring the taste on my tongue while some of its juice leaked down my chin.

"Nothing beats a fresh apple," the unicorn spoke softly, walking closer to the table while the folded bag moved itself into the pantry without her paying much attention at where it went. Her magic doused again after she closed the pantry door, and she sat down opposite me on the floor while watching me eat.

"I'm sorry if I stare," she mumbled quietly after a moment, her eyes turning away from me while her cheeks darkened slightly behind her fur.

I swallowed the bite I had just taken and smiled in Camellia's direction, the droplet of applejuice dripping down from my chin. "No, it's fine; I'm not bothered by it."

"Are you sure? I have the feeling all I've done these past days is stare at you both and bombard you with a million questions," Camellia offered up, using her magic to levitate a tissue over to dry the spot on the table between us where the droplet had fallen.

"I've been lucky to have been stuck in that pod for a while; you haven't overwhelmed me yet with your questions," I joked, putting the half-eaten apple on the tissue as Camellia left it on the table in front of me. "As long as I can ask you things in return, I don't mind you asking me about whatever it is you might want to know. Oval may be better at explaining things about our race, but I've gotten quite knowledgeable in a short amount of time."

"There you go again," the unicorn pointed out, narrowing her eyes a little. "You both keep mentioning how you're apparently new to things, even if I have the feeling you're both about the same ages. What's up with that?"

"You had to ask," I chuckled darkly. "I guess we have been overly hinting at it, even in the short amount I have been speaking with you. I'm a bit of a visitor to this world, if you can believe that? It's actually kind of fitting for me to be a visitor to Equestria in this manner on top of that; I wouldn't have fitted in well anyway, not knowing enough about your local customs and historic events."

Camellia flicked her tail behind her as she tried to arrive at the truth of my words. "So, if you're not from this world," she started, leaving the actual question unsaid.

"It's a place called Earth. I can speak at length about it, but I don't want to tire you," I suggested calmly. "There are good things about it, and bad things, just like any other place. Suffice it to say I ended up visiting by accident, and now can't return home until I sort things out here. Oval's plan was for us to settle at her mare's place so I would have a relatively safe place to stay at until we figure out how to get me back home, and she has taken it upon herself to teach me everything I need to know to survive here. I was actually doing pretty well with it until that spell hit us."

"And now you're stuck in my house," Camellia mumbled. "It would drive me insane not to be able to go outside."

"Did I mention I was stuck healing in a pod for a while?" I pointed out again, dipping my head down to take another bite from my apple.

"Ah, true; you did sleep for most of the day," the unicorn realized. "I guess I'm just still surprised at how similar you are to us. If it wasn't for your appearance, I could accept you as another unicorn."

"I tend to pose as an Earthpony, actually," I chuckled quietly. "Thanks for the compliment, though. I did notice the same thing myself; we Changelings, as well as you Ponies, don't differ much from others I met back home. All of us have our crosses to bear, but you go about your daily life in much the same way we used to back home. Sure, there's a difference in appearance, and some technology here is different from what I'm used to... Oh, and we don't have magic of any kind back home, so that's something new I've been having some trouble with..."

"You're doing fine with that apple, and I haven't seen either of you struggle with your magic yet," I heard Camellia comment, and I widened my smile at her.

"Again with the compliments! You should stop it or you'll get another friend out of this," I joked. "Nah, Oval wouldn't have more trouble with her magic than with the rest. She was born here, in this world, so has been a Changeling all her life. I've only been here for half a year now, give or take a month."

"I would like for us to be friends, if such a thing is possible," Camellia spoke softly, placing her right hoof on the table and sliding it to me. "From what all you two have been telling me, I would very much like to be friends and give you a safe place to stay at whenever you visit here."

I looked down at Camellia's hoof on the table and lifted my own right leg with some issue due to its weakness. It settled on the table as well, and I slid it past the apple until it bumped into the unicorn's.

"I would love to take you up on that offer again in the future, if we manage to get out of this unscathed," I told her. "The more friends I have, the merrier."

Camellia broke into a happy smile as she stared across the table at her newly made friend; me, and I could feel a sense of fulfillment settling over me. It was not as strong as the blast Pinkie Pie sent at me half a year ago, but it was most definitely love which I felt. Love which was replenishing my lost energy from having to heal my wounds.

Yes, pony friends could sustain a Changeling like me, just as well as a proper pony relationship might. And Camellia didn't even seem to notice I was feeding off her right now, the process just a natural thing my body seemed to do when faced with this emotion. If I could get a group of friends around me over in Hoofton, I could easily survive without going hungry.

Was this the big secret our family of infiltrators had found out? The one thing which drew them away from the hives and into singular pony guises which slowly but surely built up a history of their own? The thing which Blaze and Burst clung to out of a strong sense of needing to maintain these identities of themselves?

I could definitely see the benefits over making all the ponies our effective love-slaves. Draining them dry would be no less stupid than draining a well in a desert. We'd have a feast, and then slowly starve to death after.

Right now, where I was sitting, I was oddly comfortable. I was still faced with the prospect of having to figure a way out of this whole mess... but with friends like Camellia doing the legwork, there was a rising hope within me that we'd get out of it relatively unscathed.

Chapter 11

As Camellia and I sat at the coffeetable in her living room, our right hooves placed near the center of the table touching each other, the love beaming out from my newly made friend poured into me relatively unhampered by her internal feelings about my appearance or species.

Our thoughts were our own while we sat in peace, up until we heard some stumbling from the floor above.

"Is she going to be okay on her own there?" Camellia wondered, which evoked a hearty laugh from me.

"You're sounding like me," I commented, putting focus back on the unicorn. "After hearing Blaze talk about the issues Breeze and Burst have with staying out of trouble, I'm constantly worried about them. And I'm still getting used to my back plate! Forget me trying to survive on my own in this world..."

Camellia subconsciously leaned her head to the right as if she wanted to look past me at my back plate now I had mentioned it, and I turned in place a little so she could get a better look. Realizing I had caught her staring again, she dipped her ears down a bit lower against her head, so I booped her hoof with my own and smiled at her while straightening up again.

"It's fine to look, really. As I said before; you can look and ask all you want, I'll tell you if you go too far," I told Camellia.

"Oh?" the unicorn responded cautiously. "I had wondered about it. Is it like a beetle's plating? Like, are there wings hiding underneath?"

Of course she had to go there...

"Not exactly," I started, turning my head a bit too fast to look back at it and having to stabilize myself against the nausea again. "Yes, there are wings underneath it, but I can't split my backplate in half like beetles can. They just slide out from the space between my body and the plating."

Camellia waited for a brief moment before her hoof gently pushed in against my own. "How about I stop talking here and go get us something to drink, hm? I did offer you tea, after all."

I gave a slow nod to her, not looking up as I was trying to let the headache settle again. "I would like that, but some water would be fine as well."

"Really? Because I do have some honey in the house, and it already made your sibling laugh when I first proposed it to her... I could put the jar in front of you and you can tell me how ridiculous I am because you're not a pair of bees, like she did?" the unicorn prodded, pulling her forehoof back from the table.

I carefully peered up at her beaming a caring smile my way, but then was immediately drawn to a flash of pink light behind her!

A pair of ponies had appeared out of thin air and were now standing near the foot of the stairs, and I felt a shiver run down my spine as my brain connected their appearances to a set of names I knew really well...

The first was an Alicorn, her horn still sparkling a little as her magic died down. Her coat was a light purple, with a darker purple stripe set next to a pink one in both her blue mane as well as blue tail. On her flank sat a sparkling pink star amidst several smaller white ones. I stared at the Princess Twilight Sparkle recovering from her teleportation spell as if she used it daily, her pink eyes darting around the room until they settled on Camellia and myself.

The other pony had a fair bit more trouble getting their hoofing again, stumbling sideways a few steps until they got their bearings. An orange hoof reached up to the large Stetson hat on her blonde mane to push it back in place while her green eyes tumbled in their sockets. It was unmistakably Applejack, the well-known earthpony who ran Sweet Apple Acres with her family back in Ponyville.

"Bwuh..." I started, reaching my right hoof up from the table's surface to point in their direction.

"Oh my goodness; it really IS a Changeling!" Twilight Sparkle exclaimed, a bit too loudly to my liking, her wings unfurling and sticking out behind her in her obvious enthusiasm! "I couldn't believe it when I got the letter, but here we are face-to-face with a Changeling, in Canterlot! Are you seeing this, Applejack?"

"Now hold on to yer horsefeathers, Twilight," Applejack protested, only turning slowly as if she was feeling under the weather. "I'll come and see yer 'same thing' as soon as the world stops spinnin'."

"Oh, sorry," Twilight noted. "I forgot you're not used to my teleportation spell."

"Princess Twilight Sparkle?" Camellia exhumed in surprise after having turned to the pair. "Here, in my humble house?"

"Ah, there's really no need for formalities," Twilight Sparkle coughed uneasily, taking a few steps forward and giving a light headbow to the unicorn. "I feel like I need to thank you for letting me know about this unique situation. I'm afraid I forgot your name... Caramel, was it?"

"Camellia," I suggested, trying to push my own excitement at the fact I was face-to-face with Twilight Sparkle down, "and you can call me Pearl. My sister Oval is upstairs, so please don't be alarmed if she comes walking down the stairs."

"Oh?" Twilight responded with a raised eyebrow. "What quaint names! This is so exciting! I mean, I'm finding more and more friendly Changelings! Well, with 'me' I mean my friends are finding them for me; Spike found Thorax, Starlight Glimmer found Moonshine and a whole group of them whose names I can't remember... I hope that's not offending you? Is it? I really don't mean it to be offending, but you know the other Changelings I know have basically been attacking us every time we come across them, so it's really exciting when..."

"Twilight, would ya calm down?" Applejack called out. "For goodness' sake, girl, you're ramblin' like a filly goin' on her first date! We haven't even got here less than five seconds ago!"

"Oh, right. You're right, Applejack," Twilight agreed with a flush. "It's just that I'm excited knowing there are more friendly Changelings about than just Thorax! Can you imagine the possibilities if we can get a conversation going between us?"

"You think you might want to give 'em time to respond, then?" Applejack suggested with a wink and a nudge of her shoulder to her friend's left side. "Hey there Opal, don't let Twilight 'ere take yer tongue out, you hear?"

Camellia raised a hoof at that, pointing halfway up the stairs to a figure who had started to come down at hearing the commotion. "No, that's Oval. With a v. The one behind me is Pearl. And I'm Camellia, as Pearl told you already."

Twilight Sparkle and Applejack both turned to look over at Oval coming down the stairs, with Applejack raising a hoof to push Twilight's wings down out of the way. The princess folded her wings at her friend's gentle prodding, allowing the earthpony to look over the alicorn's flank with considerable more ease. Oval, in turn, just continued down the stairs until she reached the ground floor, and then raised her right forehoof up in greeting.

"Oh, hey there, Twilight. We have actually met a few times already, although I can't change into a look you know to show you right now," my Changeling sister spoke with a grin. "You've also met our sisters Blaze and Breeze on occasion, but they're not with us. We were not expecting to see you until we'd come visit you in Ponyville about a year from now."

A spark of recognition flashed over Twilight Sparkle's face. "Wait, YOU'RE the Changelings Moonshine spoke of?"

"Er, that depends," Oval replied cautiously. "If she's said nice things, then sure... if she's been treading all over my reputation, then I'll want to know all the details but it was probably my evil twin."

Twilight's face fell blank as she tried to find a response to Oval's joke, but Applejack started to chuckle behind her.

"Aw, that's my kinda humor," she spoke up. "Y'all are fine as far as I've heard; Moonshine's been yappin' on about some Pearl come to stop an invasion nopony in their right mind would want, but nothin' bad 'sides that."

The orange Earthpony turned back to face me and looked straight at my bug-eyed face. "I'm bettin' we got you to thank for that, don't we, sugarcube?"

"I really didn't do all that much," I mumbled, looking away from her peering green eyes. "In the end it was all of us working together that did it. The power of friendship and all that..."

"I was just about to get Pearl something to drink," Camellia spoke up. "Could I offer you something as well, princess?"

"Now yer talkin'!" Applejack spoke merrily. "If y'all got some cider, applejuice, or milk, that'd be a mighty fine treat, Camellia!"

"She's got honey in the house," I suggested flatly, making sure to stare straight at Oval who promptly slapped herself in the face with a hoof.

"Damnit, Pearl, how do you keep getting wise about these things?" she wondered out loud. "I'll just have some tea, please."

"Oh, tea sounds lovely," Twilight Sparkle added herself.

"A round of tea for everypony except Applejack then?" Camellia asked glancing between us all, and I gave a nod at her as she looked my way. "If I may suggest you all take a seat, the tea will be done in just a minute."

Twilight Sparkle did not move until Oval decided to walk past her and sit down on my left side, the princess' eyes following my sister as she walked. Applejack just casually sauntered our way as well, and flopped down opposite us, beaming a smile our way.

"So, what brought y'all over to Canterlot?" the Earthpony asked as if she had known us for a long time and was just talking about the weather with us. "I mean, I've heard a thing or two from Twilight over there... who's gonna keep standin' until her legs fall out from under her it seems..."

Twilight's cheeks flushed again and she quickly darted closer to us, taking position on Applejack's right side to end up opposite Oval. "Sorry, sorry..."

"You have no idea at the excitement I'm feeling on this end at sitting face-to-face with you both," I spoke empathically to Twilight, "but I have a nasty headache which does a good job tempering it."

"She decided to fly down the stairs without opening her wings, go figure," Oval chuckled at my expense.

"Yeah, it was great fun until I reached the bottom," I snorted, eliciting a chuckle from Applejack.

"You look... really alike," Twilight Sparkle suggested, seemingly ignoring what we just said. "How do you keep each other apart?"

"This is going to be another long conversation, isn't it?" Oval sighed out. "I've done too much teaching in the past months, how about I let Pearl talk instead and I'll just sit here looking pretty?"

"Pretty? Have y'all looked in a mirror lately?" Applejack offered up with a wink, the joke getting laughs from all but Twilight Sparkle who was still lost to her thoughts.

Chapter 12

Before Camellia finished with the tea, the front door opened up on the four of us sitting around the coffee table in the living room, and Meadowsweet walked in. She absentmindedly kicked the door closed behind her with a back hoof, set her eyes upon the group of ponies and Changelings in the living room, opened her mouth to say something, and then promptly froze in place as her facial expression went through a few different emotional states in quick succession.

"So, princess Twilight Sparkle and Applejack have joined us," Oval remarked at her dryly, motioning her left forehoof in the direction of the two ponies, who turned their necks to look back at the groundskeeper.

Twilight Sparkle jumped up and rushed up at the poor unicorn near the doorway. "Meadowsweet! I didn't know you were in on this too!?"

"Oh, dear," Meadowsweet meeped timidly, ducking down a bit. "H...hello princess Twilight. I did not expect you so soon."

I was surprised at this complete change in her demeanor compared to when she was cracking jokes on Burst's expense earlier in the day, but Twilight offered a clear enough reason for it.

"Oh come on, we basically grew up together," Twilight Sparkle suggested. "Just because I'm a princess now does not mean we can't be friends anymore; I AM the princess of friendship, after all."

"Yeah... but we lost touch when you went to magic school and I turned to gardening instead," Meadowsweet mumbled, barely audible. "You barely recognized me when I took the job of palace groundskeeper after the previous groundskeeper retired. I thought you were too busy with your new friends from Ponyville. And then there was your ascension to princess..."

"Meadowsweet," Twilight Sparkle sighed in realisation, taking another step closer to her former friend. "I'm sorry if I have neglected you in the past. I only have good memories of our shared past, and I would welcome you as my friend again if you want to be? Forget the fact I'm a princess now; Just think of me as the unicorn filly you once helped out of a flowerpatch after her magic exploded in her face."

"You know that got me on the road to gardening?" Meadowsweet suggested with a careful smile, looking up at her old pal. "Those poor flowers would have died from your falling on them, if not for miss Berrysweet using a healing spell on them. It made me realize how resilient plants were and how much they could benefit from a little care from us."

"I remember," Twilight Sparkle answered with a nod and a smile. "That was the day you got your cutiemark, if I'm not mistaken."

"Thanks to you, princess," Meadowsweet remarked. "If you had not broken those flowers, I might have never found my true calling."

I glanced over at Applejack.

"I know Rainbow Dash's Sonic Rainboom was the cause for you six to gain your cutiemarks pretty much simultaneously," I started, to which Applejack raised an eyebrow. "Don't ask me how I know, but doesn't Meadowsweet's story make you think about how long Twilight Sparkle has been attracting ponies who struggled with problems? Even as a filly she helped her friend gain a cutiemark... and later on you grouped up with her and became the prime force to be reckoned with among you ponyfolk."

"What are ya suggesting?" Applejack asked with a slow narrowing of her eyes.

"Your friend, Twilight Sparkle, may be a natural catalyst for events to revolve around," I replied with a wry smile. "Like me falling into a conspiracy my sisters set up to thwart our Queen's attempts to invade Equestria, and how they did the majority of everything, and I just sort of stood there as a catalyst... Twilight may be similar, is all? I mean, I'm just thinking out loud here."

"She undervalues herself," Oval muttered. "Pearl has done a fantastic job helping to keep the peace between us. If not for her, we would not be sitting here talking right now."

Applejack glanced between the both of us, then back at where Twilight and Meadowsweet had fallen into a hug. "I honestly don't know if y'all are right on that, sugarcube. If it hadn't been for Thorax and Moonshine, I'd still be seein' y'all as a threat myself. I would not be sittin' here talking either."

"Did you come because the map told you, or because Twilight asked you to, Applejack?" I had to ask. "Starlight Glimmer explained to us about the map and why her and Pinkie Pie's cutiemarks were glowing after we sorted the problem with our Queen, that's why I'm asking."

"The map, of course," Applejack answered casually, glancing at me from under the shadow of her hat. "Did y'all think I'd be here with these fancy cityponies if ah could avoid it?"

"I know you know I know you wouldn't," I spoke, tilting my head slightly as I went over my own sentence again in my mind. "Although I can't find out how you'd know that, really. Ignore me."

"Starlight Glimmer and Moonshine both filled us in about what we could expect from a pair of friendly Changelings before we left Ponyville," Twilight Sparkle spoke up, joining us again with Meadowsweet in tow. "One of the things Moonshine kept emphasizing was that you've been among us ponies for years now, roaming undetected while gathering information. She said 'It's best to expect we already know what you're talking about unless we ask for an explanation'."

"That sounds about right," Oval agreed. "I don't know if I can apologize enough for lying to you in the past, but it's a sad truth we can't exactly go out like this and expect everypony to give us the benefit of the doubt. We would be hunted down and thrown in the dungeons, chased out, or killed."

"Tea's ready," Camellia offered up, levitating five mugs of steamy hot tea into our midst and setting them down on the coffee table. A sixth mug containing warm milk with a small hint of added honey was placed in front of Applejack before our host sat down next to Oval.

Effectively we were now paired up with Applejack sitting opposite me, Twilight Sparkle sitting opposite Oval, and Camellia sitting opposite Meadowsweet. All with our own warm drinks in front of us sending steam rising up between us.

"Thank you, Camellia," the princess of friendship spoke with a smile at the unicorn in question, then turned her attention back to Oval. "Having spoken at great length with both Thorax and Moonshine, I think I have a good idea of why you do what you do. I agree that there's nothing you can say or do to make the past years of infiltration and subterfuge right, but I've been willing to see past that while dealing with those two, and I am here to help you with your current problem if I can."

"I didn't expect otherwise, but I would have expected Rarity to have come along as well, seeing as how she knows ponies in Canterlot's high society?" I offered up.

"I don't know why Rarity was not called," Twilight Sparkle agreed with me. "But I am sure Applejack and I can help with whatever problem we come across."

"So you're sure this is another friendship problem, then?" I asked directly. "I mean, as far as I understand that map, it only sends you on friendship problems?"

"I have no idea," Twilight Sparkle answered truthfully. "Maybe if you fill us in on what is going on here exactly, I can get a better idea of what we're faced with?"

I glanced sideways at Oval, who leaned back with a quick shake of her head. Obviously she was not the one to explain things to Twilight Sparkle. Camellia still sat with some awe on her face, and I had some doubts she could get the words out properly. Meadowsweet was lost in thought, and I wondered if she was even aware of the situation right now. She could be forgiven, having just reunited with an old schoolfriend who also ended up being a princess. She might be going over old memories for all I knew.

"Well," I started, stopping to scrape my throat a bit. "As far as I've been told one of my siblings was travelling through Canterlot when they suddenly decided to reveal themselves and attack one of Canterlot's Royal Guard. There was no reason for them to do so, and they caused a cascade effect which has all of the guards on high alert right now."

"Several dozens, if not a hundred or more of my family have since been revealed and thrown in the Canterlot dungeons," I continued, scraping my throat uneasily. "We need to feed every so often, or we'll go feral and basically just attack anything nearby in the hopes of leeching some love from them. These Changelings stuck in the dungeons right now are a ticking timebomb waiting to go off..."

"If there's truly a hundred or more of my siblings down there, it's only a matter of time before they'll throw themselves against the doors and try to break out. Or die trying," I concluded solemnly.

Shocked faces all around, except on Oval or Meadowsweet. One knew exactly what I meant, the other was so lost in thought that a true (time)bomb could have gone off near her and she would not have realized.

"My sister Oval and me were on an inbound train when we were hit by a magic spell which made us lose our ability to transform our looks. We were chased through the streets until Camellia took us in, and we are extremely thankful to her for trusting us," I continued, smiling up in Camellia's direction as I spoke of her.

"We would have been in the dungeons ourselves if not for her. While talking with her on the upstairs landing, some kind of shadow took possession of us and we instantly became paranoid that the other would want to attack us. Our fear and paranoia grew until we ended up caught in a very short fight, which had me topple down the stairs."

I motioned my head in the direction of my hurt leg. "I'm still recovering from that, but I don't blame Camellia for attacking me; there was a definite shadow."

"A... shadow?" Twilight Sparkle repeated with a thoughtful look on her face, and Meadowsweet woke up from her reverie.

"Huh? Oh, the shadow which has haunted Canterlot Castle for months now. Yeah, Camellia said she thought that was the one which took her over for a momentary lapse of reason," Meadowsweet nodded, halfway in the conversation again.

The princess turned her attention on Meadowsweet while her wings trembled from a shiver going down her spine. "What shadow? How many months? I need details!"

"Well, ever since that strange dream in which I was wandering Canterlot with all my friends together, really," Meadowsweet started. "Ever since that dream, there's been a shadow in the castle, only visible when you're not directly looking at it. It's been roaming around the halls and rooms and even the courtyard."

"I thought they were just rumours until Camellia said she felt it here as well. Anypony who sees or feels the shadow speaks of the fear they feel, but not of the shadow; it's like they fear other things. Like a wall coming down as they walk by it, or their friends turning on them."

"And the sightings have become more frequent as well. Camellia's the first who has noticed it outside of the palace grounds, that I know of," Meadowsweet pointed out.

Twilight glanced back at Applejack. "You don't think it could be the Tantabus, do you?"

"That beastie we fought with princess Luna, you mean? I reckon the princess is the only one who can say for sure," Applejack reasoned.

"Oh, you can't get to the princesses anymore; they have pretty much locked themselves in their rooms and won't come out for anything," Meadowsweet revealed to an ever-more-shocked Twilight Sparkle. "They've been in there for a few weeks now, avoiding contact with each other and only opening their doors if food is brought to them, if the rumours are true."

"Jeez," Oval hissed. "If one little shadow can send even the pony princesses running for the hills, what kind of evil are we dealing with?"

"You don't know about the Tantabus, then?" Twilight Sparkle asked of us Changelings, and while Oval shook her head, I nodded instead.

"I do know about the Tantabus, princess," I answered. "I know you and your friends helped princess Luna fight it in a communal dream in which all of Ponyville was brought together to keep it from escaping into the waking world. I know it was a culmination of princess Luna's worst fears. And, thinking about what I felt when Camellia and I stood opposite each other on the landing, I feel like you may be right about it being the reason for all this."

"I did not say that," Twilight Sparkle noted, "but you're right. I was thinking that. It's the only thing I know of which makes sense, considering the situation and timeframe. I would have been told if you Changelings had been considered a threat; Celestia and Luna would have made sure Cadance and I were informed. If they're acting out of paranoid delusions... I doubt they would trust even me."

"The guards are not just arresting Changelings anymore either; Just today they have started going around with unicorns who use a special 'scanning' spell to check for any Changelings who may have escaped the other spell they had in place. Even if you just appear like somepony who may be hiding something, you're arrested and brought up to the castle for questioning as well," Camellia revealed. "The baker next door to the store I work in was arrested just this afternoon for making bread 'big enough to hide something in'."

"That's just ridiculous!" Applejack fumed. "Has everypony in this town lost their marbles?"

"If the Tantabus is truly in this waking world, they very well may have," Twilight Sparkle sighed, reaching for her tea with her magic. "All of Equestria may be in danger."

"Don't you ever think back to your time in Canterlot before Nightmare Moon's return? How much simpler it was back then?" I asked of her, and she peered over at me past her mug while taking a sip.

"I don't know how you could have known that," she finally responded after swallowing her tea. "You can't read minds, can you?"

"We can't read minds, princess," Oval answered for me. "Pearl here is somewhat unique, even among us. She knows things none of the rest of us do. Especially about you and your friends, apparently."

"I think we're going to have to have a long talk about that before this is over," Twilight Sparkle suggested.

"I'm going to need to have long talks with an ever-growing group of ponies," I chuckled. "I should hire somepony to make appointments for me, because I might be busy for a while!"

Chapter 13

The princess Twilight Sparkle gave a look of painful empathy to my stating I would need to find an assistant to plan conversations with ponies. Knowing she at least had Spike to perform that task for her, I could not help but think she had a hoof up on me in that regard.

I levitated my mug of tea up to my lips and taking a thoughtful sip at it, an act which was copied a moment after by Burst.

"Now all of this is well and good," Applejack posited, "but if we're really dealing with that bothersome cloud, how are we going to get rid of it with the princesses all locked in her tower like a snug bug burrowing their way through a fresh apple?"

I lowered my mug a slight bit so I could talk over the rim of it at the orange Earthpony. "You and the others from Ponyville basically keep forgetting your friend counts as a princess as well, don't you?"

"Ah, well," Applejack started, giving a thoughtful rub with her forehoof under her iconic Stetson hat. "I guess it's not something we think about unless Twilight has us help her with her royal duties. It's not what defines our friendship with her, in any case."

"No, I get that," I agreed, "after all; you guys knew her from before she suddenly grew wings."

Twilight, on her part, raised an eyebrow while looking between Applejack and myself. "Is this going somewhere?"

I put my mug back down on the table and gave a quick nod. "There must be a reason why the map sent the Element of Honesty along with the Princess of Friendship, independent from our call for help."

"Oh, right; we only sent a message out to Ponyville today," Camellia realized. "Roseluck would have needed a few hours to get out by train, more than that to walk the distance or go by cart."

"Yes, you two arrived way too soon," Oval added to the group's growing realization.

"Which means," I continued, "that there may still be a response to our message. If we don't get things moving soon, Starlight Glimmer or Moonshine may take things into their own hooves."

"Ah," Twilight Sparkle gasped, her face showing she was going through a mental list of potential steps either her Unicorn or Changeling pupil may take without her guidance.

"It's not like that's such a bad thing," Oval supposed. "I mean; we had some great luck in the past when Moonshine and Starlight Glimmer helped us prevent an invasion."

"Yes, but what would Moonshine do when she realizes there's a hundred of our cousins trapped in Canterlot's dungeons?" I asked of my sibling. "Do you think we can count on her to stay calm or will she rally all our family into an army to force an escape?"

"She is rather hot-blooded," Burst mused, clearly seeing the problem looming on the horizon.

"Starlight has come a long way," Twilight Sparkle suggested to calm our nerves. "I trust her to not rush into things."

"Either case, I'm with the grey one in front of me," Applejack nodded over the table in my direction. "Whatever we're gonna do, let's put our backs into it and get movin'."

"We will need to get to the princesses," Twilight mused. "None of us can take the tantabus alone."

"If there is any way for us to get to the dungeons unseen, we may be able to get our family on your side as well, even if we can't shapeshift," I proposed. "We have some leverage with them, and a lot are from the same world I am from. They may be starving right now, but that's nothing new: They were almost dying from starvation when we freed them from our Queen's bad planning just a few months ago. All they need is a plan to follow and they'll be your greatest asset."

"Pearl is right. The trick is to not get captured ourselves while explaining our plans to them," Oval added.

"I can probably help with that," stated Meadowsweet, a pensive look on her face. "There may still be a few friendly guards in the palace who owe me a favor."

"Okay, so princess Twilight and Applejack will both try to get through to the princesses Luna and Celestia," Camellia summarized, "Meadowsweet will try to find a friendly guard to sneak Pearl and Oval into the dungeons, and what would my task be?"

"Well, there is a relatively private spot in the gardens which would be perfect for the two of them to hide in," Meadowsweet proposed to her Unicorn friend. "Even so, there may be the occasional guard doing his rounds in the area. You could help them stay hidden by being the more obvious pony present."

"Like a lightning rod, you mean?" I asked of the Earthpony. "Do they know you two are friends? The idea of a pony waiting for their friend to be done with work should quiet most of their paranoid thoughts, no?"

"Something along those lines, yes," the Royal Gardener agreed. "Any noise or movement which drew them to the spot could be attributed to Camellia being there."

"That might work," Burst agreed with a slow nod.

"Then it's just a matter of getting them into the palace gardens in the first place," Twilight Sparkle mused. "And, at this hour, visitors are usually ushered out, not let in. Applejack, doesn't your family have a cart stored here?"

Applejack perked up with a questioning look on her face. "Of course we do. Why?"

"Does it have a storage space in the bottom?" the princess wondered.

"Of course it does," Applejack responded. "If we're hauling so much apples, apple pies, apple cider, or zap-apple jam over to Canterlot, we'd need to load that cart chok-ful of goods so our sales make up for the effort."

"Is it big enough for a pair of Changelings, you think?" Twilight Sparkle wondered, sizing Burst and me up.

"Now, hold yer horses there, Twilight. What are you proposing we'd do? You can't expect me to risk my family's reputation on a fib?" Applejack warded off.

"You want us to hide under a pile of apple pies?" Oval asked incredulously.

"It should be a viable plan already to just have a tarp over the cart and an apple pie or two to take out from under it in case the guards ask questions," Twilight Sparkle mused.

"That would be well and good if we had any apple pies for you two to hide under," Meadowsweet protested, but most of the bakers in town are closed by now. Where are we going to get apple pies from?"

Applejack snorted in annoyance as the plan sort of gained favor with the rest of us. "It's like my concerns don't enter into the conversation."

"Look at it this way," I opted to soothe Applejack's worries, motioning at the apples on the table. "It wouldn't be a lie if you've got actual apple pies for us to hide under. You can still bring those to the royal kitchens and it'll balance out with us trying to save Canterlot from a group of hungry Changelings bursting out of the dungeons eventually anyway."

Camellia chuckled meekly. "I guess it was some foresight on my part that I bought the apples which are on the table, no?"

"I guess if we're doing this I might as well start baking. That is, if you'll allow me to use yer kitchen, miss Camellia? I'd be able to bake us a couple of pies lickety-split!" Applejack offered with a tip of her hat.

Camellia threw a glance back at her kitchen in a moment of worry at having another pony potentially make a mess of it, but then made up her mind and gave a decisive nod to Applejack. "On one condition; I want to help. I know where everything is in my kitchen and I want to know how you fluff the dough the way your family has been known for."

"Ah, that only seems fair," Applejack chuckled in return. "It ain't like it's that difficult a thing to do, and Granny Smith still has her secrets not even I'm privvy to. Ya got yerself a deal. Let's get bakin'."

I watched as the pair of ponies trotted off into the kitchen now the plan was mostly set in stone, then turned my attention back to the others. Princess Twilight Sparkle was sipping at the last of her tea, Oval was looking at Meadowsweet, and the latter sat in quiet contemplation.

"What's on your mind, Meadowsweet?" I asked of the mare.

"Getting you both into the castle is not going to be the problem," Meadowsweet started. "Especially with this new plan."

"But?" Twilight Sparkle interjected.

"But getting everypony out again once the guards become aware something is wrong is," Meadowsweet sighed. "I can only help so much. There are limits to my level of access in the palace; the palace grounds, the equipment rooms, storage for seeds and the like."

"But we've got a princess on our side," I pointed out, motioning my head toward Twilight Sparkle.

"Given the level of paranoia between the princesses which Meadowsweet described earlier, how much is princess Twilight Sparkle going to be able to accomplish, I wonder?" Oval queried.

"Ah, yes," Twilight Sparkle realised. "Given the princesses are holed up in their respective bedrooms without talking with one another, we're in a worse situation than when I had to convince princess Celestia that Nightmare Moon was about to make her appearance. That was a whole ordeal which we only narrowly managed to turn to a positive outcome, I'll have you know. Equestria was almost taken over by a shadow worse than the Tantabus."

"Nah, Nightmare Moon isn't that bad," I posited. "You should have seen the fanworks made about her back where I came from. A lot of people in my world think she had redeeming qualities."

Twilight Sparkle looked at me with a thoughtful expression. "About that..."

I stared back with my blue eyes. "Yes, princess?"

Twilight Sparkle opened her mouth, then closed it again as her ears perked up. Her whole demeanor changed to one of alertness and she rose to her hooves. "You two, head into the kitchen and stay out of sight."

Burst and me shared a quick glance, but hurried to do as Twilight ordered. I barely caught a glimpse of Meadowsweet rising to a standing position while Twilight moved past her to the front door before following Oval into the kitchen, where Applejack and our host Camellia were busying themselves getting the apple pies ready.

Camellia looked up with a raised eyebrow and Oval motioned back the way we came. "Princess' orders."

"She headed for the front door," I added. "Maybe something to check on?"

Camellia looked at Applejack. "Can I leave this to you?"

"Ah, of course," Applejack returned with a broad smile. "Ain't the first time I had to bake pies on my own. Go see what's up."

Camellia quickly trotted off to the front of the house while Burst and me took position in a corner which was the least visible from the doorway giving entry from the living room.

Applejack's coring and cutting of apples, mixing batter, and prepping the pie tins made it difficult to make out what was being said in the front of the house, but I could hear the sound of agitated voices rising up into a clearly heated discussion before long.

Oval nudged my shoulder with her own. "What do you think that's about?"

"Passing guard going door-to-door to try and find us, maybe? You heard what Meadowsweet said about that; they have unicorns with spells that disrupt our guises," I considered, having seen enough movies about dystopian governments in my time back on Earth to fill in the blanks.

"I wish we had an easy way out of town; I'd prefer going back to my mare, but the thought of leaving our siblings trapped in the dungeon is too much to bare," Oval sighed. "Even if it might be dangerous, I can't come home without having at least tried to save them. I can't face Celery if I run away from my responsibilities."

I gave my sister a sympathetic nudge back. "The things we do for love..."

Chapter 14

While Oval and me were hiding in the kitchen, there was a sudden burst of magical energy from the living room. I felt a wave of nausea hit me as it passed through the kitchen, and I noticed Oval's eyes narrowing as well.

The throbbing headache which had dissipated almost completely, most likely due to the tea I had been drinking while being distracted by the conversations we'd been having, came back in full force and I needed a moment to stabilize myself again.

"Oof, definitely magic aimed at revealing us," I whispered to my sister. "I felt the same way in the train when we passed through the magic barrier."

"Yeah, let's keep our voices low for now," Oval agreed.

Camellia came walking into the kitchen just as she finished her sentence, and motioned to Applejack. "Oh Applejack, would you mind coming to the front door a moment so the guard can see you're who you say you are?"

Applejack cast a quick glance our way, but dropped what she was doing and followed behind Camellia. "Sure sugarcube, as long as it doesn't take too long; these here pies need to go in the oven right quick."

The pair of them disappeared out of sight again and I mentally prepared for another magic burst. We didn't have to wait long for it to pass through the house again, making Burst and me both wince from the nauseating feeling it brought with it.

I squinted my eyes shut at the headache, and felt Oval move in to give me a soft nuzzle in an effort to comfort me.

Without Applejack making noise around us, we could clearly hear a gruff voice from outside declaring. "All clear. Thank you for your cooperation."

The thought of Canterlot turning into a dystopian police state like this brought with it its own feeling of nausea to me. The ponies living here deserved better than that.

The front door closed and Applejack and our host Camellia filed back into the kitchen to resume their baking.

"You should be good to return to the living room," Camellia offered up, but then frowned in worry as she spotted me. "Let me make you some more tea, because while that experience rattled all of our nerves you look like you're about to fall over."

"That magic makes me feel about ready to puke," I admitted. "With my headache from the fall down the stairs, I saw stars for a moment and it's not even night out. I sincerely hope we can get them to stop using it."

"It's like it's trying to draw the love straight out of our core so we regurgitate it like resin," Burst mumbled weakly. "I was doing just fine earlier today, but these tugs and pulls make me feel the hunger more deeply than before."

Applejack raised an eyebrow while moving pie tins around, but Burst's comment seemed to have passed Camellia by unnoticed.

"Let's have a chat with the princess, sis," I suggested. "Maybe she can figure something out to keep that at bay."

"I hope so. It's not going to help any of us if I turn feral from starvation before we're done with our plan," Burst muttered with clear unease. "I didn't expect those scans to hit me that hard."

I walked ahead of her into the living room, shaking my head a bit at the thought. I still felt pretty full myself and the headache had drawn my attention away from it, but now Oval had mentioned it I realised there was a definite hunger pang growing deep within me.

Princess Twilight Sparkle stood at the front window looking out into the street while Meadowsweet had flopped down on a couch as if she were low on energy.

"Thanks for the heads up there, princess Twilight," I started, to which the princess flicked her tail.

"This is definitely not the Canterlot I know and love," Twilight declared while still staring out through the window. "The paranoia has seeped into everypony out there, and even presses upon us here, now. I felt it in the magic that was used to scan us."

"Yeah, even I could feel that was wrong," the earthpony on the couch started, then closed her eyes and mouth with a shake of her head. "It made me think of..."

"Tainted energy," Twilight finished Meadowsweet's sentence.

"Yes, like a rot which has taken hold of the root of a plant, slowly killing it," Meadowsweet agreed. "It left a bad taste in my mouth."

"It's like that for us as well," I pointed out. "Oval here just remarked it felt like the love we feed on was being pulled out of us, like it tried to force us to regurgitate it."

Twilight turned her head to look in our direction. "The Tantabus doesn't know love. It is a pit of despair, of distrust between ponies. It is very likely the magic it taints will draw every good feeling out of us until all we have left is fear and paranoia."

"If only we could feed off fear," Oval chuckled weakly. "We could counter the Tantabus' effects that way."

I pondered that for a moment, but then shook my head. "Not a good thing to ponder, Burst. We don't draw the love from ponies, do we? Not unless we strain ourselves like our Queen tried to do back in the past. Those feelings would still remain in them and hurt them for it."

"But we would be stronger if we had an alternative source to feed on," Oval tried.

"And our Queen would launch an invasion to make use of the Tantabus' effects upon ponies if we could feed off fear," I pointed out with a sigh. "It's better that we need to feed on love, because that makes the Tantabus our common enemy. Our Queen won't launch another mistaken attack upon Canterlot if she doesn't think we can feed upon them."

"Yes, let's not give Chrysalis any ideas," Twilight Sparkle remarked with a grimace. "But I do have a better understanding of how little time we have to make a change now. Just those two scans made me worried my friends in Ponyville might be plotting against me."

"They would never," I instantly defended their longtime friendship.

"No, I can reason the feeling away now I'm not under the spell's effects, but it was a very strong suggestion nonetheless," the princess agreed. "There is no way they would turn against me. Time and again they have proven to be the best of friends."

"Exactly!" Applejack shouted from the kitchen. "Ain't nopony gonna turn us against one another. Also; pies are in the oven."

"And the tea is almost ready," Camellia added, also from the kitchen.

"They have good ears, don't they?" Burst chuckled. "Can't even make plans to betray one another in this house; everypony would immediately know about it."

"Let's not even entertain the thought," I coughed uneasily, walking over to my empty mug on the table and sitting on the ground near enough to it that I could easily pick it up and drink from once refilled. "I'd love some more tea when it's ready, Camellia!"

"On it," our host shouted back.

Meadowsweet looked downright miserable, splayed over the couch as she was, and I felt my concern for her rise as I looked the earthpony gardener over.

"You okay over there, Meadowsweet?" I asked of her, not hiding my worry in my voice.

"It's as Twilight said," Meadowsweet started. "As soon as that magic washed over me, I began doubting my friends, my position in the castle. Am I doing a good job? Are they just being nice to me? Are they laughing behind my back because I'm not tending to the gardens well enough? Because I don't have magic like miss Berrysweet who tended the gardens before me? Maybe the princesses are just leading me on, saying I..."

"Meadowsweet, stop it," Twilight interjected, walking on over and extending her left wing to rest over her friend. "You can fight the effects of the Tantabus, I'm sure of it. You know those thoughts are not your own. I've been to the castle many a time. Your gardens are among the most loved in all of Equestria."

"You're just saying that," Meadowsweet mumbled, shifting uneasily under the feathered limb of her friend. "You hardly ever visit them."

I blinked as Twilight Sparkle's horn started to emit a low shine of energy while the princess focused on soothing her longtime friend.

"Trust me on this, Meadowsweet. Your work is admired by a lot of ponies, and you're a wonderful mare to hang out with beyond that," she entrusted to the earthpony as her magic spread to the other. "I'll make an effort to be in touch more once we're through this dark chapter, and you can tell me all about botany when we do."

Meadowsweet sighed darkly and closed her eyes, but slowly but surely her facial expression softened. "I guess I'm just going to have to trust in you, princess."

"I'd hope so," Twilight chuckled, giving her friend a soft pat on the back with her wing. "I won't give up on you, Meadowsweet. I just get distracted a lot by my responsibilities. That doesn't mean we're no longer friends; it just means I'm all the more in need of one to be there for me when there's a lull in events."

"You know where to find me," Meadowsweet offered up with a growing smile.

"And you know where to find me," Twilight smiled back, her magic receding.

"Ain't that just a lovely sight?" Applejack remarked from halfway through the kitchen door.

"Yes, very much so," Oval agreed, sitting down near her own mug as I had done.

Camellia pressed herself passed Applejack, a hot teapot floating in front of her by her magic. "Okay, who wants another round of tea?"

Twilight lifted her wing off her friend and pointed it up in the air instead. "Oh yes please."

Meadowsweet nodded at her own mug on the table. "I could do with another mug, yes."

Burst joined in and lifted hers with her magic, and I noticed she had a bit more trouble keeping it stable than before. It made sense given she usually posed as an Earthpony, but also gave me an indication of how badly my her hunger had taken a hold of her.

"I hope those pies don't need to bake for too much longer," I mumbled.

"They're done when they're done, ya know?" Applejack chuckled. "I can't rush them. I have to uphold the reputation of Sweet Apple Acres."

"I'm just saying some of us might feel the pressure of the Tantabus and its effects a little stronger than others," I coughed uneasily, motioning at Oval and Meadowsweet in turn. "The sooner we can get to the castle, the better."

Oval looked away as I motioned in her direction, and Meadowsweet turned her ears down low at being indicated in that fashion.

"I don't mean anything with it other than that we should probably not wait too long," I reiterated carefully.

"We got it, Pearl, thank you," Twilight stated, folding her wings on her back and sitting down next to the couch Meadowsweet was on. "We should go the moment those pies are ready for it."

"You got it, Twilight," Applejack agreed.

"For what it's worth, there is something which might be able to help us Changelings out a little," I started.

Twilight peered in my direction as Camellia filled our mugs with fresh tea. "Do tell, Pearl?"

I followed Camellia with my eyes as she moved mugs around with her magic and filled them, walking around the room a little to make the distance she had to move them smaller.

"Camellia and me shared a moment around this table here, just talking, with barely a hint of fear for one another between us," I stated. "As we did, I could feel... well, love. The same love Oval and me, and all of our siblings, need to feed on to survive."

Camellia stopped filling the mug she was working on and tilted her head slightly in surprise. "You did?"

"Well, it wasn't as potent as the love between partners, I'm sure, but there was a very clear continuous trickle of energy feeding me as we sat here talking, yes." I agreed.

"Huh," Camellia responded, resuming her pouring of tea. "I guess I stopped seeing you as a threat when we were discussing things earlier. I was just fascinated about the things you told me about yourself."

"Hmm, that makes a strange kind of sense; Fascination is just a way of expressing interest in another," Twilight mused.

"How much did it fill you, Pearl?" Burst asked curiously as Camellia poured fresh tea in her mug.

I pondered the question a moment, thinking back to an experience we shared a few months back. "Let's say it was less than the amount we felt after Camellia watched us sleep, and way less than the love outburst from Pinkie Pie."

Camellia startled from being called out, spilling some of the tea past Oval's mug onto the floor, forcing my sister to pull her hooves back to not get burnt by the hot liquid.

"Ah, but Pinkie is a special case," Twilight Sparkle remarked with a smile.

"Right," I agreed. "Pinkie would try to make friends with anypony, no matter what they look like."

"Must be nice to have a friend like that," Camellia remarked, cleaning up the teaspill.

"She can be mighty overwhelming at times," Applejack chuckled, "but she's got 'er heart where it counts."

"So how do we use this information considering we have dozens of our family members going feral in the dungeons?" Oval wondered. "We can't exactly ask half the city to become friends with a bunch of love-starved Changelings?"

"I was more thinking you could try to buddy up with the four ponies gathered here so you wouldn't feel as peckish as you do, sis," I pointed out, looking around the room with as innocent a smile as I could muster given my fangs.

"What do you mean, Pearl?" Twilight asked with a raised eyebrow.

"Considering we're in this together, we might as well make a friendship pact of sorts before we get going, right? Like, we're going to have to trust one another to complete the task before us," I spoke while pointedly looking over at Meadowsweet wallowing in some manner of depressive fit on the couch.

Twilight glanced between her friend and me, a flash of worry on her face. "Yes, it would be prudent to get all these bad feelings sorted before we throw ourselves at the Tantabus. I have been taken by surprise too often in the past."

"Discord was entirely unfair to you and your friends," I chuckled, remembering the first time the six ponies had to fight him.

Twilight raised an eyebrow at that. "One day you'll have to explain those comments to me. They are unsettling."

"How about if we get through this, I'll come visit you in Ponyville and we'll talk about it at length Princess?" I suggested.

Chapter 15

I briefly filled the ponies in about our family's findings spending time among their kind, both from what I was told and what I had experienced myself. While it was clear that true love was the best 'meal' we could feed on, less potent versions of it could still help stave off the hunger we felt.

Our little stint at Hollow Shades had clearly proven certain ponies just dispensed their love freely, in such abundance that they could keep us fed for a longer period of time. Pinkie Pie was a limitless wellspring of untainted love which she shared among her friends without a second thought behind it, and my sisters and I had felt it firsthand.

My little conversation with Camellia had shown me that other ponies unwittingly shared their love, albeit in smaller amounts, when just having a friendly conversation. A single pony could barely sustain us just by having a friendly chat, but it would certainly help keep us from turning feral in a pinch.

Twilight frowned as she took this information in like a good student of magic and all things, while Applejack studied the expression on Oval's face. Camellia had more of a neutral expression on her face, but Meadowsweet just stared hard at the couch she was resting on as if she didn't take part in the conversation.

My sister just sighed as I finished my explanation, nudging me in the side. "You're a special kind, aren't you? Talk about Pinkie Pie; you're here trying to find a place of mutual understanding between ponies and us as if it will change the world tomorrow."

I shook my head at that suggestion. "Not tomorrow, no. But small groups, like ours here now, can find common ground and lay the foundation for more open interactions in the future. Like what you and our siblings were talking about back in the Hive. It may take years, decades even, but we can't keep going the way we have."

"You're right, it can't," Twilight Sparkle interjected. "I have been talking with Thorax on occasion, but you have certainly explained things to me which I had not dared talk about with him. I understand now why he was guarded every time I tried to inquire about it."

"How long ago did you meet with Thorax, if I may ask? Openly, I mean. Not with him taking on a disguise," I asked with some clarification.

"Oh, only a few weeks ago. I'm sure he will open up more when he feels ready to do so," Twilight answered with a smile. "He's still settling in now he's accepted in the Crystal Empire. I'm sure Cadance is doing what she can to make him feel at home."

I turned to Applejack after receiving the princess' answer. "Did you have a Buckball match against Appleloosa yet? Or a visit to Las Pegasus with Pinkie Pie?"

Applejack shook her head. "Now why would I go visit a loud and obnoxious party place like Las Pegasus?"

I waved the question away. "Forget I said it. Buckball match, though?"

"Hah, yes; we showed cousin Braeburn what's what, I tell ya!" Applejack stated proudly.

I smiled at the answer and turned my attention back to Twilight. "Okay, I know when we are now. This is going to make things easier for all of us."

"In what way, Pearl?" Oval asked, "Because I'm a little confused about what Buckball has to do with us making a friendship pact."

I motioned to Applejack. "She learned recently that it's better to have fun with friends than to be focused on winning a game at all costs, am I right?"

Applejack frowned, but nodded. "You got it, sugarcube."

"And that's after they all went to the Crystal Empire, where our cousin Thorax was hiding after the failed invasion of Canterlot," I explained to Oval.

"Thorax was found by Spike, Twilight Sparkle's dragon friend, and they became friends in secret," I continued, while Twilight Sparkle got a thoughtful look on her face. "Spike tried to have Thorax make friends with the crystal ponies while wearing a guise, but suffered from the effects of the hunger when faced with so much love pouring into him and was forced to reveal his real form."

Oval winced at the thought. "I can't imagine that went well?"

"Oh, we certainly misjudged him," Twilight sighed with some embarrassment. "But Spike forced us to see the error of our ways."

"Right, and I know all that because the world I'm from has documented that encounter," I explained. "I have only been here for a few months myself now, but apparently I'm catching up to what was documented. Some events haven't happened yet even if I know about them."

Twilight Sparkle took a half-step back as she finally realised what I was saying. "Don't tell us! Messing with time is..."

"Oh, I know! I know," I warded off immediately. "I'm not saying any more than what I needed to confirm with Applejack what she has and hasn't done yet."

"Can we get to the point now, Pearl? I'm getting a headache," Burst sighed.

"The point is; I know the princess and her friends have taken a major chance becoming friends with various creatures they never would have considered being friendly with," I started, then motioned to our host. "Camellia is not the problem either; we had a lovely conversation before and she's been nothing but kind to us ever since we met."

Camellia coughed uneasily at being pointed out yet again. "That's just good manners, honestly..."

"Meadowsweet, on the other hoof," I started, glancing over at the Earthpony on the couch, reflecting on how that area of the room appeared more dimly lit than the rest.

"Why, you look mighty bothered there," Applejack started. "I haven't seen anypony look so sour since the last time Flim and Flam tried to take over Sweet Apple Acres and failed."

"I'm... fine," Meadowsweet mumbled, giving a quick glance over at Oval and me. "I just can't figure out why we have to let these two creatures stay among us."

I winced at the coldness in the earthpony's voice as she pointed out my sister and I.

"Now hold your horsefeathers there," Applejack protested. "Ain't you been listening to Pearl here?"

"No," Meadowsweet responded flatly. "Why would I listen to our enemy? Do you forget they attacked Canterlot once before? They should all be locked up in the dungeons, if you ask me."

Applejack sputtered, but Twilight Sparkle moved in to stare at her friend. "Meadowsweet! That's not like you; don't let the Tantabus get in your head."

"And here she is; the prodigal foal," the earthpony snorted haughtily. "Disappeared on her friends one day only to come back as a princess. Why would you care for what a commoner like me thinks?"

"Hold up now," Applejack protested again, trying to stand up for her friend.

"Why does this sound like the Tantabus took a page out of Sombra's book?" I pondered to myself, noting the way Meadowsweet's fears just turned to vitriol against Twilight Sparkle and us Changelings. "Wait, that's it!"

Twilight turned her head to look in my direction. "What's that, Pearl?"

"Oh, here we go; those creatures obviously mean more to you than your friends from Canterlot," Meadowsweet berated.

"The Tantabus makes your nightmares come true, right? It feeds on guilt, like how Sombra controlled the Crystal Empire by fear," I started, pointing my good hoof toward Meadowsweet. "She's feeling guilty about not doing enough to maintain her friendship with you. Seeing you bond with a couple of Changelings like us, and our cousins Thorax and Moonshine, and every pony you come across, shows her how little she's done to get closer to you."

Twilight winced at the thought, turning back to Meadowsweet. "Is that right, Meadowsweet? You're afraid you're going to lose contact with me again? I know I've been a bad friend myself in the past, staying away in Ponyville for as long as I have. It may not have made it easy to reach out to me, but I'm here now."

Meadowsweet scoffed. "And you'll be gone again once you're done here, as usual. If I send a letter you're probably never going to read it given how busy your life is, so I just haven't."

"But of course I would read a message from one of my friends! No matter how busy my life gets, I would at least make time for that," Twilight stressed. "And you should feel free to visit any time you're in Ponyville; my door is always open."

"Same goes for me," Applejack added. "Yer always welcome at Sweet Apple Acres; a friend of Twilight's a friend of mine."

Camellia chuckled. "Let me add that my door is similarily always open to you, Meadowsweet."

"Ah, hell... if I ever get back to Hoofton, I gotta have you meet my mare, Meadowsweet. As long as you don't reveal I'm a Changeling before I'm good and well ready to explain that part of me to her myself," Oval grumbled.

"And that leaves me; I'm not here to steal Twilight or any of your friends from you. I'm here to make more friends, and I'd be honoured if I could count you among them, Meadowsweet," I spoke truthfully.

"You shouldn't feel guilty about not staying in touch anyways; life happens," I pointed out. "You're here now, aren't you? Friends find one another back again when they need one another."

Meadowsweet's shock was clear on her face, but it was difficult for her to break free from the Tantabus' grasp.

Twilight finally moved to rest one of her wings on her friend's back again. "We'll always remain friends, no matter where my studies take me or how often we are in touch with one another. That's a promise."

"A Pinkie-promise?" I asked pointedly, to which the princess rolled her eyes.

"I'll even make it a Pinkie-promise if you need me to, yes," she agreed.

The shadows surrounding Meadowsweet pulled away from her, and I realised that part of the room had been darkened far more than the rest of Camellia's home.

Now the Tantabus' grasp over the earthpony withered thanks to our efforts, her facial expression softened as well and a cautious smile returned to her face.

"That's the spirit," Applejack chuckled. "Now if that ain't a display of what friendship can do for a pony, I don't know what is."

I lifted my good hoof up slightly. "Hear, hear. Are we all friends now? Ponies among one another and, perhaps, my sister and me as well?"

Meadowsweet sighed with a wry smile. "Oh here's me being a dumb little filly again, giving in to my feelings of guilt... The one thing we should be warding ourselves against right now, like protecting against anthracnose."

"Well, it's difficult to get rid of anthracnose without use of magic, and we didn't have to resort to that in your case," Camellia pointed out, knowing the botanical term that was brought up.

"You going to be okay there, sugarcube?" Applejack wondered, to which Meadowsweet moved off the couch.

"Yes, and yes; let's affirm our friendship for one another. I have caused us enough delay as it is, and the Changelings in the dungeon won't become less of a problem if we don't get going soon," the earthpony decided.

I beamed a smile over at her and watched her fumble a step. "It's the fangs, isn't it?"

"Yeah, it's the fangs," Meadowsweet agreed with an awkward cough.

"You get used to them," Camellia chuckled, sidling up to Meadowsweet's left side with Twilight Sparkle on the earthpony's right. Applejack moved to close the circle around the table to Camellia's left side, sitting to my right.

I put my good hoof on the table before me and looked around at the others. "I can't tell you how much I appreciate you giving us a chance."

"Anything to keep the peace," Camellia smirked, putting her own hoof up on the table.

"Hear, hear," Applejack agreed, adding her hoof.

"Let's get this sorted so I can get back to my mare," Oval grumbled, putting her left hoof up.

"I'll do my best to not cause more delays," Meadowsweet chuckled, putting her right leg on the table with the rest of ours.

"I'm reminded of when me and my friends got together to fight Nightmare Moon," Twilight chuckled, lifting her own right hoof up. "I'd be happy to count you all among my friends. Let's fix this problem with the power of friendship."

Twilight's hoof joined ours on the table, and a warm feeling started to flow into me as I looked around at the others.

"Oh, now, this... This is definitely helping stave off the hunger," Oval suggested with a light shudder as the ponies' friendship poured into us.

Chapter 16

With the Tantabus' effects on Meadowsweet taken away, our friendship for one another established, and Burst tanked up on love from our impromptu friendship circle, we started making ready to put our plans in motion.

Applejack packed the pies up for transport while Twilight Sparkle and Meadowsweet went over the route we had to take through the city to get to Applejack's family cart, stored away in a nearby warehouse.

Camellia had disappeared off to the upstairs, leaving Burst and me to stand around feeling useless again.

My sister turned her attention to my hoof and frowned at herself. "I'm sure Matron's healing resin would have made quick work of your hurt leg, but I've done what I could. How does it feel? Can you run if we have to?"

I lifted my resincast leg and moved it through the air a little, then put it back on the ground again and tried how much weight I could put on it before it hurt too much.

"Maybe if I use my wings to keep most of my weight off it, and even then only short distances so the resin won't crack open," I answered Oval. "How are you doing on the hunger? Feeling more up to it?"

"Yeah," she agreed. "We might have a chance if we can make it to the cart. Once we're in the palace we just need to wait for the princess to put her part of the plan in motion, then we can sneak down into the dungeon to free our family."

Oval peered past me at the staircase as Camellia came back down it again, carrying a bundle of fabric on her back.

Reaching the bottom-most step, she lifted the top fabric off the stack and hovered it in the air between herself and Oval.

"I knew I had a couple of cloaks in your sizes. I hope you can wear them over those... fins of yours?" she suggested.

I reached up with my good hoof and stroked over my head fin. "I'm sure we can handle a little strain on them, thank you for the concern."

Burst grabbed hold of the offered fabric and slung it over her back in one quick motion, flipping the hood up over her head after she ensured it was covering her body properly.

"What do you think, does it hide enough of my features?" she asked, and I couldn't but look down at the holes in her hooves.

Camellia beside me also turned her head down from the cloak properly covering Oval's head and main body, to where her legs were peeking out from underneath the fabric.

She needed a moment, then decided "Booties," and turned away for the storage cabinet under the staircase.

I watched as she rummaged through the small space until she found a shoebox and threw it in the direction of Burst standing in confusion.

The box slid over the ground toward Oval and stopped inches away from her.

"Put those on? I bought them at a fair once but never managed to find the right occasion for them," our host offered up.

I watched as Oval opened the box to reveal four rose coloured boots with small diamonds set in intricate patterns on them.

They looked flashy, like something you'd wear to a gala in the palace or a grand opening of sorts. Entirely the opposite of what I would expect Burst to be wearing if she'd had a choice in the matter.

Oval just stared down at the box before sighing and pulling the boots out of it with her magic.

She put one hoof in a boot, moved her leg around a bit to test whether it sat comfortably, then followed by putting the other three on.

Burst moved her cloak back in place, then stood silently glancing in Camellia and my direction.

The both of us looked her over again and then gave a nod in unison; the holes were covered for the most part.

The small sliver of her uncovered legs still visible under the cloak would be otherwise hidden by the darkness of the night outside.

"I've been posing as stallions so much that I'm not sure about these boots at all, but I'll manage. Thank you Camellia," Burst offered up. "Pearl's legs don't have holes in them, so I'll be the only one wearing boots I guess."

"Ah, I could wear a set if you feel awkward about it," Camellia suggested quickly. "They won't be as flashy as these, but these were meant for the Grand Galloping Gala, and I haven't been able to get invited to that yet. All in due time, I guess."

"It's not all it's made out to be," I chuckled. "It's a bunch of boring ponies trying to outdo one another in stuffiness. Pinkie Pie's parties in Ponyville are much better."

"You are an odd one, Pearl," Camellia offered back with a smile, holding out a cloak to me as well. "The things you know about our world while claiming to have come from another, it makes you ever so exotic. In a good way, mind."

I smiled at the purple unicorn and donned the cloak like I had seen Oval do. I wouldn't need booties to hide my legs as there were no holes in mine yet.

The cast around my leg was the only thing sticking out but Camellia pulled a bandage out of a first aid kit and quickly wrapped it around the resin so it looked like a more regular cast.

It would be impossible to tell from a distance that Oval and me were anything other than unicorns as long as we kept the hoods up.

"It looks like the both of you are getting ready for the trip ahead, nice touch on the cloaks Camellia," Princess Twilight spoke from behind me, and I turned to face her.

"Pearl, if you would stay beside me for the trip to the warehouse? I need to talk about some things I'm sure you know more about than your sibling," Twilight considered.

"I can't tell you about future events as I know them," I warned. "You know how that works out."

"No, no... I'm curious, but I've gone back and forth through time a few too many times myself already," she answered truthfully. "I don't want to have to deal with another paradox to solve."

"Remind me; you've tried to warn yourself to not worry about the future once, what else? I don't want to state what I know since that might give you foreknowledge," I explained my hesistance.

Twilight glanced at Camellia, Oval, and Meadowsweet before setting eyes on me again. "Wait until we're walking, please?"

"You got it," I agreed, wondering what it was that she wanted to know from me.

We set off into the darkness of Canterlot's night after shortly after Applejack had packed up the pies for transport.

The dimly lit streets might once have been bustling with ponies going to and fro, even in the dead of night, illuminated by the various richly decorated lamps on the buildings or up on posts beside the road, but most of the ponies had holed up in their homes and most of the lights were turned off.

Even with few eyes on us, our little group dared not go boldly down the main streets in case a guard might spot us, so we instead followed Meadowsweet and Camellia taking the lead through side roads and little-known alleyways to get closer to the warehouse.

The smell of freshly baked pie wafted out from the covered up pies on Applejack and Oval's backs; the pair of them having been chosen to carry them because their backs were used to lifting things; Applejack because of her life on the farm, and Oval because of her long-held guise as an Earthpony stallion.

And, in the rear, Princess Twilight Sparkle and myself.

It took her a few minutes of walking before she finally opened her mouth, and even then her question came in a conspiratorial whisper.

"Your world, they have foreknowledge of what is to happen here. But we can't use any of that information, lest we inadvertently cause the thing we wish to prevent to happen," she started.

I gave a nod under my hood, looking sideways at her. "Yes, princess."

"Twilight, please," she returned.

"But you said there are more of you here, in Equestria. Changelings who have come from your world, where this is common knowledge. I can't trust them all to keep this to themselves," she voiced her concern.

I agreed with that. "There's the matter of a large swath of us coming here by being arrested for criminal acts, whether entirely made up or not."

"Criminals?" Twilight repeated, giving me the side-eye.

"Well, in my case I was mostly just sharing this..." I wondered how to best explain it, then realised she had lived in a library for a long while; "documentation about your world with everyone who might be interested in it. Somewhat like a great big library except you make copies of the books and give them to other people, who can then give them to other people again. Except I didn't technically own those books I was giving away for free."

The princess frowned at the thought. A big library where the books are not loaned out but copied and gifted out for more copies to be made, it must have been an awkward thing to imagine without having knowledge of the internet and its workings.

"Why would they want to prevent a free distribution of knowledge?" she mused.

"I guess it's more like taking the Apple family's apples from their orchard and spreading those around without paying them," I surmised, noting Applejack's right ear twitched as I mentioned her family.

"I see how that would be bad; they put the work in to grow those apples, after all," the princess agreed.

"Yeah, but it was a sham court in control of our Queen's infiltrators to get more hatchlings for her planned invasion," I reiterated. "The point is; some of the Changelings from the other world have done crimes like mine, others may have done worse. There's no way to know for sure what they're going to do in this new life we've been given. You're right to be cautious."

"Exactly," the Princess agreed. "That's why I need you to help me, if you're willing to take that task?"

"I'm sorry, what?" I stumbled.

"I've got a good feeling about you, Pearl," Twilight revealed. "You've come to this world only a short while ago and already helped to solve one friendship problem, and now you're here helping out with another. If my experience has taught me anything, that means fate converges around you somehow."

"Oh, lovely," I coughed uneasily, not liking where this was going.

"It's much the same with me and my friends. If you know of our exploits, you are aware of how we kept falling from one problem into the next. Even as our group grew with Sunset Shimmer and even Discord joining us," the Princess orated.

"Right," I mumbled, thinking it over.

It was true that I had somewhat fallen into this maelstrom of events which led to Starlight Glimmer and Pinkie Pie joining Burst, Breeze, Blaze, and myself in confronting Queen Chrysalis, but I hardly felt that it was my doing which saved the proverbial day.

Nothing like how Twilight Sparkle frequently used her magic to solve issues... I had just sort of been there. Like I was here, now.

"What, exactly, are you asking of me, princess?" I dared wonder out loud.

"You say you have foreknowledge of events as they played out in your documents. Help me by making me aware of when those events don't play out the way they should?" Twilight Sparkle asked of me.

"I have experience with magic which changes our perception of events, changes our memory, or even our history. I can't be sure I'll be aware of it when something changes due to your relatives doing something," she posited further.

"Just let me know if something seems out of the ordinary?" she finally asked with a smile in my direction.

"So, be your canary in the coalmine," I chuckled weakly. "Well, I'm sure you don't need me to tell you that this Tantabus in Canterlot thing isn't supposed to happen."

"The Princesses should have been able to detect it before it could take hold," Twilight agreed. "Especially Princess Luna given it's a creature from the dreams over which she presides."

I smirked at that. "She created it to punish herself, if I remember correctly. I don't know how it can be here now. It should have been destroyed when you helped her fight it."

"I'm not entirely sure about that, actually," Twilight revealed. "You know how it is; dreams are fleeting. I tried to write it down afterward but only Princess Luna knows what all happened."

"And the documents from my world. I've seen the events unfold with my own two eyes. There was every indication it was destroyed," I knew.

"Can I ask you to tell me about exactly these abnormalities when you detect them, Pearl?" the Princess Twilight asked again.

I gave a nod in her direction. "I'll do my best, princess."

Chapter 17

The six of us weaved our way through sometimes narrow enough streets that we had to walk in single file into a corner of Canterlot I was sure had never been shown in the show, adjacent to what could clearly only be the merchants' quarter.

Where the gaudy front of the stores faced the main roads, these back alleys were far less decorated and offered ways to supply the various shops and get rid of trash.

The buildings were still the usual Equestrian quality; no corner or wall was completely undecorated, but it was clear they were not designed with the judging eye of the elite in mind.

Occasionally there was an abandonded small pullcart set up next to a back door, clearly showing the merchants in question had enough need of it to not want to store it away from their place of operation for too long.

It took us a short while going through these back alleys before we came upon a larger building hidden between the rest; a large barn-like structure with huge doors on two sides which were big enough to allow parade cars through.

We walked up to one of the smaller doors in the side of the building and Applejack unlocked it with a key she had on her person somewhere.

It was a bit of a search in the dimly lit warehouse to find the Sweet Apple Acres cart; It was a big four-wheeled carriage-sized cart, able to hold half a field worth of apples or the goods derived from it. It was placed among similar carts near one of the warehouse walls.

"And there she is; Granny Smith used a much smaller cart back when she was just sellin' apples and zap-apple jam in her youth, but demand for our products grew over the years so we ended up havin' to get this one," Applejack pointed out. "We usually have Big Macintosh here to pull it, but I trust Twilight's magic can do the job just fine if she's careful about it."

Twilight coughed uneasily, and I recalled how her magic went out of control once while she helped out with Winter Wrap-Up.

"It's not a snow plow, so I'm sure she'll be fine. If that magic spell wasn't keeping us from transforming, I'd wager Burst could've taken Big Macintosh's place pulling the cart given how she's usually a stallion," I chuckled.

Oval turned on me and snorted. "Oh no, I might prefer posing as a stallion, but that doesn't mean I am the most buff among them. That cart looks like it'd be too much for me. I could see Big Macintosh pull it by himself, though. I've seen him when I visited Ponyville on occasion; he's got a natural core strength to him."

"That he does," Applejack laughed. "He's a sturdy sort."

"I'd like to say it makes sense, given how he grew up on a farm, but your cousin Braeburn is only half the size of your brother, isn't he?" I recalled.

"Cousin Braeburn hasn't been raisin' half as many barns and town houses as my brother has," Applejack answered with a shrug. "Big Macintosh has always helped out where he could, both on the farm and in Ponyville. He's a dependable sort."

"Like his sister, I'm sure," I offered with a smile to Applejack.

The earthpony flushed lightly, but gave a nod back. "Of course! Honest work is where it's at."

Meadowsweet narrowed her eyes at me but then shook her head. "Those teeth are still unsettling."

"Well, let's get the two of them covered up so you won't have to feel out of sorts around them, then," Applejack decided.

She walked over to the cart and started pulling a couple of baskets out of the storage compartment under the top displays.

"We won't need the baskets we usually set up beside it on a market day, so that will already give you two some room in there," she explained, uncovering more and more of the bottom of the cart.

It was like watching someone pull items out of a bottomless bag or the back of a minivan. Wicker baskets, crates, and some signage appeared from the cart and placed against the nearby wall.

Twilight Sparkle stood in silent contemplation, looking at the cart more than what her friend was doing, probably thinking about the job of pulling it and then the plan once we got to the palace with it.

"Just watching this cart pull up on the market square was enough to excite me when I was a little filly," Camellia remembered. "Especially when we'd come up to zap-apple jam season. I haven't had that in ages."

"Remind me to hold a jar in reserve for you," Applejack spoke between pulling the last remaining items out of the cart. "It's the least I can do for your help today."

"Oh, I couldn't expect that," Camellia warded off. "I know how quickly that stuff sells. It's an even more sought-after product than your cider because of how rare it is."

"We always keep a few jars in storage back at the farm, for personal use," Applejack offered back with a shrug. "We're always happy to share with friends."

"Ah, the power of friendship," I sighed with a warm feeling welling up in my chest. "I don't even have to feed on this energy to feel good about it. Sharing is caring, as they say."

"That's right," Applejack agreed as she finished up her work. "Now it might be a little dusty in the corners, but you two should fit in this compartment just fine given what we haul to the market on a good day."

Oval and me joined Applejack on her left side and peered into the cart.

"We'd have to put our backs to the edges, face each other," my sister suggested. "Work our tail fins down between our back legs and cross our horns?"

"I guess that could work. Fortunately you're not in your regular guise, Burst; you're a little more bulky as a stallion," I pointed out.

"Hah, no. I'll just crawl in here first and you can join me," she decided, setting her wings in motion to lift her up from the ground and over the opened storage space, then lowered herself into it.

"Be careful with that cast of yours when you land; I would prefer to not get a face full of hard resin," she called out once she had lain down properly.

I similarily lifted myself up with my wings, feeling the added weight on my hurt leg and compensating for it. I looked down to make sure I wasn't putting my hooves on Burst as I landed, but then found my footing again on the wood cart.

I sank down through my legs, fell into a bit of an awkward position beside Oval, and snuggled into her more from the lack of space than anything.

"Oh, hi, nice of you to join me. Do you come here often?" Burst joked, staring at me with her big blue bug eyes.

"Funny," I returned. "No funny business 'mister'."

"Oh, I wouldn't and you know it; my mare wouldn't let me hear the end of it," Burst sighed. "Let's get comfy."

"You two ready for the cloth to cover you?" Applejack asked.

"Yep, let's do this before one of us has to go to the toilet or something," Burst called out.

"Have you considered stand-up comedy?" I asked.

"No thanks; having one entertainer in our batch is enough for me," she retorted.

A thick blanket fell over us and we used our changeling magic to pull it into place properly.

"This is somewhat like camping out in the woods in a small tent when I was young," I mused. "Although I was a human back then, and I was sharing a tent with a cousin who wet his bed."

"Wet his bed?" Burst repeated with some confusion. "Why would you wet a bed? The resin would melt away."

"It's not a thing among Changelings then?" I realised. "To be honest, I never actually considered that until now. I sort of assumed it was a thing for every race."

"We can hear you out here, albeit muffled," Camellia suggested from somewhere nearby, her voice muffled by the wood of the cart and the blanket covering us. "Keep your voices low or don't speak at all once we start rolling. We're going to be putting some pies on top of you now."

"Thanks for the heads up," I called back.

"As far as I know, no," Burst answered my question. "Maybe it's a thing with pony foals..."

"It is," Camellia's voice called to us again as a small weight settled on my left side and was moved around a little until it settled.

"How's that, it's not too uncomfortable, is it?" she asked.

"No, it's not," I agreed. "Just pile them on."

"If you say so," the unicorn outside of the cart answered.

Soon enough we felt the pies getting stacked on top of us, then heard a sound of the wood panel closing up over us.

"Can you two still breathe in there?" Applejack wondered.

Burst shrugged slightly. "One of us needs a breathmint, but yes."

"Yes, you do," I countered. "Seriously though; we're fine."

"Good to hear. We'll get the cart ready to move then," Applejack's muffled voice called to us.

"So," I spoke in a softer voice, barely above a whisper. "What's with you suddenly being a comedic genius?"

"Nerves," Oval responded while closing her eyes.

"I get you on that; we can't exactly do anything while in here," I sighed. "We need to trust in those four."

"Yes, and you may have knowledge about things I don't," my sister pointed out. "I might have met them or had dealings with them once or twice in passing, and know of the princess' exploits from hearsay, but you seem to trust her almost implicitly. I just... can't."

"We grew up differently, Oval. I am sure I would have been less enthusiastic about it myself if I'd have lived as you have," I accepted.

"The threat of being revealed, being hunted for who I am, just because we have to feed on their energies, it's been this thing in the back of my head all my life," she trusted to me. "We tried to teach you back in the Hive; the ponies can turn on you at any moment because we're different from them."

"Twilight and Applejack won't. Camellia probably won't. I'm not sure about Meadowsweet," I considered, my voice now a proper whisper.

"Yeah, I want to give them the benefit of the doubt, but I can't silence the fear welling up inside," Oval sighed. "I stand to lose so much if things go wrong. Years of carefully cultivating my identity; my relationship with my mare, the work I do back home to try and fit in their society, the friendships I've built."

"One careless move and I won't be able to get back to that life. Perhaps we will both end up in the dungeon before the night is over," Oval voiced her fears as I felt a shiver running through her form.

"We have to trust in the princess, in the plan we made to infiltrate the palace and get to our siblings and the princesses. We need to trust in a positive outcome, or we'll give the tantabus a way to control us," I pointed out, trying to keep my calm for both our sakes.

"So I joke, to quell my fears," Burst chuckled weakly, opening her eyes again to look at me. "Or we could talk about how you're settling in in our world some more. I know you love those kinds of conversations."

"Ah, no, thank you," I warded off. "I'd much rather be subjected to your poor excuses for jokes than that."

There was a jerk as the cart started to move, and we could feel the wooden wheels roll over the uneven ground with barely any cushioning. It was clearly going to be a bumpy ride to the palace.

"Ah, this is just what I needed to soothe my nerves; a massage," Burst joked.

Chapter 18

Oval and me could do nothing but rest in the storage space in the cart while it made its way through Canterlot's streets, trying to stay quiet while slowly accumulating more bruises from the bumpy road.

It was a disorienting trip what with the enclosed cramped space, the darkness and weight of the blanket and pies on top of us, and not knowing which way we were headed, but overall it seemed like Twilight Sparkle's magic gave a continuous tug on the cart.

I had expected it to start and stop more than it did, but the streets were probably mostly empty apart from the odd soul braving them at this early hour of the day and the guards roaming around to protect the place.

Somehow we weren't stopped and checked while approaching the palace gate, which worked in our favor. Perhaps it was the princess walking with the other ponies? Maybe it was Applejack's family's reputation that kept them from questioning why she was bringing her cart around even without help from her strong brother?

I just did my best to weather the situation the best I could, 'helped' by Burst's occasional jokes.

There was a soft tap against the cart and Camellia's voice called out to us, muffled by the wood. "We're now on approach to the palace."

While I appreciated the heads up, Burst shivered strongly.

"Nope, I don't like this one bit," she whispered with a narrowing of her eyes.

"Stick with it for a little longer," I whispered back, considering what the next steps were.

The idea was to bring the cart into the courtyard close to the kitchen, then start offloading pies from it. While the princess TWilight Sparkle and Applejack went into the palace proper by way of the kitchen, Camellia and Meadowsweet would linger behind to help Oval and me out of the cart.

Applejack and Twilight Sparkle would try to make their way to the royal bedrooms, using the pies as an excuse. They held enough weight with the princesses to hopefully pull them out of their stupor and get them on our side in this.

Meanwhile Camellia and Meadowsweet would claim to have found us two Changelings in the palace and would lead their captives down into the dungeons to join the larger group already there. Hopefully this would go without alarms getting raised or more guards joining in to help escort us there.

I reminded myself of how my sibling had appeared to me as a captive pony in the Changeling Hive on the first day after my hatching. I knew Burst could pull that look off, but I had to follow suit and give it my best go to appear defeated and hopeless.

Once Burst and me found our way to our siblings, the ponies would try to misdirect the guards and lead them out of the area, then keep them occupied or otherwise hold them off.

It would be up to us both to calm our family down so they wouldn't instantly assault any pony they found wandering about. The last thing we needed was for them to start another invasion from within the palace grounds.

If all went according to plan, we could count on Luna's help to put the Tantabus back where it belonged, and Celestia would be the only pony able to stop the magic keeping us Changelings from transforming.

It would be impossible to get our family members out of the city limits if they weren't able to transform, but once the Tantabus was under control, Celestia could open the city up again and they could escape via trains and roads in small groups.

It was a big gamble, but the only option we had.

The cart stopped and Burst and I held our breaths.

Some muffled voices could be heard outside of the cart, a clear interaction between the gruff voices of the guards and that of our pony friends.

It was nerve-wracking to have to lay in the cart and just wait it out.

Burst trembled a little but kept her mouth shut for the moment, not daring to joke out of fear it might be overheard.

I similarily kept quiet, trying to make out what the voices were saying, but to no avail.

The cart moved forward again for a brief spell, then stopped again.

"...'specially baked for the princesses," Applejack's voice came through more clearly, just before the panel over the top of us opened up.

"Those are pies, alright," a gruff voice agreed, his voice coming in through the opening above us. "You didn't poison them, did you?"

The top slammed shut again, a little too loud for my poor ears.

"How dare you suggest Sweet Apple Acres pies would contain poison," Applejack decried, clearly hurt by the suggestion her family's name was being questioned.

"Calm down, Applejack, I'm sure the guard is trying to do his job," Twilight's voice followed. "Of course he knows of your family's reputation and would not dare to question it. He just needs to make sure the princesses are safe."

"Ahem, yes, it is as you say, princess," the guard spoke in a less demanding tone, clearly trying to do damage control. "But they are clearly pies, so you can proceed."

"That's what I thought," Applejack snorted.

"As for you two," the guard started, clearly addressing Camellia and Meadowsweet in order to try and restore some semblance of his authority.

"They're with us," Twilight interjected. "You wouldn't question the royal gardener as well, would you? I asked her and her friend to teach me about some of the flowers here to see if I could get them to grow at my own palace in Ponyville so they could bloom when the princesses next visit."

"Ah, yes, of course... That... That makes sense," the guard replied, then shouted in a louder voice; "Open the gate!"

There was a sound of something heavy moving out of the way, and then the cart jerked into motion again. The rumbling happened again a few moments after, suggesting we had passed by the gate and they were closing it behind us.

we were unable to escape now except for maybe flying over the walls, and I remembered from the show how well that could go if magic was involved; Changelings bouncing off of a magic shield in an effort to invade Canterlot. Such a shield could just as easily keep us in as well.

It was quiet for a bit, just the cart rolling uphill over the well-maintained road inside the palace grounds.

Burst trembled a bit with nervosity, and I was finding it hard to keep my own anxiety down.

"You know, I'm not exactly Bursting with excitement about this next part," I joked in a whisper to my sibling.

I could see her narrow her eyes a little in the half-dark we were immersed in.

"Wow, Pearl, I didn't think you'd have it in you," Oval whispered to me.

I wasn't sure if she was genuinely impressed or if it was a joke at my expense.

"Well, you Blazed the trail for me earlier. It was honestly a Breeze to come up with," I offered in an effort to judge her reaction.

Oval snickered softly in response.

"Okay, those were terrible. I love it," she whispered back to me. "You're truly a gem, Pearl. I'm glad you're part of our family."

"Not like I had much of a choice in the matter," I returned. "I haven't had much of a chance to settle yet, what with all that has been going on."

"Fair," Oval agreed. "I really hope we'll make it through today and get to Hoofton without further issues; you can relax and find your hoofing there. I'll have to explain to Celery Stalk where you came from, but we'll figure that out once we're through this mess."

"Pearl's from Tall Tale, remember? Growing up near the beach, which is how I got my name. My mother found a pearl while beachcombing or something," I reminded her of our conversation in the train ride up to Canterlot.

"Why would you comb a beach?" Oval asked in genuine wonder.

"To look for things like shells and driftwood and such. People back home did it, so I'd imagine ponies here do it as well," I offered back with a shrug. "As I said in the train; I've never been to a beach myself. I just know of it."

"That just sounds confusing to me," my sister decided. "What kind of comb would you even use for that?"

"No, it's not combing like how ponies do their hairs up. There's no actual comb involved. It's just a word," I answered.

"So what do ponies in your world use for it, if not a comb?" Oval pressed, clearly hyperfocusing on this to press her anxiety to the back of her mind.

I shrugged as much as I could while resting on my side in a cart, hidden under a blanket and apple pies. "I don't know, honestly. I think metal detectors are used sometimes? Maybe they have some other tools as well?"

"Metal detectors?" she homed in on the new word.

"Yeah, they're rings on a stick and it works with magnetism or something. When metal's near it, it makes a beeping noise," I explained.

"Rings... on a stick," Burst breathed out. "Your world is mad, I tell you. One day you'll have to show me, sister of mine."

There was a soft knock on the side of the cart and Camellia's voice called out to us. "You know your voices have been steadily getting louder to the point where I can now overhear your conversation?"

There was a moment of an uneasy silence, but then I realised the cart had stopped.

"Are we there, you think?" I wondered in a whisper to Burst.

She shrugged back to me. There was no way to tell for us unless one of the ponies on the outside explained the situation outside of the cart.

"I'm sure they'd tell us," she offered back. "I'd love to get these pies off me. One of them is resting on a bit of a bruise."

"How did you get a bruise?" I asked in concern.

"I bumped my right flank into some furniture at Camellia's house. I'm fine. It's just a bothersome spot for a pie tin to be digging into," Burst returned.

"Oh, it's not as bad as my hoof then," I pointed out. "Here I thought you were hurt more than just a bump."

"I'll have you know the shaking of the cart didn't help; that pie tin has sharp edges," Burst protested.

"There's a blanket between us and the pies," I reminded her. "It's not like the pie tin cut through the blanket, did it?"

"No, but," Burst started to protest again, but was interrupted by another knock on the side of the cart.

"The others are walking around the garden to keep up expectations. There are a few guards keeping an eye on Twilight especially," Camellia explained from outside of the cart. "Once they've made a round, I'm sure Applejack will want to start offloading the pies to the kitchen."

"Thanks for informing us," I spoke back in as loud a voice I dared.

"Just hold tight for another few minutes; we're waiting for a shift change apparently," the unicorn returned.

"That's smart; a changing of the guards means they are busy swapping positions and we can get out of the cart without immediately being seen," Oval suggested in a whisper.

"It's a tried and tested method," I agreed. "You'll just have to suffer the pies for a little longer, sis."

"The horror, the absolute horror," she returned in a flat tone of voice.

Chapter 19

After waiting for far too long in the dark, both physically and mentally, the top of the cart suddenly opened without warning.

Burst and I shook from the sound, but tried to stay as still as possible; there were pies on top of us, and a blanket between us and them, so we should still appear as if we were part of the expected apple pie delivery.

There was more concern when the pies were lifted off us, one at a time, until none remained.

Finally, then, the blanket was grabbed by purple magic and lifted off us - folded in mid-air - and put to the side.

I looked up at Twilight Sparkle's face and horn overhead. She silently grabbed a hold of me with her magic and raised an eyebrow at me.

There were no voices from any of the ponies, everything was done wordlessly.

Going by the worried expression on Twilight's face, I gave a silent nod in return to keep the quiet in place.

I was instantly hoisted up out of the gap in the cart's cover and moved to the ground beside it. Once I stood on my own four hooves again, Twilight's magic let go of me and she turned her attention to my sibling still in the cart.

I looked around myself; we were in the palace courtyard, off to the side of one of the main structures. Applejack stood watching Twilight and the cart to my left, Meadowsweet stood on my right and was looking in the direction the path we were on veered off to, and Camellia was watching me in front of me.

Camellia motioned for me to remain quiet, and I gave a quick nod to her and took a few steps toward her to give Twilight room to put Burst on the ground.

I looked back in time to see my sibling get pulled out of the cart rear-end first, then placed on the spot I had stood moments before.

I gave a quick glance to her right side in an effort to see the notorious bruise she had complained about before, but nothing was visible at first glance.

Twilight put the blanket back in the cart, closed it up, and then hovered the pies off it and placed a number of them on Applejack's back.

The Earthpony checked the pies over to make sure they were still in one piece, then gave a nod to Twilight.

The princess finally turned to face Burst and me, that same difficult look on her face I had seen on her before as she was hovering over us.

"It's a shame we can't all just go up to the princesses together," she whispered to us. "Once Applejack and I are in the palace, we'll raise our voices and draw most of the attention away from the courtyard."

"Ah, so that's why we're being quiet right now," I realised.

"We only have a few moments to spare before the guards will patrol past here again," Meadowsweet knew. "We must go."

"No time like the present," Applejack decided, walking off toward a door set in the wall near us. "Are ya comin' Twilight?"

"Pearl, I want to officially invite you to come visit me in Ponville once this is all over. I'd like to talk at length with you about you-know-what," Twilight suggested.

"I've got a standing invitation from Pinkie Pie and Starlight Glimmer to visit Ponyville about a year from now," I pointed out. "Is that early enough for you, princess?"

Twilight gave a slow nod. "Yes, well, I'd like to talk before that if possible, but you're most welcome in a year's time."

She quickly turned to join Applejack before the Earthpony disappeared into the royal kitchens without her, leaving us with Camellia and Meadowsweet.

"So," Camellia started, glancing over at a very worried-looking Meadowsweet. "How about Meadowsweet takes point since she knows where the entry to the dungeons is, you two come up behind her side-by-side, and I'll follow while using my magic to surround you two so it appears as if you're kept in place by it?"

"Sounds good," I agreed. "Don't put too much pressure on Burst's right side; she's got a bruise."

"Hey, I told you that in confidence," Burst protested. "What happens in the cart, stays in the cart."

The unicorn blinked at that. "What exactly happened in the cart?"

"Oh, nothing," I spoke conspiratorially. "As Oval said; what happens in the cart stays in the cart."

"If you say it like that she's going to think something weird happened," Burst grumbled. "We just made some jokes to pass the time."

"Exactly," I decided with a wink. "Just jokes. Nothing else. We weren't plotting the downfall of pony society or something."

Meadowsweet shivered and gave a glance back at overhearing me. "I'm having a hard enough time keeping myself from calling out for the guards already. Don't do that."

"Yeah, I get it's a joke now. Well played," Camellia chuckled. Her horn started to glow and she enveloped Burst and me in her magic, then started to nudge us with it to walk up behind Meadowsweet, Burst to my left. "Fall in line, you evil, evil Changelings, you."

"Yes ma'am," I answered, lowering my gaze to the back of Meadowsweet's hooves. "We'll just look lost and defeated for now."

"As you should," Meadowsweet decided. "Think about how awful it must have felt to be captured by a couple of ponies who saw through your disguises as the princess Twilight Sparkle and Applejack."

"You do know there's an anti-transformation magic field in place, right?" Oval remarked, but lowered her own head to start looking the part as well.

"Yes, well, I'm an Earthpony. Magic is Camellia's domain," Meadowsweet pointed out.

"You just used some strong anti-magic potion mixed in with the apple pies, obviously," Camellia spoke from behind us. "That's why we don't have any on us to share with the guards we'll encounter. We had to leave them with the cart. Some of them might go there to secure them if we use that kind of an excuse. They'd want to study such a potion to be able to counter it, I'd think."

"Sounds about right," I agreed, but then focused on feeling miserable so I could keep the act up.

Meadowsweet set in motion and Burst and I started to follow even without Camellia's magic nudging us forward. Soon enough our little group was on its way to the dungeons, even as the guards recovered from their shift change.

We soon realised just how brief of a shift change it must have been as a group of patrolling guards rounded the corner up ahead of us and instantly realised something was off about us.

"Halt!" the leader of the group of four called out, and they rushed toward us.

Burst and myself kept quiet, staring down at the ground, but Meadowsweet snorted.

"Halt? What do you mean 'halt'? We've captured a pair of Changelings and now we're bringing them into the dungeons. Why would we halt until they're safely behind bars? Are you trying to free them? Are you Changelings as well? If they could appear as a princess, they could be any of you!" she spoke in a flurry of paranoia.

The guards stopped charging toward us and instead slowed their pace and gave a few concerned glances at one another.

"They posed as a princess??" the leader repeated.

"That's what I said; we came here with princess Twilight Sparkle and Applejack to deliver some apple pies to the princesses. Just ask the guard at the gate. We didn't know they were Changelings! We're not letting them out of our sight until they're locked away," Meadowsweet orated again.

Camellia agreed. "Exactly; I'm holding onto these two so they can't change into somepony else and try to make a run for it."

"Yes, well," the leader of the group started, but his voice sort of trailed off into nothing.

Meanwhile Meadowsweet had kept her pace, and we were forced to follow, so he was coming up on my right. I just lowered my head some more and hoped I looked downtrodden enough to keep the act going.

Our little group of four parted the group of four guards as we passed them by, and I could just sense the confusion and frustration in them. Meadowsweet was keeping up her part of the act very well, Camellia kept us in lockstep with her, and it was clearly enough to keep the guards from poking holes in our story.

As we passed them by, the guard who had spoken before had to get the last word in and called out after us; "The dungeon is already overflowing as it is, but I'm sure the dungeon master can squeeze them in there with the rest of the pests."

It was a snide comment, not at all like how I knew the ponies from the show. Then again; the Tantabus had taken hold of the ponies' psyches and they were simply lashing out from a point of insecurity. They had to cling to a feeling of superiority over us Changelings just to stay sane.

I considered if this was not true for my own world; people with insecurities hitting down on the weaker in society just to feel good about themselves so they wouldn't succumb to their own fears?

Maybe I could do some good as a therapist if I ever came out of this; being able to take on the appearance of someone from their past whom they might need to settle arguments with or such could be a helpful tool.

No use thinking about it now; I had to look hopeless, downtrodden, defeated. I dragged my hooves to try and stay away from where Meadowsweet was taking me, gave some quick glances around as if searching for a way to escape.

Camellia tightened her hold on me and forced me to walk forward at a quicker pace again. My sore leg stung a bit from the prompting, but I positioned it better on the next step so it wouldn't be burdened as much by it.

I considered just how close I had come to actually being in this situation for real; had I not ended up in our little group of Blaze, Breeze, and Burst, I would have been offloaded into the general waiting area, starved by our Queen, and then set upon the city proper as an actual invasion force.

The whole idea of going feral from not consuming energy was scary; losing control of yourself because you were simply too hungry to think straight?

Meadowsweet turned a corner and pushed a door open, leading us into the palace. The cool outside air made way for a warmer one, candlelight illuminating the hallway we ended up in.

She led us past another set of guards who looked as surprised as the first to see our little group, but Meadowsweet and Camellia managed to hold up the same excuse as before and pointed out my hurt leg as evidence that Meadowsweet managed to overcome me with great effort.

I made sure to limp extra for show as we were given passage by them, the dungeon being a short distance up ahead and down a flight of stairs.

So far so good; none of the guards had any interest in following after us. They thought they had the place secured and a pair of ponies were obviously enough to keep a pair of Changelings in check. Camellia's magic definitely held up under scrutiny and Oval and myself looked like we had lost all will to fight.

All was good in the guards' minds; the captives had no hope to escape.

By ourselves; no, we wouldn't. Burst and I were stuck in this place now, and were soon to be reunited with our family already stuck in the dungeon.

If our plan succeeded however; we would have a small army of Changelings who hopefully had their ability to take on disguises back again, and could make our way out of Canterlot with the princesses directing attention away from us by tackling the problems caused by the Tantabus.

I had to hold onto that sliver of hope that Twilight Sparkle would manage to do her part, just like she had many times in the show. She would figure things out. And her success would trickle down to aid us.

Hopefully before any of the Changelings down here in the dungeon turned feral to the point of being unable to calm down.

Chapter 20

There was little we could do but walk after Meadowsweet as she made her way into the dungeon; down a flight of stone stairs which were wide enough for prisoners to be brought down under duress and into the reception area where a few more guards were lounging.

A set of double heavy doors were set in our path, with a smaller door off to the right side in front of it. The guards were lazying about on chairs set around a round table opposite the smaller door, taking up most of the left area of the wider passageway.

"What's this, then? More parasites?" one of them quipped on our approach.

"Sure has every look of it, bah," another decided.

"Hey Deadbolt, there's a couple more for your dungeon," the first spoke again, this time in the direction of the door on the right side.

The door opened a moment later and a gruff old unicorn stallion stepped out; his body still showing strength to it even if it was waning from old age.

I caught a glimpse of a metal cylinder on his fading blue flank as he stepped out into the hallway we were in; like a sliding lock found on fences or older doors. His cutiemark definitely did justice to his name.

"Oh, lovely, what brings you girls down here with a pair of... I think those are girls too, if I can judge from their size. It's the shoulders, you see?" Deadbolt suggested, that last sentence aimed at one of the guards.

"No, I don't see. They all look the same to me, fangs and all," the guard grumbled.

Meadowsweet took point. "We captured these two Changelings while in the palace garden. They had made us believe they were princess Twilight Sparkle and her friend Applejack, and wanted us to help them deliver some apple pies to the princesses; we had to leave them in the cart up near the kitchen door."

"Pies, you say?" One of the guards spoke eagerly.

"You're on duty, Mishmash. We'll just have to hope they're still there after our shift," another decided.

"They managed to disguise themselves even with the magic barrier up? Interesting," Deadbolt mused.

Camellia's turn to speak; "They have a potion embedded in the pies. They lost their disguises while we were out in the gardens and wanted to run for the cart the pies are in to eat more of them. We managed to overpower them; Meadowsweet here managed a good kick on that one's leg. Can you believe they spat on it to make a cast around it?"

"Yes, very inventive," Deadbolt hummed. "If there's a potion in those pies you spoke of, then perhaps they need to be taken in for the royal magister to have a look at. Don't you think it wise to secure those pies before somepony else might get it in their head to eat them, not knowing about the extra ingredient?"

I dared to look up at the guards, who gathered themselves up at Deadbolt's clear admonishment.

"Yes, yes, you're right of course," one of them spoke. "If you think you can handle processing these pests by yourself?"

"These lovely mares are holding them in place quite well on their own," Deadbolt pointed out. "There's no need for a couple of good-for-nothing lazy-abouts like yourselves to stand in the way as well. Go figure out what's up with those pies and I'll see about not reporting how much you're just sitting here complaining about not being out on the wall."

"You're no fun, old man," the guard grumbled. "Let's go, guys; dad wants us out of here."

"Your dad," another guard pointed out. "My dad is a train conductor."

"Mine's a baker," the guard identified as Mishmash spoke up while falling in line.

The four of them passed us by on the left, making their way up the same stairs we had just come down from.

Deadbolt disappeared into the side room for a moment, then came out again with a key in his mouth. He used it to unlock the right of the two heavy doors in front of us, then pushed it open and stood to the side against it.

"Into this room, all of you," he ordered.

Meadowsweet happily complied, with Burst and myself being unable to do much else but walk forward as Camellia's magic prompted us to again.

We walked past the heavy set door into a space between it and another such set of doors. There was an opening to the left this time, not the right, but Burst stood in my way and I couldn't see what it was about.

Deadbolt closed and locked the door behind us, then walked up to the area on the left and leafed through a book placed there. "You can let go of them; I have the only key out of this area and beyond the next set of doors is the dungeon."

Camellia did as prompted and I felt my weight settle on my hooves. I had to change my hoof placement as I was a little out of balance, but then stood on my own again.

Deadbolt was using his mouth to turn pages in a big book placed on a table on the left side, the area there not more than a deep enough alcove for a pony to stand in next to the table.

He had placed the key to the doors on the far edge of the table beside the book, making it clear we'd have to go through him in order to secure it.

The stallion got to a relatively empty page and picked up a pencil with his mouth, then scribbled something on the page. "Two Changelings."

"Correct, sir," Meadowsweet agreed.

"I don't fully accept your excuse that there was a potion mixed in with those pies you mentioned, but it was good enough to get my good-for-nothing son out of my mane for a few minutes. How did you get around the anti-transformation magic currently in effect?" Deadbolt decided, staring directly at Oval.

"No, really, it was the pies," Burst countered.

"I have lived for a long enough time that I can smell out a lie like that. Don't take me for a fool," the dungeon master snorted with some measure of irritation to his voice. "You, then. Can you give me a straight answer? I know you lot are as intelligent as us ponies. I'm being respectful by asking you straight, give me the courtesy of a straight answer."

I shivered as I was now being scrutinized by the stallion.

"Honestly?" I started, giving a glance around to the other three. "How about this; I'm from another world and I'm here against my will?"

"You're not the first to have claimed that, but that's not an answer to my question," Deadbolt decided.

"I can't transform in this anti-transformation magic field, is the honest answer," I stated pointedly, looking straight back at him. "Is that what you wanted to hear?"

Oval groaned at my statement. "Pearl..."

"Burst, look at him. He's half of Celestia's age, his eyes are glazed over as much as my granddad's was on his deathbed, and I don't know if he can use magic anymore since he used his mouth just now to use the key and flip through the book. We four could overpower him and he's instead deciding to sit in a locked room with us and ask questions best left unanswered," I explained. "I'm not liking this one bit, but we can at least be respectful and answer honestly."

"Hah!" Deadbolt laughed. "Okay, I didn't think my eyes showed it that clearly, but yes; I am almost blind. I can still see your shapes, and I could sense the magic while you had it active. You're a powerful one, lass."

"So what did you scribble down just now if you're almost blind?" Burst had to ask.

"I doubt anyone but me can read my ledger nowadays. It's just for show," the dungeon master explained. "I have to get you sorted before my son comes back, but he can't follow us into the dungeon. You know my weakness now, and I know yours; without transformation magic there's no hope for you two to come up out of this dungeon without a proper escort and make it out of the palace grounds. Might as well get to know one another; what's your names? Did I catch Earl? Girl?"

"Pearl," I stated a little louder. "I'm Pearl, and my sister here is Burst."

"Pearl. Nice name," Deadbolt returned. "And your escorts? I do believe I recognize Meadowsweet the gardener? Your flowers do smell lovely even to this tired old stallion's nostrils, miss."

"You're too kind, sir. Yes, it's Meadowsweet. I brought Camellia with me, she's a botanist from the city," Meadowsweet answered with a respectful dip of her head toward the stallion.

"So, now what?" Burst wondered, and I could hear the agitation in her voice. Here we were delivered into yet another pony's care, and uncomfortable questions were being asked of us yet again. All she wanted was to get her ability to transform back so she could go home to her mare. Questions were dangerous.

"Bah, you're being far less respectful of your elders than your companion," the stallion grumbled in clear displeasure. "I might throw you in with the general population of those snarling ones but she can have a private room. Respect gets you a long way in a place like this."

"Oval, calm down," I whispered to her. "Nopony of us wants to be in this situation. We're going to have to make do."

"I'm sorry, I'm trying to keep calm but... Don't you feel the energy from beyond those doors?" Burst suggested, motioning her head in the direction of the dungeon. "No matter how respectful this stallion is telling us to be, our family trapped there are hurting."

"Ah, you can sense them from here? I've been putting the worst of them in the same cell in the back so they won't attack the others," Deadbolt explained. "I don't know how to help them, but they're getting worse every day."

"Of course they're getting worse; they're starving!" Burst exclaimed loudly. "We need to feed or else we're going feral!"

Deadbolt's face hardened at Oval's outcry.

"Oval, calm down, will you?" I bit to my sibling. "It's no use shouting about something we can't change."

"Opal? That's more in line with what I expected a sister to someone named Pearl to be called, yes," Deadbolt decided, but then looked at me again. "Your sibling is wearing out my patience."

"We just need to come at this with cool heads," I spoke, turning to face Oval. "I know you hate the situaton we're in, but I know you can calm down and be respectful."

"Hm, maybe there's hope for your generation yet," Deadbolt spoke from behind me.

"This is all good and well, but I thought you were processing these Changelings?" Meadowsweet wondered. "Aren't you supposed to put them in cells or something?"

"Do you think we have only one type of cell here, miss Meadowsweet? Ah, no; we have as many different cells down here as you have flowers up in your garden. Finding the right cell for the right prisoner is a trick in and of itself. I do believe I know where this Pearl will go. The question is whether she'll share that cell with her sister," the stallion pointed out.

"I can calm down," Burst spoke as calmly as she could muster. "I'll do my best to keep my emotions under control. Please don't split Pearl and me up."

"See, all they need is a little motivation," Deadbolt chuckled darkly. "I've got a lovely double in mind for a set of well-behaved Changelings such as yourself. Don't make me regret it."

"No, sir," Burst sighed.

"Thank you, sir. We'll behave. After all; where can we go?" I pointed out.

"Exactly," Deadbolt agreed.

He picked up the key from the table and walked past us to the heavy doors to put it in the keyhole and give it a turn.

"Privileges are earned through good behaviour, and lost through bad acts, remember that," he stated for clarity.

Chapter 21

The area behind the heavy doors was a short hallway which was just deep enough for the doors to open into without sticking out into the larger space beyond.

The room split up to the left and right, with cell doors clearly visible in the walls. Opposite the heavy doors was another small hallway leading further into the area, another such space visible further ahead.

I squinted in the lower light conditions and could make out a third such hall even further back. In so far as this dungeon was concerned, it was using the space available in the depths of the mountain by just lining up the cells in rows wherever they could be hewn out.

"First section is for the most privileged. Single and dual pony cells in this hallway. I'll put you two in a cell to the right here," Deadbolt said after closing the doors behind us again. "Second section has slightly bigger cells, but also more ponies per cell. If you're respectful to me here, you won't have to go there. Group cells are in the third section. Only the nastiest prisoners end up there."

"So where do you keep those Changelings they mentioned earlier?" Camellia wondered.

"Most are in the second section, but a lot of them have moved to third," Deadbolt stated calmly. "The more violent share a cell together; they can be violent among themselves."

"I could feel them even from this far away," Burst grumbled, trying to keep calm.

"I wish I knew how to calm them down. I tend to have a knack for calming even the worst prisoners down over time, but they seem like they're lost to reason," our jailer mused.

I looked back at the locked doors. "Those doors. They are strong enough for even strong stallion guards to have trouble getting through without a key, aren't they?"

"It would take them some effort, yes," Deadbolt agreed. "You won't escape that easily."

"I was thinking more about your son and his friends coming in," I whispered under my breath.

"Ah, maybe wait until we're near that cell he wants to put you in," Camellia whispered back to me.

"Can we put them into a cell so I can return to my garden already?" Meadowsweet whined to speed the process along. "I don't like being down here. It's too dark and damp."

"Right you are," Deabolt agreed, motioning to the right. "Up ahead to the right. Fifth cell on the left. Let me grab the right key."

I watched him as he took the key from the heavy doors we had come through and put it in an open crate full of keys, then sifted through them with a small amount of magic emitted from his horn until he pulled another one out from the collection.

"Finding the right key for the right door is a trick in and of itself, I see," Camellia suggested. "I'm sure it helps with security?"

"Oh yes," Deadbolt agreed, putting the key he dug up in his mouth and moving it slightly to the side of his muzzle so he could still speak. "Close to a hundred keys, and only half of them fit on the cell doors. If you don't know the right markings, you'll have to try them all to find the right one for the right door. By the time you're through them, the guards outside will have come in with the spare key and be able to put you back in your cell."

"Right. No worries of prisoners escaping then," Camellia coughed, unable to hide her unease. "I have to agree with Meadowsweet; the sooner we're back up, the better. Was there a reason we had to come along with you if you're putting these Changelings in such a secure place?"

"Ah, I just thought you might want to select a cell of your own for when your lies are revealed," Deadbolt spoke as he walked through our little group toward the cell he had pointed out. "I told you; I have lived long enough that I can detect lies when I hear them."

We collectively stopped walking, and Meadowsweet sputtered in surprised anguish.

"I am sure you have a good reason for siding with the Changelings you've brought here, but the princess told me to lock them up and I see no reason to shirk my duties just because one of them knows proper manners," the stallion continued.

He walked up to one particular door and put his key into the lock, turned it, and then opened the door to the cell.

He finally turned to look at our little group and smiled wearily. "There's nothing you can say; I've heard every excuse in the book. You two will each get your own cell, separate from the two Changelings named after gems."

Somehow this lone stallion had changed the game around; from us four being able to overpower him to him now holding us hostage until we were put in cells and...

"And then what?" I asked. "What happens when we're locked up? What will you do with these ponies?"

"I'll send for an interrogator. They will figure out what your plan is and decide what to do with you from that point on. I'm just here to put prisoners in cells and care for them while they're here," the stallion explained. "I don't care much about the details beyond that."

"Surely you do? Surely you care. You have a son. You value respect," I pointed out. "You noticed we were here under false pretenses. You know we can't transform ourselves with this magic field being in effect. Aren't you the least bit curious?"

"Nope," Deadbolt returned simply. "If you live as long as me you'll know that smarter ponies than yourself will figure out what's what. In the grand scheme of things it won't matter all that much; prisoners for all kinds of offenses come by, get interrogated, judged according to their crime, and they either leave after serving their sentence or get carried out of here. It's not my place to judge whether someone belongs here or not."

"But you are," Burst interjected now, jumping forward in agitation. "You're judging that our friends need to be put in cells just because we told a lie about why and how we're here! You've got all our family members down here and you're the one judging whether they need to be in the first, second, or last section depending on behavior! You're judging us while we're talking!"

"I didn't say it was the last section," Deadbolt pointed out calmly, but with a decided narrowing of his eyes. "I did say to stay respectful."

"How can I be expected to be respectful to somepony who ignores the sacrifice our friends made to get us here? How can I be respectful to somepony who judges me for my appearance and how I need to feed instead of listening to who I am beyond that?" Burst exclaimed. "I have a life! I have a mare waiting for me! We've been trying to get a foal of our own for years, but I was thinking of adopting Pearl since she's quickly become a favorite sibling of mine. You don't even care??"

"Wait, what?" I spoke up, startled at this new revelation.

"Calm down there," the stallion warned. "It's not my place to decide what goes on topside. I'm in charge of the dungeon. I care for the dungeon and those who are imprisoned here. I don't make the decision to keep them here. That's up to others. But I won't let somepony walk out when they're obviously involved in something which needs further investigating."

"So you DO judge!" Burst all-but screamed.

Deadbolt turned for the cell door and closed it. "And that was the last of it. Now you're going to the second section."

"You don't even... I..." Burst started, then suddenly charged forward as if possessed.

"Oval, no!" I called out after her, trying to cut her off before she rammed into the stallion.

There was a sudden pull of magic and both Oval and me stopped in mid-step, held in place.

"I'm not as weak as I might appear at first glance," our jailor spoke calmly, his horn glowing with the magic he held us down with.

"Let go of my friends," Camellia warned, walking closer to us while her own horn charged up with energy. "Meadowsweet, get back."

"And now you're all going to the second section," Deadbolt decided as if he was entirely unphased by our actions.

I felt the anger and frustration my sister was feeling, the rising anger at seeing her friends treated this way which Camellia felt, the fear we all felt when faced with the prospect of being incarcerated like this with no hope out.

Our little plan had failed, and I felt horrible. Absolutely horrible.

Something sickly was welling up in the back of my throat and...

No, wait, I had resin glands in the back of my throat. I felt my resin glands spring to action as if I had no control over them; they were instinctively producing resin because I was threatened and my body decided to go into fight mode.

I thought back to my training; I could make different kinds of resin if I just changed the way I projected it out. Which was the best in this situation? The quick-hardening one, most likely.

My mouth filled with the goop I needed, and I projectile vomited it out in the direction of Oval, covering her head to hoof in the green quick-drying cement while we were both held by Deadbolt's magic.

I emptied my resin glands, then spat the last few chunks to the floor so I wouldn't weld my mouth shut.

An uneasy silence fell around us, but then Deadbolt's magic put the both of us down and dissipated.

"Okay, I have never, in all my years, seen that happen," he stated. "Been spat on myself, on numerous occasions. Headbutted nearly twice as often. I have not seen you Changelings turn on one another; that is a new one."

"You value respect, don't you?" I spoke.

"That I do," he agreed.

"Yet you don't respect us. You don't listen to us. You don't give us a chance to explain our situation," I listed. "You don't let us get a word in and project this stoic solid wall of 'I have seen it all and there is nothing you can do to move me'. Is there any way I could have a one on one with you, just to convince you something is going on here and give us a chance to plead to you to consider a different viewpoint?"

Deadbolt looked at Bolt, frozen in place as she was by my resin rather than his magic, then sighed out deeply. "Okay, how about your companion chips this one out of that stuff with her magic, and you and me retreat to this double cell here? If you can convince me, we both walk out again. If you don't, I walk out on my own and your sibling here walks in on her own accord once chipped out."

"Deal," I agreed.

Chapter 22

Leaving Burst to Camellia and Meadowsweet, I walked into the cell with the elder unicorn stallion.

The cell was, as expected, a double one; a bunkbed had been set up along one wall while a toilet, washbasin, and small table were on the other side of the room. A single shelf was mounted on the wall above the table.

I walked into the space proper, then had the thought to climb up on the bed and felt it give way a bit more than I had expected it to.

I thought it would have been a hard mattress, maybe filled with straw or something, but this mattress was actually soft enough that I considered it might have been filled with cotton or down feathers or such.

Maybe there were springs under it to help it bend under my weight? I looked up at the latticework holding the upper bed in place. No springs there probably meant no springs under my mattress either.

Deadbolt pocketed the key to the room, then closed the door almost completely, leaving it only slightly ajar, and took up position in front of it.

If ponies had the habit of crossing their arms in front of their chest, I felt he was doing it right now as he looked at me with his ailing eyesight.

"Speak up, lass," he ordered.

"You have lived a long life, by your own admission. You say you barely care what goes on outside of the dungeon, but you have a son in the guard, so you must have met somepony you care about," I listed what I knew about him.

I continued before he could ask why I was bringing his personal life up; "Changelings also have Ponies and other Changelings they care about. A lot of us are spread throughout the pony lands, have relationships, hold jobs, are actively taking part in pony society without ill effect. We're not as bad as we're made out to be."

"As for me; I'm not from here. I was brought here under false pretenses. Where I used to live, I was able to have a full life. We don't need to attack one ponies in order to feed on their energy, which is something that our Queen Chrysalis and others like her forgot," I revealed, opting to keep the whole 'getting turned from human into Changeling'-part to myself.

"Something weird is going on here in Canterlot, right now. We weren't planning to attack the city. We weren't a threat to the ponies living here," I sighed and shook my head as I thought about the next part I had to say. "Yet the princesses suddenly decided to have anti-transformation magic activated. This revealed a bunch of us who were living peacefully in the city."

"We did nothing to deserve this. We did nothing to deserve getting hunted down and put into prison for who we are. You're starving those of us who are in here because we can't take energy from ponies by force; it has to be given willingly," I sighed sadly.

"You have poor eyesight, but even you know we look different from ponykind," I knew from him suggesting our shoulders were somehow an indication of whether we were female or male. "We have fangs, we have different eyes, we have fins instead of a mane. Not all ponies are interested in dealing with us the way we look without our pony disguise."

"If we don't feed in time, we become unable to manage our emotions. We go feral. It's not like we can help it; it's purely a defense against starving to death, as far as I know of it. You may notice my legs are filled in while my sister's have holes in them; these holes are an indication of how starved we have been throughout our lives; the less love we're able to take in, the more those holes grow," I waited a second, then added "And they never close up once they're there."

I held my unhurt foreleg out toward Deadbolt.

"Look at my leg; I have never been starved for love. I have lived together with others all my life. It's possible for our races to live together with no ill effect for either of us; we just have to accept one another," I stated as if it was a statement for peace delivered at the United Nations back home.

"The only reason somepony would want to suddenly reveal a heap of us Changelings among you ponyfolk is to prevent us from attaining a lasting peace. To learn about one another, to grow as equals like the pony races have had to learn as well, if I have to believe the story of Hearth's Warming Eve."

I had to take a breath, and used the moment to pull my leg back under myself again.

"Remember that Unicorns, Pegasi, and Earthponies used to fight. They were weaker for it. They were preyed upon and the world nearly destroyed by their ongoing war. Only when the ponies came together as one did prosperity come to Equestria. Only by the three races combined could the princesses have been born; Alicorns who embed all the races in themselves," I spoke like a professor teaching about Equestrian history from what I knew from the show.

"I came here with my sister because we believe there's a future for us all to live together; ponies and Changelings both. Perhaps other races as well, eventually. But all of my brothers and sisters held captive here are a problem for both of our races; they are turning feral the longer they go without food."

"We must do something about them, because there is no power strong enough in this world to keep them from breaking out and destroying Canterlot in their wake if they become desperate enough."

I lowered my head, looking down at the mattress I was sat on.

"Oval and me, we've been trying to work toward this unity; to gain the trust and respect on both sides. We don't want to fight. We just want to live in peace, and not be hunted down for being different," I spoke in a softer tone, but still loud enough that I thought Deadbolt's aging ears could hear my words.

"We just wanted to see the state of our family here, and hopefully find a listening ear so we could prevent what is about to turn into an all-out war... We don't want war. Most of our family of Changelings want peace. I can't stress this enough; we're trying to do right here. We're trying to be respectable members of society. We just need to hide part of ourselves because otherwise ponies scream at us and attack us."

I reached up with my ankle and touched my fang. "Just because we look dangerous. It doesn't mean we are dangerous. We're not immediately criminals because we look like we could do harm. It's no fair that we're being locked up like this."

I finally fell silent, not knowing where to go from here. I just stared down at the mattress, not knowing what Deadbolt might decide, but leaving it to him to make up his own mind about things.

The key fell onto the floor.

I looked up in surprise at the loud sound to find the stallion sitting down on his rump, rubbing at his right temple with his forehoof. He looked like he was having a hard time of something.

"Are you okay, sir?" I asked with genuine concern welling up for him.

"Shush... you talk a lot, and I have difficulty getting my thoughts in order at my old age," he threw back at me.

"Yes, sir," I stated in return, shutting up.

"If I get the gist of it, young lass, you're saying you lot were unfairly judged by those up the chain for crimes you didn't commit?" the stallion tried.

"More so the color of our skin, the shape of our heads, and the difference in our diets," I reiterated. "We've done nothing but try to live normal lives."

Deadbolt closed his eyes while continuing to rub at his right temple.

Meadowsweet's voice came from behind him through the small crack in the door opening; "You two okay in there?"

"Shush; Deadbolt is thinking," I called out to her.

The stallion shuffled back a little where he sat, using his tail to push the door closed properly. With the key in the room with us, there was no fear of it trapping him and me in there as there was no latch on it, but it shut out the sound of Meadowsweet's voice.

"Back when my grandsire was still a young colt, a classmate of his was outed as a Changeling. He told me the story of how you were not to be trusted because you could be literally anypony. Even the youngest among us could be a Changeling in disguise," Deadbolt spoke.

"We ponies have carried this fear of your kind for generations; how can you trust somepony if they're not who they say they are? How can I trust a Changeling when they could be this or that pony within the blink of an eye?" he continued.

"You can't have a relationship with somepony who just changes into somepony else and cheats on you. Who just takes on a different appearance and name and just disappears on you. You can't trust a Changeling. Everypony knows that, even if the amounts of Changelings we knew of publicly were few and far between until the recent attack upon Canterlot," Deadbolt stated.

"Yeah, my sisters are very upset about that attack. It should have never happened, but we can't disobey our Queen," I offered in return.

"And therein lies the crux of my problem; I can't disobey an order from the princesses," the unicorn stallion explained. "The princesses say 'lock up the Changelings', so I do. That's the extent of my orders, so I have to do that part or I won't be able to see myself in the mirror every morning."

"But surely your orders are not to hold our friends?" I posited. "Burst and me can go sit in a cell for a bit to help you keep to your order, but Meadowsweet and Camellia are not covered by that?"

"Regardless; you all smell like trouble. I can't in good conscience let them go," Deadbolt reasoned. "On the other note... I can't see it; the walls here are hewn out of the mountain. They are thick and strong and impossible to escape through. Even if the group down in third break out of their cells, there's nowhere for them to go."

"You don't understand; there won't be any reasoning with them. They will break through those doors by sheer force of numbers. They will swarm out into the palace and beyond, looking for food. Nopony will be able to stop them as a swarm like that," I pointed out.

"But you said that you need to feed on energy which is given willingly," Deadbolt remembered.

"And our magic allows us to emit a hypnotic field toward our target to convince them that we're their significant other. The more hungry we get, the more powerful our magic becomes,' I warned. "My siblings would make slaves of each and every pony in Canterlot because they wouldn't be able to think about trying to keep the peace. We're sitting on a ticking time bomb here, and Burst and me came here in the vain hope to try and stop it going off somehow!"

I caught the ferocity of my last statement and looked down again.

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to raise my voice like that," I apologized.

"...in the hopes of fending off an army, we brought the army inside the walls," Deadbolt slowly realised.

"Like a Trojan Horse, yes," I agreed.

"A what?" Deadbolt wondered.

"Don't worry about it; it's something from where I'm from," I warded off. "It describes almost exactly this situation; bringing the enemy army into your midst without realising it."

"Well, congrats lass. You convinced me something weird is going on," the stallion grumbled. "I don't like this one bit, because it goes against everything I know to be true, but the idea that that lot in third section might erupt like that fills me with a dread I haven't felt since Nightmare Moon's return."

"What, that was worse than the failed invasion by us Changelings?" I chuckled weakly.

"Many times; the face of our moon changed, and then darkness fell upon the lands. As far as I know that's not within your power to do," he pointed out.

"Ah, no... I certainly hope not," I agreed.

Chapter 23

The relief on my friends' and sister's faces when the door to the cell opened and both Deadbolt and myself walked out, one after the other, was clear to see.

Burst still had some chunks of resin on her torso and her right back legs, but had been biting it off her torso while Camellia's magic pulled it off the leg when we stepped out into the hallway again.

"Pearl here has given me a lot to think about," Deadbolt spoke, motioning in my direction. "Forgive an old blind warrior for sticking to his oath, will you?"

I looked at my sister, who was the one I was most worried about in this situation. Meadowsweet was used to palace life and had taken a more submissive role around Deadbolt. I was sure she would be fine. Camellia was able to control her emotions better than Burst could.

It was just that Burst had so much to lose and was shrinking into that fearful reactionary thinking more and more as we went on. I wish I knew how to protect her from her own mind.

"What does this mean?" I heard my sister ask. "What all did she tell you?"

"You Changelings and us ponies seem to have a lot to lose if things go awry here, am I wrong?" Deadbolt listed simply.

"No, not wrong," Burst agreed, spitting a bit of hard resin to the side. "Although a lot of our family already lost the option of going back to their old lives now they have been revealed for what they are. I still have a family to return to, if this doesn't go all kinds of sideways somehow."

"Right. I'm not entirely sure how I can help you Changelings out, but I'm willing to entertain the idea that we can somehow keep the princesses from having to deal with my dungeon not being able to hold back a swarm of you," the stallion spoke. "If anypony has any bright ideas, let's hear them."

"Well, see," I started now we were somewhat out of the clear, "we're not the only ones working on this problem right now. The princesses might soon be on our side as well, although it might take some time to convince them. Our hope is that the anti-transformation magic might go away soon. And then we just need to take small groups of our family members out of here, disguised as ponies."

"Once more; my task is to keep you locked up. I can have you roam free in these sections but I can't help you get beyond the locked doorway unless those orders are rescinded," Deadbolt stated. "I'm open to most anything else, but even if you were all disguised as ponies; there's one way in, one way out. And I have to keep those doors locked until I hear otherwise."

"Oh, very helpful," Oval sighed. "So we can roam in these halls between cells but you can't let us out? Can you open the cells for our family to come out so we can bring them up to speed? We might be able to help control those who are too far gone."

Deadbolt looked in the direction of the thick doors, then toward the opening leading to the second section.

"Technically you'd still be locked up. So, technically, that could be fine. One or two at a time, sure. I can't promise more than that," he gave in.

"Can you direct us to the nearest cell which contains another Changeling in it, sir Deadbolt?" I asked. "And, perhaps make sure you have the right key for that cell?"

"That won't be but a moment; I know exactly what cell and key combination it is. He has been fairly well behaved, given the circumstances," Deadbolt revealed. "Wait here while I get the key."

As the stallion set in motion to get the key required for this cell, and I mused at his use of 'he' for the Changeling in question. If Deadbolt was right and it was due to our shoulders that he could see whether we were male or female, I wondered whether our brother's behavior was more like Burst or if they were more likely to hold feminine guises while out in public and be the reverse of my sister.

"I'm sorry for vomiting resin all over you, Oval," I apologised to my sibling, walking a little closer to her. "My resin glands responded to my rising panic and I had to do something with the stuff. It worked out, though? We have another pony on our side of the fight?"

"Remind me to plaster you to your bed one day and sit back and watch you chip away at the resin to get your mobility back," Burst half-threatened.

"Why to her bed?" Meadowsweet asked.

"Because I caught Oval unawares, so she wants to catch me unawares. I'm an easier target while asleep," I chuckled. "It's a little petty, honestly."

"A lot petty, if you ask me," Camellia decided. "Lift your hoof up, let's see if I got it all."

Oval raised her back hoof and Camellia scrutinized it. "Well, most of it. Does this stuff dissolve on its own or do you want me to pull the last bits off?"

"It doesn't dissolve that quickly. Water helps, but I'm not sure about my resin as I actually turned it into a pearl while training on how to use it. That's how I got my name," I explained to the ponies. "Now, the soft stuff is easier to dissolve. It won't last more than a few hours. That's why we make our beds out of it."

"Easy to take away on trips, not like those bedrolls you ponies use. They never roll back up as tightly as when you buy them, do they?" Oval posited.

"There's a trick to it," Meadowsweet offered. "You just have to use both your front and back legs to roll it just as tightly as when you get it from the store."

"I'm sorry, but I tried doing that. There's just no way," Oval protested.

"Keep in mind that Burst is usually an Earthpony stallion; he's a bit bulkier than you are, Meadowsweet. I'm sure your smaller size helps you since you can put your hooves closer together," I considered.

"Who's an Earthpony stallion? This here lass?" Deadbolt wondered as he returned to us with a key.

"Oh, yeah. I'm good with stallions. I'm worse with posing as mares because I just don't have a fashion sense. Just ask my mare; she keeps telling me I don't know how to dress myself so she needs to make those decisions for me," Oval chuckled weakly. "If we didn't get stuck here in Canterlot I would've been home by now."

Deadbolt raised an eyebrow at my sibling's statement. "How... does that work exactly? Why don't you Changelings stay with the sex you are? If you're a lass, you're a lass. Don't go muddying the waters any more than they already are."

"It's just what she feels more comfortable as," I offered. "One of our other siblings is most comfortable being a foal, although she keeps having to move around and take up new disguises to not get outed as a Changeling like the one your grandsire knew. She keeps complaining about how she has to relearn all the things she already knows when she's goes to school in a new town. She'd rather avoid the trouble completely."

"I'm having trouble myself wrapping my old head around these concepts, I'll tell you," Deadbolt decided. "Follow me to the third cell up ahead. It's a double, but I only have a single Changeling in there right now. Late arrival, like you lot."

He went up ahead and I walked up to Meadowsweet's left side as we followed behind the stallion. "How are you holding up, Meadowsweet?"

"I think Deadbolt is more similar to me," the Earthpony figured. "The whole idea that you can take on disguises and be like somepony else is strange. I know you two are good Changelings, but I'm not so sure I'm liking being in the same building as a whole heap of them. I'm having trouble keeping my anxiety down."

"I figured as much. Look, you can trust in Camellia to keep you safe. If you lose sight of Burst and me in a crowd of Changelings, just stick to her side. Burst and me will find you two and we'll let you know who we are, although I'm still pretty identifiable with my resin cast," I joked, motioning at the resin surrounding my right foreleg.

"Thanks. I know you're trying, but I'll calm down when this is all over and done with. I am going to have nightmares about speaking out against those guards earlier, I just know it," she whimpered softly.

"I'm sure princess Luna will watch over your dreams again once Twilight talks some sense into her," I offered with a smile.

I couldn't really do much about my fangs, but I was hoping the poor earthpony would slowly get used to them through a sort of exposure therapy; seeing them every so often in a positive manner to help her associate the fangs with something good.

"Here we are," Deadbolt spoke after putting the key he was holding into the lock of the door. He rotated the key with his magic now the secret was out that he could still use it fine when needed, and pushed the door open. "Hey Crook, you've got a couple of visitors here I think you'd want to meet. Take a step outside or it'll get crowded in your cell."

"Crook?" I repeated.

"What was that? Crook?" Burst called out from behind me, walking up to join us a little faster. "Not the Crook, is it?"

"What do you mean the Crook?" I asked, turning my head to look in her direction.

"Ah, is that a familiar voice I hear?" A masculine voice sounded from the open cell, using a melodious intonation as if he was more used to singing than talking.

"That sounds like Crook, alright. Wandering troubadour; keeps getting himself in trouble. Once dated Blaze, but let's never bring that up around her," Burst filled me in as she joined me on my left side.

"You're doing me an injustice, Burst dear," Crook suggested as he walked out of his cell.

I could immediately tell why he had been called Crook by a Matron or the rest of the Hive he had been born into; there was a noticeable bend to his tail fin. It made his tail look crooked as a result. Crooked tail, so Crook was an easy enough jump to get to.

"I could have said you were an impossible womanizer and a rogue," Burst threw back in Cook's direction. "I haven't seen you in ages, brother. Where have you been?"

"Oh, here and there, running from the law and previous girlfriends, you know how I roll," Crook offered in far too familiar a manner.

He approached Burst amicably, but then the two of them suddenly took on stances as if they were about to fight one another! I hesitated to get between them, but this was not something we could use right now. Not now we were getting somewhere with Deadbolt!

Crook faked an attack on Burst, Burst parried with a fake attack on Crook, then the both of them just wrapped their forelegs around one another's neck and hugged each other dearly.

"I've missed you, little brother," Burst sighed in a happy tone.

"No more than I have missed you, big brother," Crook decided in as equal a happy tone.

"Well, it's clear you two go back a ways," Deadbolt quipped. "Are you all related to one another or some such?"

"Not exactly; Crook is from a batch following the one Blaze, Breeze, and myself are from. Which is why I'm his elder brother," Burst explained, letting go of the other Changeling.

"Sister, technically, but we've bumped into one another more often while he was in his pony disguise than not. It's easier for me to think of him as my brother as a result. I swear Burst holds the record for maintaining his guise the longest of all of us," Crook explained as well.

"Oh, on another note," he started in almost the same breath. "I finished that book you gave me last time. I didn't quite enjoy it as much as the previous volume. The writing is going all over the place in this new story."

"Ah, that's good to know. I'll take it back to the library later," Deadbolt spoke in return. "I feel like the writer was too distracted while writing this novel. It took them a long time to release part two, but they wrote the third book in nearly half that time."

"I will have to read it some time, then," Crook noted.

"So," I started, looking Crook over. There were fewer and less deep holes in his legs than I had seen on any other Changeling of Burst's age or close to it. "You're clearly keeping yourself well-fed, Crook. I take it you know about the impending disaster that's about to befall us if the rest of our family doesn't get out of here soon?"

"Oh, my, yes," Crook agreed. "I've tried to explain it to poor Bolt here, but his addled pony brain was having a hard time coming to terms with the urgency of the situation."

"Pearl explained it in a way I could follow in about five minutes of near-continuous talking," the Unicorn stallion grumbled. "You're just bad at explaining yourself."

"That must be why I'm usually not in a situation where I have to do that, then," Crook chuckled. "I much prefer to be somewhere else when the explaining has to be done."

"Which still leaves the question of how you ended up here," Burst pressed.

"Ah, I had this lovely little thing fresh off the train, swept her up with all my charm, and hit a nearby hotel. And then I woke up the next morning to guards surrounding the bed I had fallen asleep on, the girl nowhere in sight," Crook sighed. "Took me all of a minute to realise I wasn't able to disguise myself or talk my way out of it."

"But how were you a 'late arrival', as Deadbolt suggested? If you were around when the anti-transformation magic spread out over Canterlot, you should have been brought in with the first wave," I considered.

"Ah, see, I have this tendency to be very fast and slippery," the other Changeling offered with a grin. "I was captured a few times by a number of different guards before they finally decided to knock me over the head before transporting me. I'll tell you the headache hits differently when you wake up on a bunkbed in a jail cell with it."

"And it's the reason I barely open this door, using the food slot to talk with him instead," Deadbolt explained. "Although given what Pearl told me, I think you lot need somepony like him."

"Someone who's slippery, fast with his words, yet hates explaining himself? I'm not sure I'd know what we need him for," Meadowsweet wondered.

"Oh, I've got an idea," Camellia posited. "He's suave and quick. I'm sure he'll be able to guide groups of other Changelings out of the palace while avoiding detection or by misdirecting attentive guards."

"Aha! That sure sounds like my speciality," Crook agreed. "I'm at your service. Anything for my big bro."

Chapter 24

With our team growing by the minute now Deadbolt and Crook were both seemingly on our side of things, I gave a weary glance toward the big double doors we had entered through.

"So it's fun and all that we're standing here reminiscing," I told Crook and Burst especially, "but those guards we sent off are just going to find an empty cart up there instead of the promised pies. How long do we have until they return to find us all roaming around with sir Deadbolt?"

"Oh, I wouldn't worry none," Deadbolt grumbled darkly. "My good for nothing son will see I'm not in my office and will take it as his cue to get some extra sleep in. I doubt they are interested in what goes on in here, and the doors have magical soundproofing on it. We could scream our heads off in here and nopony out there would be the wiser."

"Wouldn't that be a security risk in case of a breakout?" I pointed out, having seen my fair share of films back home.

"There's thick layers of mountain all around us and only one exit," Deadbolt reminded me. "Where would anypony break out to?"

"You know, that might work in our favour," Burst considered. "If we get a digging team started we might be able to circumvent all of the guards up there."

"I forget you don't know a lot about rock, older brother," Crook sighed. "Consider me an expert after dating a filly who wouldn't stop talking about the stuff."

"What are you getting at, little brother?" Burst wondered with a raised eyebrow.

"Given I've spent some time here looking at my cell walls, I've noticed they are speckled with hard bits I think she called a conundrum or something," Crook knew. "That's pretty tough to get through, even with magic."

"Corundum," Camellia corrected him. "Pinkie Pie grew up on a rock farm and I met her sister Maud Pie once. She can talk about rocks like none other. It does stick with you."

"Maud, Maud..." Crook tasted. "That could be her name, yes. Talks in a constant monotone unless you get her excited about sediment?"

"I don't want to consider what you did or did not do with Maud Pie," I sighed out. "The important thing is whether it would keep us from digging our way out of this place?"

Burst stood pensively, obviously thinking it over. "Depending on who all got thrown in here, we might still be able to do it. We'll just have to keep them focused. If we dig upward at an angle we should find weaker rock up above, right?"

"That's safe to assume," Meadowsweet agreed. "There's a layer of clay under the top soil before you get down to the rock. The soil in this region is rich in minerals, so there might be some softer crystals buried in the mountainside."

"It's like I'm hearing my Maud talking again," Crook sighed longingly. "What's your name, princess? Are you doing anything after we're done here?"

Meadowsweet took a hesitant step back, shaking her head. "I'm not interested, sorry."

"Can we get back on track please?" Camellia asked out loud. "I can help to dig with my magic if it is needed."

"Have any of you considered that I'm standing right here and you're talking about digging holes in my jail without so much as a 'may we please'?" Deadbolt protested. "I have half a mind to throw you in separate cells just for the audacity of bringing it up!"

I turned back for the elder pony and bowed my head down toward him in acknowledgement of his position.

"I'm sorry, sir Deadbolt. We have been trying to come up with a plan to get through this without casualties and have gotten into a habit of discussing all possibilities," I recognized. "Especially while princess Twilight Sparkle was with us earlier; she has a sharp mind."

"She always had a sharp mind," Meadowsweet recalled of her friend. "Just to be clear; I'm not on board with digging ourselves out of here unless as a last resort option; as the palace groundskeeper I shouldn't be advocating damaging a part of it."

"So give us a viable alternative then," Burst huffed. "I don't know how many of our family are locked down here, but we're already up to three of us if you just consider Crook, Pearl and me."

"Getting past the guards just outside and then out of the palace grounds might be doable if we could transform ourselves," she considered. "We could pose as a group of guards if that's the route we want to take, but that's dependent on the princesses turning the barrier off."

"I hear a 'but'," Camellia pointed out.

"But," Burst continued, "how many of our family are down here? Your guards patrol in small groups, so we might need to send a couple of groups up from here. The more of us going up, the higher the chance somepony up there gets wise and starts investigating."

"One-hundred and thirty-four," Deadbolt stated calmly. "There are six more of you in second, the rest are in the group cells in third."

"What are the names of the ones in second?" Oval had to ask.

"I don't know, I did not get a chance to ask them before they attacked me. That's why they're in second and not first," the old pony responded pointedly.

"One of them is Tizzy," Crook knew. "I could hear her voice yesterday."

"Tiz? Oh, just who we needed to not be here," Oval sighed out with a painful expression. "She's probably already in half a panic just by being here, forget her going feral."

"I don't get it," I had to admit. "Is Tizzy her batch name or what?"

"No, it's her common name," Oval replied to my question. "She's part of an S-batch; Slide, Speck, Stripe, and Swat if I remember correctly."

Meadowsweet flicked her right ear at hearing all the names being listed like that but did not comment on it.

"Maybe we should meet this Tizzy first so we can calm her down, if she's such a nervous wreck?" I pondered.

"Hah, good luck trying to calm her down without pony meds or a stiff drink," OVal scoffed. "But yes, can we please get moving?"

"I was waiting for you all to stop talking," Deadbolt pointed out flatly. "Follow me."

The old pony set in motion toward the central hallway, not waiting for us to fall in step with him.

"I don't know which of the cells has this Tizzy, but I'll take you from cell to cell until we find her if that's what it takes," he decided.

"It's much appreciated, sir," Camellia spoke, walking up to his left side.

Meadowsweet was quick to follow, her ears and tail lowering slightly as she did.

I followed after her, considering how she had been acting. She had been getting more and more skittish, especially after Crook tried to make advances on her.

Given how she had voiced her fears at Camellia's house, I pondered if she was falling back into that now she realised she was going to have to deal with more of us Changelings.

It could be a problem for us if she couldn't control her emotions.

Crook wandered up to my right side. "How are you doing, sister? Let me officially introduce myself; Name's Crook, as you might have heard. Did I catch that your name was Pearl? So you're from a P-batch then?"

"I'm not from here, actually. I'm a convert," I half-joked about my situation like I had joined a different religion back home.

"Run that by me again?" Crook queried, not getting the reference.

"When's the last time you've been to the hive to the East of here?" I wondered. "I thought everybody was tasked to help us there to prepare for the new invasion?"

"Pardon? New invasion? What's this nonsense?" my elder brother sputtered as if the information was new to him. "Is that why we're in this mess right now?"

"No, no new invasion. It's not happening. We prevented that," Oval called back. "Less said about that the better. Look, Pearl's from a different world. She was transformed a few months back and has been adopted into the same clutch as Blaze, Breeze, and me."

"You're kidding?" Crook gasped out in amazement. "Since when are we transforming ponies from other worlds??"

"Ah, see, technically you still aren't transforming ponies from a different world, since all of the 'hatchlings' like me were formerly human," I pointed out to him.

The other Changeling's face drew a blank. "You main? What?"

"Human," I spoke again. "H-u-m-a-n. We walk on our hind legs, have no tails, and generally think we're better than everybody else."

"Sounds like a lovely bunch," brother decided with some measure of sarcasm to his voice, only to break into a smile immediately after. "So, new blood, how are you liking our world then? Given you're from a different one?"

"Honestly, so far? I've had to deal with almost being sent here as part of an invasion force, had to conspire with ponies and Changelings both to get it through to our Queen's head that that was a very bad idea, and then thought I was done with all the hubbub only to arrive in Canterlot and get into this new mess..." I recited. "I would have had a much calmer life back home."

"Ah, but calmer is not always as interesting," Crook pointed out with a wink. "Would you rather stare at grass growing than be involved in something as grandiose as this? It's certainly calmer, but this kind of situation is what stories and songs are made out of."

"Do you really think they'd write songs about the valiant Changelings who tried to infiltrate Canterlot's castle, little brother?" Oval threw back from behind us. "You know how ponies are."

"I resent that statement," Camellia called out in turn.

"I'm sorry, but you know there aren't any positive songs about us Changelings. It's all warnings and doom and gloom," Oval listed. "It's tough on us constantly being portrayed as the evil ones, you know?"

"I'm catching only half of the conversation there, young 'uns, but I'm starting to get the notion of what your Pearl there tried to tell me the more I think about it," Deadlock added to the conversation. "I must be going senile or something, but it just doesn't sound fair if all you're trying to do is live your lives."

"Well, our Queen has made a few bad decisions in the past, and I'm sure we're not fully without blame. I had to learn to live peacefully with you ponyfolk myself, and the same holds true for others in our family. But we all make mistakes in our youth, no?" Burst spoke to Deadlock.

"Right you are... lass? Lad? I'm sorry, that part is still confusing," our jailor admitted as he continued to lead the way deeper down into jail. "I'm sure not free of the burden of mistakes myself. Lost a few friends over it through the years."

"See, that's how I've been dealing with this as well; just simplify things down to basic facts for yourself until it makes sense," I spoke. "We all have our good sides and bad sides, but for some of us the bad is all others want to see."

I paused a moment and watched for a response in Meadowsweet's ears or tail positioning. She was clearly listening but kept quiet for now.

"There is as much good and bad in us Changelings as there is among you ponyfolk," I continued to orate "We should all get a chance to learn from our mistakes and better ourselves."

"That's honestly way too much thinking for me, little sister. I tend to leave that sort of thing to Burst over there," Crook scoffed. "It's better to not think too much about those things and just enjoy life, good company, and a good book or two."

"That's also a way to do it, I guess," I agreed. "Maybe not the wisest way to do it, but it is definitely a way."

"Why do I feel like you're making fun of me, sister of mine?" Crook chuckled. "I haven't said anything about the limp you show, have I? What happened to your foreleg?"

"Ah, she fell down the stairs in my home," Camellia called back. "My fault, really; I attacked her."

Crook missed a step, then caught back up again while Oval burst out laughing.

"Yeah, and that's after she had just healed back up from breaking the same leg during a fight with another hatchling," she revealed. "I'm sure Matron is going to have some words with her about it if we ever talk with her about it."

"Sprained, not broken. I would have felt it if it was a break," I protested, noting Deadbolt and Camellia turned around the corner to the left as soon as we got to the second section of the jail.

Meadowsweet was right behind them, but took the turn at a slower pace and looked back at me with a quizzical look on her face. It was clear she was dealing with some heavy thoughts about us, or me personally, but I thought it better to leave it up to her to bring them up in conversation.

"Now, this cell has one of you in it, but I'm not sure if this is that Tizzy you were talking about," Deadbolt spoke, and the three of us Changelings rushed to catch up to find him at the first jailcell on the left side.

He motioned to Camellia and Meadowsweet.

"You ladies might want to take a step to the side in case this one gets rowdy. Perhaps you two lads want to step in to deal with your friend in here in case they make trouble? Saves me the energy," Deadbolt suggested to Burst and Crook.

"I'll keep to this side then," I offered up, giving a weak smile toward Camellia and Meadowsweet taking their positions on the other side of the door.

With Burst and Crook standing beside him, Deadbolt put the key to the lock and opened the cell door...

Chapter 25

As soon as Deadbolt turned the key to unlock the jail cell with an audible click, the door broke open as if a great force was applied from it from within.

Another Changeling dashed out of the cell, ran head-first into Burst, and the two of them rolled back on the ground from the impact.

"Whoa there!" Burst called out, trying to prevent getting hit by a sudden wild swinging of Changeling hooves at her person. "Calm down! I'm a Changeling too!"

I glanced at Crook, who was just watching what happened while using his tongue to pick at something between his upper teeth.

"You're not going to help her?" I asked, motioning my head in Burst's direction.

"Why? Burst's fine," Crook returned with a shrug. "He has to deal with Blaze's misplaced anger often enough that I doubt even a soldier could best him."

"Sibling rivalry, I take it?" Deadbolt realised. "Blaze and Burst and..."

"Breeze," I reminded him, watching Burst struggle with our sibling.

"Right," Deadbolt accepted before raising his voice toward the fighting pair. "Do you need me to pull you off one another or are we going to calm down soon?"

Our sibling who had jumped out of their cell at the first sign of potential freedom slowed down their assault upon Burst, blinked their eyes a few times, and then looked their target over with growing confusion.

Now they had calmed down a bit I could see the holes in their legs were about as deep as those in Burst's legs to the point where I could see through all of them even if they were thicker than I had seen on most of my siblings. If they had been a pony I would have considered them to have worked out to gain some leg muscles, but I wasn't sure if that worked the same way for us Changelings.

There was a small chunk missing out of their chitin back plate, cutting it short on the left side over their lower back. This must have happened a while ago as the break line had been filed down and smoothed out to not cause them a problem when they would take their wings out from under it, but it was still something which set them aside from other Changelings.

Their shoulders were about as slim as Burst's, in stark contrast to their bulky legs, and I pondered how I could tell whether they were a guy or a girl without being told. Going by the bulk of their legs, I had to consider they might be a brother, like Crook, rather than a sister, like Burst.

"Oval?" they spoke in confusion, their voice slightly higher in octave than I would have guessed. "You're not the pony who locked me up here. What are you doing here?"

"Good to see you too Forsythia," Burst chuckled from where she lay on her back under the other. "Do you mind getting off me, sister? You're a bit on the heavy side."

I made a mental note to just go by the shoulders next time.

"Bah, I'm all muscle and you know it," Forsythia grumbled, giving Burst one last punch with her left forehoof to the chest. "You would have more of it too if you hauled a cart between towns instead of sitting on your lazy bum all day."

"Ow. Okay, fine, I'll take that dig, but can you get off me anyways?" Burst asked again. "I can't break you out of here with broken ribs."

Forsythia clambered off of Burst, then turned around and finally spotted the three ponies and two Changelings watching her from near her open cell door.

"What..." she spoke, then fell quiet as she observed the group before her.

Burst rolled back up on her four hooves and pushed up from the ground, while I gave a slow wave with my good left foreleg.

"Hi there, sister, I'm Pearl," I introduced myself.

"Good to meet you, young one," Forsythia responded with a warm smile to me, then looked over at Crook while narrowing her eyes. "When did they pick you up, Crook?"

"A few days back," Crook responded calmly. "There's no easy way to keep track of time in here, but I've managed to read two books since arriving here."

"You had access to books? Damn. I just got locked in here and told to behave by that pony guard there," Forsythia grumbled, motioning at Deadbolt.

"Oh-ho? And here I thought you two had so much in common; you elders could reminisce about the good old days," Crook teased. "What got you so riled up that he locked you away down here?"

Forsythia snorted out in clear defiance to the other's words.

"Listen here, twerp; I'm only six years older than you and I can still beat you in a fight," she reminded him. "I was never going to go down without a fight, and you know it."

"Uh-huh," Crook agreed. "So what did you do?"

"I was setting up my flower stall on the market when my disguise just fell away without warning. I felt dizzy and had to sit down a moment to stop the world from spinning around me, and this guard comes up to me and thinks he can just arrest me without giving me a chance to secure my bouquets."

"Oh dear," Oval groaned as she stood a half step behind Forsythia.

"Well, I couldn't let him, could I? Aly put so much effort into the arrangements I came here to sell that it would be a damn shame if somepony would just get them for free. She wouldn't let me hear the last of it," Forsythia continued.

"Sweet Alyssum, her mare," Oval pointed out to the rest of us.

"Right. She's probably beyond herself with worry," the bulkier of my sisters spoke in a sad tone. "I don't know how long it's been since I arrived here."

"Well, if you say you were caught by the spell activating while you were already in Canterlot at the time, probably on the first day. So that would have been, what... eight or nine days ago by now?" Crook considered.

"Oh no, knowing Aly she would be on her way here on the second day," Forsythia realised in horror. "She's not in a cell here with us, is she?"

"I wouldn't honestly be able to tell you," Deadbolt spoke with a heavy frown over his eyes. "None of you told me your names. Except for Crook here, and then those other two who arrived today. Pearl and Burst, if I recall correctly."

Forsythia took a few threatening steps toward the jailor. "I swear, if you have her in here and hurt her, I will do unspeakable things to you."

"Calm down, please," Camellia interjected, stepping between the pair. "It is clear you care deeply for her, and I think I can assume by your latest statement that she's a Changeling as well?"

Forsythia did another doubletake, now focusing on the pony who addressed her. "Wait, I know you. You have that lovely flower shop in town! Camellia, was it? I'm Forsythia from Ponyville! You know, Rose and Lily Valley are our muties."

Camellia's pupils shrunk down a moment, then came back in full force and she slapped her right forehoof in front of her mouth. "No way, you're a Changeling??"

"Guilty as charged," Forsythia returned. "Not like I can help how I was born or anything. You know, I don't think you ever met Aly... You always talked about maybe coming to visit when you're in Ponyville, but you haven't done so yet."

"You know how hectic life can be in Canterlot," Camellia warded off, but then turned to look at Meadowsweet. "You remember Meadowsweet? I think you sold her those posies which she's got growing up in the palace gardens now."

"Oh, what?" Forsythia gasped. "What a coincidence to find Canterlot's number one flower gal and the royal gardener here! What's going on?"

"I said what's going on already," Burst sighed. "We're here to break you and the rest of our family out. Hopefully without too much trouble. I swear your mind is a wonderful thing but you can't keep focus for longer than a few seconds."

I was just watching them interact with one another, up until Crook leaned in toward me with a conspiratorial smile on his face. "You know, if you grin any wider your fangs will fall out."

I caught myself and tried to suppress my grin. "I wasn't even aware I was doing it. But look at them; Camellia overcame her fear of Changelings and is just chatting away with a friend."

"Well, I mean," Camellia started, her cheeks starting to flush. "I got caught up in the moment, really. I've gotten used to you and OVal, Crook seems okay, and I guess that led me to accept Forsythia for who she is more easily than before? Huh... Now that you mention it..."

"Hey, it's fine. It's the fangs, right? And the bug eyes? And our fins. Oh, also, did you see we have back plates?" Forsythia wondered, turning halfway so Camellia could see her right side, the cracked part facing away from her pony friend. "I swear you ponies could do with some back plating given what I see some other Earthponies carry around on their backs sometimes."

Camellia let her eyes roam over her friend's back, but then spotted the crack. "It has an interesting sheen to... Oh no, what happened there?"

Forsythia instantly moved her back legs so she was facing Camellia properly again, hiding her back from view. "What happened where?"

"Syth, come on. I saw that," Camellia pressed.

"No idea what you're talking about, Mel," Forsythia lied.

"We're talking about that at a later time," Camellia decided. "I want to hear all about it."

"Can't you let it rest? No, wait, who am I talking to? Of course you can't. You wanted to know why Aly's bouquets were using a different ribbon supplier that one time and wouldn't let that go either," Forsythia realised. "How about this; you finally come to Ponyville and I'll explain it in detail back at my home. Aly makes the best sunflower smoothies this side of the Unicorn Range."

"If you're talking about it at a later time, perhaps we should continue on to our next sibling?" I suggested.

"Right, we are somewhat pressed for time," Burst added.

"Oh, don't let me stop you. I'll just let myself out," Forsythia waved off. "Where's the exit again?"

"No... No, no... No," Crook exclaimed, shaking his head. "You would walk straight into the guards, sis. Wait until we have everyone together and I'll help you slip out without being observed. Or, that's the plan as far as I understood it."

"I'll just go on to the next cell then," Deadbolt considered.

He started off toward the next cell, but hesitated as he passed by Meadowsweet who stood staring at Forsythia with a difficult look on her face.

"Are you okay there, lass?" he queried, startling her out of her concentration.

"Huh? Oh, yeah, go on," she stammered.

Deadbolt shrugged and continued on his way. "I'll wait for you all to join me there, then. I could use some help keeping this one from getting rowdy as well."

I walked past Crook, Forsythia, and Camellia, with Burst moving to catch up to my right side, and stopped a few paces away from Meadowsweet.

"No, seriously; are you okay Meadowsweet? I can stay behind here with you if you have questions? Let 'the boys' handle our sibling?" I offered up.

"Hah, the boys," Burst chuckled, continuing to walk on. "She means you and me, Crook."

"I'm coming, big brother. I'm sure we can handle things fine. Fors won't have to lift a hoof to help, for once," Crook joked as he moved to catch up to Burst.

Meadowsweet watched them pass by, gave a glance over my left shoulder to where Camellia and Forsythia stood, then turned to look to my right.

"Can we walk over there a moment, Pearl?" she asked in a timid voice.

I gave her a nod and turned in the direction she had indicated.

"Sure thing. It's not like we're going to get lost in this place or anything," I agreed.

We walked diagonally across the intersection between hallways to the opposite corner, and I turned back to the earthpony.

"What's on your mind?" I asked, as she planted her rump on the cold stone floor.

"Can I ask you some questions about where you're from? I need to... I want to understand something," she started.

"I might not be able to answer everything; I made a promise to princess Twilight," I warned her.

"I think it should be fine," Meadowsweet pondered. "I'm sure it will be fine. It'll be fine."

I recognized that way of thinking. It was a way to overcome anxiety. She was trying, and I had to quietly commend her for the effort.

I just down opposite her and took as non-threatening a pose as I could while I waited for her to formulate her thoughts.

Chapter 26

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."

Chapter 27

After confirming among ourselves that Meadowsweet and I were presentable again after our crying fit, Burst motioned for the group further up ahead to come over.

"We still have two more cells to open up on this side. Tizzy wasn't among the first four, so she'll be in the last two on this side of the jail," she spoke to us both.

"Tizzy? Oh, right, the nervous one," I remembered. "So who all did you get?"

Oval pointed at a pair of ponies walking side by side, keeping some distance from the others. "A pair of Hatchlings from your world; Featherweight and Lighthoof. Apparently they both flew over here from the Hive as a pair of Pegasi trying to see who could get here first without using the train. Their race came to a sudden stop as they hit the barrier, and they were picked up off the ground and hauled off by the guards before they could recover from the shock."

"Ouch, I remember the feeling from the train," I spoke to Oval, then turned to Meadowsweet to explain. "That anti-transformation magic barrier feels like you've had a full meal and it suddenly wants to go back out of your mouth instead of staying in your stomach. It was very upsetting."

Meadowsweet made a face of disgust.

"I'm sorry to hear you had to go through that, Pearl," she spoke in earnest.

"And the other one?" I wondered, noting how different they looked to the rest of us Changelings.

Instead of fins which were a dark grey, theirs were a deep moss green. Their eyes were tinted a light yellow, and from what I could see peeking out from under his back carapace so were his wings.

They were seemingly chatting up a storm with Crook while they walked toward us.

"Glottis," Oval spat with about as much disgust as Meadowsweet had managed to show on her face earlier.

"I take it you don't like them, sis?" I reasoned from her reaction.

"Once in a while there's a bad egg among us, and someone comes out looking... different," Oval spoke with a strange kind of judgement to her voice. "Some are more aggressive than the rest of us, and are often tasked with soldier jobs even if they weren't born as soldiers. Others are less aggressive to the point of pacifism. Some are physically or mentally weaker, requiring the rest of us to take care of them. Some are natural born leaders. But they are oddities, one and all."

I raised my eyebrow at my sibling. "It's not like you to be this judgemental, Burst. Meadowsweet overcame her prejudices thanks to us, but now I'm learning you have some lingering ones we may have to work on together as well?"

"It's not a prejudice; it's a matter of survival," Burst protested.

"Do tell," I suggested, sitting down again to make it clear I was waiting for her to tell me the difference.

Meadowsweet sat down beside me, close enough that her fur brushed against my skin.

"Yes, please do tell me why I'm the silly one for judging you Changelings by your looks, but apparently it's fine for you to do it among yourselves," she added.

Oval looked increasingly more uncomfortable, pressed into this moment where she had only a short amount of time to explain herself before Glottis would get within hearing distance, and with the two of us not letting up.

"Glottis can see sounds, and hear smells," my clutch sister explained quickly, "but that's not all he can do. He's a strange kind of Changeling. Every Changeling is welcome among us, I told Pearl that. We all have our tasks to do in the Hive and the greater family, but Glottis' abilities are uncanny."

"What you're describing is synesthesia," I knew. "That's rare even back where I came from, but not unheard of. Certainly not something to discriminate against. There's more that you're not telling us; you had an almost visceral response to him. What aren't you saying?"

"He can tell when somepony gets sick before they have symptoms. He says they smell different," Oval whispered to us.

"Again, probably synesthesia. That's not weird," I pointed out.

"He knows when a pony gets pregnant before they do!" Oval tried again, waving her forelegs in the air as if to indicate how spooky it was.

"You're reminding me of the ponies from Ponyville when they described Zecora the zebra," I sighed. "I'm still not hearing a valid reason for your reaction."

"Zecora? She knows a lot about the plants growing in the Everfree Forest," Meadowsweet spoke with some adulation. "She always comes by the palace gardens when she visits Canterlot."

"The point I was making is that Oval shouldn't judge a book by its cover like that, given what we Changelings go through ourselves," I suggested to Meadowsweet.

"No, but it's not his looks I'm upset about, it's his magic," Burst tried again.

"Synesthesia isn't magic, sis," I sighed. "It's the pathways in their brains connecting strangely. It's not something Glottis can turn off or on or control if they do have it. It's just how they are. Are you really judging them for who they are?"

"No, but," Burst tried again, but at that point Glottis had walked up close enough that he could overhear her, so she shut up again just as quickly.

"Maybe we should talk about this at a later time. See what I mean for yourself," she huffed.

"Sure," I agreed. "You know I'm always willing to give somepony a chance."

"Oh, hi Pearl, how are you settling in in our world?" Glottis wondered as he approached us. "I hear Blaze, Breeze, and Burst took you in as one of their own?"

"I'm sincerely starting to reconsider given some recent events," Burst grumbled under her breath.

"It's a pleasure to meet you Glottis. I love your colours. You're the first Changeling I see who looks different from the norm, not counting the soldiers in the Hive where I hatched," I offered up.

"Yeah, I'm one of a few of us with different colours. Not every one of our siblings appreciates our uniqueness, so I'm happy to receive the compliment," he responded with a smile. "Your leg should be just fine by tomorrow if you don't put too much pressure on it today, by the way."

"See what I mean?" Burst hissed.

I pointedly ignored my clutchsister's reaction, instead opting to lift my right forehoof up and hold it out in the air between Glottis and myself.

"What clued you in on that, if I may ask?" I wondered.

"Hurt limbs tend to turn a soft shade of purple. The more hurt they are, the more red this becomes. Yours is almost blue again so it's almost healed up," Glottis explained.

"That sounds more like you can see auras than synesthesia," I considered.

"What's synesthesia?" Crook asked.

"It's when your brain mixes up what sense you're getting your information from. So you see sounds or hear smells or such. Seeing auras is different from that, I think. I listened to a few podcasts about that back home, where they claimed it had to do with our natural electromagnetic fields or something," I explained. "I don't have either, so I wouldn't know from personal experience."

"No, I can definitely see sounds as well; there's a ripple in the air when someone speaks," Glottis explained. "It's not like it helps me much; it's just ripples. I tried to figure out if I could hear across a distance by interpreting the rippling, but it's more difficult than it might sound."

"That makes sense," I accepted. "Sound is just a vibration of the air after all. You would've been so overwhelmed if you had been born on Earth... there's sounds everywhere."

"Oh, no... I try to stay out of our bigger hives or pony cities for that reason; way too much happening at once," my brother suggested. "It's calmer here; there's a spell which keeps the vibrations to a minimum. They're still there, but a lot weaker than I'm used to. I like the peace."

"According to Burst here, you can smell when someone gets sick too? That's an amazing ability. If you weren't in danger of getting overwhelmed by seeing sound waves, I'm sure you'd be an amazing doctor," I put forward to Glottis.

"Ah, I wish," he returned. "As I said; your leg has a colour to it which tells me you are recovering from something. I couldn't tell you what, though. You smell fine. Some diseases have a smell to them which I noticed when half the Southern Hive got the sniffles all of a sudden. I could smell the sickness spread and ran from it before I could get infected as well."

"That's cool too. I don't see why some of our family members have issues with something like that; you're an early warning system for disease outbreaks!" I laughed.

"Can you stop praising me? I'm not used to it," Glottis asked embarrassedly. "It's not really something I can control; it's just who I am. I don't deserve praise for that sort of stuff."

"Fine, fine. I just think it's cool that someone like you exists, is all," I agreed.

"For what it's worth, I think it's cool that you Hatchlings exist," he countered. "You come here from a strange world, having lived a life we can only guess at, and you somehow fit in just fine with the rest of us. You definitely sparked a wave of excitement when your name started to get passed around, Pearl. I heard you made a giant resin pearl which blocked off one of the lower passages after it rolled through half of the Hive?"

I blinked at imagining what that situation would have looked like.

"I don't have the best resin in the Hive; my soft resin dissolves after only a short hour. My hard resin is brittle enough that it won't stop anyone in their tracks. It sounds cool to me that you were able to make a perfect pearl with it on your first try," Glottis continued.

"No, no... No... I spat resin into one of the magic training holes and lost control of my magic, and afterwards there was a small pearl in the hole; look, I've got it as a necklace now," I pointed out, motioning at the resin pearl which had been dangling from my neck ever since it was given to me.

My brother peered down at my necklace, then grinned up at me.

"It sounds like your story has been embellished just as much as mine has," he realised. "Oh, that makes me feel a lot better about my own magic. I can see magic as well, so when I'm charging up my own magic, the whole world starts to vibrate. I got so nauseous from it when I was younger. The magic in this jail is nice and peaceful; the waves are small and regular. It's like the waves on a calm lake."

"I'm betting the anti-transformation magic out there wasn't as calm?" I realised.

Featherweight and Lighthoof finally joined our little group, but said nothing as they noticed our conversation was already ongoing.

"Oh, no... It knocked me out cold. I think I had a sensory overload from it," Glottis agreed, then addressed the other two Hatchlings. "Your sister here is much better behaved than you two. You should take a page out of her book."

I chuckled with some embarrassment. "Oh, trust me, I used to be far less social back home."

"What did you do back on Earth, Pearl?" one of the two of them asked me, and I realised she was a girl like me.

I had to think that question over. "I think I was an IT Consultant... that life feels like an age ago now, considering what all I've gone through here in Equestria."

"Yeah, I know what you mean," the same sister agreed. "I used to be a streamer, but was arrested and brought here after a chat with a fan. Turns out she wasn't who I thought she was..."

I raised an eyebrow at that. "So you got catfished, sister? I got picked up for spreading copyrighted material myself."

"There are a lot of you in the big hall we were told to wait in, I heard," she spoke again. "My name's Featherweight, on account of me being slimmer than most in my batch."

"I'm Lighthoof," the other spoke in a deeper voice. "I was a content creator like Feather. They got me for tax evasion even if I thought I marked my income correctly."

"I said he was like Al Capone; they got him on tax evasion as well," Featherweight suggested with a grin. "He's a rebel like that. Used to be a girl, like I used to be a guy. How about you, Pearl?"

"Formerly guy," I admitted. "I wouldn't want to go back to that now, though. I'm... stupidly comfortable as I am now."

"Oh, don't I know it," Featherweight agreed. "Lighthoof had some more trouble with it at first, but I helped him get over that. If you know what I mean."

She winked at me even as Lighthoof looked away, and I brought my right hoof up to poke my forehead next to where my horn protruded outward.

"Yes, I get what you mean. I heard you two were racing one another as Pegasi before hitting the barrier around Canterlot?" I tried, to get the conversation onto a different topic.

"Oh, yeah; we do well with Pegasi forms. I love flying, honestly; gets the blood pumping! But when we hit that barrier we were overcome with nausea and forgot that our Changeling wings move different, so we fell out of the sky," Featherweight explained in a rattle of words, eager to talk about it with someone.

"The guards picked us up and put us in different cells down here. I missed my bubby something fierce, I tell you," she finished, wrapping her forelegs around Lighthoof's neck and pecking a few quick kisses on his head.

Lighthoof just stood there taking it, glaring meekly at me. "Can you believe I used to be like her while going through high school?"

"And now you're mister mopeypants who desperately needs to be hugged and loved upon and brought to..." Featherweight started again.

I turned away from the pair and gave a nod to Glottis.

"Anyway," I spoke loudly to tune out Featherweight's babbling. "I'm happy to have met you, Glottis. Let's go see who else is stuck here, shall we?"

"She's a bit much," Meadowsweet coughed from beside me, getting up on her hooves as I did. "I'm glad you're calmer."

"I do my best," I joked at her with a chuckle.

Chapter 28

As I turned fully around, I spotted Deadbolt, Camellia, and Forsythia already waiting for the rest of us at another cell door.

Meadowsweet and I wandered on over together, and I could feel the difference in the air upon Meadowsweet approaching Forsythia now she had broken through a mental barrier.

The earthpony smiled up at the Changeling. "I'm sorry for being somewhat cautious before, Forsythia. It's good to see you again now I know who you are."

Forsythia smiled back, then turned her attention to me. "Well now, little sister. It seems you're quite the deal. You're turning ponies to our cause left and right, I've heard."

"I'm not, honestly. I have just fallen into a few awkward situations I've had to think my way out of," I remarked, trying to deflect the compliment.

"Remember what I told you, Pearl," Camellia spoke calmly. "When I met you and Burst in the streets, I only agreed to hide you two because you made me feel like there was something special about you. If it had just been your sister, I would have called for the guards and likely would have run away as fast as I could."

"She had the same effect on our clutch sisters Blaze and Breeze," Oval remarked, nudging me in my left flank. "She got on Moonshine's nerves, but she came around again after her fight with Starlight Glimmer."

"Only after she was petrified by Starlight," I reminded her. "I don't think Moonshine accepts me half as much as she may say she does."

"Oh, she'll come around," Oval chuckled. "Maybe I need to come around to the idea that I'm not infallible either."

"Are you kids ready for this one? They're a might stronger than the previous bunch," Deadbolt spoke, preventing further conversation between us.

"That wouldn't be Tizzy then," Oval considered. "Are you up to meet them, Forsythia? We might need your strength as a counter."

"Ah, sure, Lighthoof got a good punch in earlier, but nothing I can't shake off. I'm still surprised Glottis didn't put up a fight, thanks brother," she spoke, casting a glance past me.

"Nothing about you suggested you wanted to fight me," Glottis just spoke, having taken a position behind me to my left, an equal distance away from Oval and myself.

"See, that's why you're a good egg, no matter what some may claim," Crook laughed from Glottis' left side. "Got a good head on you for judging situations."

"Where's the other two?" Oval wondered, pointedly looking back along her left flank toward Crook rather than Glottis.

"Busy," Crook answered simply. "They'll catch up in a moment."

My brain needed no time at all to consider what they were busy with given the earlier innuendo, and I just gave a nod to Deadbolt instead.

"Whenever you're ready, sir," I told him.

"I didn't even know you Changelings had those parts," Camellia mused, craning her neck to peer past us even as Deadbolt opened the cell door.

The sound of snoring met our ears once the door swung open, and Forsythia took a careful step into the room.

I looked on as she walked in and came upon the sleeping prisoner on their bed. She studied them for a brief moment.

"I'm sure you'd rather stay asleep and dream of happier times, brother, but it's time to wake up," she spoke, her voice muffled by the magic of the place.

The other stopped snoring for a brief moment, but then briskly turned away from Forsythia and faced the wall on the other side of the bed before resuming their slumber.

"Oi," my sister exclaimed annoyedly.

She reached up with her left forehoof and poked the other in their side.

"I said wake up," she repeated. "That means get your hide in gear and come out to meet the family."

I looked around at Burst, Crook, Glottis, and then the ponies Meadowsweet, Camellia, and Deadbolt.

"Don't forget our pony friends," I called over at Forsythia.

She prodded our sleeping sibling again until they finally opened their eyes and looked around blearily.

"There you go," Forsythia spoke in an almost motherly tone now he responded to her. "What's your name, brother?"

"Huh? Am I back 'ome?" our brother wondered in an accent which sounded oddly British, giving a confused glance around. "My name? It's Cubitus, why?"

"Well, Cubitus, I've got good and bad news for you," Forsythia started, ignoring him asking for her name. "The bad news is that you're not home, yet. The good news is that there's a Hatchling outside who has apparently been moving heaven and earth to try and get us all out of here."

Cubitus reached up to rub at his eyes a moment, then pushed up into a seated position on the bed. He lazily stretched his body, which included a raising of his neck fin, and yawned openly in Forsythia's face.

"Oof," she spoke, taking a step back from the smell wafting toward her. "Look, get yourself awake and ready and we'll be out there with the ponies. They're friends; don't attack them or you're going right back in here."

"Allright then," Cubitus agreed, but it was clear he was only partially awake and was mostly replying on automatic.

I wondered how much of what Forsythia said had actually entered into his brain, but she walked away from him and out of the jail cell.

She quickly addressed Deadbolt. "The other cell must have Tizzy in it. We might as well get that worrywart out here with us while Cubitus wakes himself up."

"She'll either be holed up in the far corner of her cell or come out with hooves swinging," Crook suggested. "You might have to block the way out until we know which it is."

"Leave it to me," Forsythia chuckled, knowing she was physically stronger than most of us.

"Why are they so scared, if I may ask?" Meadowsweet did ask, as Forsythia and Deadbolt walked off to the next cell.

Crook walked past Oval and nudged her in the side.

"Ask Burst; he knows her for longer than most of us."

"It's not like I gave her the name," Oval protested. "I was just in the same Hive when she was born."

"So she's younger than the both of you?" I surmised. "If I get this right, Crook was from the batch directly following yours?"

"Huh?" Crook reacted, shaking his head immediately after. "Oh no, no... I'm a whole year younger than him."

"And Tizzy?" I inquired.

"What is it, three? I think three years between me and Tiz, so she's four years younger than Burst?" Crook pondered. "This is why I don't like having to explain things; it usually involves me having to do math."

"Four sounds about right; Blaze was with the variety troupe from Baltimare at the time. Breeze had her school outing to the Neighagra Falls in that same year," Burst remembered.

Meadowsweet leaned in with a confused look on her face. "Four years? I'm not sure I'm following; how quickly do you Changelings grow up?"

"Oh, well, I came out of my cocoon fully mature," I knew. "As for those of us born here, I don't entirely know."

"Keep in mind we are despised by a lot of other races. We don't usually explain this to others," Oval sighed, motioning for us to start walking after Deadbolt. "Let's talk as we follow them. We have a period of being little larvae just after we're born, with the Matrons taking care of us for those few short months. We grow up to the same size as your young pony foals within four months."

"Four months?" Meadowsweet repeated, the idea boggling her poor mind.

"Yes, and fully mature within the first year after we're born," Oval continued to explain. "It's a necessity given our feeding habits; we need to learn to take care of ourselves before the hunger sets in."

"That's a short childhood," I considered. "It explains how you turned out the way you did, sister."

Burst snorted at my joke, giving me a nudge with her shoulder as we continued on.

"Ha-ha. Very funny. Remember how we pushed you after you came out of your cocoons; rushing you through training?" she pressed onto me. "That's not too dissimilar from what we go through after we get born, just more compressed since we were in a hurry."

"No, I got that," I told her. "I just didn't think about it all that much until now. And I'm sure Meadowsweet's mind is having a hard time coping."

"I'm fine, I think," Meadowsweet assured me. "I'm just starting to wonder how old you all are, compared to me. You all appear mature enough, and Forsythia always struck me as slightly older than me while she was out on the market, but..."

"Oh, I'm thirty-six," I offered up.

"Twenty," Crook spoke from behind.

"So that would make Oval twenty-one, Forsythia twenty-six, and Tizzy seventeen years old?" I calculated.

Meadowsweet boggled.

"I'm only eightteen years old myself," she muttered. "You don't at all look like your age, Pearl."

"Oh, I'm not even a year old if you only count my time as a Changeling," I spoke up in an effort to make her feel better.

"That's not making it any better, you know?" she defied my attempt. "You're either thrice my age or not even the same age as my niece who was born last year. Neither makes sense."

"I'm... sorry?" I apologized.

"No, no. I can't have it. You can't go about telling everypony you're over thirty. Forget telling them you're only a year old either," Meadowsweet told me firmly, moving in my path so I was forced to stop and peer at her.

"You look like you're sixteen. You act older, but you're a Changeling, right? You can take on a disguise and fall into that role? So be sixteen from now on. I'd much rather have you in the same age group as me so I can explain to others how we're friends and not get them oogling me weirdly," she decided.

"So why not eightteen, like yourself?" I queried, raising an eyebrow at her.

"You're not from here, right? You said you were from another world. You've been taught how to be a Changeling, now lean on your Pony friends like me to teach you how to be a Pony. It makes more sense for me to teach you about things if you're a few years younger than me," the earthpony reasoned.

I lifted my right hoof up to her left shoulder and patted it. "If that makes you feel better, sure. I'll consider myself sixteen years old from now on."

"I'll have to give it to her," Oval chuckled. "It would certainly make it easier for me to bring you in as a younger cousin of mine if you started acting more your age."

"Oh, bite me cousin. It's not like you've been acting your age since I met you," I grumbled.

"One of us has to be the adult," Oval countered.

"That's so not you," I pointed out. "Who lost her train ticket on the way over here? Not me. Who almost lost her head worrying these past days? Not me."

Meadowsweet glanced between Oval and me a moment, then gave a slow nod.

"You two are definitely part of the same family," she decided with a smile.

Chapter 29

We finally joined the others at the next cell door, and just in time for Deadbolt to open it.

A wailing voice came from inside, its owner clearly in a rough state.

"Oh nooo, it's my turn to get executed now, isn't it?" the voice decried. "I'll bite if you try to come at me, I swear I will."

Forsythia had been blocking the opening in case Tizzy was to fling herself out kicking and screaming, but now turned as it was clear our poor sister had opted to be in the farthest corner imaginable from the doorway.

"Tizzy? It's Forsythia. I've got Burst and Crook here with me as well," the strong Changeling called out.

"No, it's a magic spell to make me think you're here, I know you ponies; you say we're the vile creatures but you play mindgames all the time," Tizzy called back, not wanting to take the bait.

"Well, she's in all states again," Crook sighed from beside me.

"Her words sound familiar, though," Meadowsweet realised. "I thought much the same of you Changelings before today."

"This is what all these decades of distrust do to some of us on both sides of the fence," Forsythia pointed out, turning away from the cell.

"Tizzy's the embodiment of the fear we all feel as we live among you ponies," Oval spoke to Meadowsweet, but then looked around to lay her eyes upon Camellia and Deadbolt in turn as well.

"We build up our lives, but we could be found out at any point in time. We could be revealed to be a Changeling and cast out or thrown in jail as we see here. We're never safe when out among you," she continued. "It's not fair."

"No, it isn't," Meadowsweet agreed. "We're told to be afraid of you, because you would attack us, abduct us, drain us, kill us... but you have so much more about you than that."

She stepped up to Forsythia. "Can I try to help?"

"Sure, what's your plan?" the Changeling wondered.

"She's afraid of Ponies in the same way that I was afraid of Changelings. I wouldn't have been able to overcome my fear if not for Pearl just being honest with us, laying all her cards on the table," she suggested. "Her honesty helped me see what was really going on with you all. Let me sit with this Tizzy for a while to level with her, try and make her see reason."

"She might bite you in her panicked state," Forsythia considered. "Do you want me to come with you?"

"No," Meadowsweet decided, mentally steeling herself. "I want to give her the benefit of the doubt. I want to give myself the benefit of the doubt. I need to face my fears as much as she does hers."

"Meadowsweet, are you sure about this?" Camellia asked with some concern.

"We're never going to bridge this gap between our races if we don't put one hoof in front of the other to meet one another halfway, now are we?" Meadowsweet reasoned, looking back at her friend.

"We'll be right outside then," Forsythia decided, taking a step aside so Meadowsweet could pass by her.

We all watched the Earthpony gardener wander into the jailcell, but then immediately sat down once over the treshold.

"Tizzy, is it? My name's Meadowsweet," she called out to the Changeling inside.

"Oh, just kill me already," Tizzy cried out. "First you tell me you're Forsythia, then you're Meadowsweet? Why do you torture me so?"

"No, Forsythia is just outside, look," Meadowsweet pointed out, nudging her head in the bulky Changeling's direction.

Forsythia gave a quick wave while looking past the Earthpony. "Hey Tiz. There's a few of us here, as I said before. It's not a pony magic trick."

I couldn't see Tizzy from where I stood, but Meadowsweet looked comfortable enough given the awkward situation, so I took it as a sign my sibling had not taken on an aggressive stance.

"You're not here to kill me?" Tizzy spoke in the tiniest of voices, barely audible outside of the cell.

"No, why would I?" Meadowsweet returned. "You know we don't really talk with one another, do we? We barely even know you live among us, so the only time when we see you Changelings is when you attack us."

"But you attack us if we show ourselves," Tizzy defended our race's past actions.

"And that's not right either. But, look; I'm just sitting here. I'm not attacking you. We're talking, aren't we?" Meadowsweet pointed out. "I still feel that tingle at the back of my neck telling me that I should fear you for what you are, but I'm fighting that feeling, okay? We can maybe overcome our fears together if we just keep talking."

"What is there to talk about? I'm still a prisoner, aren't I?" Tizzy threw back.

"What's going on 'ere then?" A male voice called from behind me, and I turned away from the cell to find Cubitus had woken up properly and had snuck up on us.

"Oh, hello brother, nice of you to join us," I offered to him. "Did you sleep well?"

"Well enough," he decided curtly, looking past me at Forsythia standing outside the open cell door. "Can someone fill me in about what we're standing around for?"

"We're trying to figure out how to get all of us out of here without rousing the alarm," Crook did as asked.

"Alright then," said Cubitus, taking the answer as a given. "Do the ponies enter into this plan?"

"They do," Oval agreed.

"Huh," Cubitus responded with a curious smile on his lips. "That's a first."

"Not really," Oval stated calmly, motioning in my direction. "Pearl has a habit of getting them involved in our affairs."

"I do not," I protested. "I just end up in situations where they swoop in to try and save me, for whatever reason. It's hardly a habit of mine to need rescuing."

Oval side-eyed me. "And you didn't sprain your ankle on your first day, and again after we arrived here?"

"It's not like I intended to, in either case," I protested.

Cubitus watched this back-and-forth with growing amusement. "Sounds like you both are well-acquainted."

"Oh, yeah, we adopted Pearl into our clutch," Oval spoke.

"And your clutch being?" Cubitus pressed.

"What's with all the questions, my guy?" Crook wondered, taking a step closer to the other Changeling while sizing him up. "We could very well ask who you are and where you're from, because you don't seem to be from around here."

"Trottingham," Cubitus answered. "I was on my way to answer the Queen's call to return to the fold after having lived there for a couple of decades now. Peaceful village, but far removed from life here on the mainland."

"I don't believe I've had the pleasure of passing through there," Crook mused.

"You wouldn't," Cubitus spoke calmly. "Most ponies move away from the Griffish Isles, lured by the riches of Manehattan to the West of us."

"I know how that is," Burst suggested, smirking to herself. "Hoofton is not half as busy as some of the other pony cities. A lot of enterprising young adults move away from it. It's the fate of a lot of small towns, I reckon."

"Oh, please. Hoofton is a city onto itself. It may not have the allure of Canterlot, Manehattan, or, dare I say, Los Pegasus, but it has a lot going for it," Crook huffed.

"Name one thing," Burst dared his little brother.

"Well, er...," Crook started with a stammer, put on the spot as he was. "A lot of trade goes through the town, doesn't it?"

"Through it, yes," Burst agreed. "But few settle there. It's just a lot of merchants with their carts stopping by for a night of rest before continuing on again."

"Not comparable to Trottingham then," Cubitus decided. "We get the occasional trade ship, but that's it, which is why it took me a while to arrive on the mainland after receiving the Queen's order."

"Well, I've got good news for you; you can go right back home again after we get you out of here," Burst pointed out. "Thanks to Pearl here we're no longer preparing for an invasion."

My brother blinked at hearing that. "Was that what the order was for?"

"Stupidly enough, yes," I agreed. "Our Queen had decided to try to attack Canterlot again, using a lot of Hatchlings like me as extra troops."

"So I missed another invasion due to being out on the isles then," Cubitus recognized. "I'm rather glad about that, to be honest; I wouldn't know how good I'd be in a fight."

"How long ago did you move there, again?" Oval wondered. "I've seen a lot of our family, but I can't recall us having met before now?"

"Twenty-eight years ago now, if I did my math right," the other revealed. "I don't usually come this way but the Queen's missive seemed urgent enough to make the trip this time. I wasn't doing anything particularly useful back home anyway; I'm unable to find my muse for my next book."

"You're a writer, then?" I surmised.

"I am, yeah," he agreed with a smile and a nod. "I'm working on the fifth book in a series now. I had a similar problem with the second book in the series, but I thought the success of the third and fourth meant I was on a roll. And then I hit a wall again."

Crook tilted his head slightly. "The fifth in a series? Struggled on the second?"

"That's what I said, yeah," Cubitus answered, narrowing his eyes. "Why?"

"I think I've read your first two books in here; Flight of the Pegasus and Trouble in Yakyakistan?" Crook listed. "That would make you..."

"P. Overo, my pseudonym," Cubitus chuckled weakly. "I thought it was a decent name to hide behind."

"What does the P stand for?" I inquired, trying to figure out where I heard the term Overo before.

"Pinto. Both are color patterns found on the ponyfolk, so it's not like the name of my disguise back home. I just thought it was funny," my brother revealed. "You're only the third to ask me that question in person, after my agent and my partner. I don't go to conventions or anything, so I don't interact a lot with fans of my work."

"Dude... how old are you?" Crook exhaled.

The author chuckled. "I'm coming up on the big five-oh, why?"

"I'm not even half your age, what," the other gasped.

"Well, if you want my advice," Cubitus started, "don't make too many waves and you'll get there eventually."

I chuckled and turned away from Cubitus to look back at the cell Meadowsweet and Tizzy were in, wondering how they were doing.

Forsythia was still standing outside of it, but Camellia and Deadbolt had taken a few steps farther away and were talking quietly among themselves.

Meadowsweet was still seated where I had seen her last, but had somehow managed to coax Tizzy out of the far corner.

The Changeling was seated just out of reach of the Earthpony, flightly eye movements scanning over her as the both of them talked.

I mused at how it was Meadowsweet who had dared to jump into the deep and put herself forward as an ambassador for the ponies to bridge this trust gap which existed between them.

I considered that Thorax and Moonshine had been accepted by the ponies who knew about them as well, and I had a growing group of pony friends myself.

I dared to hope I was seeing the beginning of a future in which both of our races could live in harmony together.

Chapter 30

Featherweight and Lighthoof rejoined us before Meadowsweet and Tizzy came back out of the cell they were in, both looking far too satisfied with themselves.

I was reminded of an old meme song from the internet, but banished it from my mind the very moment after it popped up. This world was not ready to be introduced to the internet at large and wouldn't understand the joke.

Cubitus and Crook had fallen into a conversation about Cubitus' first and second books, with the author trying his hardest to assure Crook that the third and fourth volumes of the series were far better than the first two without spoiling things for his newfound fan.

Glottis just sat by himself watching us all with a bemused smile on his face. I could only guess at what his thoughts were and what it was he could see that we didn't.

I turned to Oval and gave her a friendly hoofbump against her left shoulder. "What do you think of our new team? Can we get through to our family who are touched more by their hunger than we are?"

Oval looked over the ponies and Changelings gathered around us, then gave a slow, thoughtful nod to my question.

"We should have enough of us to tackle small groups and get them sorted. We're just going to have to figure out how to sneak everyone out of here without digging our way out or getting the guards called on us. That's the thing I'm most worried about right now," she confided in me.

"We should be able to disguise ourselves again if Twilight gets through to Celestia and Luna," I pointed out. "We have to put our faith in her and Applejack."

"Yes, but that's what worries me as well. We've been down here for, how long now?" Oval started. "We haven't heard anything from Twilight, and I still feel that nausea come up when I try to think about taking on a guise."

I considered that and reached out with my magic in an attempt to take on my own disguise.

My stomach started to burn with acid and my balance shifted so it felt like the world was turning itself upside-down, bile rising in my throat immediately after. I stopped trying to disguise myself and the symptoms subsided again.

"Oof... Yeah, that's definitely still there. I think it might take some convincing for even the princesses to get the barrier taken down, given how the Tantabus works," I considered.

"Yeah, well, I would feel a lot better if we had some way to be made aware of their progress is all I'm saying," my sister decided. "Which is why I'm keeping our digging plan as a viable option. Deadbolt might not like it, but it would get us out of here fast if the ponies can't get themselves under control."

"Camellia and Meadowsweet have managed to," I pointed out, turning to face Camellia so I could point my hoof in her direction.

Camellia was already walking up to me as I did, a serious expression on her face.

"Pearl, Oval, can I get you to come with me to talk with Deadbolt for a moment?" she asked.

"Sure," I agreed, following her as she walked away again to take us away from the group of other Changelings.

Oval grumbled under her breath but followed as well. "What is it now?"

I shrugged and looked at the older pony as we joined him enough of a distance away from the cell and other Changelings so the soundproofing magic would keep them from overhearing. "I'm sure he'll tell us."

The four of us moved to stand in a little circle, Camellia, Burst and myself looking at Deadbolt.

He looked at me directly as he started, looking solemn.

"There are about ten to fifteen Changelings per cell in the third section. Six cells on the left, four on the right. There are two empty cells on the left, four on the right," he listed. "I have had to use my magic to form a barrier on the inside of those cells to keep them from storming the door when I threw a new one in there, and they still charged the barrier as if possessed."

"That would be the hunger," Burst grumbled. "It drowns out all rationale."

"As far as I understand it from what you told me, this is because they try to charge upon us ponies to feed on us, yes? Would it be different if we weren't visibly there?" Deadbolt wondered.

"How do you mean?" I asked.

"I'm suggesting I give you the keys to those cells and walk back toward the exit with miss Camellia and Meadowsweet," he revealed. "That would put us far enough away that we can't be seen by your friends, can't be easily sensed with magic, and should keep your friends calm enough that you can speak with them?"

I looked at Camellia who gave a slow nod. "There's a range to all magic spells, and this place dampens vibrations to keep the area quiet. It would have the same dampening effect on magic, severely limiting the range we could normally cast it at."

Oval considered this. "That might also keep princess Twilight from teleporting in here, or sending a telepathic message or some such."

"Yes, it would. Ain't no use having a jail if everypony could just teleport in or out of it or reach beyond the walls with telepathy," Deadbolt impressed upon us.

"That makes sense," I agreed. "So you're saying you trust us enough to wrangle the..."

I did a quick headcount.

"Hundred and thirty-odd of our family still down there?" I finished.

"I don't think I have much of a choice if, as you say, they will break out on their own if we do nothing. They attack my magic as if they don't care about their own lives, so they are more than likely doing the same to the walls and door to their cells, even if I am not inclined to go check on that right now," he pointed out.

"I wish I could say you're wrong on that," Oval grumbled, "but I was there with the last assault on Canterlot and saw how our siblings attacked the protective barrier back then as well. Some of us came away with it with broken limbs, concussions, and open wounds."

"Much the same as those of us who tried to protect the city then," Deadbolt remembered. "Both sides lose when there's a war."

"You're right there. I am glad we didn't try to attack Canterlot again, especially given the current situation. It would have been devastating for both of our people," Oval spoke darkly.

"More to the point of our current problem," Camellia brought the conversation back on track, "I think we should try and convince that Tizzy to come join us near the exit. I don't think her mind is up for dealing with a grouping of starved Changelings. It would just destroy the progress Meadowsweet has made so far."

"I'm going to say Featherweight and Lighthoof should be with you as well; they're new to this world and don't seem to understand the danger they're in. They're much too absorbed in one another," I considered. "They are clearly lovers and I would hate to sour their experience more than it already has."

"I agree," Oval stated.

"So do I," Camellia added. "We'll take them under our proverbial wing then. Do you think the rest of you can do it?"

"We don't have much of a choice," I sighed.

"Well, no time like the present," Deadbolt prompted. "Some of us are not as young as they used to be, and I am certainly feeling it."

"If," he continued, narrowing his eyes at Oval in particular, "I suddenly find a new hole in my jail, I would be very displeased. I will already have to explain my role in this to the princesses, so please don't make me have to drag your friends along with me."

"Noted," Oval responded flatly. "It's a last resort, but I will take full responsibility for it if we have to use it. Don't put Camellia or Meadowsweet through something they don't deserve."

"But Celery Stalk," I brought up.

"I'm the one who brought it up, I should be the one to stand trial for it," she spoke firmly. "It's about time I take responsibility for my own actions."

Camellia smiled weakly. "I appreciate it, Oval. But please, I took you into my home, so I am at least partly responsible for what happens here."

"You said it yourself; you only took us in because Pearl seemed trustworthy. I didn't," Oval pointed out.

"I might have been too hasty in my judgement, Oval. You have proven yourself trustworthy since," Camellia spoke. "My door is always open in case you need to drop by."

"I don't want to rush you all, but," Deadbolt started.

"Yes, it's about time we face the family proper," I agreed.

"Let's see if Tizzy is ready to leave her cell yet," Camellia suggested.

Deadbolt started to walk off in the direction of Featherweight and Lighthoof, and motioned his right foreleg at them as he drew near, clearly ordering them to follow him.

Camellia wandered off toward the cell to explain to Meadowsweet and Tizzy within what the plan was.

Oval and me stayed behind a moment, and I noticed a thoughtful look on my sister's face.

"What are you thinking about?" I wondered.

"I'm not so sure I'm ready to take her up on that offer, but I think that was genuine," she murmured. "I could feel energy flooding me as she spoke just now."

"I had that earlier with Meadowsweet," I remembered. "I think we can trust them, sister."

"I sincerely hope so, but our family's been betrayed before whenever we thought we could trust the ponyfolk. I'm going to have to see what the future brings," Oval decided. "First things first; we have a hundred or so of our siblings to wrangle into some sort of organised mass."

"Yeah, about that," I started.

"I'm sure I'll be the one everyone looks at when it comes down to it. I don't know why they keep doing that. I might be able to shove the leadership role onto Forsythia or maybe Cubitus. They look like they can handle it, although they would most likely follow Forsythia because of her sturdy appearance before they would Cubitus; he's too softspoken," Burst continued.

"So, what I'm thinking is," I tried again.

"Crook is not the right Changeling for the job. A lot of our family knows him and his tricks. And I wonder how many of them would trust Glottis, for much the same reasons I told you before," my sister rambled on.

"Oval," I sighed. "Oval, I think I'm going to have to do it."

"I wouldn't want to... what?" Burst's ponderings came to a sudden halt.

"I think I have to do it," I said to her. "In the past few days I've heard more than one pony claim that I was the reason they started to consider us Changelings being their peers. That we were equals to be listened to rather than scary creatures to run away from."

"Yes, but," Burst started, but I wasn't having it and continued on myself.

"I think there's something to what was said about me being a nexus of sorts which fate turns around," I considered, noting how at least two big events had happened with me near the center of them, much the same as had happened to Twilight Sparkle in the show back home.

"Right, but you don't have to do it alone," my sister stumbled, still caught off guard by my decision.

"No, but I supposedly have a 'way with words', according to all of you. I might be a Hatchling to some, but apparently there's something to the way I try to work through problems which gets others to see it my way," I explained.

"Well, yes, you do seem to break things down to basics. It's absolutely bonkers to consider sometimes, but you've been right about a lot of things so far," Burst spoke. "Like when you said we should gather around Camellia's coffee table so the ponies could share their friendship with us. Totally bonkers to consider they could share their love with us with us being out of our disguises. Yet it worked."

"Because we were our genuine selves," I pointed out. "We weren't hiding away from them, we weren't lying to them."

"I have done nothing but hiding myself away and lying about who I was to those I care deeply for," Burst sighed with an undertone of sadness to her voice. "If it wasn't for that damn magic spell I would have never considered showing them my true self."

"I am sure the same holds true for a lot of our family," I reasoned with her, reaching out with my left hoof to touch her right shoulder in a friendly gesture.

"I'm not going to convince every Pony and Changeling to accept one another, but just look at what we have been able to do in a few short days already," I pointed out, looking over at the small group of Changelings standing in the middle of the hallway up ahead.

"We're going to have to get our family down here to focus on getting out of this jail, out of the palace grounds, and out of Canterlot," I listed. "To get to safety without attacking any of the ponies in this city. To flee to the nearest Hive and get patched up by the local Matrons before returning to their lives and trying to get their fill of love again before the hunger gets too much."

"And you think you can convince them of that?" Oval asked of me.

"No, I'm worried that I will say the wrong thing or won't be believed. But I have to try," I returned with a growing knot in my stomach.

Chapter 31

Our little group dispersed into two smaller ones, with Deadbolt choosing to give the keys we would need to Crook for safekeeping.

We had decided that Forsythia and Burst would be in charge of keeping our family members from breaking out of their cells in a disorganised scramble, by clobbering them over the head if need be.

Glottis, given his somewhat extrasensory perception, was in charge of figuring out which of them were going to be a problem once we had them out in the open.

Cubitus and Crook would keep back to ensure none of them wandered off from the group and could potentially make their way through the main hallway to find our pony friends.

Which left me, standing around awkwardly in the middle of the hall, facing the door to the first group cell.

The door was larger than the ones in the first and second sections, clearly designed to allow bigger creatures through, or a couple of us at the same time.

The cells had the same sound dampening magic on them as the other ones, meaning we had no way to tell what was going on inside of it, except by peering through a small hole which was obviously used to pass food through.

Forsythia had taken it onto herself to flip this hole's cover open and was peering inside as the rest of us watched from our respective positions.

"Move back a bit, guys," she spoke into the opening. "It's just us Changelings out here. We'll explain it if you come out in an orderly fashion."

"Are they keeping back?" Oval wondered, standing next to Forsythia.

The larger of the two turned her head to peer into the hole again to check.

"Looks it," she agreed. "It should be safe to open the door without getting rushed."

"Let's hope none of them get any weird ideas. We're all Changelings out here, so they should be able to contain themselves," I sighed, that knot in my stomach tightening as the moment neared where I had to speak to the ones currently still in the cell.

Glottis placed his right forehoof against my left shoulder. "Calm down or you'll give yourself heartburn."

"I'm trying," I returned to him, taking a slow, deep breath in an attempt to calm my nerves.

"Well," Crook suggested, walking over with the small bundle of keys he had been given, "let's open her up, then."

He put the key to the lock, turned it with his magic, and paused.

"Wrong one?" Burst suggested, staring at Crook.

"Wrong one," Crook admitted, taking the key back out again and trying another one. "It's not like they're labelled."

"Do you want me to give it a try?" Burst offered.

"I can do it, big bro," Crook huffed, putting another key to the lock. He turned it with his magic.

Nothing.

Burst stared at her little brother, slowly tilting her head sideways to the left.

Crook quickly swapped keys again and turned the new one once it was in the lock.

The cell door finally opened up, and he pulled the key back out to return to his predetermined position near Cubitus.

Burst used her left hoof to push the door open and peered into the large room beyond. "Okay everyone, come on out into the hallway. We're still locked into the jail proper, but we're working on that."

"And let us know if you feel like you might lose control over yourself before you do, or I'll have to knock you unconscious," Forsythia added.

A group of confused Changelings started to file out of the cell, looking curiously at the six of us standing there waiting for them.

"How many of you are in there?" Burst asked of the first few. "Can you line up in rows of five, facing Pearl?"

"Who's Pearl?" one of them asked, and instantly got a nudge from Forsythia's hoof.

"She's the one with the necklace," Forsythia pointed out.

I watched as the rows of Changelings started to line up in front of me until there were five rows total; four of them with three each in them to count up to twelve, but then only two in the last row to make a total of fourteen.

I gave a side glance at Glottis. "What do your elf eyes see, Legolas?"

He didn't get the reference, and raised an eyebrow.

"It's a thing from my homeworld, forget I said anything," I spoke with no small measure of embarrassment.

"Well, if you're asking me about who to be wary off, I can't tell you. They're all nervous, confused, tired, and hungry," Glottis listed. "Not too dissimilar from how the rest of us are feeling."

"But they were supposedly thrown in there because they attacked Deadbolt, in a more severe way than the rest of us. Let's be glad they're not trying that with us," I mused.

"So," I spoke louder, now addressing the group in front of us, "as you all know; Canterlot's ponies have thrown some anti-transformation barrier up around their city. This is preventing all of us from taking on our guises, and is the reason we are all here right now."

The group in front of me nodded, some of them with angry, others with sad expressions on their faces.

"We all know how the ponies think about us; they're scared we might do unspeakable things to them and can't see past their fear," I continued, to more nodding.

"Some of you had been in your guises for years, I know. A lot of you are worried you won't be able to return to those lives," I brought up. "It's not fair to us. It's not fair to those of us we engaged in relationships with. It's not fair to our friends and families among the ponykind, who are now going to be doubly worried; Did we replace the pony they think they knew, or were we always a Changeling? What were our reasons for being there among them?"

"They won't get a satisfactory answer if we don't do something which I know a lot of you are going to think is a very naive idea; we will wait for the barrier to come down, and then return to those very lives as if nothing happened," I decided.

There were confused glances, then murmuring from the group, and finally clear protests.

"I told you you would think it a naive idea, but hear me out," I spoke louder to overpower the protests coming from them.

"They will think we have replaced their loved ones. They will assume those loved ones were captured, taken somewhere, held prisoner the same as we are held prisoner now," I explained. "It's the most simple explanation they can come up with, and it's what they will more readily believe than that we have been Changelings all along. They won't accept that they might have had relations with us from the very beginning."

The dissenting voices lowered in tone, but the group still looked around one another and had some back-and-forth of ideas on this strange notion.

I knew it made sense. It was Occam's Razor, after all; The simplest explanation is more often the correct one.

"When the barrier comes down, and it will, the ponies in this town will attribute it to their pony princesses having done something they are not immediately privvy to, as is the case with all of the weird events which have happened in Equestria over the years," I spoke to reinforce the idea of the ponyfolk seeking the most simple explanation for things.

"They will think that the barrier has come down because we Changelings have been defeated. Perhaps they will see Princess Twilight Sparkle and consider that she and her friends have saved the day yet again," I chuckled. "They won't need more than that; they have an almost blind faith in their princesses."

The group chuckled a little and nodded their heads again. It was a known fact that the pony princesses were revered to the point where they were elevated to a kind of godhood.

"So, when the barrier comes down, those of you who have lives here will just wander back into the city with that idea in mind; you will keep those disguises you have had before, and just say you were held captive just outside of town," I proposed.

"The ponies you know will just go on with their lives, happy to find their loved ones returned to them," I painted the picture for the group before me. "They won't think twice about it. Those who do, could be easily made to believe they're just needless worrywarts."

There were some smug smiles in front of me, and I knew that this group would accept my plan. It was plausible enough, I had built it up enough, and they could see how it would work out.

"There's just one problem," I broke through the sudden excitement. "We do need to get out of here, and that's going to take a bit of restraint from all of you."

The group hushed again, looking curiously at me.

"I know you're hungry," I said, then held up my right foreleg. "I'm still young; only a Hatchling fresh out of the Hive nearby, but you can see the others around you. They know the hunger. They know how you might be overtaken by it."

The group looked around again, their faces a mixture of emotions.

"In order to get out of here, we need to put our trust in a small group of ponies who are aware of us, and are our friends," I stated, then raised my voice and emphasized my next words again. "I can't stress this enough; they are our friends. They are not food, they are not to be attacked, they are to be protected because they are our only hope of coming out of here before we all lose our minds from hunger."

The group fell apart in protests again, almost half of them decrying that we couldn't possibly trust ponies, but an almost equal number had thoughtful frowns on their faces and were clearly overthinking it.

"Some of you," I shouted over the noise, "were present in the nearby Hive when Starlight Glimmer and Pinkie Pie urged our Queen to think twice about attacking this city again. To keep her from making the same mistake that was made months ago. Those were ponies who we could trust because they wanted to keep the peace between our races. This situation is no different!"

Some of the group quieted down again, considering my words in earnest now.

"If we don't accept their help and do what is needed to get out of this city, we'll end up succumbing to the hunger and become a ravenous horde, destroying all that we have built up over the past years. There will be no going back to your previous guises, no returning to the pony lands. They will use this to set up permanent barriers against us," I warned.

"There is only one way out of this, and all you have to do is keep the peace. Listen to us, listen to the few ponies we'll point out are our friends, and do as we say," I listed quickly.

"So what's it we gotta do then?" one of my brothers in the group called out.

"We're going to free the rest of our family from these cells here, and repeat this what I just told you. We'll gather up in small groups, and then make our way out of the jail, out of the palace, and out of the city," I started.

"We can't transform ourselves, so we'll need to rely on our pony allies to misdirect the guards above so we have a free path out to freedom," I explained further.

"Some of you know how to stick to the shadows and walk quietly; help those who don't. Some of you know how to fly undetected; help those who don't. Some of you know the places around this city where we can hide away; help those who don't," I pressed onto them. "But the most important thing is; Don't attack the ponies. Stick to the plan; escape from this city so they can't throw you back in here."

"And you think that's going to happen without a fight, do you?" another of my brothers wondered.

"It might just; if we file out while they're changing guards," a sister in the group suggested.

"Yeah, and we can fly close to the mountainside so they won't see us against the sky," another spoke up.

"Is it night out? It should be night out; we'll blend in with the night's sky more easily," yet another suggested.

"Now we're getting somewhere," I sighed in relief, but had to raise my voice again to draw their attention back to where I wanted it. "We're going to have to bring the others in on this plan, and keep one another from going feral in the mean time. Keep an eye on your brothers and sisters and keep them from losing it while we get the rest up to speed."

"If you want to help out with the other groups," I spoke to them again, "we have a few different roles we need help with. Talk with Forsythia and Burst if you think you can help with keeping the next group from rushing the door when we open it. Talk with Glottis here if you think you can see when someone is about to lose it and go feral. Talk with Cubitus over there if you would rather stand back and cordon off the area so they don't try to run for the exit which, as I said before, is still closed."

"Why is the exit closed? How did you get in then?" one enterprising sister wondered.

"Our pony friends have let us in, and our pony friends will help to let us out again once we have everyone sorted here. But not before then," I stated simply. "The only way we're getting out of here is with all of us staying calm and collected. At the first sign of any one of us trying to storm the ponies, it's over; they'll lock us in and throw away the key."

"So, clobber any of your brothers or sisters when they look like they're getting ready to pounce a pony for a quick meal," Forsythia stated from the back, holding up her right forehoof. "Or I will."

Chapter 32

A few of the fourteen Changelings from the first cell joined us to tackle the next group, and those who didn't want to bother sat off to the side within view of us just so they could show they weren't going to jeopardize the plan.

The plan, such as it was, was starting to look like it might work out if only we could find as many Changelings to agree with us in the next groups as this first one.

There were a few more doubters in the second group, which had come up to thirteen Changelings total, but the first group helped us to get them to see reason.

With twenty-seven of them now out in the hallway with the original six of us, we moved on to the next cell.

Most of this second group joined in the effort to tackle the third, but another three or four sat off to the side to talk among themselves and the others already there.

"We should particularly keep an eye on those," Glottis pointed out, and I nodded to him.

Burst had the bright idea of letting Forsythia handle the next cell with a small group of those who had decided to tag along with her, while Burst herself moved back with her own little group and took up position near the T-junction made from the main hallway connecting to this third section.

This meant there was now a defensive barrier against any of the small groups of Changelings sitting off to the side potentially braving it to rush the jail's exit regardless of what they were told, and I silently thanked her for the foresight.

Burst's worrying nature did come in handy when she came up with solutions for things which might potentially become an issue otherwise.

We quickly added another fifteen Changelings to our number, now counting up to fourty-two of our family members freed, with me repeating most of the speech I had given twice now.

I was starting to feel like my throat was getting quite the workout from all this talking.

I felt it while speaking to the fourth group; another fourteen in total. Some of the words I tried to put emphasis on were followed by a need to scrape my throat afterwards.

Glottis noticed but waited until I had convinced this group to the validity of our cause, greatly helped by the larger number of Changelings now filling out the hallway we were in.

He took me aside after this new group dispersed.

"Sister, you're pushing yourself too much. I could speak to the next group if you want me to, I have memorized what you want to tell them," he suggested.

I remembered how visceral Burst had responded to Glottis' different look, and had spotted a few of the, now a full hundred of our family taken from their cells, having cast wary glances in his direction while I had orated.

"I can't yet," I suggested to my brother. "I have the feeling I need to be the one to bring this part of the plan to a close. Crook already said he could help lead us all out of the city, and he has found a number of others among those we freed so far who can do the same."

"Burst is thinking of any eventualities and is trying to keep them from becoming problems, and Forsythia is there to keep the peace," I continued, then had a bit of sputum go down the wrong path down my throat and ended up coughing.

"And Cubitus' role has been taken over by Burst," Glottis finished my explanation. "Why not ask him to tackle the next two groups on this side so you can give your throat some rest? You could try again with the last two on the other side of the hall? He may be more direct than you, but demands a certain respect due to his age alone."

I considered how reasonable this sounded.

"I really just need some water to drink or something," I half-protested. "But I'll go ask him. If I'm supposedly good with words, then how good must a published author be?"

I walked through the small crowd until I got to Cubitus, noting he had amassed a small group of five ponies around him.

"Cubitus, may I borrow you a moment?" I asked.

"Yeah, sure," he replied, excusing himself from the group a moment after.

We both walked back to where Glottis was still standing, and I waited until we were in earshot before turning to face Cubitus.

"I don't want to put this on you, but my voice is feeling these speeches," I started. "Glottis is worried I might not get the point across to the next group if I continue this way."

"She tried to convince me it's just a dry throat, but I feel like she has spoken far more than either of us has knowledge of. Her vocal chords are straining," Glottis revealed to Cubitus.

"Ah," Cubitus realised. "And you think I could take over, then?"

"If you would, please? I wouldn't normally ask this, but they might take your words more seriously than they would mine, given I'm a Hatchling," I pointed out. "Some just won't take me seriously until my holes grow in, I think."

"Don't sell yourself short, now," Cubitus decided. "If you haven't figured out yet that we're all following along with this plan of yours because we wouldn't have been able to come up with it on our own, you're missing some very important cues."

I blinked and peered up at him.

"Your plan makes sense, and I will try to make that clear to the others. Just start planning for the next step and we'll get you the support you need to make it happen," Cubitus offered with a smile. "Follow the leader and all that."

"Ah, no, I'm not a leader..." I protested.

"Sure you're not," Cubitus chuckled, turning away from me immediately after.

I watched him as he walked on over to Crook and motioned for the next cell, flabberghasted at this revelation.

"Now that's a gorgeous colour on you," Glottis chuckled from beside me. "Your aura is turning all shades there, but you really should accept what he said to you."

"I don't consider myself to be a leader?" I tried, turning to face him now.

"Yet, you have somehow managed to get this group here to follow you and your silly plan, Pearl," he pointed out. "It's hard to see you as anything other than the driving force behind this."

"I didn't even come up with it," I deflected. "I'm pretty sure it was Oval. No, wait, was it Camellia? Now I don't know anymore, I'm all confused."

"Think it over for a bit, sister of mine, but do so with your mouth shut so your voice gets a bit of rest," Glottis spoke with a wink. "I'll follow after Cubitus to do the task assigned by our Hatchling leader."

I opened my mouth to say something, but he put his right hoof on my muzzle.

"Shush. You're going to lose the ability to speak if you don't give it a rest," he warned. "Don't overstress those vocal chords. Trust us; we can get the rest of our family on board with your plan."

I closed my mouth again and sat down, puffing my cheeks out.

Glottis wandered off to join Cubitus, the entire group of Changelings responsible for opening the cells moving on to the next one to coax another group out.

I felt like I was being sidelined thanks to my vocal chords and the large amount of talking I had done in the past day or two.

I reached up with my left hoof to touch the pearl still dangling from my neck and considered how I had come here, to this point.

It was just a few short months since I had been lifted from my bed and taken to court. A few short months since I was hoisted over to another world.

Just a few months since I had been transformed from a human into this Changeling I was now.

Just a few months since I had learned to live as a Changeling, fight as a Changeling, use magic as a Changeling...

I looked over at Burst and thought back to our first meeting. I thought back to Blaze, Breeze, Matron, and the brother who had sprained my leg while we fought.

I didn't even get his name. I didn't know if I could recognize him if I saw him again.

I lowered my left hoof and looked up at the smooth ceiling.

Canterlot was built up against this big mountain which was now above my head. Thousands of tonnes of mountain consisting of rocks, crystals, soil, and what-have-you.

I pondered whether that amount of weight matched up to the feeling I was feeling now. This feeling that others depended on me to make decisions for them.

It was emotionally a heavier feeling than those thousands of tonnes of mountain above me, I was sure of it.

It felt stifling, it was daunting, it scared me, in a way. What they thought was leadership was just me trying to wriggle my way out from between a rock and a hard place with as few casualties as possible.

Was this what other leaders did as well?

I looked back down in Oval's direction and noticed her staring at me, her right eyebrow raised as if she was wondering whether I was okay.

I forced a smile on my lips and gave her a little wave as if to reassure her that I was doing okay, even as Cubitus started orating to the next group further down the hallway.

Oval motioned past me at the other group and shrugged.

I motioned toward my throat with my right hoof and shook my head, and it looked like she understood.

I shrugged as if to suggest there was little I could do about it, and Oval made a motion as if to suggest I should drink something.

I looked around myself, then to her again and brought both my forelegs up in a display of not knowing where to get a drink from.

This took Oval by surprise as if she hadn't thought of that yet, and she also looked around for a water source.

I shook my head at her and chuckled.

Doing a quick headcount, including the new group, we came up to seventy-one freed Changelings, making our group here seventy-seven Changelings. Three more cells to go, which made my original count of a rough hundred and thirty Changelings earlier a little on the high side.

Seventy-seven, add another ten to fifteen per cell, for three more cells total, would get us to a maximum of a hundred and sixteen if those three cells each held fifteen Changelings.

Then there were the three near the exit, so a hundred and nineteen of us Changelings.

How in Celestia's name would we be able to get that number out without raising the alarm, I wondered.

Some of my brothers and sisters walked by me as they dispersed from the fifth group, but I sat deep in thought.

Cubitus moved on to the sixth and last cell on this side of the third section while I considered our options.

I could barely hear his voice due to the magic permeating the area.

This soundproofing magic which kept the jail quiet.

This pony magic which kept sound from spreading out too far.

I looked up again with a sudden start. The magic! If we could replicate this spell, we could hide our hooffalls and wingbuzzing!

No, wait, it was pony magic. We would need to ask a pony who knew about pony magic.

Camellia.

I looked back at where Cubitus was handling the next group, saw he was doing well, then rushed over to Burst.

"Let me through, sister; I have to talk with Camellia and Deadbolt about something," I croaked, my voice hardly having rested enough yet.

"What? What about?" she responded, worried about my sudden rushed state and raspy voice.

"Pony magic," I told her, "and how we may be able to hide us all with it while we make our escape."

Chapter 33

I rushed down the main hallway of the jail toward the small group gathered near its entrance.

Deadbolt was seated between Featherweight and Lighthoof, the latter two pouting as if they had been chided for something.

Meadowsweet was sat a little off to the side, talking with Tizzy.

But it was Camellia I ran toward, even as she tookd on a guarded pose for a moment.

"It's me, Pearl," I croaked, then devolved into a coughing fit which had me stop running so I could catch my breath.

"Pearl? What are you doing running here? Did something go wrong?" Camellia wondered with worry in her voice.

"Pony magic," I forced out of my throat. "My voice is giving out from talking too much. Tell me you can teach me how to make this sound suppression spell."

Camellia stared at me as I collected myself, and then turned to look in Deadbolt's direction.

"Are you responsible for the magic here, Deadbolt?" she asked.

"Only in so far as that I let the palace staff know when they need to come back down here to reinforce it again," he replied.

"So you wouldn't know what spell they used then," Camellia pondered. "I guess I could find out by feeling it out, but with the magic suppression also in effect it will tire me out quickly."

"There are a hundred and nineteen Changelings in this jail who can't escape Canterlot unless we hide the sounds we make as we march them out," I reminded her, my voice falling to a whisper. "Please, anything you can do. If you can explain how the spell works, my brothers and sisters can probably learn to mimic it, given what Moonshine told me."

"So, in essence," Deadbolt started, "You're asking us to give our enemy a spell with which they can infiltrate us even easier."

I turned my attention to the other Unicorn, noticing an odd gleam in his old eyes.

He reached up and put his upper legs around Featherweight and Lighthoof's withers. "Celestia forgive me, but I'll allow it this time. I want these kids here to have a good life out there."

"Kids?" I tried, but my voice barely left my lips before it disappeared into nothing. Glottis had been right to warn me about overusing my vocal chords.

"Well, compared to me," Deadbolt added. "What was it, twenty nine and six?"

"I turn twenty seven two months from now," Lighthoof spoke wearily. "Feather is twenty nine."

"Yeah, well," Featherweight offered with a shrug. "I'm still eleven months out from turning thirty. I spent my birthday in that icky communal hall waiting to hear what we were going to have to do."

I gave her a sympathetic nod. I knew what the other Hatchlings had gone through while I had been off at the hot springs with Blaze, Breeze, and Burst.

Camellia studied me for a brief moment. "You should try to get some rest, Pearl. I am going to have to feel out where the magic is at its strongest so I can try to detect the spell that was used. I'm not as good at magic as the princess Twilight Sparkle, but I can do at least that much."

I smirked at her, but nodded slowly. The problem of getting my Changeling family out of their cells down in the third section was being handled by others, and I couldn't very well help Camellia with how little I knew of pony magic.

I pottered over toward Meadowsweet and Tizzy, collapsing on the floor near them.

I was so, so tired.

Tizzy startled as I dropped on the floor beside them, but Meadowsweet reached out to gently pat my back with her left forehoof.

"You've done a lot today, Pearl," the Earthpony cooed to me. "If you have to take a nap, you can do so."

"Y-yeah," Tizzy added, emboldened by Meadowsweet's words. "I can't believe I'm actually talking with a p-p-pony who isn't t-trying to hurt me, and she says it's because you showed her we're n-n-not mo-mo-monsters. We'll watch over you, Pearl. Go t-take a nap, please."

I couldn't really protest even if I wanted to. My voice had given out and my legs were feeling like they were made of jello now I wasn't trying to keep standing on them anymore. My brain was trying to formulate thoughts which unraveled as quickly as they came to me.

I had tried to ignore how tired I was, and had done a good enough job of it, but now that attention had been brought to it it had leapt for my throat and was slowly darkening the world around me.

No, that was my eyelids closing on their own, heavy as they were.

Meadowsweet's hoof stroking over my back plate was oddly soothing, and I went out like a light before long.

I woke to the sound of bustling, which then faded out to an uncomfortable silence moments after.

I tried to figure out which way was up, realised I was resting on my side for some reason, and worked my legs under me to sit upright.

There was a lunging feeling in my head as gravity figured out which way it wanted to go comparable to me, and I opened my weary eyes in an effort to figure out why the sound of people talking was drifting in and out around me.

Small groups of five Changelings were spread out around me, all converged upon the exit to the jail now they were out of their cells.

I tried to comprehend what they were doing; one in every group was focusing on their magic, aiming it at the other four who were prattling among themselves about nothing in particular.

There would be a small burst of energy, and the sound coming from them dimmed like someone had flipped a radio off.

Another such burst and the same sound of them talking would return again.

Camellia was moving from group to group, clearly instructing them as they did this.

I turned to look in my more immediate area, noting Meadowsweet and Tizzy were seated close together, the latter leaning into the pony's side. Both were asleep where they sat.

I craned my head the other way, where Deadbolt was still blocking the double doors leading out into the sluice-like space between it and the twin set a little further out.

Featherweight and Lighthoof had left his side to join one of the groups.

I turned my head again and spotted Burst walking up to me, Glottis a few paces behind.

"Glad to see you're awake again, Pearl," she offered up with a wry smile. "Had a good nap?"

I licked around my muzzle, and tested my voice.

"Buh, bah..." I rasped with some effort. "Not enough."

"I have a severe dry throat," I complained.

"Yeah, most of us are starting to feel the lack of liquids. It's something to consider going for the moment we're safely out of town," Burst considered. "Supposedly there should have been lunch and dinner delivered here already, but Deadbolt is in charge of getting that spread around the jail, and he's been locked in here with us."

"And lunch and dinner enters into it because?" I queried.

"There would be a pail of water with both meals," Crook suggested, walking up to me as well.

"Ah," I returned blankly.

My eyes scanned over the room again, my ears finding the whole sound snipping on and off bothersome to an extent I had not considered before.

"So, the magic," I started.

"Camellia figured out the basics of the spell, yeah," Oval chuckled. "We have split up in groups of five so we can more easily navigate while remaining unseen. Those who thought they could control their magic while on the run have been assigned the task of keeping the spell going for their group."

"Did you keep into account that we're also going to have to escape ourselves?" I asked, trying to find out where Forsythia or Cubitus were in the masses around me. "What group are we going to be in, Oval?"

"Camellia thinks she should be the one to help out there," my sister suggested. "You, me, Tizzy, and Crook will go out with her and Meadowsweet. We're the only group with less than five of us in it."

"And I'm sure I can find a gap or two which even our pony escorts don't know exists in their town, so they might learn a thing or two in the process," Crook boasted.

"So, what about Deadbolt?" I worried, looking in the old pony's direction.

"He said he can get his kid and his friends out of the way and keep the path out into the courtyard free, but that's the most he can do. He's going to try and keep others out of the jail as long as he can after we're all out, so none of them should find out we're all gone until we're safely out of their reach," Oval explained.

"The worrying thing is that he seems amused by it all. He's gone through a few different emotions since the lot of us came down upon him like a wave of bodies, poor guy," Crook chuckled. "Seeing a wave of Changelings come his way must have triggered a few bad memories, but he took it well enough once we all spread out a bit."

There was a gleam in the old pony's eyes as he looked over the groups of Changelings before him, and an odd smile played on his lips. He most definitely looked amused by what he saw, and I wondered as to his thoughts.

Looking around once again I started to consider it looked a lot like a military training ground; groups of Changelings training for the mad dash to come. Perhaps Deadbolt was thinking back to his time as a guard trainee?

I couldn't guess at what else he would be smiling at.

"So, when do we go?" I queried, turning my eyes upon Oval again.

"Nightfall is in a few minutes. Deadbolt apparently has a solid track of time outside even in this place where time stands still," Crook answered. "The old guard is going to leave the jail, but keep the doors unlocked behind him. He'll send away his 'good-for-nothing son', and make an excuse of having to write a report as the reason why he is staying behind for a while longer by himself."

"And once his son is away we'll sneak out, one group at a time, spaced a few seconds apart. Remember the door we came in through? It should be largely unguarded and opens up into the courtyard," Burst added. "The first group goes to the left, second to the right, and we'll keep this up as we make our way out. Each group is then responsible for making their way out of the city by themselves. It can't be helped; we can't all use the same route out."

"We'll leave last, with Camellia and Meadowsweet in tow. If anything goes wrong before that, we'll know by the guards running in to meet us," Crook finished with a dark chuckle.

"So a hundred and fifteen Changelings before us. I've had worse lines at the DMV back home," I joked, but it didn't land on my audience and I shook my head at them. "Forget it."

Burst walked closer to me and wrapped her left foreleg around my withers. "It will be fine, Pearl. We know what we have to do, and we're nothing if not an inventive race. Our brothers and sisters are experts in blending in, even without having the ability to transform into their disguises."

"I'm more worried about our little group, honestly," I voiced my concern, even if it still sounded like I had smoked for fifty years previously as I squeezed the words out through my dry throat.

"We'll be fine," Burst tried. "Just follow Crook once we're out there; he'll lead you out of town before you know it, although you might not be able to tell afterwards which path you took."

Crook beamed with pride at these words spoken by his 'big brother'.

"I'll make sure Tizzy won't fall apart in a half-panic on our way out, and it looks like Meadowsweet there will be able to help with that," Burst suggested. "That's as much on you as us all getting out of here, Pearl."

"So that leaves Camellia to help with the sound dampening spell, then," I put two and two together.

"If she doesn't burn herself out first giving our siblings an example to work off of," Crook pondered, looking back through the crowds in an attempt to spot the unicorn.

Camellia's yellow mane was easy to find in the crowd of largely grey bodies, as she moved around like a school teacher giving instructions to a class of students, just as Glottis was easy to spot among them doing his best to be a part of the group he was assigned to.

The main difference between them was that one would expect Glottis to be in his element among the rest of his siblings. The fact Camellia had not been pounced upon yet by a famished brother or sister of mine spoke for them, at least for the moment.

We all wanted to get out of this in one piece, and she was giving them a way to do so. She would be safe among them until we were out to safety.

I sincerely hoped the peace would last after that as well.

Chapter 34

And then, finally, the time came for those large double doors to open up.

We made sure to spread out to either side of the double doors so we wouldn't be seen in case one of the guards peered inside; thirteen groups of five Changelings in the left hallway, twelve groups of five and our group of six on the right.

Deadbolt waited for us all to get into position, then unlocked and passed through the first set of doors.

Sitting where I did, he pretty much just disappeared from view for me.

With the spell being what it was, we would have no idea of what Deadbolt did next as we could not hear anything.

The plan was for him to go through the two sets of double doors and leave them unlocked as he closed them behind himself. For any guard looking in their direction it would appear as if they were locked as usual until they were to test them.

We wouldn't know if this plan would work or if any of the guards present in the reception hall just outside would be inquisitive enough to try the doors.

If everything went according to plan, Deadbolt would come back into the jail to let us know the coast was clear. If it didn't, it would be a group of armed guards instead.

Silence fell over the jail, a pressing quiet of expectation, of growing nervousness.

Camellia, Meadowsweet, Burst, Crook, and Tizzy were waiting together with me at the back of a sea of grey Changelings. The ponies were no less nervous than the rest of us, although poor Tizzy was the only one showing it by trembling uncontrollably.

Forsythia, Glottis, Cubitus, Featherweight, and Lighthoof were all with their own groups somewhere in the halls but mostly blended in with the rest of our family. Mostly, because I could spot Glottis' unique colours very easily a few groups up ahead of me.

Over a hundred faces were trained on those double doors, pensive expressions betraying worried thoughts.

They opened up again after an immeasurable amount of time had passed, and Deadbolt returned through them.

He turned to the left and nodded to the first group. "Path's clear. Follow me out."

The five Changelings he addressed as such stood up from where they were seated and followed the old guard out of the jail.

The leader of the first group on our side of the double doors started to count out loud. "Twenty, nineteen, eightteen..."

The countdown continued until he got to five, then they all stood up in preparation to move out as well.

"Four, three, two, one," their leader spoke, then moved out with his group.

The front group on the other side of the doors now took over the count, starting anew at twenty after having taken a few steps forward to sit closer to the doors.

This was the way it had been decided we would go; one group from the left, wait twenty seconds, then a group from the right, each making their way out into the courtyard and then taking a slightly different path from the previous one to escape from Canterlot.

Twenty five groups of five Changelings in all, with our little group of four Changelings and two Ponies making the twenty sixth group to leave the jail after everyone else.

Each time one of the front groups left, the ones behind them shuffled forward to sit closer to the doors again to prepare for when it would be their turn.

Each new group leaving the jail when their count was up filled me with a strange mixture of worry and relief; worry that they were now on their own out there, but relief that they were out there in the first place.

Each time those doors swung open to let us out, and not let guards in instead, was a potential five of us saved from going feral in this place.

Every time the count hit zero, that group would be free to find their way out into the world again, and hopefully be able to return to their previous lives once the princesses figured out how to defeat the Tantabus once and for all.

I spotted Cubitus and his group getting ready on the opposite side of the hallway, one of our sisters doing the countdown in his group. Once their countdown hit zero, he gave a quick nod in my direction before rushing out with them.

Another few groups followed after, then it was Forsythia's turn. Her face showed her grim determination as she waited for the countdown to finish, and she barely looked around at anyone else before leaving us behind.

Featherweight and Lighthoof were together in the same group, of course, on my side of the doors, and they eagerly bounded out once their time came.

Before long it was Glottis' turn to escape the jail, and as he left I felt my nervousness rise. He was the last of the Changelings whose names I could remember, not counting those in my group, and I had no way to check on their progress as they made their way out of the city.

I had to hope I would see them all again once we managed to get to a safe place, but there was little I could do to help them get there.

More and more of my siblings ran out, and I started to count down the groups who would be ahead of us.

Seven groups remaining, now six. Five. Four. Three.

The group in front of ours moved closer to the doors and started their countdown and we followed after them to close ranks.

I looked around at the faces of my five companions. We were the last to go and the closer we got to our turn the more it sank in that there were no guards coming back to meet us yet.

All of those who had gone before us had either avoided detection or were giving the pony guards the runaround in the city above us.

There were now a hundred Changelings out in the open, in the streets of Canterlot, making their way out to the best of their abilities, aided only by pony magic which hid the sounds they were making.

They could still be spotted if somepony were to look directly at them, but there was no indication that this had happened.

The group in front of us left us behind to join this reverse invasion up above us, an strange exodus of sorts, and the last one on the opposite side of the doors started their countdown.

"Let's get up and get to the doors, everypony," Camellia suggested.

We all got up on our wobbly legs and waited for the group ahead of us to finish their countdown.

They were staring at us from across the hall, each of their faces betraying how eager they were to leave this place behind.

"Good luck," their leader told us after finishing their countdown, and walked past us to disappear out through those double heavy doors.

Crook started to count. "Twenty, nineteen, eightteen..."

Time slowed to a crawl as he kept up the count, my heart thumping heavily in my chest.

"Seventeen, sixteen, fifteen," he continued unabated.

I looked back at Tizzy behind me to my left side. She looked as much like a nervous wreck as I felt I was, but was showing it more clearly as she was trembling from the top of her head down to the tip of her tailfin.

I dared a smile in her direction in an attempt to calm her nerves.

"We'll be fine," I whispered, trying to sound like I believed it myself.

Tizzy looked up at me with a weary look, then jumped a little as Meadowsweet to her right reached out with her left hoof to gently touch Tizzy's right shoulder.

"We'll be fine," the Earthpony repeated.

Tizzy dared a careful smile to her newfound Pony friend, giving a slow nod after.

I gave Meadowsweet a thankful nod as well, then turned to face forward again.

"twelve, eleven, ten," Crook spoke.

Camellia stood in front of me on my left side, and her horn start to glow slightly as she charged it in preparation for casting the spell she would have to uphold throughout our escape.

"nine, eight, seven," the countdown continued.

Burst stretched her neck muscles as she stood waiting in front of me to the right, most likely trying to keep her worries at bay.

"Six, five, four," Crook directly beside me on my right side stated, turning his head to look at me.

I gave him a smile and a nod in return while he finished the countdown.

"Three, two, one, go!" he finally spoke in that same rhythm he had been maintaining throughout.

We instantly pushed forward as a group, out through the first set of heavy double doors, continuing through the second set, and into the empty reception area beyond.

Deadbolt wasn't there, nor in his adjacent office. We didn't expect him to be, as he was in charge of keeping any guards from coming down here to block our way out, but it still gave the area an eerie vibe.

Up the stairs we ran, around the corner once we hit the landing, and on through the doors leading out into the courtyard.

Deadbolt stood just a few paces away from the door, his back to us, looking at nothing in particular.

He held his right foreleg out at an angle as if to point us in the direction we should be going, and Camellia and Burst turned to follow it.

"Be seeing you," he muttered under his breath as we passed him by, his old eyes following us from his peripheral vision.

I dared to look back, past Tizzy and Meadowsweet following behind me, and saw the old pony turn around to head back inside. There was a reason we were chosen to be the last group; it gave him a clear indication of when the jail would be empty.

Hundreds of similar Changelings were too much to keep track of, but once we passed him by with a couple of ponies in our midst, he knew the jail was empty and could lock it up.

I faced forward again at the same time as the light from Camellia's horn brightened and then enveloped the six of us.

All sounds around us immediately died out to a soft whisper, even our hooffalls sounding dampened as we ran.

Crook dipped his head down to bump his crooked horn against Burst's left flank, and my sister instantly steered us to the left into a small passageway between the palace buildings.

With the sound muffled the way it was, there was no use to trying to talk about where to go. Crook obviously knew the best way to remain unseen, even here on the palace grounds, and we were going by his expertise.

He repeated his motion almost instantly with a bump on Burst's right flank, and she ducked into another passage I had not even seen coming up ahead.

Crook continued to lead us from one dark passage into another small gap, through a service corridor, and finally into a building which turned out to be a goods storage room.

We paused momentarily as Crook jumped forward past Burst and started to search between the stacked items in this room, Meadowsweet making sure to close the door to the room behind us.

I watched as Crook moved a crate aside, then pulled open a trap door in the floor and motioned for us to go down it.

We did as suggested and ended up in a rounded passage with a trickle of water leaking past our hooves. It was clearly a drainage pipe if I ever saw one.

Crook closed the trap door behind us again after dropping down into the pipe with us, then used his magic while looking up at it.

With the sound muffled because of Camellia's spell I could only guess at what he was doing, but given he had moved a crate aside for us to get to the trap door in the first place, I could guess that he was covering our tracks by putting it back.

He then motioned in the direction we were supposed to go and we set off anew, following the drainage pipe until it opened up to a larger sewer pipe up ahead, with elevated stone walkways on either side of the flow of unmentionable contents.

I scrunched my nose up to try and protect it from the smells, but to no avail.

Crook took the lead now there was a way for him to pass us by without pressing us into the side of a narrow drainage pipe, and led us down these damp, dark tunnels following the flow of water down.

Without warning he suddenly went left when we got to a T-junction, now going against the flow of water passing us by. Then a right, continuing against the flow of water.

We reached another T-junction which split the water coming down into it to flow both in the direction we had come from, and to the right into another passage.

Crook turned right, then climbed into the first drainage pipe on the left. We followed it until the water was no longer running towards us, indicating we had gone over a hump in the system and were now going down again.

It opened up to another larger sewer pipe and he turned right anew, still following the flow of water further down.

I had the feeling that there were several interconnected sewer systems under Canterlot and he was making us go from one into the other, but I had no idea where we were in relation to the city streets above us or how far we had gone up or down since entering the system.

Finding my way back even to the storage room we entered through was going to be nearly impossible but Crook appeared to know where he was leading us.

Finally, then, he climbed up into another drainage pipe and stopped before we reached another hump which changed the direction the water flowed.

He reached above his head and tried the trapdoor located there. There was no give from it. Crook tried again, but to no avail.

He frowned and motioned to Camellia to stop her magic for a moment, and for us to remain quiet.

Camellia doused her magic, taking away what little light we had available to us.

"Let me try that again," Crook whispered in the darkness, and the sound of him straining himself followed shortly after.

"Do you need some help there, little brother?" Burst wondered.

"I think they put something on top of the trapdoor, like the crate before. Let me see if I can move it from here," Crook replied.

A green glow came off his horn as he reached out with his magic, and soon there was the sound of something heavy moving aside above our heads.

We all fell quiet as his horn stopped glowing, waiting to hear whether it had drawn unwanted attention to us.

Crook moved to push the trapdoor open again after it had remained quiet for the longest time. This time it did open, the hinges creaking as if they had not been oiled in years.

Camellia quickly cast her spell again to silence them even as Crook clambered up into the room above us, now illuminated again by Camellia's horn.

We followed him into another storage room, this one full of barrels and fewer crates than the previous one.

Crook motioned toward one particular barrel, supposedly filled with cider if the stamp on it was any indication, as if to say it had been the offending one having kept the trapdoor closed.

Once we were all up out of the sewer, he closed the trap door again and used his magic to move it back in place.

We were now partway to safety, in the storage room of what appeared to be a drinking establishment.

Chapter 35

Crook very carefully opened the door of the room we were in, leading the way into the bar space beyond.

While it must have been a crowded place before the Tantabus took hold of Canterlot's residents, it was clear it had seen little patronage in recent days.

The chairs were upturned and placed on the few tables set around the room, but a small layer of dust had settled on them.

The bar likewise had a small layer of dust on the grime of spilled drinks which all bars tended to accumulate over time.

Crook led us through the space behind the bar, but paused at a space underneath it which was stocked with bottles of clear water.

He looked back at us and motioned for it, then took hold of a bottle with his magic and took it with him as he continued to the customer side of the bar.

I licked around my dry throat and followed his example, as did the rest of us.

We gathered in a small circle before the bar, just sitting on the wooden floorboards together, quietly sating our thirst.

Camellia's magic made sure none of the sounds of our popping corks and gulping our drinks made it out of the room, but it also prevented us from talking about what to do next.

I would have to make a note of the bar's name if we ventured out from here so I could send money over later to pay for these waters we took.

I looked around the faces of our little group as we each drank from our bottles.

Crook appeared to be thinking ahead to the next steps, his brow furrowed, his eyes focused on the empty space between us.

Burst was similarily lost in thought, the corners of her mouth pulled downward as if she was displeased with the whole situation.

Camellia peered up at the tip of her horn as if to make sure her magic was kept under control.

Tizzy was leaning into Meadowsweet's side again, half-burrowed into the Earthpony's soft fur as if needing it to console her.

For her part, Meadowsweet had truly been a champ; overcoming her longstanding fear of us in a relatively short amount of time, daring to jump in when Tizzy needed help to overcome her own fear of Ponies, and now seeming like the rock my sister needed to cling to to get through this.

I smiled to her and she gave me a helpless shrug in return.

Meadowsweet knew the fear which lingered between our races. She knew what Tizzy felt, even if it was from the other side of the proverbial fence. I considered that her moving in to help Tizzy was as much to try and prove that she was a worthy addition to our team as to prove to herself that she would no longer be controlled by her own fears.

Once we had all finished our drinks, Crook led us behind the bar again and through the small kitchen to the back entrance.

We stepped out into the back alleys behind the stores, the same ones Burst, Meadowsweet, and Camellia had gone through on our way to Applejack's cart.

Instead of heading to the cart storage, Crook led us in the opposite direction.

I saw Camellia cast a concerned glance in the direction I knew her house was in, but she followed our navigator's lead instead of daring to go off on her own.

She would be safe here, as a Pony in a city of Ponies, but she had a task to perform and we Changelings would be right back in jail if we lost the cover of her magic spell.

We followed the alleyways out of the commercial district, with Crook pausing to check whether the coast was clear before we crossed mainstreet to enter one of the richer of the residential districts.

As I followed I noticed a small group of guards patrolling the empty streets, far enough down the road that they wouldn't hear us even without Camellia's magic muffling our hooffalls, but it was the first sign that we weren't out of the woods yet.

Crook sent us through a gap in a bush, through a garden, and out behind the house into a service passage few ponies would have considered to exist between the house we passed on the city level we were on and the level slightly above it.

We followed this barely hidden wall which was clearly part of the city's foundation which kept it from sliding down the mountain it was built up against.

I considered for a moment what I knew of the megaprojects back home. How much work would it cost a construction crew on Earth to build a city like this without magic at their disposal?

It was amazing to consider this city housed so many Ponies while it could collapse in on itself from any one of the attacks Equestria had suffered over the years.

Discord could turn the city inside-out on a whim, those dogs Rarity came across in an episode or two could burrow under the city to undermine the foundation, we Changelings could even have considered that to be an option if we had been out to destroy Canterlot rather than take its citizens hostage to feed on them.

Crook stopped, his eyes trained on a light which was approaching us rapidly from the other side of the hedge to our right.

We Changelings were dark enough with our grey skin to blend in with the darkness of the night, but Camellia's yellow mane and purple coat might be more easy to spot even through the scrub. Meadowsweet's green mane and short green tail would blend in with the foliage, but her pink coat could just as easily get spotted as Camellia's.

Burst moved to pin Camellia between her Changeling form and the wall to our left, the Unicorn dousing her magic for a moment so the glow of her horn would not betray our presence.

I looked back to see Tizzy had taken to the example given by Burst and was covering Meadowsweet in a similar fashion.

The light continued to approach us for another moment, hooffalls nearing us on a surface which sounded like loose gravel on someone's lawn. The sound changed as their owner stepped on a wooden surface, and the light stopped moving.

I held my breath as I heard a quick rapping of a hoof against a wooden door.

Silence.

Another such rapping, and it was now followed by muffled stumbling about.

The hinges of a door creaked as it was drawn open, and a tired male voice called out "Who's there at this late hour?"

Another male voice returned the question, this voice obviously coming from the pony who had carried the light with them.

"Sunbeam, there's been a break-in at the shop. The guards are present, but it looks like a number of coats have gone missing," they spoke with some urgency to their voice.

"What do you mean break-in? Who would break in to a dry cleaner's?" the first voice wondered, the tiredness quickly disappearing from their voice. "Give me a second to grab something and I'll come with you."

There was another stumbling about, but then the door creaked as it was swung open further than before.

"Okay, I got my bag. Let's go," the first voice decided, and the light started to move again.

The door creaked and clicked shut, then their hooffalls moved from the wooden porch onto the gravel, leading away from us at a rushed pace.

Crook waited until the sound had gone a fair distance away from us, then turned to look back at the rest of us. "Sounds like one of our groups decided to go for disguises."

"Not too dissimilar from what Pearl and I did earlier," Burst remembered. "If more groups break into shops to get items to escape with, we might get the alarm raised soon."

"Yeah," Crook agreed. "I was thinking about that as well. Let's round this edge to the Eastern part of town. There should be a part of the outer wall there we could fly over without being detected."

"Meadowsweet and I can't fly, you know that right?" Camellia reminded Crook.

"We'll lift you up and over between us if needed," I suggested. "There's four of us and two of you; should be easy enough."

"Unless you ponies want to stay behind," Crook wondered.

"You might need my magic on the way down the mountainside," Camellia considered while shaking her head lightly. "And I want to see this through. We've gotten this far and I want to know how many of the groups made it."

"Same here," Meadowsweet agreed. "I can't abandon Tizzy now."

"We'll hoist you both over the wall when we get to it then," Crook decided. "We should hurry on. Use your magic again please, Camellia? We'll make a dash for the spot I mentioned, so we might have to make more noise than before."

"I'm not sure I can run any faster than we have already without losing control of the spell," Camellia warned. "It would be different if I had something to anchor the spell to, but it's difficult to keep track of where we all are at any given moment so I can extend the bubble accordingly."

"Something to anchor to?" I repeated. "Like the walls in the jail, you mean?"

"Yes, exactly," Camellia agreed. "The spell is embedded in them and all that is needed to keep it active is an infusion of mana every so often. It's a passive spell beyond that."

"Would my necklace work?" I wondered, using my left forehoof to lift the pearl away from my barrel to hold it up for her to look at.

Burst turned to face me, an accusing glare on her face. "See, this is what I was saying earlier, Pearl; you come up with the most bonkers of ideas."

"Yes she does, but it may just work," Camellia considered. "It depends on how brittle the material is, but if it's solid enough it will hold the spell for... let's see, it's not too big an item, so I would say five to ten minutes?"

"We can make it past the wall in under ten minutes," Crook calculated.

"This. This is what I mean," Burst complained. "Of course it will work; Pearl thought it up."

"Stop it," I sighed. "I'm just saying it may work."

"No, it will," Burst pressed. "I'm telling you it will."

"There's no other way to find out but to try," Camellia reasoned, her horn charging up again with her magic. "Hold still."

I stood as still as I could, continuing to hold the pearl up with my left forehoof, even as the Unicorn's magic launched from the tip of her horn and hit my self-made pendant like a bolt of lightning hitting a lightning rod.

The energy infused the pearl and slowly but surely I could start to hear the sounds withdraw from around us as if I was turning an analog volume knob.

I moved my jaw a bit as I slowly went deaf, noticing Burst doing the same a moment after.

Camellia didn't stop her magic until she was sure we were essentially deaf to the world around us, and tested this by raising her own left forehoof and hitting the ground on which she stood hard enough for her to wince lightly.

Nothing.

Burst opened her mouth to say something, but there was no sound.

I could tell from the accusatory, yet oddly victorious, expression that she was most likely pointing out that she had been right to claim it would work out.

Chapter 36

With the pearl now used as an anchor for Camellia's spell, its effect was strangely stronger than when she had sent it out from her horn.

The sound dampening effect of the spell made me feel dizzy, as if my inner ear had need of sound to help stabilize it.

I had to let go of my necklace and spread my legs out a bit more than usual to make sure I wouldn't fall sideways until I could get my bearings back.

The rest of our little group were handling the situation with different levels of discomfort; Burst seemed absolutely fine or was not showing her discomfort outwardly.

Crook had a light twitch to his right eye but was otherwise fine. Camellia just smiled as if she was glad the pearl did not explode from her magic seeping into it, not showing any signs of discomfort either.

I looked back to Tizzy and Meadowsweet and found my Changeling sister supporting the Earthpony for once.

Meadowsweet might have been feeling more dizzy than I was, I realised.

There was a sudden tap to my right shoulder and I brought my attention forward again.

Burst motioned for Crook, who had already wandered off a little to show which direction he wanted us to go in, and Camellia was in the process of following after him.

I gave a nod to Burst to signal that I understood, then turned back to motion to the other two that we were going to move again.

Meadowsweet took a careful step forward, with Tizzy making sure she wouldn't fall sideways, and I reconsidered going up ahead of them.

I instead took a step or two closer to the wall and motioned for the pair of them to pass me by, expressly staying on the side of Meadowsweet which didn't have a Tizzy connected to it by the hip.

As they moved by, I detached from the wall and instead pressed my right side into the Earthpony's left, wedging her between Tizzy and me.

Meadowsweet gave me a concerned sideglance, but I just gave a quick nod forward to the three others waiting for us.

Whether by Tizzy pushing into her from the right or her own understanding that I was effectively holding her upright as well, she did not pull away as much as I had expected.

We quickly joined the others and Crook resumed leading the way.

Without Camellia's horn shining a soft ambient glow around us as it had before, we were soon running by the light of Luna's moon high above us in the sky and the few lights of the homes surrounding us.

There were moments where Crook almost disappeared against the backdrop and the three of us connected at the hip had to rely on following Camellia instead as she was the only one standing out in the darker areas we passed through.

Crook soon steered us away from the service corridor we had been using, out through another pony's garden, and onto the proper street again.

We followed it down to another level of the city, then used a side street to go between a number of houses smaller than the ones on the level above.

These homes were closer to the one Camellia had invited us to; they connected to the side street we were passing through and their gardens, if they had one, were on the more private side of the building.

I noticed in a glimpse as we passed by it that there were small alleyways leading into these small courtyards between structures, but it was too dark to see much detail beyond.

Crook did his usual zig-zagging from one street to the next, and I soon forgot from where we had started this mad dash.

It was not like I could ask, what with the pony magic radiating out from my necklace, so I just focused on keeping Meadowsweet up between Tizzy and myself and keep pace with the other three.

We finally ended up behind one of the homes, in one of the small private gardens on this level, next to a tree which did its best to grow out above the large city wall it had been planted beside.

I finally detached from Meadowsweet at this point, giving the Earthpony a moment to find her own balance, and walked up to Crook.

I nudged his shoulder and then motioned at the wall.

He gave me a nod and made an arching motion with his right forehoof as if to suggest this was the place he intended for us to fly over.

I looked around to get my bearing; the tree was doing a good job of hiding this part of the wall from the nearest guard tower, which was only visible against the night's sky because the guards had a lamp on in it.

We would be nigh impossible to spot as long as we didn't carry a light on us.

I had to give it to Crook; it was a perfect blind spot in Canterlot's defense.

I gave a decisive nod in Crook's direction, then motioned between Burst, Camellia, and him.

He looked the Unicorn over, then gave me a nod in return and moved to explain to Burst that the two of them would focus on Camellia using similar gestures.

I returned to Meadowsweet and Tizzy, and explained in a similar fashion that Tizzy and I would lift Meadowsweet over the wall.

The poor Earthpony looked hesitant.

I spread my insectoid wings out from under my back plate and flew up a little in front of her.

It was strange to be flying without hearing the buzz of my wings cutting through the air. Stranger still to look around and realise both Crook and Burst were also in the air.

Not having heard their wings buzz, I had been unaware of them having taken flight as well.

The pair of them took hold of Camellia's forelegs, Crook taking her left, and Burst then swooping in to hold onto her right, then easily pulled the Unicorn up in the air with them.

Camellia struggled a little as the ground disappeared from under her hooves, her ears flattening and her back legs kicking to seek support, but my siblings quickly flew up and over the wall without waiting for her to calm down.

I turned back to Meadowsweet and raised my eyebrow at her, holding my forelegs up to her as Tizzy took flight as well.

The Earthpony sighed without sound, then carefully offered me her left foreleg.

I hooked my forelegs around her limb and waited for Tizzy to do the same on the pony's right side.

Meadowsweet's weight settled on me as she leaned into our hold, and I had to increase the speed at which I was moving my wings in order to stay in the air.

I looked past Meadowsweet at Tizzy to see if she was ready to take flight, and she gave a cautious nod in my direction.

I increased my wingspeed more and up we went, pulling the Pony between us off the ground for possibly the first time in her Pony life.

I had to adjust a little to fly at the same speed as Tizzy, and then again as Meadowsweet struggled against her need to have something solid under her hooves, but then we stabilized.

Forward, to the wall. Stay near the tree so as to not get spotted by the Pony guards.

Up and over, I thought, but the wall was thicker than I had anticipated it would be.

The three of us could have easily walked side-by-side on top of it, and this meant we had a brief moment where we could be seen.

I felt pressured to speed up, but Tizzy had trouble keeping up with it and I had to slow down again.

We moved past the wall only to find a waterfall just past it. I had not heard the rushing water because of the bubble of silence around us, but it was very clearly visible in the light of Luna's moon shining down upon it.

I felt the water spraying against my skin as I continued onward, forward, trying to figure out where the other three had gone.

They were there, just up ahead, just past the raging waters, on a small rocky outcrop jutting out from the Southeastern side of the mountain.

We continued toward them and made sure there was solid ground, not raging water, below us before we then quickly dropped down to join them on this outcropping.

The drop was a little too quick as we feared being discovered, my stomach responding from the sudden negative G's, but then we could lower Meadowsweet onto the ground again and let go of her.

She instantly fell down onto the ground as if it was the most precious thing ever, and I shook my head at the comical display while landing a few paces beside her.

I needed a moment to think about what we just did; we were outside of Canterlot's walls, on the steep slope of the Southeastern face of the mountain, which the Ponies had not built on. Not yet, at least.

I looked into the distance, seeing the dark landscape spread out for miles and miles. A welcome sight after having spent a few days cooped up in Camellia's house and the palace jail.

Even in the dim light I could see a forest not too far away from the base of the mountain. It would be a good place to hide away in, and most likely the place the rest of our family had sought to go to as well, but we would first need to get down the steep slope from where we now sat before we could reach it.

And that might be a problem considering we could barely see a hoof in front of our eyes.

If we were to run down the mountain without lighting our way, we could trip on any loose rock or slightly more sturdy plant in our way, causing us to roll down and potentially break something on the way.

If we wanted to see where we were going we could always use magic, but that would draw attention from the nearby Pony guards.

Had it been just us four Changelings, we could have flown off in any direction away from the city and give any Pony guards trying to chase us a run for their money.

But with Camellia and Meadowsweet with us we would have to plan around taking them with us.

I considered just how badly Meadowsweet had been traumatized by our recent flight over the wall; flying down would probably not be an option.

The sound of the nearby water rushing by hit my ears and I had to look around a moment to figure out what it was and where it was coming from.

Slowly but surely the sound increased as the magic infused in my necklace lost power, until the sound was nearly deafening.

I sat down and reached my forehooves up to press against my ears to keep them from getting overwhelmed by the noise.

"You didn't say there would be a waterfall here," I called out a bit louder than I may have wanted to while we were still this close to Canterlot.

Crook shrugged while plugging his own ears with his hooves. "Everyone knows there's a waterfall on this side of Canterlot."

Oval shook her head at that. "I know you don't like explaining yourself little brother, but Pearl is from a different world than ours. Of course she wouldn't have known."

"It was enough that the wall was thicker than I expected, but that bubble of silence prevented me from hearing the waterfall until we were right over it. We nearly dropped Meadowsweet right in it," I complained.

"I'm so glad you didn't," Meadowsweet exhumed. "I'm never flying again."

I slowly let my hooves drop away from my ears as they got used to sound being a part of the world we were in again.

"On that note; it looks like we still have a way to go before we're out of reach of the Canterlot guards. If we're to run down this sharp slope, we may trip and fall," I pointed out in a softer voice now our ears were used to hearing sounds again.

I motioned past Meadowsweet at the dark slope directly underneath the outcrop, extending down to the dark silhouette of the forest a ways below us.

"It would be faster and safer to fly down," I continued. "We can stay closer to the ground since we don't have to go over a wall, but flying is still the better option if you ask me."

Meadowsweet looked at me as if I had slapped her in the face with my hoof. After what she had just said, my words were an almost instant betrayal of her feelings.

"I just said I don't want to fly again," she hissed. "Is there no other path we can take?"

"No," admitted Crook, making me believe he had fully expected our Pony escorts to have stayed behind in Canterlot.

"We're exposed here in any case," Crook suggested, looking past Meadowsweet, Tizzy and myself at the wall we had flown over. "We're still within the bubble of anti-transformation magic surrounding the city, so it's not like we can wait for sunrise."

I considered the shape of the city as it sat wedged up against the side of the mountain, the size of it and the palace, and the size of the magic bubble if it had to surround all of it. It was more than likely that the entire mountain, from the base of it up to the very tip, was covered in the spell.

"I second the idea of flying down," Crook added. "We'll do as Pearl said and stay close to the ground so we can land if needed, but it's a better option than running down, tripping, and then rolling the rest of the way."

"Well, of course we're doing it according to Pearl's plan," Burst decried while staring at me accusingly. "She's never wrong about these things."

"I'm not so sure why you're so annoyed by that," I wondered with a frown at my sister's outburst. "I'm getting bothered by it myself, to be honest. I don't feel like I should have this central of a role in any of this."

"Just accept it, Pearl," Camellia spoke with a grin. "I think you're going to go places before you know it."

"Hoofton," Burst stated immediately. "If we're going places, our first stop after this is Hoofton."

"That's not what I meant," Camellia sighed to Burst being willfully obtuse. "I'm going to vote for flying down as well. That was a rush just now and I'd love to experience again. Do we need to use the spell to hide our movements?"

"Our wings do make a noise while in flight," I pondered.

"The silence was getting to me in that last part, actually," Tizzy spoke up. "It was so absolute that I couldn't even hear my own wings while we flew over here."

I turned to face her as she moved her wings to illustrate her point, that familiar buzz of insectoid wings which I had first become familiar with in the Hive mixing in with the continued sound of water rushing down the nearby waterfall.

"I usually use the tone they make as an indicator for how fast I fly, so I struggled to keep up with Pearl," Tizzy explained before folding her wings under her back plate again.

"That's why I have such trouble with Pegasi forms," Oval considered. "Flying with those feathered wings doesn't make sense to me."

"Training, big brother," Crook chuckled. "I think that's four of us agreeing to fly down. Would it help you if we took it slow, Meadowsweet?"

The Royal Gardener flattened her ears in defeat. "I guess..."

"No time like the present," Camellia suggested eagerly, clearly wanting to experience the rush of being flown about once more.

"We could wait until Meadowsweet is ready for it? You three could scout ahead and find out if any of our family made it down there yet?" I suggested, trying to give the Earthpony some more time to gather her wits about her.

Meadowsweet stood up with sudden determination, shaking her head. "No, no... Camellia is right. If we're going to do it, we should do it now. If we wait any longer I might never be ready for it."

Chapter 37

With the ponies suspended in our midst, the four of us descended down the slope of Canterlot's mountain side, keeping to a Southeastern trajectory so we would effectively fly diagonally away from the city walls and the ponies guarding it.

If we would be spotted by them it might seem like we were abducting two of Canterlots' citizens, dragging them away from the capital against their will, an idea which would be reinforced by Meadowsweet having a hard time keeping her hind legs still.

With the buzz of our wings once more cutting through the air without sound dampening magic suppressing it, I found Tizzy was perhaps the better flyer of the both of us.

I was still new to flying, having only had the most basics explained to me in my time at the Hive, and what with my main guise being an Earthpony had not tried to improve myself yet in that regard.

Tizzy was born as a Changeling in this world and would have had years to hone her skills while I had still been back on Earth.

Where I had taken the lead as we flew over the wall and waterfall before, now I found myself reacting to my sibling's movements instead.

Considering what Tizzy had said before about the sound of our wings, I was paying extra attention to it as we flew past the darkened slope below us.

Whenever we tried to make more speed or fly up, we would move our wings faster and the buzzing coming from them would rise to a higher pitch. In some cases to as high a pitch as I had heard from mosquitos back home; a sharp, annoying pitch which grated the ears.

If we slowed down, or lowered Meadowsweet down to the ground so she wouldn't struggle as much, we would slow the speed of our wings down and it became more of a bass pitch instead. I could see how it was a way to instantly recognize just how fast you were flying, even in a situation where it was impossible to tell from your surroundings.

Perhaps up in the air during heavy cloud cover, in the fog, or a darker night as the one we were now flying through.

Camellia was having far more fun with this flight of ours down the mountain than her Earthpony friend. I could on occasion hear her "Hip" and "Hoo" as my siblings turned this way and that, resulting in her hind legs and tail swaying through the air.

Meadowsweet, for her part, seemed to be more focused on keeping her stomach from turning over mid-flight.

Crook and Burst dove down a sudden gash in the mountain, accompanied by a surprised "Whoop!" from the Unicorn between them, and I gave a glance to my right side.

"Careful; there might be a downdraft," Tizzy noted. "Let's climb up a little to keep from doing the same thing they did."

I nodded in response and followed her example as we climbed up more than we had done before, much to Meadowsweet's dismay.

There was definitely more wind down here, as if the path we had taken had led us out of a calm nook wedged between Canterlot's city walls and the mountainside. Now the city was no longer protecting us from winds coming from the West, they tried to take us with them as they wrapped around this side of the mountain.

Tizzy's suggestion paid off as we hit a faster stream but managed to cut through it to a higher layer before it could have sent us dropping after the other three and I let her steer us into a calmer patch of air again.

"Where'd they go?" Meadowsweet asked, looking around.

"There," Tizzy pointed out with a nod of her head, and I looked down to spot our missing trio sheering past the mountain as if they were using those special wingsuits from back home.

They had gotten caught in a slipstream of sorts and the distance between us was increasing fast.

"Let's change direction and fly into the winds instead," my sibling suggested. "It will take a bit more energy but we can control our path more easily that way. Turn for the lights of Ponyville over there."

I looked around in surprise.

"The lights of Ponyville?" I repeated, trying to find them.

"Turn right with me," the other Changeling repeated, changing our course from a Southeaster to a Southwestern flightpath.

As we turned into the wind, with Tizzy taking the largest hit considering she was on the side the wind came from, I started noticing a number of small lights beyond the nearby forest.

Canterlot had hidden it from sight where we had stood on the outcrop before, but since we had flown diagonally away from its tall walls we could now see further to the Southwest.

A small amount of lights set against the dark horizon indicated where the town was located, with Twilight Sparkle's castle clearly recognizable amidst the smaller buildings near it.

That town which had taken on such an important role in the show I had seen back home. The town which I simply had to visit at some point in the future, if only because I now had invitations from Pinkie Pie, Starlight Glimmer, and Twilight Sparkle to do so.

The town where our sister Moonshine was learning pony magic from Starlight Glimmer.

Tizzy forced me to fly forward but at a downward angle, keeping us at an angle into the oncoming winds like a sailing ship might do on the lakes and seas back on Earth.

Having to actively fly into the wind was a different experience than sailing a ship into the wind however. Even with Tizzy and Meadowsweet between me and the direction the wind was coming from I could feel us getting pushed around by the harder jets we passed on our way down.

I had no other choice but to follow the hints I was being given by my sibling so we could lower ourselves to the foot of the mountain and finally set the Earthpony back on solid ground again.

When we finally did, I was exhausted.

Meadowsweet was hugging the ground again once she had her hooves placed down upon it, but I collapsed onto it as well as I carefully folded my tired wings back under my backplate.

Sweat was dripping down my body now it was no longer getting blown immediately off by the air passing by us, and I tiredly rubbed it away from my brow as I otherwise lay flat on the grass.

"Let's not do that again until after I've had a chance to get better at flying," I suggested in a weak voice.

"No, let's just not ever do that again, period," Tizzy responded from where she sat on the ground beside the Earthpony.

"I agree; no more flying," Meadowsweet was eager to add to the conversation. "I much prefer having solid ground under me."

"Technically," I started, "solid ground had been under you all the way down. There was just a pocket of air between it and us."

Meadowsweet turned her head to face me and I could swear there was another look of betrayal on her face, although I had trouble making it out in the twilight darkness surrounding us.

I chuckled weakly. "It's a joke, come on..."

"I don't think almost getting killed by Ponies is that much of a joke," Tizzy replied. "And we might still not be safe here. Who's to say there aren't timberwolves nearby? I won't be comfortable until I'm back in a Hive where the Soldiers can protect us."

"Soldiers?" Meadowsweet wondered, the term unfamiliar to her.

"Ah, less said about them the better," I proposed. "Let's just say there are as many different Changelings as there are Ponyfolk... We have our own subspecies, just the same as you."

"And you call one of those 'soldiers'," the Earthpony considered. "Why does that term fill me with dread?"

"Well, we're not soldiers," I pointed out. "We're safe to be around, up to a point."

"Not helping," Meadowsweet threw back. "Do you think the others will be able to find us here?"

"I'm not sure if we ever decided on a rendez-vous point, honestly," I considered with a start. "The idea was just to make our way out of the city, so I'm betting most of them would head for the forest since it's nearby."

"You mean the Everfree Forest to the South?" the Earthpony knew. "That's at least a day's walk from here, and over the Saddleback Hump. The forest near the Foal Mountain would be closer by to the East."

I turned to what I thought the South was, and stared at the shapes in the distance. "Those are not trees then?"

"Well, they are," Meadowsweet agreed with me. "But the forest extends over a set of hills, and past the Saddle Lake before it becomes the Everfree Forest."

"They will probably have gone to the East, considering the wind direction," Tizzy mused, slowly getting more anxious again. "We're going to have to walk that way and meet up with them and we could be found by Pony guards and Timerwolves and Dragons and whatever else, oooh, I don't like this. We ended up too spread out from the others."

"Hey, no, it's mostly peaceful grasslands between here and the Foal Mountain. Although we'll have to cross the train tracks and a river before we get there," Meadowsweet pointed out. "We should be fine, I promise you. I told you in the jail that I would bring you to safety, remember?"

Tizzy gave a slow nod back to Meadowsweet, the Earthpony's words calming her only a little.

"More importantly," I spoke, sitting up. "Let's see if we are out of range of that silly magic spell yet, shall we?"

I sought out the magic hidden within myself and tried to pull it up to transform back into the Earthpony guise I had come to see as my main pony identity; the light-grey coat, aquamarine half-length mane and short tail with light green highlights, yellow eyes which faded to brown, my flanks adorned with a conch shell on its side with a pearl in it as my cutiemark.

As the green flash of my magic passed over me and the expected nausea I had been subjected to by the anti-transformation spell used to protect Canterlot did not, I felt a heavy weight fall off my back.

"We're out of range," I spoke with glee.

Meadowsweet just stared at me in shock, not having expected to suddenly see me turn into an Earthpony like her right before her eyes.

A similar green flash washed over Tizzy, drawing the Royal Gardener's attention away from me in the process.

Tizzy now looked like a Pegasus with a yellow coat, red mane, and blue eyes. Her cutiemark was a rising sun over a curved surface like it was coming up over a hill.

She crossed her forelegs and looked away as she saw Meadowsweet and me staring at her.

"Well, that's a bold look for you, Tizzy," I suggested, taking a few steps closer to her and holding out my right hoof toward her. "I'm Pearl, how do you do?"

"But," Meadowsweet started, looking between the two of us.

"Aurora," Tizzy returned to me, lifting her own right hoof and putting it to mine to shake. "At least in this guise I am."

"See, this is what gives me the heebies," Meadowsweet complained, and I turned to face her with a smile.

"Why? We're still the same Changelings you met before," I asked. "All we did is take on an appearance which you should feel more comfortable with. See? No fangs."

The Earthpony in front of me squinted her eyes at me. "That's not the point, Pearl."

"But it is," I decided. "I'm still Pearl. I'm just more fuzzy now."

"I do like the fur," Tizzy/Aurora sighed. "And the feathers on these wings. I'm already warming back up from that cold, cold wind earlier."

Meadowsweet sat down on her rump and rubbed at her temples with both hooves.

"You don't get it; you can't just transform into somepony else. You just can't steal somepony's identity like that," she demanded.

"I'm not somepony else. I'm me. There is nopony else out there who looks like this," I retorted. "I came up with this look of mine on my own."

"Mine too," Aurora suggested. "I did look at a few of you Ponies as inspiration, but as far as I know there's nopony like me among you."

"But the stories..." started Meadowsweet.

"Are wrong," Aurora interjected. "So, so wrong."

Chapter 38

Meadowsweet had a hard time accepting that Aurora and me now looked like Ponies, but she had overcome her earlier fears of us as Changelings already and I thought she would get tot a positive conclusion on her own if only we gave her some space to think.

I wandered off a little from her to scout our immediate area, spotting a set of train tracks leading into a tunnel not too far from our location to the West.

Considering the direction I knew Ponyville to be in, those tracks supposedly led from Canterlot straight down to Ponyville.

It was not like the tracks helped me right now; getting on the train would involve us going back into Canterlot, which risked us getting thrown in jail anew if that bubble of anti transformation magic was still up.

I turned instead toward the East, which is the direction we had to go in to find the forest near the Foal Mountain.

The Foal Mountain range was close to Hollow Shades, the town where I had my spa adventure and met Pinkie Pie and Starlight Glimmer, but we were now on the opposite side of them.

A few of the peaks stuck out on the right side beside the tall mountain we were still fairly close to.

"Closer by, huh?" I muttered to myself. "It seems farther away."

Aurora walked up to join me.

"See the tracks coming out of the tunnel there?" she asked me, motioning with her left hoof in the direction of another tunnel I had not seen yet in the darkness of night. "The plains are good for running; we can get to them in a few short minutes, cross them, and get to a copse of trees."

"A copse of trees is not a forest," I protested flatly.

"No, but it was close enough to Canterlot for us to hide in when our Queen said we had to attack it. We waited there while she infiltrated Canterlot until the signal was given that we were to attack the city," she explained, revealing something about her past that I had only been guessing at before.

"The trains pass fairly close by, so it was a coming and going of them as we waited," she continued, and I realised there had been so much more going on in the background of that failed invasion than was expanded upon in the show back home. "I was so nervous every time another one came by. I was sure our Queen had bitten off more than she could chew and was thrown in jail, like we were, or killed."

"You keep saying that; that the Ponies would kill us," I pointed out.

"Yeah, well, they would," she stated with a shrug. "Or it's just a story we get told, just like the stories the Ponies tell about us. I don't want to run the risk of it being true."

"It doesn't rhyme with my experiences with Ponies so far," I spoke, hoping to alleviate her concerns. "I've found that they're mostly open to reason as long as we are truthful to them."

"And that's the problem, isn't it?" Aurora sighed. "Being truthful to them when you have to hide yourself among them as somepony they think they can trust? I don't go into the cities anymore unless I have no other choice... too much has happened."

"So what brought you to Canterlot then, sister?" I had to ask. "If you don't go to the Pony cities anymore unless you have to, as you say, then what brought you here?"

"Passing through. All of their trains go through Canterlot, and it's sometimes easier to use them than to fly yourself. Especially if you have to go from Baltimare to Tall Tale," she spoke, and my ears perked up.

"Tall Tale? That's where Burst says I should claim I'm from when I go to meet her mare in Hoofton. What's it like there?" I asked greedily.

"It's calmer than Baltimare; A lot of ships visit the Horseshoe Bay to trade with the city. Tall Tale is wedged between the bigger city of Vanhoover and the Smokey Mountain, but it doesn't have direct access to the North Luna Ocean," Aurora explained like she was a tourist guide.

"It's still close enough to the beach that a lot of Ponies prefer going there because the prices of the hotels are lower than they are in Vanhoover. We have a Hive in the forest near it, which is where I was going; it's where I hatched," she revealed.

"I hatched in the Hive close to Hollow Shades myself. Can I say that since I'm from a different world? I know a lot of you look at us different," I wondered, trying to judge what her feelings on the subject were.

"Yeah, you can say that," she agreed. "You're one of us now, no matter what it is you were before. It's not like we can afford to fight among ourselves."

"Thanks sister," I told her, genuinely put at ease. "So can I ask about your name? I think Crook or Burst said your common name is Tizzy?"

"Yeah, Matron named me Swat, but I prefer Tizzy," she revealed. "I was the last of my batch to hatch, and Stripe has always made fun of me for that. She teased me to the point where I would swat my forehoof at her to get her to leave me alone. Matron spotted me doing it, so..."

"The more I hear about the names our family has been given by the Matrons, the more I think they should get new material. It's not like they're very inventive, are they?" I wondered.

"I think they got tired of naming us all after body parts," Aurora offered back with a wry smirk. "You met Cubitus and Glottis in the jail."

"And I know Thorax since he met with princess Twilight Sparkle in the Crystal Empire," I listed. "I don't know a lot of others with bodyparts as names, though."

"Bodyparts as names?" Meadowsweet asked, walking up to the both of us.

"Glottis, Cubitus, Thorax," I listed quickly. "Some of our family are named like that. I'm named Pearl because of my pearl necklace. I much prefer that, to be honest."

"Right," Meadowsweet accepted. "I did hear the princess talk about Thorax before, and Cubitus and Glottis were in the jail with us."

"That's what I said," Aurora pointed out. "Are you ready to run through the fields with us?"

"I'll certainly do my best," Meadowsweet spoke, and Aurora set off at a leisurely pace toward the railway to the East of us.

Meadowsweet and I just tagged along as she did, with Meadowsweet peering between the both of us Changelings again in a mixture of wonder and concern.

"I'm still not sure I like how you can just take on a different appearance like that," she brought up. "It's confusing me that I'm now talking with two entirely different Ponies than before, yet you're still the same inside."

"It's something you get used to over time," Aurora chuckled darkly. "We have to change guises so often that it's better to just accept it."

"But how do you recognize one another?" the Earthpony wondered. "There were so many of you down in the jail earlier. Almost every one of you looked the same. I know Deadbolt said it was to do with the shoulders, but I couldn't see it."

"Mannerisms, smell, size," my sibling explained as we walked on. "How do you Ponies keep one another apart? It's the same for us."

"Well, we have cutiemarks," Meadowsweet half-protested, falling a few steps behind so she could look at ours. "And so do you now. Do you change those too when you change disguises?"

"We have to," I answered. "Can you imagine coming across a different Pony with the same cutiemark as somepony else you know? It would immediately be noticeable there's something off about it."

"That's the truth," Aurora agreed. "How many guises did you take on before you learned that one, Pearl?"

"Oh, no, just this one so far," I warded off. "But it makes sense when you think about it, right? I did get training on how to take on different looks on my first day. I think it was Burst who showed me how to do that, and then Breeze tried to teach me how to look like a foal. Blaze was in charge of teaching me to fight."

Meadowsweet fell further behind and Aurora and I stopped to look back at her.

"Foals!" the Earthpony decried. "Are you for real?"

"Yes," I nodded to her. "My clutch sister Breeze mostly roams around Equestria as a foal. She has the worst time of it; constantly has to switch schools so as not to rouse suspicion."

"Ah, yes, schools," Aurora groaned. "That's the main reason I don't use foal forms. They kept dragging me into those buildings and there were uncomfortable questions I couldn't answer there. I had to sneak out during recess each time."

Meadowsweet sat down and rubbed at her temples. "Stop breaking my brain, please."

"Maybe we should just run for a bit; clear our heads?" I suggested. "As an aside, though; how long do you think it's been nighttime for? Because I don't see the moon move..."

Meadowsweet and Aurora both looked up at the moon, still hanging in the same spot in the sky as where it had been when we escaped from Canterlot.

"Are you sure about that, Pearl?" my sister asked, looking pensive. "The only time I know that the moon stopped moving was when Nightmare Moon was threatening the Ponies."

"Eternal night," I breathed out, remembering the show's episodes which featured Nightmare Moon in them. "I'm sure it's not that bad."

"I hope not," Aurora agreed. "We have enough problems as it is."

"She was defeated before," Meadowsweet mumbled, dragging her hooves as she walked back up to join us again. "We have to put our trust in Celestia to defeat her again. We simply have to."

"Your faith in Celestia is commendable," said Aurora. "But she's just as much a Pony as you are. Our Queen Chrysalis captured her before. If our Queen can, then what about your Nightmare Moon?"

"Twilight Sparkle should be on it," I knew, and motioned my left forehoof in the direction of the spire that was Canterlot's palace. "She went up to the Princesses to convince them to do something about the Tantabus."

"The what?" Aurora wondered.

"The Tantabus," Meadowsweet knew, having felt its influence in Camellia's house. "It makes you feel like everypony is turning against you."

"It's the reason Canterlot is in the state it's in right now," I added. "Twilight Sparkle and Applejack rushed over here to help defeat it."

"Well, I wish them all the luck with that, then," Aurora spoke with no indication she knew what to do with it beyond that.

"I'm sure Twilight can handle it just fine," I spoke, more to soothe my own growing worries than anything.

If Princess Luna had become Nightmare Moon again, the situation had only become worse. Twilight had defeated Nightmare Moon once before, with the Elements of Harmony, but how well could she and Applejack handle it now? What with the Tantabus being in play at the same time?

This was so much different from watching the show back home; it would have changed focus to show the viewer what was going on in the palace whenever a side character like myself made an observation like the moon not moving in the sky.

It would have revealed this epic fight between Twilight Sparkle and Nightmare Moon, while Applejack was trying to convince Luna that her fears were ungrounded. Or something like it.

But this was the real world, not a show.

I stared hard in the direction of that tall spire, wondering what Twilight was doing over there. And how long she'd been doing it for. How long had I been down there in the jail?

Deadbolt apparently knew that time progressed even while he was down in the jail with us, but even he had looked somewhat shook when we passed him by on our way out.

Was that what he had been looking at? The night sky? The moon staying as still in it as if it had been glued in place?

"Let's continue walking," I suggested. "I think we'd best meet up with the rest of our family sooner rather than later just in case. We don't want to be the only ones out here in the fields if Nightmare Moon is truly back."

We ran as fast as we could for the safety of the copse of trees Aurora had pointed out. We still would have to cross the railway first, but that would be easy enough once we got to it.

For now we just wanted to make some distance between ourselves and Canterlot, just in case Nightmare Moon had truly returned.

Just in case the Tantabus had been victorious over Luna.

Just in case Twilight Sparkle had failed...

Chapter 39

We ran until we reached the railway leading from Canterlot to the Southeast, to connect with either Baltimare or Fillydelphia.

We quickly crossed over it after ensuring no train was coming our way, then continued on toward the small grouping of trees up ahead.

If Crook, Burst, and Camellia had followed the winds coming from the West, they might as well have drifted straight to this area and might be waiting for us hidden within.

We slowed down as we reached the edge and I had to get my breath back from the mad dash.

I would have probably enjoyed the run better if it had been a nice sunlit day without the pressure of fear to push me onward, feeling the wind go through my mane and fur as I ran with the other two beside me.

We had been running a lot this night; escaping from the jail, escaping from the city, and now again to get as far from it as we could.

I definitely noticed I had led more of a sedentary lifestyle back home; I had been struggling to keep pace when they decided to run at top speed, and my heart was beating wildly in my chest now we had finally stopped.

Perhaps it was due to how Meadowsweet and Aurora had grown up that they were doing better at running these distances than me?

Aurora's Pegasi form meant she was effectively one of them now, and they just weighed less than the other Pony races as they were made to fly. She had been constantly leading our little group as we sped across the grasslands.

Meadowsweet was an Earthpony, as I was right now, but she had been one all her life and had possibly ran for longer distances than me in the past.

I was the only one of us three wheezing as I tried to catch my breath now we made it to relative safety.

"If our family made it here, they'll be hidden within," Aurora suggested, and a green flash passed over her to reveal Tizzy the Changeling again. "Hey, it's Tizzy and Pearl, and we brought Meadowsweet with us. Anyone else here?"

There was a movement right above my head and I turned to look up at it. A pair of Changeling bug eyes looked down at me from where one of my siblings was resting on a large branch, mostly hidden among the leaves.

He was clearly there to keep an eye on Canterlot and those coming from that direction.

"Wasn't Crook with you?" my brother above me asked.

"They got caught in a downwind while we descended along the mountain and may have drifted off further to the East," Tizzy answered. "Are we safe here?"

"Yeah, the only Pony here is that one," brother spoke, motioning his left forehoof in Meadowsweet's direction.

"Way to tell me my guise is slipping," I grumbled, wondering what tipped him off I wasn't an Earthpony like Meadowsweet.

"Oh no, your disguise was perfect," brother protested. "It's just easy to recognize you with that necklace, given you were wearing it in the jail as well."

"Right," I realised as I felt for it with my left forehoof.

"If you two are done talking, we should head deeper in so we don't draw attention to ourselves," Tizzy spoke and promptly slipped into the cover of the trees.

I gently nudged Meadowsweet to follow, and she did so a few paces behind Tizzy. I came up last while my brother stayed up in the tree to keep watch as he had before.

It was darker with the canopy now overhead of us, dark enough that I had to stay close to Meadowsweet's pink rump so as to not lose track of where she was going, but we soon reached a small clearing.

It was nothing more than the space made by a tree falling and taking a few of its neighbours along with it, but several of our Changeling family had gathered in it so they could do a headcount in the light of Luna's moon.

"So with the three of you here as well, that makes thirty eight of us," one of my sisters spoke to us as we neared the small group of five she was in. "Did you see any of the other groups?"

"No," I answered truthfully. "Crook took us out through the sewers and then past the waterfall. We haven't seen any others. Although we did overhear the Ponies respond to a break-in in one of their stores; someone stole some cloaks or coats from a dry cleaners'?"

"They must have been planning to go for the Southern gate then," remarked my sister. "Bold move."

"Let's hope everyone got out in one piece and didn't get killed by the guards," Tizzy sighed.

"The Ponies don't kill us, Tizzy. We've been over this before," a familiar voice told her, and I turned to face Forsythia walking up toward us. Her strong, bulky legs made her stand out even in the low light conditions we were in.

"Forsythia!" I called out in a louder voice than I probably should have, my excitement getting the better of me. "I'm so glad to see you made it out."

"Same here, Pearl," she returned with a chuckle. "Although I wonder why you didn't leave Meadow here in the city? She lives there, you know?"

"I said I was going to bring Tizzy to safety," Meadowsweet explained. "I had to make sure she was going to be okay."

"That must be that power of friendship you ponies keep chattering on about," Forsythia spoke with a smile and a wink, clearly enamored with the idea. "I hope you're not too overwhelmed by everything that happened tonight? Where's Camellia?"

"We're not sure," I answered. "She was flying with Crook and Burst but they were caught in a jet stream and flew faster past the mountain than we could follow."

"Yeah, I appreciate that you guys didn't make us follow them. I had a hard enough time keeping from screaming out in fear as it was," Meadowsweet grumbled. "I much prefer standing on the ground."

Forsythia looked pensive for a moment. "There should be plenty of hiding places near here. If they crossed the river to the Foal Mountain they might be in the forest there?"

"That's where we thought to go next," Tizzy pointed out. "I just remembered this place from when we waited here before the invasion."

"Right, that whole debacle," Forsythia snorted. "I'm not sure how that went wrong the way it did, but I'm glad there hasn't been yet another attempt."

"Well, it was Twilight Sparkle and Cadance finding one another in one of the caverns underneath Canterlot which turned the tides," I knew. "Cadance used to foalsit Twilight Sparkle, so she was instantly wary of Chrysalis acting different, but nopony would take her seriously until she returned from the caves together with the real Cadance."

"Oh, that explains it then; mannerisms are important to mimic when taking on another pony's identity," Forsythia pondered. "If you don't do that right, then those who know them well enough will get suspicious."

"Or you could just not take somepony else's identity," Meadowsweet protested. "Pearl and Tizzy are their own unique pony, or so they said to me at least. I'm still having trouble keeping up with this whole transformation thing, but I can more easily accept that than I can accept you kidnapping others to take over their lives."

"We don't actually kidnap ponies? Or take over their lives, really," Forsythia protested with some surprise. "At least, I don't? My pony guise is homebrew as well."

"You'd be surprised how many of our pony disguises are, actually," Tizzy told Meadowsweet. "We only take over somepony else's life if we have no other option."

"I think there's a lot of fear going back and forth which is making it difficult to get our facts about one another right," I suggested. "If you truly want to be my friend, Meadowsweet, perhaps you and Tizzy could talk about what all you both get wrong about the other? Figure out what we have in common? Work out a way we can overcome this longstanding distrust between our races?"

"I knew I liked you, Pearl. From the moment I saw you in the jail, I knew you were different from the rest of us," Forsythia told me with a wide grin.

"Well, I'm from a different world so I have different standards to compare life here to," I coughed uneasily, trying to ward off what felt like a compliment I did not earn.

"No, I mean that you're smarter than most of us. Excuse me for saying it, but we have some dumb brothers and sisters in the bunch," she spoke.

"Hey, I resent that remark," a voice called out in protest.

"Well, we do. Especially when the Queen lets loose her pheromones on us, or when we go feral from hunger," Forsythia threw back. "A lot of us end up just going through the motions to survive; taking on a pony guise and settling somewhere or wandering the lands while hoping things will sort themselves out, but you... you think beyond that. Like you have a plan for the future that we're not seeing."

"She's right, you know?" Meadowsweet agreed. "I told you you're the one who got me to fight my fears. You're the one who makes me want to learn more about you all. There's still a voice in the back of my head going 'Meadowsweet, what are you doing?? You are alone in the middle of a group of vicious Changelings! Run before you get killed!' but I'm trying my best to suppress it."

"Oh come on, we're not vicious, and we won't kill you. I will personally guarantee your safety while you're here among us," Tizzy offered to the Earthpony. "It sounds like that voice of yours is the same one I have in my head; but it's telling me to be suspicious of you Ponies. Maybe we need to do as Pearl said and fight it together?"

"You two were already well on your way earlier in the jail, I think. You were sitting together as if you trusted one another implicitly," I remembered.

"I was just too tired to think straight, and Meadowsweet offered I could lean into her when I started to wobble, and... well, she's soft enough to fall asleep against," Tizzy stammered, and I was sure she was blushing even it was difficult to tell in this light.

"Yeah, I don't know what made me say that back then," Meadowsweet mumbled. "I just felt like I needed to protect Tizzy given how she was doing when we found her."

"And that's commendable," Forsythia spoke warmly. "Remember the long conversations we had about plants and flowers while I was out in the market? It's not like I would have been doing that if I didn't care about you ponies and what drives you. We're really not that different. We're just trying to live together with you all."

"I'm getting that point, trust me," Meadowsweet sighed. "It's been repeated often enough now. I get it. But fear is not a rational thing."

"No, no it's not," Tizzy agreed.

"So what do we do next?" I had to ask. "If there's only about fourty of us here, then how will we know if the others made it out alright? Do we seek them out or wait for them to come up here?"

"The nearest Hive is past the Foal Mountains, or maybe down South near to the Badlands, and some of our family might be heading for either of the two. If they want to return to Canterlot, once the Ponies get their affairs in order that is, they would stay closer to the city like we are doing now," Forsythia reasoned.

"There's no easy way to figure out who went where," she continued. "If we leave here and the next group comes over, they might think they were the only ones who made it out. If we stay here, others might think we didn't make it. It's not something to linger on for too long; we're used to being on our own. Whatever happens, happens. We'll eventually bump into one another again anyway."

"But Burst and I were traveling together," I pointed out. "I would very much like to be able to find her again."

"Then you should go to the forest across the river," Tizzy considered. "I don't think Meadowsweet would want to fly across the river to get there, so I think we'd best stay here."

"I'm entirely put off on flying, did I say that yet?" Meadowsweet remarked dryly. "I'd much prefer to at least have two of my hooves on solid ground at all times, thank you very much."

"So I'd have to go by myself then?" I wondered, not liking the idea at all.

"I could come along; it's still close enough to the city that I can wander back in once this whole thing blows over, and I should see whether Aly might be hiding near there since it's a larger area to hole up in," Forsythia offered, then straightened herself up and called out in a louder voice; "Anyone who wants to group up to get to the Foal Mountain together, sound off."

A couple of heads perked up, and there were a few "here", "I'm in", and a "sure, why not", from various directions around me.

"Group up at the Eastern edge," Forsythia spoke again. "We're leaving in five minutes."

"It's kind of weird I'm going that way again so soon," I considered. "I arrived in Canterlot by train from Hollow Shades only a few days ago."

"Oh yeah, that's right next-door to the Hive," Forsythia agreed. "That train bends around it, and we'd have to go around as well or fly over the Foal Mountain to get to the Hive from here."

"Right. So do you think that's what our family is doing?" I considered. "Those who went East, I mean. Going for the safety of that Hive rather than go further South to the Badlands?"

"If I wasn't looking for Aly, who is for sure looking for me around Canterlot, that's where I would go. The matrons there can help us control our hunger for a little while so we can merge back into the Pony population again," my sister pondered.

"It's a longer and more difficult route down to the Badlands; there are Diamond Dogs in the area, and the route goes dangerously close past the Everfree Forest with its Timberwolves," she explained with some concern. "Having a tussle with them while famished won't end well, but we have some dumb ones in our family, as I said before. Some might have still taken that chance."

"Will I see you around Canterlot again sometime, Pearl?" Meadowsweet wondered from behind me. "You know where I work, but you might feel more comfortable reaching out to me via Camellia or Forsythia considering the palace guards?"

I turned to face the Earthpony and gave her a warm smile. "I'll be sure to seek you out if I ever visit Canterlot again, Meadowsweet. Just try not to blow my cover when you spot me, okay?"

Meadowsweet sighed. "I don't know how I could know what you looked like next we meet. You're going to have to find me first, unless you look like this every time?"

I considered that. "There's a good chance that I might, actually. I am feeling pretty comfortable like this."

"Are you?" she wondered, a curious look on her face. "I couldn't imagine being somepony else. I don't get how you all do it."

"Well, some of us identify far more with our Pony disguises than we probably should," I reasoned, knowing how Burst felt about her life in Hoofton. "Maybe Tizzy can help explain it to you better than I could?"

"I'm not staying near Canterlot for any longer than I have to, if you don't mind," Tizzy protested. "I've seen too much of it in the past couple of days, even if I was only stuck in its jail. Once it's safe to take a train out again, I'll be on my way home."

"Oh," Meadowsweet responded, a curiously sad undertone to her voice. "I thought you might like to visit my place after it's safe again so we could talk more about that flower you said grows near Tall Tale? Gaillardia aristata?"

"Blanket Flower, yes," Tizzy knew. "You would like it, although I don't think they would grow well in your gardens. They mostly grow in the dunes near the beachfront. It might be easier if you visited Tall Tale with me so I could show you them in their natural environment?"

The Royal Gardener made a face. "Ah, but that would mean skipping out on a few days of work. If I don't return to Canterlot they might think I was abducted by you all and replaced or something. Maybe I could ask for a week of vacation after the shock of this thing blows over and come visit you then?"

"I'll leave you two to work that out between yourselves," I chuckled after watching the back-and-forth between the pair of them.

I had the feeling they were the embodiment of our future together; each working hard to overcome their fear of the other while finding common ground in talking about menial things.

It was much the same as how Thorax and Spike had found common ground between one another, I remembered from the show.

Spike helped Thorax stave off his hunger by just accepting him for who he was and they had become good friends since. Meadowsweet was well on her way to do the same for Tizzy.

Chapter 40

Seven of our brothers and sisters joined Forsythia and myself as we walked out onto the grasslands again.

Forsythia quickly took the lead role, clearly demanding some respect from the others due to her age and stature, and I was rather happy to have someone else to follow behind as I did not know the area well enough.

I considered for a moment that, with the mountain of Canterlot to our left side and the Foal Mountains in front of us, I could potentially have taken the lead here, but I didn't know what surprises might lie hidden up ahead.

Forsythia quickened our pace once we left the taller wild grasses near the trees behind, and I tried my best to keep up.

I was the only one maintaining my Earthpony guise in our group, the rest a blur of grey bodies around me, but it had not been mentioned by any of them.

It had fast started to become an identity of mine I was feeling quite comfortable in; the way my mane fell around my head felt more natural to me, like hair back home, as opposed to the fin I sported on my otherwise bald skull as a Changeling.

I had quickly enough become used to having a tail, something I obviously didn't have back home, and the feeling of the wind making the short hairs of it move was oddly pleasant.

The light grey coat of fur around me gave me some warmth in the chill of the night while I was standing still, and it was helping the sweatdrops leak away from my body now I was running.

We weren't even halfway to our destination when the sky suddenly shifted and the sun rose to a position almost fully above our heads.

We all came to a sudden stop and moved our forehooves up to cover our eyes against this sudden explosion of light.

The change had been nearly instantaneous; the moon flitting across the sky to the West at breakneck speed while the sun rose from the East at a similar pace in order to take its place in the sky above us.

I squinted my eyes against the sudden bright daylight and turned to look in Canterlot's direction.

Trying to not look directly at the sun, I made an effort to see whether I could spot Celestia on the balcony of Canterlot palace's great spires.

I knew from the show that they might stand out on one of those balconies while manipulating the day and night cycle, after all.

Unfortunately we were too far away, and the light of Celestia's sun shone too brightly upon my eyes after they had spent hours in darkness, for them to want to focus on something that far into the distance without hurting.

I felt mildly perturbed by it; This had been my first decent chance to spot the Pony Princess Celestia, and I had missed it.

"Well shit, that's a whole lot of daylight all of a sudden," Forsythia exhumed.

"Yeah, I noticed," I chuckled.

"Which means we're too exposed out here. Let's take on our pony guises like Pearl has already before we go on," she suggested to the group.

Green flashes of Changeling transformation magic sparked over the others around me and I now stood on the grass as one pony among others.

From a distance we would now just be seen as a traveling band of ponies instead of the Changelings we were. It was preferable than to have guards race over once they spotted us in the field.

"Might as well fly ahead then," one of my brothers suggested, and spread his Pegasus wings to prepare for doing just that. "We'd be quicker that way."

Two others agreed with him, and of course they were the ones who had opted for Pegasi forms as well.

Forsythia and I were the only two Earthponies in our group, with the other four having gone for Unicorn guises.

She was a sturdy pink Earthpony herself, her light blue mane combed sideways to partly cover her left eye. If she wasn't built like a brick house with a short mane, she could have doubled for one of the spa ponies from the show.

As it was with her muscular form, she could more easily pass for one of the larger stallions I knew from the show. I idly pondered how she would match up to Big Mac given my recent encounter with his sister Applejack.

She turned to me in mild amusement as I was looking her over like that.

"I don't know why I expected you to take flight with them," she chuckled. "I guess we're running together for a while longer, then?"

"I'm comfortable like this," I returned with a shrug.

"You guys go up ahead," Forsythia told the Pegasi, then motioned her head in the direction of the Foal Mountain we were headed for. "Let the others know Pearl and I are on our way so they won't be too worried about her?"

The others excused themselves and took to the air.

"Now Pearl, you shouldn't get too overly attached to this Earthpony look of yours or you'll end up stuck in it for years, like me," Forsythia joked as she continued walking. "Trying out one of the other Pony races helps you understand them better. Pegasi, or Unicorn like the others here, each have their own unique elements to them."

I smirked at her use of the word elements given the Elements of Harmony from the show.

"Let's keep going, we should make a good pace now we can see what's coming up ahead," Forsythia decided, and started us off again toward the mountains up ahead. "Let me know if you can't keep up anymore. It's been a long night for all of us, so I'm sure we're all getting tired."

"I'll do that," I promised, falling in line to her right side. "Can I ask you a few questions about yourself as we walk?"

"As long as they're not too personal, sure," she chuckled. "What is it you want to know about me, Pearl?"

"You seem to be overly worried about your partner Aly," I started. "I know you thought she might have been in the jail with us before, but now you think she's over to the East instead?"

"That's what I'm hoping. She would have made a ruckus normally, so I'm worried that we haven't seen anything to do with her yet," Forsythia grumbled, her mood darkening. "She should have been in the city, turning the place inside-out to find me once she got wind that I was stuck down in the jail there. It's not like her to be patient, that's why she started doing the flower stuff in the first place; to get her temper under control."

"And she's one of us, is she?" I wondered.

"Yep, a lovely Unicorn in the guise she uses in Ponyville, but she was just as cute as a fresh Hatchling," Forsythia sighed with a longing sigh. "Which is why I trek back and forth to Canterlot to sell her flower bundles, but usually make sure to be home by dinnertime again. We haven't been apart for this long in years."

"So why not sell her flowers in Ponyville?" I wondered. "Why make the trek to Canterlot at all?"

"For the same reason anypony would; there are simply more customers there. Ponyville might have been growing steadily since Twilight Sparkle became a princess and all; Ponies drawn in by the idea that living in a town with a Princess would somehow rub off on them have been moving into previously vacant and newly built homes, but it still is a small town compared to most others," my sister explained.

"I'm supposed to visit it in half a year's time. I pretty much Pinkie-promised, so that's set in stone," I spoke, then chuckled at remembering Moonshine's momentary predicament as a statue when we met up with the ponies at Hollow Shades.

"Be sure to swing around Aly and my place when you do," Forsythia suggested. "I'm sure she'd love to meet you."

"Didn't you say the same to Camellia?" I realised.

"Well, yes. But I've known her longer than I have you and she keeps promising to come by," she sighed.

"Maybe I should just pick her up on my way from Hoofton to Ponyville since I'd have to switch trains at Canterlot anyway?" I considered. "It'll be a few months still, but I'm sure I could convince her to travel together?"

Forsythia looked at me sideways. "You're planning on staying in Hoofton for that long?"

"Burst said I could come live with her and her mare while I was getting my bearings, so yes," I answered.

"Be sure to visit the market there and seek out an old mare called Gram. Just Gram. Tell her Forsythia sent you," she told me. "Don't bring Burst along; go there alone and don't say no to anything she proposes."

"Wow, that's... vague and disconcerting," I coughed uneasily.

"Yep," my sister laughed, speeding up a bit. "Now let's let our hair loose on this last leg; it's mostly a flat plane from here to the river, so we can run free."

"I can't promise to keep up," I protested, but she quickly distanced herself from me.

I needed to run faster just to keep her from leaving me in the dust, noticing the smell of freshly trampled grass followed in her wake.

My brothers and sister in their guises as Unicorn ponies caught up to me to run as a group with me, all of us trailing behind Forsythia as if she was the leader of our herd.

This was the experience I had been craving earlier in the night; running free without fear of being chased down by Canterlot's guards.

With Celestia's sun in the sky above us, the wind passing by me as we ran was warmer than the chill breeze that I felt during Luna's night.

I quickly felt myself get caught up in the moment as our hooves thundered across the grassland toward the river. For a moment I ran wild and free, forgetting all the questions and worry I had moments before.

Of course it couldn't last. I would not be that lucky.

Forsythia didn't stop as she neared the river. She didn't turn to run past it.

Instead she ran right up to the bank of it and took a leap into the air, using her strong back legs to propel her up a fair distance before she started to curve downward again before reaching the other side of the river.

Her green magic flashed over her and her wings came out from under that damaged backplate of hers, and she used them to carry her the rest of the way.

Her flight path was wobbly, barely controlled, and I thought I could fly better than she could even on my worst days. I wondered what was causing it for a brief moment, but then I saw it.

I planted my hooves down firmly on the grass to skid to a stop just before I would reach the river myself.

Even as my siblings sped forward to mimic what Forsythia had just done moments before, I stopped and considered what it was that I had just seen.

Forsythia on the other bank of the river folded her wings back under that damaged back plate of hers, taking extra care with one of them; one which was partially in tatters like something had bitten down on it and torn the tip off it.

It was roughly the same amount of damage as was visible on her back plate, but more defined since our wings were flimsy in comparison to the sturdy armour we had on our backs.

It was clear to me now why she had not wanted to talk with Camellia about it. Even as strong as she was, something had gotten the better of her in the past and it had affected her ability to fly.

Forsythia turned to look back over the river in my direction.

"Are you coming, Pearl? Or are you scared of a bit of water?" she called out.

I shook my head and let my magic wash over me so I could use my Changeling wings.

"Not scared," I shouted back, opting to not mention what I had just seen.

I took flight and quickly joined the others on the opposite bank, landing with more grace than I would have given myself credit for when I started to take flying lessons back in the Hive.

"Forsythia," I started, but then thought better of it and nodded to the nearby forest. "This looks like a big enough forest to get lost in. Where would our siblings be?"

"Probably in the old camp next to the foot of the mountain closest to Canterlot," she considered, apparently not having noticed my hesitation. "Let's go meet up with them and see what the situation here is. Hopefully my Aly is with them."

Chapter 41

Forsythia led us through the woods to the old camp where a lot more Changelings had gathered up than I had seen in the copse of trees earlier.

There had been almost hundred and fourty of us in the jails under Canterlot, thirty eight in the copse, of which nine of us had made the trek on over here.

This was counting the two ponies with us, of course. Meadowsweet was safe with Tizzy in the copse I had left behind, and Camellia should be here with Burst and Crook.

I spotted Glottis up ahead in a larger group, and ran up past Forsythia to my oddly-coloured sibling.

"Glottis! Good to see you made it out of the city in one piece," I called out to them.

"Pearl, hey there. Oh, it looks like Forsythia and you are both worried about something. Anything I can help with?" he replied, turning toward us as he did. "I was just talking with the others here about what the sudden daylight might mean for us and the situation in Canterlot. It's not about that, would it be?"

"Well, perhaps the ponies got their heads back in one piece and took that stupid barrier down," one of the sisters next to Glottis reasoned.

"We can only hope," I sighed. "Princess Twilight Sparkle and her friend Applejack are on the job. They have been responsible for getting Equestria out of worse situations in the past, so I trust in them to have solved whatever the problem was."

"I wish the ponies would keep us out of their messes," the same sister sighed.

"You haven't seen Aly around here somewhere, have you? Any of you?" Forsythia wondered while looking around.

"I haven't had the pleasure of being in her company today, no," Glottis answered. "She's not nearer to the city? You both live in Ponyville if memory serves me?"

"She would've razed the city on day one if she had known I was stuck in its prison," Forsythia grumbles. "That there are no reports of her making a ruckus is more concerning to me than anything else."

"I'm sure she's fine," I tried to calm Forsythia. "How about Camilla, Crook, and Burst? They drifted in this direction on a gust of wind. Did you see them?"

"The Unicorn is a little up North. There's a plan brewing to temporarily block the rails up there so they can board the train while the ponies clear the blockage," Glottis answered me. "At least the ones here who feel like they can rejoin the population there without going feral before they can feed."

"I'm going as well," Forsythia decided. "I swear Aly is in the city somewhere, so I should look for her there next. If she's not there, I'll take a train down to Ponyville again. It's quicker than walking the distance."

"You should head up North now then, there's a bit of a time pressure so they're blocking the tracks soon to catch the next inbound train," Glottis suggested calmly. "Hey Pearl?"

I perked up. "What's up?"

"I appreciated the effort back in the jail. Including me in your plans, and all. It was an interesting experience. I think you have thrown the blinders off a few of our siblings' eyes with it," he spoke, genuinely appreciative.

"You still look like a piece of mouldy cheese, but you can hang with us," a brother in the group near us threw Glottis' way.

"Better than to smell like it like you, brother," Glottis returned with a smile playing on his lips. "Anyway, thanks Pearl. You're a special egg."

"No I'm not, I just took to heart what the show back home taught me about this world," I protested.

"Well, keep doing it I'd say," my special brother suggested. "You're making ripples which are making some well-needed changes happen."

"I'll try my best," I half-promised, then was surprised when he moved in for a hug.

"We'll be seeing each other around," Glottis whispered in my right ear. "Don't hold it against our siblings that they might not have as much of an open heart as you do. This world is not all rainbow colours and happy smiles, as you might have noticed. Being different like me might draw unwanted attention, after all. It's normal for them to be wary of those like me."

I reciprocated the hug while considering where his words came from.

"Well, it's not fair to you to exclude you simply because you look different or have extrasensory perception. I hope they'll appreciate you more now, or at least the ones who were with us in the jail," I returned to him. "Hopefully they'll spread the word around that you should be given a proper chance."

"We should make it to the train before the others go without us," Forsythia pressed, unaware of what we were whispering to one another.

Glottis pulled away from the hug and I fell back on all fours again.

"You two should head to the forward group, then. Find out what's going on in the city so reports can make it back to the rest of us," Glottis agreed with Forsythia's eagerness to continue on.

"Will do," I agreed, then turned to Forsythia again.

"Back to Canterlot we go, I guess. Tonight has been a bit of a roundtrip... Wait, no, today. It's daytime," I corrected myself.

"Weird as it is, yes," Forsythia agreed and started off through the trees again to follow the river up North.

Camellia was hiding near the edge of the forest, looking pensively up ahead at the railroad tracks past the river bending around the forest and the mountains directly beside it.

The Changelings around her, Crook and Burst among them, were looking equally as stressed.

"Two more to tag on for the trip back to town," Forsythia offered up as we drew close to them.

"Told you she would make it to us on her own," Burst spoke up to Crook beside her.

"Yes, yes," Crook chuckled.

Camellia turned to look in my direction, did a doubletake, then brightened up considerably. "That's the Forsythia I know from the market. And you look adorable, Pearl."

I felt a blush creep up on my cheeks. "Thanks. I couldn't very well show myself like this with that anti-transformation barrier in the city."

"Well, it's a good look on you. I like the streaks in your mane. Some mares would pay a fortune to have them added artificially at the salon," she pointed out. "There are a lot of vain ponies in Canterlot."

"So what's the plan?" Forsythia cut in. "Are you going to put a tree on the tracks or something?"

"No, no tree," Burst replied. "This forest is too far from the tracks for a tree to make sense."

"So..." Forsythia led on.

"Camellia's the only one of us who can do it," Burst sighed. "We're waiting to see the smoke before Crook and I will lift her over the river. She'll run up to the tracks and block it herself."

"I have to 'warn them' about the 'nefarious changelings' who have 'taken over the city', but do it in a way that I look like I'm making too much of a fuss about it," Camellia added. "Just caught in a moment of panic, honestly. It should keep them busy calming me down for a while, so you all can enter the train from the back. There should be a mail car at the rear."

"It's not the first time I've travelled by mail car. I should buy some postage stamps to put on my flanks. They could be my cutiemark," Crook joked.

"Considering Camellia can't fly," Burst continued, ignoring Crook's joke, "she'll take longer to reach the tracks than we would once the train stops. So we'll stay here in the forest until the brakes get applied, then fly low and follow the bend of the river until we can circle back and come at the train from the rear."

I looked up at Forsythia whose ears were drooping down a bit.

"Is it the flying part?" I wondered, and she shook herself out of her thoughts.

"I'll manage," she grumbled. "I'll go up ahead and hide in the stream if I need to."

Camellia caught on quicker than I gave her credit for.

"It's the damage to your back plate, isn't it Syth?" she suggested. "Don't tell me your wing got clipped because of it?"

"Damn it Mel," the sturdy one cursed. "I told you we'd talk about it some other time."

"That was then, this is now. If you can't make it to the train to get into town again, then what? Are you just going to run the way back by yourself?" Camellia asked, her anger clearly rising.

"If I have to, yes," Forsythia replied stubbornly.

Camellia sized the other up for a moment, then relented and turned away. "I won't press further. This is not the place for it. But I want to know more."

"Why?" my sister wondered, shaking her head in confusion. "Why does it have to be such a big thing? I'm usually an Earthpony anyway. I don't need to be able to fly. I'm not bothered by it."

"How long do you think you can keep the train stopped for, Camellia?" I asked. "I'll run up with Forsythia in more of a straight line than the rest. We look like Earthponies anyway, so we can enter one of the passenger carriages just fine. We do need a reason for being here. Maybe we fled the city and can hook into Camellia's story that way?"

"What if they scan us in an attempt to reveal who we are?" Forsythia wondered.

"If it's the same magic the guard used when they came to my door, I might be able to shield you two from it. But only you two. I'd have to deflect the magic without being noticed, so the fewer targets the better," Camellia considered.

"It's a risk we'll have to take," I decided, pointedly looking at Forsythia. "You need to find your mare, sister, so we're not leaving you behind to run the distance yourself. I'm also getting worried considering what you told me about her."

"Well, there's smoke on the horizon so we're going to have to go now," Crook pointed out. "Ready, big brother?"

"I'm ready if Camellia is," Burst answered, looking at the Unicorn in question.

"As I told you boys earlier; I love flying. You two can take me for a flight any day," Camellia giggled. "Let's go do this, I'll need to pull up my poor acting skills."

"If you know Rarity, you should take a page out of her book," I suggested. "She's got the best drama falls."

"That's an idea," Forsythia agreed. "Just fall backwards but support your fall as you do."

"But do it in sight of the driver or they won't stop," I warned.

"I'll make sure they stop, no worries," Camellia suggested. "I can use my magic to stop them if all else fails."

"Right, off we go then?" Crook pressed. "That smoke is drawing nearer."

"Yes, let's," Camellia agreed.

I watched as the trio left the treeline and Camellia got in between Crook and Burst as before.

The pair of them easily lifted her up between them and hauled her over the river to set her down on the other side of it.

I looked sideways up at Forsythia. "You want to do that same run and flutter you did before or do you want to wade through it? We might want to do it now, considering we'll have to follow behind her."

"The river flows too strongly to wade through. I'll have to jump it again," she told me.

"Have you considered pulling your left legs in and keeping your right extended so you're creating an uneven amount of drag? It might help to even things out a bit more," I considered. "I'm sorry if I'm overstepping my bounds with that."

"How long have you been flying for, Pearl?" Forsythia asked with some bemusement.

"Oh, no, it's not from personal experience so much as having some knowledge on air drag from watching documentaries about airplane crashes back home," I warded her question off. "I only have a few months' worth of training in Pegasi forms and flying in general."

"Air... plane... crashes," Forsythia tasted the unfamiliar word, then shook her head at it. "You're an odd one, Pearl, but it might be worth a try."

"Now's as good a moment as any; we can't fly while disguised and if they spot our magic from a distance the whole plan is moot," I offered up to her, dropping my own disguise.

"Right you are," Forsythia agreed, turning back into her Changeling self as well. "Think you can make it to the other side of the river before me?"

"Hell no, but I'll be close on your tailfin trying," I grinned back at her.

Chapter 42

Forsythia and I ran over to the river and crossed it about the same time as Crook and Burst flew the opposite direction to return to the cover of the trees.

I noticed that Forsythia tried to use her legs to control the air drag on her as I had suggested, adding more resistance on the side of her good wing and keeping her legs pulled up on the side of her bad one.

The holes in her shortened bad wing clearly made it a difficult task to bring herself over to the other side, but she still managed to make it there before me.

I would have to train myself more to run and fly for longer durations. Maybe this could be something to focus on in the coming months spent with Burst in Hoofton, if I ever made it there...

We both took on our Earthpony guises again once we were on the other side of the river, and then started to follow it along the bend to slowly but deliberately approach the rail tracks which Camellia was now running towards.

"So what's our story if they ask? How did we end up here?" I asked of my taller sister.

"We can't claim to be traders, or to have been camping out here, since we have nothing on us. We might as well go for a similar story to Camellia's; having ran from Canterlot 'when the evil Changelings attacked', as corny as it sounds," she pondered while we walked.

"I was obviously taken under your protection; you're a larger pony than me. I'll suggest that I was out on the market purchasing one of those flowers you had?" I wondered.

"I don't sell flowers, I sell Aly's flower arrangements," she corrected me. "They're bundled up and made for special occasions or just to look pretty on a table. Let's see, you look young enough. Perhaps graduation? No, that's not coming up yet. A sick family member in the hospital perhaps?"

"My poor auntie who, er... broke her foreleg? I recently sprained mine a second time, so I know how annoying that can get," I made up on the spot.

"You'll need a name and where she's from," Forsythia pointed out. "Imagine her as if she has truly been with you for a good while."

"Well, according to the backstory Burst has been setting up for this guise of mine, I would be from from Tall Tale," I started. "Do you know any pony families from around that area so I could come up with a name that makes sense?"

"Tizzy would know better than me; she comes from that area," Forsythia considered. "Let's see, what do I know of the place? They're close to the sea, close to the forest, close to mountains... not a lot to go on but they wouldn't use farmland names, so there's that."

I noticed the smoke drawing closer, and a speck in the distance was growing larger. I realised that it was the train that we were trying to catch.

"A lot of pony names are based on their special attributes, right? Items, animals, or plants they have a special relation to, like my name Pearl, or their physical or mental prowess?" I remembered.

"Colours too; some of them are named after colours," my sister suggested.

"Considering my name Pearl, how about Shallow Shoals for my aunt? It keeps the sea theme going," I wondered.

"That could work, although I would have imagined such to be more of a masculine name myself," Forsythia reasoned. "Sandy Shoals would be more feminine."

"I see," I replied. "Poor auntie Andy with her broken hoof. I wanted to bring her some flowers to brighten up her stay in hospital."

"You said leg before, now you said hoof. A cracked hoof would still be problematic, but you have to be wary of those mistakes. Repeat your story a few times in your head before we get to the train," my sister pressed upon me. "It's easy to get caught in a lie if you don't believe in it being truthful."

"Aunt Sandy with her broken foreleg, who needed flowers. But, as I was going over the options at your stall, the attack happened and we ran for safety," I repeated.

"Yes, in your head please," Forsythia chuckled.

The train up ahead slowed down as they noticed a unicorn in their path, Camellia using her magic to send up some magic fireworks to draw their attention.

I noticed in my peripheral vision that a cloud of grey bodies broke free from the forest we had left, but they made a wide arch away from us and quickly disappeared against the backdrop.

"Let's hope they won't ask me too many weird questions. I wouldn't even know what flowers to go for," I voiced my worry.

Forsythia quickened her pace as the train came to a halt and the ponies in charge of it ran up to Camellia to figure out why she was in their way.

I could see her fall down onto the tracks as if she was exhausted.

"Middle car has the least amount of heads sticking out the windows to see what's going on," Forsythia pointed out. "Let's head for it. Enter via the front so the attention is on Camellia and us and not our family approaching the rear carriage."

"Yes ma'am," I spoke, happy that she was taking the lead on this.

We bolted for the car in question, even as I could see the cloud of grey bodies return to my vision up ahead and approach the last train car from behind.

"Is this train going to Canterlot? Oh my goodness, we've been out here since forever," Forsythia called out as we got near enough to be heard. "Oh Pearl, how fortunate that they stopped here."

I nodded at her, noting the attention of the ponies looking out at what was going on turn upon us.

"Please, can you take us with you? My family must be worried sick," I pleaded.

Forsythia was the first to get to the train and immediately climbed up on the small platform between the carriages.

She was met with a large stallion blocking the door, his eyebrows as thick as his bristly mustache.

"This is first class, madam," he spoke with an air of superiority. "You might best check whether there is room in the other cars."

"Oh, please. My legs are so tired from running from those evil, evil Changelings," I whined, clambering up on the balcony as well.

Forsythia stared the stallion down. "Didn't you buy a bouquet from my stall just last week? Who was it for, let me remember..."

Something about the way she said that made me look at the stallion through the window in the door. His face fell and he looked a lot less sure of himself.

"No, you must have me mistaken for somepony else, miss," he tried.

"I'm sure you bought an arrangement with chrysanthemums," Forsythia continued.

"How about we say I didn't and I open this door for you and your companion instead?" the stallion suggested, backing away from the door instantly. "The less said about that the better."

"What's going on?" I wondered. "Are we getting on the train or not?"

"Oh yes, Pearl, I believe we are," Forsythia called back to me, and walked into the first class carriage.

I followed closely behind her and noticed that the stallion had retreated to a seat opposite a mare who was looking at him quizzically.

"What was that about?" she asked pointedly.

"Oh nothing, I believe the mare had me mistaken for somepony else. Has the blockage been removed from the tracks yet, you think?" he coughed uneasily.

Forsythia led me to an empty seat near the back of the carriage, opposite an elderly mare who had fallen asleep on her seat.

She had a light purple coat, grey mane, and a pair of reading glasses half-fallen off her muzzle but otherwise could have passed for a sibling to Granny Smith. Just that stereotypical old lady kind of pony.

"No questions yet," I whispered to Forsythia, who shushed me.

We sat in silence for a while longer before the train set in motion again.

I felt more and more nervous now we were back on the road into Canterlot again, on the very same tracks which Burst and I had been on before, and I looked out through the window to try and figure out when the anti-transformation barrier would wash over us again.

Any moment now, as we got closer and closer to the mountain.

Darkness suddenly overtook us as we passed into the tunnel, with just the lights inside the carriage helping us to see around us.

The train slowed down as it reached the station platform of Canterlot's big transit station, and I was still seated next to Forsythia without either of us having lost our disguises.

"Let's get off with the rest of the crowd," she whispered to me, and I quickly leapt off my seat.

Forsythia didn't immediately move along with me, but instead poked the sleeping mare.

"Excuse me, miss. We've arrived at Canterlot. Don't miss your stop now," she spoke to the old mare, who woke up with confusion glancing over her face.

"What? Huh? Where? Prance a lot? I used to, in my younger days, but I haven't for a long while missy. What a question to ask," the older mare spoke.

"No, we're at the capital Canterlot," Forsythia corrected her. "We're getting off the train here, you might want to do the same if this is your stop?"

"I can see that; I'm not blind," the mare huffed, but then looked outside and seemed to finally realise where she was. "Oh, we've arrived at Canterlot! Why didn't you say so?"

Forsythia stopped trying, and just followed me out through the back exit.

We walked out onto the station platform with the rest of the ponies exiting the train, blending into the crowd. There were a lot of different ponies, of all shapes and colourations, some with heavy bags while others travelled as light as Forsythia and I were.

I tried to find Camellia in the crowds, but she must have been up front in the train and we were too far away to spot her immediately.

"Let's head out onto the streets and wait near the station entrance. I'm sure Burst will find us there," Forsythia suggested.

For the second time since my arrival in Equestria I marvelled at how big the Canterlot terminus was; trains from all over stopped here, allowing ponies to change tracks to other destinations to those that were connected to the lines they had been on.

It was a bustling place and I could see that the falling of a long night and the Changeling scare brought on by the Tantabus was now past and those who were going through the station were clearly trying to make up for lost time.

It was a lot like being back at home and going through a busy station; everypony looked rushed, more busy with where they were heading themselves than with the others around them, and those coming off the trains were met with an equal amount of ponies flocking toward them to leave for destinations unknown.

Forsythia helped me to navigate this crowded place to the main entrance, and we walked a few paces off to the left of it onto the street.

She didn't walk slowly, but she pressed on as if she was on a mission, clearing the waves of ponies ahead of us. I just followed in her wake until she stopped in front of a small bakery set up next to the station entrance.

The streets were so much more crowded than I had seen it before while the Tantabus had been laying siege upon the place. It was a proper city, awake again now the Tantabus had clearly been defeated.

Forsythia poked me in the side. "You haven't seen this place at its busiest yet, have you?"

"No, I haven't," I spoke honestly. "When Burst and I arrived here it was already under the Tantabus' influence; there were barely any ponies out on the streets like this. Also, we had to hide in the back alleys and storm drains before we came upon Camellia."

"Be glad it's not a festival day," Forsythia chuckled weakly.

"Ah, there you two are," a familiar voice called out to us, and I turned to spot Oval in his Earthpony stallion guise walking up to us, a younger Unicorn stallion with a slick combed back mane a half-step behind him.

"Hammer!" I remembered his name for this guise. "Who's that with you?"

"Allow me to introduce myself," the Unicorn started with a theatrical flair.

He bent down through his left foreleg, motioned his right forehoof through the air as if he were casting stage magic or something, and lowered his head in a respectful bow toward me.

"My name's Deft Stroke, and I am at your service, my lady Pearl," the Unicorn formerly known as Crook suggested.

"Oh, here we go again," Hammer Hoof, also known as Burst or Oval, sighed. "Don't fall for his charms, Pearl."

"What charms?" Forsythia snorted. "Did any of you see that Unicorn after she stopped the train for us?"

"Not yet," Hammer Hoof admitted. "I do know where she lives, so Pearl and I might as well go see if she's going there."

"I need to figure out where they took my cart after they locked me up," Forsythia grumbled.

"Oh, we can help with that; Applejack took us to the cart storage where the Apple family stores their cart when they're not selling apples or cider on the market here," I remembered. "They probably put your cart there as well; it's a big enough storage for it."

"What are the chances the princess and her friend are still in town?" Hammer Hoof wondered.

"They do linger around for a little longer after fixing a friendship problem, but not too much longer," I considered. "They're either still in the palace talking with Celestia and Luna or aiming for the next train out to Ponyville."

"Which is what I want to do once I know where the cart is stored. I can always come back for it, but I need to find out what happened to Aly first," Forsythia suggested.

"The cart storage first, then. Bu... Hammer and me can make it to Camellia's house afterward," I decided. "How about you, Deft Stroke?"

My brother just stood there watching us all talk about our plans, but then shook his head. "I'll drift into town, see if I can find somepony to feed me. Don't worry about me, Pearl. I'm in your debt, however. If ever I can help you out, just call upon me."

"Aw, no, you guided us out of town. I'm calling us even on that," I protested.

"Suit yourself. Maybe we'll bump into one another at a later time, hm?" Deft Stroke chuckled. "Pearl, Forsythia, Hammer Hoof, it's been a pleasure. Stay out of trouble, big bro."

Hammer Hoof turned to Deft Stroke and opened his mouth, probably to tell Crook just who the one of us four was who was more likely to get into trouble, but the Unicorn took a step sideways into the crowd of ponies walking past us and disappeared from sight.

"Oh wow, he pulled a Batman," I gasped.

"A what?" Forsythia wondered, looking down at me.

"Never mind... let's go find your cart," I answered. "It's in the merchant's quarter, so if we make our way over to that bar we escaped through, we should be able to find our way back to it."

Chapter 43

Forsythia, Hammer Hoof, and myself made our way through the busy Canterlot streets and I realised just how much it was like any crowded city back home on Earth.

Ponies were just going back and forth with their own goals in mind, going into stores or coming out of them without much regard for the ponies already passing by.

The masses were faceless to one another, all of them far more involved with their own lives than that of others.

The show had emphasized knowing everypony, making friends with them, and a general sense of belonging to a larger whole.

If not for your own sense of being a part of pony society, than at least to keep the Windigos at bay. That was what Hearth's Warming Eve was all about after all.

Considering the way ponies were pushing past others on the streets, largely ignoring one another, I realised us Changelings had a much stronger sense of belonging to the greater family spread throughout Equestria.

We were somewhat forced to rely on one another while here behind enemy lines, so to speak. If we recognized one another it was up to each of us to keep from revealing that knowledge to the ponies around us.

If any of us were seen for what we were inside, the ponies would instantly respond with fear and violence.

The ponies did not have this latent fear in them while walking through their own cities.

The main difference between Canterlot and my local big city was that there were no cars. No motorcycles. The sounds of the city were far calmer as a result.

Forsythia led us into a back alley, taking us out of the crowded streets and into the alleyways behind the stores of the merchant quarter.

I tried to recall the night we moved from Camellia's house to the cart storage.

"Hammer, do you remember what path we took the other night?" I wondered.

"Vaguely," he replied. "I know we did pass by here. Was it further up to the right?"

"I think a left first, then a right," I corrected him. "We went by the back of that bar we were in earlier."

"What bar?" Forsythia asked, not having been part of our group.

"It looked like it had not been opened for a long while; dust on the ground and bar," I recalled. "The chairs were set up on the tables, but it was still well-stocked. We drank some water there since we were parched."

I frowned at remembering that. "Oh, I do need to know what the name of the place was anyway, because I need to send them some money to pay for the waters we drank."

"Why?" Hammer Hoof asked. "Why draw attention to yourself like that?"

"It's the right thing to do. Look, I was sent here for supposedly breaking the law, okay? I feel like I need to do right this time: Follow the rules, so far as that's possible," I explained. "Not like it's been made easy, given what all happened..."

"I feel like I'm missing something," Forsythia realised.

"Well, I told you I was from a different world. I was arrested there for sharing copyrighted material with others. Basically sharing copies of things others had made, which they wanted to be paid money for," I explained briefly.

"I'm sure the arrest was genuine; I did do that," I considered. "However small my crime might have been on the grand scale of things, I was facing jailtime for it. But our siblings on my world interfered with the process and sent me here to become part of the family instead."

"Let's keep our voices down on that," Hammer Hoof grumbled.

"I think I'm starting to see why you're so driven, Pearl," Forsythia spoke softly. "There's something about you that feels different from the rest of us. From the other Hatchlings, in so far I encountered them. You've got an energy, a force, behind your reasoning. I just didn't know what it was until now. It makes more sense to me now you told me what you experienced."

"Right, well... I can't really do much else but try to live my life here and do better than I did back home. Paying for those drinks is only a small part of that," I reiterated.

"I think I know what bar you're talking about," Forsythia chuckled. "It's The Stumble Inn. They have been closed since last season."

"Closed?" I repeated. "Do you know what happened?"

"I didn't look into it, honestly. If I find Aly again, I'll see if I can find out more about it, alright? I'll clear your tab with the place if they open again, Pearl. Just live your life and bring back to the family what you can and consider it taken care of," Forsythia decided.

"I can't accept that," I sighed. "Everyone in the family seems to suddenly be indebted to me and I don't know what I did to deserve that."

"Not everyone, don't worry about that," Forsythia pointed out. "Just consider that all of us who were down in there when you came to break us out will remember that for a while. Now, since your debt with the bar is taken care of, where do we go to find my cart?"

"I think it's past the bar, then through to a large building which was as big as four homes placed together. There were a large of carts in there. Applejack had us enter through a side door," I remembered. "Should not be too far away from the bar?"

"A left, a right, and then straight on? That would be just three blocks away from the market then," she considered, turning to lead the way again. "I never store my cart here. Aly always waits for me back home, so I made sure to run home again the same day."

I hurried after her.

"I'm sure you'll find Aly safe and sound again, Forsythia," I told her. "You said it yourself; she would have turned this city upside-down if she knew where you were. Maybe she doesn't know. Maybe she's just at home waiting for you."

"Somehow that makes me feel even worse; she must be worried sick," Forsythia sighed out sadly.

"Not as worried as you are sounding, I'm sure," Hammer Hoof grumbled from behind us. "They keep telling me I'm a worrywart, but you're something else right now."

"Like you have anything to say on that; you kept saying you needed to return to Celery," I threw back at him. "You both care deeply for your respective mares. That's what true love is, as far as I'm concerned. You both worry about your significant other and want to get back to them as soon as possible."

"I guess," Hammer Hoof returned. "Celery Stalk wouldn't burn Canterlot down if I'm a few days late on returning. I just want her to not worry about where I might have disappeared off to."

"Sweet Alyssum would only do it if she thought something had happened to me," Forsythia cast back, a strange smile on her lips. "She's overly protective of me."

"I have to ask, but did she become like that since... you know?" I asked, motioning my head in the direction of her back.

My sister's facial expression fell, and she gave a somber nod.

"Yeah. She was there. She had to step in," she spoke without revealing too much about what exactly had happened.

"I can see why she would be worried, then," I just stated, giving her the option of leaving it at that. "A shared trauma like that is something which can leave a lasting mark on any relationship."

Forsythia turned us into the next alleyway on our road to the cart storage building.

"I was young and dumb, harvesting flowers in the Everfree Forest. I should have noticed the signs of the Timberwolves encroaching upon me, but I was too focused on my task," Forsythia sighed, lost in a sudden flashback. "They had me pinned down before I realised what happened."

We turned another corner while Forsythia seemed to need to let this story out. I just made sure to keep my ears perked up and stay beside her, listening to her.

"Aly came in blasting magic, spitting resin, and with her hooves flying in all directions to punch the beasts," she continued with some admiration to her mare's fighting prowess. "I managed to get back on my own four legs in the chaos and we managed to hold our own until they retreated."

"Did you have a relationship before that?" I wondered.

"No more than the relationship I have with you, or Hammer Hoof back there. We knew of one another, we lived in the same town, but that was about it. It's not like we were from the same batch or anything," she answered with a snort. "No, it wasn't until after that that we got into some deeper conversations and spent more time together."

We made another turn and I spotted the large warehouse in the distance.

"Oh, that's the building up ahead," I pointed out.

Forsythia smiled weakly at that. "I really just want to confirm the cart is in there and then take the next train to Ponyville. I'm so lost as to where Aly might be right now."

"I get you," I spoke empathically. "Once we're done here, we're taking the first train to Hoofton ourselves."

"For what it's worth, I hope your Celery Stalk is doing fine as well, Hammer Hoof," my sister suggested.

"Thanks," Hammer Hoof responded.

"We came in through this side door here," I offered up, taking the lead into the building.

Now Celestia's sun was shining brightly overhead, I had half expected the place to be full of merchants taking their carts out, placing new ones in storage, but it was as empty as it had been the night before.

"What does your cart look like, Forsythia?" I wondered as we all filed in.

"It's a deep pullcart with a tarp over it," my sister answered. "There's a bouquet of flowers painted on each side."

"Let's spread out," Hammer Hoof opted. "We can find it easier if we each go a different way."

"Sounds good," I agreed.

We all went in a different direction, going from cart to cart in an effort to find the one Forsythia had pointed out.

The light of the sun shone down through the small windows placed high on the walls, making it easier for me to find my way through the large space than when we were looking for the Apple family's cart during the long night before.

I once again looked upon the many different carts in wonder. There were push and pull carts. Carts with two wheels or four. Carts which were flat bottomed or those deep enough for me to hide in if I needed to again.

Some had been in storage for longer than the others; dust buildup on them showing they had not seen use for years.

There was a movement in my peripheral vision and I spun around, but there was nothing but dust drifting through the beams of light coming in through the windows.

"Hammer? Did you follow me?" I called out.

Oval's masculine voice called out from further down the hall. "No? I don't even know where you are right now."

"Forsythia?" I tried.

"No, you sound far away," she called back.

Movement again, this time right in front of me. A Changeling peering around one of the larger carts with four wheels.

"Did you just say... Forsythia?" she asked carefully.

I gave a careful glance around to make sure there weren't any ponies around.

"You're among friends, sister," I spoke in a soft voice. "What's your name? How long have you been hiding here?"

"Sister?" the Changeling repeated, her head fin rising slowly.

"Sister??" she spat as if the word gave her a bad taste.

She was clearly getting riled up, and was now drawing away from her hiding spot and started to approach me.

I remembered my training in the Hive; she was setting up for an attack.

Not knowing what else to do, I dropped my guise.

The other froze on the spot and her head fin dropped down instantly.

"Oh, shit, I'm so sorry," she quickly apologised, now realising she was not facing off against a pony. "I'm so on edge... the city has gone mad, I swear."

"I had noticed," I answered her dryly, closing the distance between us so we didn't have to speak too loud to hear one another.

"My name is Pearl," I introduced myself. "I've only been here in Equestria for a few months now, as you can probably tell from my lack of holes."

"Hah, yeah," my sister answered with a careful chuckle. "I'm Sweet Alyssum. What's the state of the world out there?"

I slapped my right forehoof to my face, and winced from the pain.

"Forsythia!" I called out loudly, startling my sister. "Aly's here."

"What?" Forsythia called out from further in the space.

"Aly. Is. Here," I enunciated.

"You've got to be kidding me!" Forsythia shouted back, and I could hear fast hooffalls coming our way.

Aly looked absolutely shocked. "No way..."

"Yeah, she's been looking for you all around town ever since we escaped," I revealed, even as Forsythia skidded into view.

"Aly!" she decried, dropping her guise.

Sweet Alyssum's bug eyes filled with moisture and she ran up to the larger Changeling while shouting "Tia!"

The pair of them embraced one another and locked lips, unhindered by the fangs we all sported.

They briefly became one in their deep embrace; their love for one another radiating from them both.

It did not feed me the way that the love from the ponies did, but it touched upon my heart nonetheless.

I idly wiped away the moisture welling up in my own eyes watching the pair.

Chapter 44

I was still watching Sweet Alyssum and Forsythia drown in each others' presence when Hammer Hoof walked up on us all.

He smirked lightly at the sight before him before sitting down beside me to my right.

"I take it that's Aly, then?" he remarked dryly.

I nodded while smiling broadly.

"And you three are all showing yourselves because..." Hammer pressed.

"Oh, well, Sweet Alyssum was preparing to attack me as an Earthpony, so I thought she would be put at ease seeing I was not one," I reasoned.

"And she's not in a disguise because?" Hammer continued.

"Oh shut up," Forsythia groaned at Hammer Hoof, then pulled away from and stared down at her mare. "Aly, why were you hiding away here? I was so worried you were going to do something rash when I couldn't come home."

"I was sure you would have razed half the city looking for me, my sweet," Forsythia cooed. "You have always been too protective of me."

"I tried, but then I saw someone else get chased down by a group of twenty guards, which resulted in them getting knocked unconscious and dragged away, and thought the better of it," Sweet Alyssum spoke up.

"I mean, I can handle a good couple without them getting the better of me, but twenty is too much even for me," she explained.

"Sounds like you spotted Crook get dragged off to jail then," Hammer Hoof realised. "He evaded the guards a couple of times before they finally got to him."

"How long have you been hiding in here for? We were in here just last night together with a couple of ponies; Princess Twilight Sparkle, Applejack, Camellia, and Meadowsweet. Were you in this building then as well?" I wondered.

Aly broke away from Forsythia but still leaned into her.

"I was trailing behind as I spotted you all walking down the road, but I didn't dare reveal myself to the princess or Applejack. They don't know we're Changelings, and I'd prefer to keep it that way," Sweet Alyssum pointed out. "Our lives in Ponyville would get a whole lot more complicated if they found out."

"You know the princess is aware of us, right? She considers a brother of ours called Thorax to be her friend, and our sister Moonshine is studying pony magic in her palace," I revealed to the pair.

"And Camellia and Meadowsweet now know that we're Changelings," Forsythia added. "It was inevitable; they broke us out of the jail."

Sweet Alyssum shook her head at that. "I can't comprehend why the ponies would go through such lengths for us."

I focused on my disguise again and let my magic wash over me. "You should come with us to Camellia's house. We wanted to see her next, so you can ask her directly why she would stick her hoof out for us."

Aly let her own magic wash over her, and she soon stood as a cream coloured Unicorn with an orchid coloured mane and tail, her eyes a lighter pink still. Her cutiemark was a bundle of flowers laid out on an open sheet of paper.

Forsythia took on her Earthpony guise as well, and the four of us stared between one another a moment.

"I do still want to know what happened to our cart," Forsythia suggested calmly.

"It's in the corner near the entrance," Sweet Alyssum knew.

"I'll have you know, the way Forsythia spoke about you I thought you were more hotheaded like my clutchsister Blaze," I chuckled. "You're far calmer than I had imagined. And I like your disguise; you look cute as a Unicorn."

Aly smirked at that. "Thanks, Hatchling."

Forsythia gave her partner a friendly bop with her hoof. "That's Pearl, and she's so much more than she appears. I owe my freedom to her, and so do about a hundred of our family who were down there with me."

"I thought you said it was Camellia who was responsible?" Aly queried.

"I'm fine sharing the blame with her, really. Let's say it was Camellia doing the legwork; I've been pushed up on a pedestal enough already," I offered. "I really did nothing special."

"Which one of us got invited to visit a pony princess again?" Hammer Hoof / Burst pointed out. "We're not talking about any of this in front of my mare when we get to Hoofton. I'm going to have a hard enough time seeing you as my ward given you're running faster than I can follow on some of these things."

"Okay, well, as long as the cart is fine and my Aly is fine, I'm fine," Forsythia decided. "Do you want to walk home with the cart today or take the train home, Aly?"

"If we could take the train? I've been up all night and most of the day since the sun came up. I'm barely able to form coherent thoughts right now," Sweet Alyssum responded. "Tell me if I'm not making sense, will you Tia?"

"You're still making sense, my love," Forsythia spoke softly, leaning in to peck a kiss on the other's lips.

"In that case we really should go to Camellia's house. Burst and I stayed there for a few days and she even made space in one of the rooms for us to have a makeshift cocoon for me to heal in after I sprained my foreleg a second time," I suggested.

There was a double blink from the pair before me.

"She didn't tell me that back in the jail," Forsythia breathed out. "I think I'm going to have to have that long chat with her sooner rather than later."

"No time like the present, then," I pressed.

"Fine, let's see the pony," Aly agreed.

"Out the same way we came in, then?" Hammer Hoof realised. "Let's get going."

We all filed out of the side door to the warehouse again and made our way through the back alleys in the merchant's quarter again.

Aly and Forsythia walked side-by-side, barrel-to-barrel, leaning into one another as they walked. It was cute to see the smaller Unicorn lean into the larger Earthpony even knowing they were my Changeling siblings.

To be entirely fair to Aly, I was feeling the long night myself. And I'd had a nap in the jail before we escaped it. I could only imagine how tired Aly must feel what with having been on edge for whatever ponies might chance upon her in her hiding place.

It didn't take long before we arrived at Camellia's house again, and I carefully knocked on the front door.

The house was quiet, dark, seemingly empty.

"Do you think she might still be talking to some guards or something?" I wondered of Hammer Hoof, who shrugged in response.

"She's a pony, I'd imagine she'll be fine after a quick checkup," Burst reasoned.

"Let me try again, maybe she's taking a nap as well," I considered, and rapped my hoof on the door again.

Now there was some stumbling from inside, and I could hear the creaking of the staircase as somepony made their way down it.

The door creaked open and Camellia looked out with sleep-deprived eyes.

"Pearl?" she recognized, her eyes then scanning over the others. "Forsythia? And two others I don't recognize."

"I guess you never saw Hammer Hoof, who you know as Burst or Oval, or Sweet Alyssum," I realised. "May we come in, please?"

"Yes, of course," Camellia agreed, opening the door more and stepping aside for us. "I told you you're always welcome here, Pearl."

We all walked into her home and sat down in her living room, with Camellia briefly scanning outside her home before closing the door again.

She walked over and I could see the wobble in her path. We definitely woke her up.

"So, all of you?" Camellia wondered, looking pointedly at Hammer Hoof. "And now I see what you meant with preferring stallions, I guess."

"Yeah, all of us. Also, guess who we found at the cart storage?" I answered her, motioning to Sweet Alyssum. "Meet Forsythia's mare Sweet Alyssum."

Camellia gave a gentle nod in Sweet Alyssum's direction. "Nice to meet you. I'm genuinely happy to see you didn't get caught by the guards; Forsythia seemed very worried about that possibility."

Aly just looked like she couldn't take Camellia's words at face value, but nodded anyway.

"What brings you all here? It's not a social visit, I take it?" Camellia wondered.

"Honestly?" I started, "This is the only safe place I know about in Canterlot and we're all very tired from the past night, which might as well have been extended by the Tantabus' effects on Luna... Forsythia and Aly would have to travel back to Ponyville, and Burst and me to Hoofton, before we could find a place to call home again. I was wondering, if we're not imposing too much, if we could all rest here so we can get our strength back for the trips ahead of us?"

Camellia blinked slowly, and then looked over the group before her.

"Well, I took Oval and you in because the city was inherently unsafe for you without your transformation magic," she started. "I must admit that took me on a path I was not ready for, but..."

"Wait, roll that back a moment?" Sweet Alyssum piped up in surprise. "You took them in while they were out of their disguises?"

"Yeah, we got hit by that anti-transformation magic while on the train into the city. We tried to find our way to safety but Camellia was right there in front of us at some point and she, just, welcomed us in," I explained quickly.

Sweet Alyssum stared hard at Camellia. "And you're not a Changeling yourself. What's going on?"

"I guess I'm the curious sort," Camellia warded off. "Spotting a pair of scared Changelings deep within Canterlot, clearly on the run from something, I had to figure out what was going on. And Pearl quickly convinced me I had made the right decision to do so."

"I did nothing but be truthful about things. I keep saying that," I protested. "A lot of the prejudices between us is because both our sides are keeping secrets from one another."

"Because it helps us to survive," Aly defended. "Not telling the ponies who we are helps us to blend in with them."

"Right," I agreed, looking past Forsythia at Aly directly. "And yet, you constantly fear being detected by them. You constantly fear having to wage war with them because either our Queen or the pony Princesses decide enough is enough and force the issue. This is something I found in all of our family. I can't constantly live in fear. I need to solve this misunderstanding that exist between us."

"If you can't constantly live in fear, you were born into the wrong family, Hatchling," Aly scoffed.

Camellia took a step closer to Sweet Alyssum and shook her head.

"No, Pearl is right. We Ponies are constantly afraid of another attack upon our towns by you Changelings, spreading stories about how devastating it would be. How we would get abducted and bled dry by you. How our empire would fall if only we let you overpower us," she stated. "When Oval and Pearl explained to me that that fear is unfounded, that a lot of you already live among us in peace, and explained how she sees our future together, I had to rethink that. I had to rethink everything I knew about you."

"The idea of a future together, in peace and harmony, does have an allure to it," Forsythia sighed out longingly. "To not have to hide who we are, but be accepted among the Ponies? I just worry about how anypony could love us for who we are. How would we feed upon them?"

"Pinkie Pie," I stated simply, knowing the pair of them living in Ponyville would have had more than a casual run-in with her. "You know how she is; she shares her love freely in order to be friends with every pony she comes across. She met Blaze, Breeze, Burst, Moonshine, and myself over in Hollow Shades and was my first feed after hatching. If we can convince the Ponyfolk in general that we don't pose as much a threat to them as they may think, more of them might come around and share their friendship with us openly. We would be feeding on that latent energy which would be all around us, instead of having to seek out individual ponies to target."

Forsythia considered that. "It is true that she's a force of nature... but to walk openly among them?"

"Oh no, you can't do that just yet," Camellia warded off. "No, you should definitely remain in disguise and only show yourselves to a small group of friends, building acceptance for you and yours over time. There's too much fear at work right now, and I am rather done with that after that whole deal with the Tantabus just now, but I know my people. If you suddenly just walk into town without a disguise on they'll go off in a blind panic."

"And that's what I keep saying," Oval spoke, dropping her disguise. "The time spent with you and Meadowsweet to just convince you both that we won't bite you with our fangs; Pearl tried so hard, and I did my best to just sit around in the background not looking too threatening myself. But the fear is there that you would betray us at any moment. That guards might rush in. When they were at the door that one moment and Pearl and me were hiding in the kitchen, I thought that was it for us both."

"No, no... No, I couldn't betray my houseguests, no matter who or what they are," Camellia shook her head definitively. "All of you are safe here while you're under my roof. Please feel free to rest here for a few hours, Pearl and Oval know the room I had set up for you so you can do that... resin stuff, if you need to. If you can maintain your disguises while sleeping I can also offer you the couch here in the living room. I think we all need to get some rest in and think things over. I'm having trouble following the discussion as it is, and I'd much rather come at it with a clear head."

"You're a true friend, Camellia, thank you," I voiced as my concerns bled away.

"Sleep honestly sounds nice," Sweet Alyssum agreed. "I'll have to trust you to be genuine, then."

"Please do. I'll try my hardest to not betray that trust," Camellia spoke to her, a warm smile on her lips.

Chapter 45

Oval and I moved up to the room upstairs, following behind Camellia who retreated to her own bedroom, but Forsythia and Sweet Alyssum opted to remain in the living room.

I was sure the decision had nothing to do with Aly needing a way to escape quickly in case something went wrong, given the lingering distrust of Camellia and Ponies in general when it concerned knowing about us Changelings and acting in good faith.

It was going to be a long road for both of our races to come together, but I was hopeful seeing the progress individuals on either side were making when confronted with the facts.

Oval and I spat our soft resin to the floor, and the stuff somewhat melded together into one bigger bed than the individual ones we had been going for.

I trusted Oval, and she had come to see me in a whole new light in the past days, so we ended up as our Changeling selves cuddled up to one another as we fell asleep.

Celestia's sun had lowered itself beyond the horizon and Luna's moon was already descending down the same way when I woke up and found Oval missing.

I groggily pushed up from the resin bed and wandered to the upstairs landing, only to hear voices drifting up from downstairs.

"...she can so easily trust them." one voice uttered, in clear dissatisfaction.

"Something to do with a 'show' from her world, she says," another voice replied. "Even as a Hatchling she just implicitly trusts them to not betray her. She bares her all to them and... somehow it has worked out so far."

"You know that's not going to continue. Not all of these ponies are as trustworthy as Camellia or Pinkie Pie," a third voice opted. "Are you going to be there for her when the inevitable happens?"

"Why do I have to be the one doing damage control?" the voice which obviously belonged to Oval protested.

"Because you decided to take her in as your ward," one of the others pointed out. "Pearl has been chatting up going to Hoofton with you, so she's obviously going to have to fit in with the life you have built up there somehow. No matter what she was before, she's too young for our world. She's going to make mistakes. You're going to need to be a responsible parent to her."

I considered that voice to be Forsythia's. She had heard a few more things about me than Sweet Alyssum.

"I can't be a parent to her, Celery would have my hide if I suddenly came to her with a daughter from a different relationship. I thought to introduce her as a younger cousin, needing a place to stay at while her own parents work some things out," Oval explained.

"While that might be a good way to explain things to your mare, you're still going to have to take responsibility for Pearl's actions. You're basically going to be her surrogate dad while she stays with you, especially with that kind of a backstory," Forsythia pointed out. "How did you not consider that?"

"Blaze did suggest I was taking on more than I could chew, but I couldn't very well send Pearl off into the world on her own, could I?" Burst sighed out.

"No, you can't," the third voice agreed. "But you know as well as I that some ponies are not to be trusted. They're going to take that innocence of her and spin it around to hurt her and whoever else of us they can rope into their plans. You need to be ready for the fallout."

"If you can't promise us that much, I've got half a mind to abduct her to Ponyville and have her stay with us," Forsythia threatened.

There was a brief silence.

"Please don't take this the wrong way, but I can't let you do that," Oval finally voiced. "You're right; I need to be more responsible for her. But I have been overwhelmed by all that Pearl could do in as short amount of time as we have spent here in the city. She opened doors I didn't even know were there. She was knocked out after falling down the stairs here and I spent hours talking with Camellia and her friend Meadowsweet while worrying about whether Pearl was healing up in my shoddy resin. I'm not a Matron, but I did my best."

"See, that's something a dad would say," Sweet Alyssum pointed out. "You're already partway there; thinking about Pearl while she's asleep. Now you need to consider the damages she can do while awake, and try to get ahead of those."

I shook my head at what all I heard, and turned back to the room to lay down again only to notice Camellia's bedroom was cracked open slightly and she was peering out through that crack at me.

Noting that I had noticed her, she opened her door more and tilted her head lightly.

"Are you okay, Pearl?" she wondered in a whisper, trying to not inform the ones downstairs that we both were awake.

I shrugged at that.

"I don't know. There are some things about my life here which I still have to get used to," I returned in as much of a whisper.

"Like basically getting adopted into another's family, if I heard that right?" the Unicorn realised. "Come, join me in my room. Let's talk as well, just the both of us."

It felt weird to be trusted enough by Camellia to be allowed into her bedroom, but I followed her in as she opened the door more for me.

Camellia's room was just a bedroom as any other, with a dresser and a desk with a mirror above it, the latter at which she obviously applied her makeup. It was covered in bottles of perfume, assorted items for applying makeup, and a few hairbrushes on it in different sizes as well.

A comfortable bed stood opposite this makeup table, in front of the window which had the curtains drawn. It had a few more pillows on it than she had heads, but one of them had a clear dent on it as if she had rested on it recently.

She clambered up on her bed and motioned past me. "Close the door so they don't hear us downstairs, will you?"

I did as instructed, then approached where she had lain down on her bed and noticed she had scooted off to one side of it.

She gently patted the empty side of the bed with her right forehoof. "Please, join me and let me tell you something about myself, Pearl. I think it's high time I lay my own cards out open on the table."

I felt a shiver go down my back at those words, wondering just what was to come next. "Are you sure? Maybe I should first turn into an Earthpony?"

"Whatever makes you more comfortable, Pearl. I have become fairly used to your appearance in this past week. It doesn't bother me as much as it did when we first met," the Unicorn suggested.

I opted to remain my Changeling self and joined her on the bed, facing her.

"I guess what you want to tell me is something you'd rather not have Oval overhear?" I queried, and she gave me a nod in return.

"I'm not so sure he would get it," she answered, expressly using the male pronoun there. "He's so much a guy in all of his mannerisms, that really messed with me when I first met you two. It was only after you both explained how she is usually a stallion that it started to make sense. Seeing him yesterday as you walked back into my house, it made so much more sense than seeing that feminine Changeling form of his."

"I know, right?" I agreed. "I do still call her my sister, and she's fine with that, but it's when she takes on those stallion guises that she just looks like she's who she wants to be."

"It's like she's just pretending when she's out of her disguise," Camellia noted. "I'm sure he would feel a lot happier if I just kept treating him like a guy."

"Perhaps," I agreed. "For what it's worth, I used to be one... before I became a Changeling. I'm not sure I could be one again after all this."

"But you don't feel like a stallion to me. You don't act like one. You're very direct about what it is you're trying to accomplish, sure, but I know other mares like me who are like that. That's not bound to your gender," she pointed out.

"I wouldn't have invited you into my room if I had thought you were a guy," she finished, and I felt my cheeks start to flush.

"I guess I'm just so much more used to this now," I mumbled, not knowing what else to say about it.

I recovered and stared up at her. "So what was it you wanted to say?"

"I overheard the conversation going on downstairs. They're worried about you, and rightfully so. We both took a chance when you followed me into my home that day," Camellia spoke. "Not every pony would have allowed you into their home. Some would have called for the guards. If it had just been Oval, I would've done so myself. Others would have turned that chance meeting into a fight."

"I know," I spoke in return. "I can't thank you enough for taking that chance on us."

"What I'm saying is; you need to be more careful just putting your trust in everypony, Pearl," she warned me. "I have had a few bad relationships in my own past; some boyfriends who turned out to be the wrong ones for me. They hide it well, behind a masque of kindness. Not unlike how you Changelings take on a different look, but more insidious because they don't actually change their appearance."

I frowned at the thought. Pony society had its predators just like in human society, then.

"If you're going to be posing as a young Earthpony mare, as you seem to be planning, you need to know how to spot those who just want to take advantage of you. We ponies learn it as we grow up. We get taught by our dams and grandmares when we're just young foals," the Unicorn continued. "We don't always heed that advice, but they do their best to prepare us for the eager young bucks and elder stallions who are just looking for an innocent filly to take advantage of."

"Not too different from back on my world then," I sighed. "Toxic masculinity is a thing we unfortunately also have to deal with over there."

"Toxic masculinity?" Camellia tasted the term. "Yeah, I guess that's one way to describe it... There's some peer pressure involved, I'm sure, but you'd think they would know they're doing something that's just not right?"

"You would be surprised how easy it is to shut off your brain and just go with the flow your friends decide you should go with," I knew. "When it's normalised that guys look at girls as prey animals, then it's hard to break through that. Like how you fear us Changelings, and we fear you Ponies. How do we break that circle as individuals?"

"Right, you get it," Camellia agreed. "Just don't get taken for a ride, Pearl. I said it before; you're always welcome here. You'll always have a safe haven here, especially if something of the sorts ends up happening."

I smiled up weakly in her direction. "I appreciate the offer. You really do show you care."

"Of course I care," she offered back, giving me a gentle nudge with her hoof to the side of my barrel. "You're a special kind of person, Pearl. You heard what they said downstairs; Forsythia and Sweet Alyssum care as much about your safety as I do. For the same reason; you're not from this world. You don't know our ways. Knowing you were originally a guy where you came from, what do you know of how they behave? How can you protect yourself against their advances?"

I looked down at the bed. "Well, I mean, there's certain behaviours that... Some macho behaviour which I'm sure I could deflect..."

"You're a Changeling, you've got magic which a normal Earthpony filly wouldn't have. This is something you should consider using if you absolutely need to," Camellia pushed. "I don't know how that whole transforming thing works exactly, but you can take on new disguises, right? You should be ready to do so if you need to escape from somepony who just doesn't get that you're not interested."

The way she acted, the things she said, it just drove home the notion that I was now on the side of the 'weaker sex', as they described it back home. The hunted, not the hunter. The girl who needed to keep watch that her drink wouldn't get spiked rather than the guy just hanging with his mates with not a care in the world.

I swallowed as my mind started to go through all the situations I knew from my past where I had tried to get with a girl, or had been with friends who had wanted to get with them. Just approaching them because they looked pretty, even if they weren't actually flirting with me.

It suddenly hit me that I had disrupted girls just wanting to spend some time out with their friends just the same as I was out with mine. I had intruded upon their conversations. I had probably made them feel utterly uncomfortable as I had been sizing them up like a piece of meat.

Something about the face I was making made Camellia reach out and gently pat my shoulder.

"So, about that thing I was going to tell you," she spoke softly, drawing me out of my ponderings. "I have a daughter somewhere out there. I put her up for adoption when she was born, because she reminded me of a dark moment in my life. A bad night with a bad jock."

I stared at her, dumbstruck. She had been leading up to this; talking about stallions taking advantage, but I had not put two and two together until now.

"It's something I don't open up about to just anypony, but I need you to know this. It can happen that quickly; just one night of not paying enough attention. Of going home with the wrong guy," Camellia whispered to me. "That's what hangs over all of our heads. Her father doesn't have that hanging over his; he just wanders about town without a care. He wasn't the one who got pregnant; he didn't have to deal with the birth. He doesn't even know she exists."

There it was. The difference between guys and girls. The guys would just have a moment of fun and then go on to do something else, but the girls were stuck for nine months or longer, dealing with the aftermath.

How long were pony pregnancies? No, don't get distracted now.

I noticed Camellia was intently watching my expressions, and I honestly didn't know what kind of a face I must have been making.

I used my transformation magic to change into my Earthpony guise and smirked at her. "I might look like an Earthpony when I do this, and for all intents and purposes are one while I look the part, except for that one problem. I would not be able to get pregnant."

Camellia looked away. "Wish that had been the case for me. I'm a terrible mother. I prefer tending to my plants."

"It's fine, Camellia. Not everypony is ready to be a mother," I told her calmly. "You made the decision to carry that child to term and give her a life out there in the world. Some people back home would have terminated the pregnancy the moment they knew about it."

"You gave her up for adoption, giving her a life. A chance to become somepony great. She'll have your genes, so I'm sure she'll end up becoming a wonderful mare in her own right," I decided to tag on a compliment.

"I appreciate that, coming from you," Camellia sighed out. "You see where I'm coming from, though? I don't know how much help Oval is going to be in this department. If you need another mare to talk with about these sorts of things, you know where I live."

She genuinely cared, and I gave her a thankful nod.

"I do, and I can't tell you how much it means to me to have somepony like yourself who decided to take this chance on me. Meadowsweet and you both have been nothing but great friends while we were stuck here in Canterlot, and I appreciate it," I returned.

"Oh! Right, what happened with Meadowsweet??" Camellia suddenly decried, a bit louder than I wanted her to.

"She's fine; she's with Tizzy," I quickly quelled any worries the Unicorn might have had. "The both of them have promised to keep one another safe; Tizzy will vouch for Meadowsweet's safety while she's out with my family of Changelings, and Meadowsweet has promised to keep Tizzy safe while she's among you Ponies."

I could hear hooffalls on the stairs.

"I think your outcry might have clued them in that we're awake," I chuckled.

Chapter 46

Of course it was Burst coming up to check up on us, or me in particular, and it was clear where she first thought to check for me by her surprised outcry.

"Pearl? Wait, where did you go off to?" my clutchsister called out in that baritone of her stallion disguise.

I had to shake my head at her confusion and smiled at Camellia.

"I should probably go to her before she gets too concerned," I suggested.

"Just keep in mind what I told you, Pearl. He's probably not the right pony to explain things like this to you," Camellia warned.

I rolled off her bed and gave her a nod.

"I'll be sure to watch my step, Camellia. Thank you, again, for caring so much about me. You're a good friend and this, what we discussed right now, won't leave this room. You have my promise," I spoke to her, noting she seemed somewhat more at ease at my last statement.

I then turned for the door and opened it with my mouth given I was an Earthpony, finding Oval out on the landing as expected.

"Pearl!" he decried, "You had me worried there for a moment, what were you doing in Camellia's bedroom?"

"Oh, girl stuff," I offered with a smile and a shrug. "You wouldn't be interested in that sort of thing, Hammer."

Burst scrunched up his nose at my dismissive words.

"Oh, har-har. Here I thought you were abducted from our midst or something," he threw back.

"I was literally one room over from where you last saw me," I pointed out, motioning behind me and spotting Camellia walking up to us.

"Where would she be abducted off to?" the Unicorn wondered. "You two have been championing this idea that we should all coexist, don't tell me you're getting cold hooves on that now?"

"That's not what I meant," Hammer Hoof protested, then shook his head. "Well, since you both are awake, maybe you want to come downstairs as well? Forsythia and Sweet Alyssum are planning to leave with the first light since they have to haul their cart back to Ponyville."

"Oh, that makes sense, actually. It is somewhat of a walk if they don't take the train," Camellia realised. "I should prepare us all some breakfast, excuse me Pearl?"

I stepped aside to let Camellia squeeze past me and watched her quickly descend down the staircase. I reflected on how she said she wasn't a good mother, but here she was thinking about making breakfast before her guests left.

And she had taken care of Oval and me for the past week on top of that. I was sure she would have done fine raising a child, even without the father in the picture.

Hammer Hoof stared at me.

"So, girl stuff?" he prodded.

"Yep," I agreed, then walked down the stairs as well.

"Hey, no, I... damn it," Oval called out from behind me as I just walked away from him.

I heard him following behind me as I got to the bottom of the stairs and walked into the living room.

Forsythia and Sweet Alyssum were both seated on the couch, snuggled up against one another. I reflected on how much smaller Sweet Alyssum's Unicorn form looked compared to the sturdy Earthpony form of her mare.

She was supposedly the more fiery one of the two, but in a small package, while Forsythia was more of a gentle giant.

"Morning," I spoke to them, and sat down at the coffeetable.

Applejack had just about just all the apples Camellia had in the house to make her pies with the other day, but I was kind of craving one right now.

"Good morning Pearl," Forsythia spoke warmly. "How did you sleep?"

"Well enough, thank you for asking. How about you both?" I inquired as Hammer Hoof dropped his rump down on my left side and side-eyed me.

"I definitely needed that, thank you for showing me some ponies can be trusted," Sweet Alyssum replied.

"Well, Camellia is just that special," I chuckled, remembering what I had overheard. "I wouldn't just trust anypony, but she has proven herself to be a good friend to us."

"Ah? You wouldn't just trust anypony?" Aly pressed. "From what Burst and Forsythia have told me you've just about trusted everypony you've come across since Hatching."

There was a snide undertone to her words. She was clearly calling me out on this.

"To be entirely fair, the ponies I have encountered so far have all been ones I knew to be trustworthy, with the exception of Meadowsweet who was brought into the loop by Camellia while I was asleep, and our jailer," I pointed out.

"I had no option but to trust Camellia when she came across us out in the streets," I continued while staring straight at Aly. "She took us in without having needed to; on her own initiative, I might add. And it was fortunate that I could convince Deadbolt or we would have still been locked up down there. I wouldn't have just trusted him had I met him out in the streets or anything, but I had no choice."

There was a tense moment of Sweet Alyssum just staring me down as I looked right back at her, but then her expression softened.

"Well, don't make a habit of it," she huffed.

Forsythia leaned her head down to peck a kiss on top of her mare's head.

"We worry too much, I'm sure. A lot can go wrong in a short span of time, so we just want to make sure you're aware of the risks before leaving you," she offered in a kind tone.

"Yes, I heard you were planning on leaving with the first light?" I brought up.

"It's a bit of a walk down to Ponyville. If I didn't have to bring our cart back home with us, we would have taken the train so we could have left at a later time," Forsythia explained.

"How much of a difference would it be?" I wondered, having seen Ponyville off in the distance while escaping Canterlot.

"It's about two, two-and-a-half hours walk depending on whether Aly can keep up with me. It's twenty minutes by train," Forsythia explained.

"That's a big difference. Would a Pegasus fly the distance faster?" I considered.

"Well, yeah, but do you see a Pegasus among us?" Aly scoffed. "I'm the only Unicorn among you three Earthponies."

"I guess I don't count?" Camellia wondered as she walked in with a tray of sandwiches held in the air by her magic.

"You're a true Unicorn, not a Changeling," Aly mumbled. "I didn't consider it important to note you are what you are."

"Well, in that case I'm the only Pony among you four Changelings," Camellia turned the conversation on Aly. "Sandwiches anyone?"

She lowered the tray down to the coffee table and sat down near us.

"Well, yes, but," Aly started, only to get shushed by Forsythia.

"Breakfast does sound lovely, thank you for being so kind as to prepare it for us Mel," she spoke with a smile aimed at our host.

"Least I could do to send you and your mare off properly," the Unicorn replied with as much of a smile. "I'm sure I didn't get a chance to say it yesterday because we were all dead on our hooves, but I'm glad to finally meet you Aly. May I call you Aly? Syth here has been praising you into the clouds every time we talked out on the market."

"Huh, yeah, Aly is fine," Sweet Alyssum replied, using her magic to hover a couple of sandwiches over to Forsythia and herself. "She doesn't talk about you ponies in Canterlot half as much when back home."

Forsythia shrugged at that.

"You weren't interested unless it had to do with how many sales I made that day," she pointed out before taking a bite out of the sandwich floating in front of her.

"There's that to consider," I brought up, watching Hammer Hoof beside me grab a sandwich as well.

"What's that Pearl?" Camellia wondered.

"I'm saying that our races haven't come together over the past years because of a lack of interest to: We were forced to come together as a group to overcome the situation we were in, but would we have sought one another out if there hadn't been some dark force holding the city hostage?" I explained my reasoning.

"Would we have sought out allies on the other side of the proverbial fence if we didn't have to reveal ourselves? I mean that in both ways; would a Unicorn like Camellia have sought out our Hive without fearing for her life? Would any of us have just revealed ourselves to her and gone Hey, I'm a Changeling, let's talk?" I listed, looking at Sweet Alyssum in particular.

"We can't very well build bridges to start trusting one another if nopony puts their first hoof forward," I concluded, then finally reached for a nearby sandwich and pulled it toward myself with my front teeth.

"That's fair to say," Forsythia agreed. "I know Aly and me would have never shown our true selves if we'd had the choice."

"Right," Burst agreed. "The same goes for me. I would have happily lived my life in Hoofton without anypony finding out about me. At least, anypony other than Pinkie Pie and Starlight Glimmer."

"When did you meet Pinkie Pie and Starlight Glimmer?" Aly wondered, genuinely surprised.

"Half a year ago, back in Hollow Shades," he answered. "Blaze, Breeze, Pearl, and myself were visiting the spa there to..."

"Of course Pearl was there," Sweet Alyssum groaned, dipping her head down.

As she did, the sandwiches she was holding onto with her magic similarily dipped down a bit just as Forsythia tried to take another bite from her sandwich, making the Earthpony bite down on empty air.

"Hey, my sandwich," she protested weakly. It was too cute of a moment.

"That's what I've been saying for the past few days; there's something about Pearl," Burst grumbled.

"I'm pretty sure Princess Twilight Sparkle agrees with you on that, but it's not like I'm doing anything on purpose. I was sent here against my will, and have mostly just been going through the motions trying to find my place here in this world of yours," I complained. "Not my fault that we bumped into two problematic situations in a year's time."

"Half a year, Pearl," Hammer Hoof corrected me. "You landed in the middle of our Queen building up to another invasion, which you helped to stop in the first few days after your Hatching, and..."

"No, stop, don't tell me she was responsible for that as well?" Sweet Alyssum interjected.

"Not directly, no," I warded off. "Pinkie Pie and Starlight Glimmer did most of it."

"Oh, so that was where they went off to together back then," Forsythia realised. "I had seen them board the train in Ponyville and thought it was weird to see the both of them together like that."

Camellia's head turned from left to right, to left, to right, trying to look at each of us in turn as we spoke.

"As I said; they found us in the spa in Hollow Shades," Hammer Hoof reiterated. "They came off the train we used as a cover."

"You hijack trains more often, then?" Camellia wondered, seeing an opportunity to join in the conversation.

"Well, no, not hijack necessarily," Hammer protested. "Mostly we get near to a station and then board it before it leaves, or we pretend we just arrived with one and disappear into the crowds."

"Yeah, we don't usually stop the train in the middle of a field. Yesterday definitely was a special case," Forsythia added before reaching for the last bite of her sandwich.

Sweet Alyssum pulled the sandwich out of Forsythia's reach, eliciting a soft whimper from the big girl, and stared up at her accusingly.

"You stopped a train?? When did that happen?" she demanded.

"Technically it was Camellia who stopped it," I clarified to get Forsythia off the hook. "Forsythia and I just boarded it once it had stopped moving. As did a whole bunch of our siblings who boarded the mail wagon at the back."

"Squeezed ourselves in, more like," Burst grumbled. "There was hardly any room for us all, but we managed to close the door before the train got going again."

Sweet Alyssum just looked at each of us in turn, then finally gave Forsythia the last bite of her sandwich.

"I'm starting to think I'm worried about the wrong thing; we shouldn't worry about what could happen to Pearl, but about what harm Pearl could do to our world," Aly voiced her concern.

Chapter 47

I tried to focus on my breakfast instead of the feeling that the world should swallow me up and hide me away so I wouldn't cause another problem to manifest around me.

"Maybe we can talk about something else for a bit, hmm?" Camellia suggested to the group, noting my discomfort.

"Sure, what do you want to talk about?" Forsythia agreed. "Those are some great sandwiches by the way. Thank you for making them."

"Yes, great sandwiches," I agreed. "What's on them?"

"They're just hay, daisies, and jackson brier, nothing special," Camellia responded.

"I swear the food here is just so much better tasting than back home, even something as simple as this," I suggested, motioning at the quickly-disappearing number of sandwiches still on the table.

"I'm glad to hear that my sandwiches are up to another world's standards," Camellia joked.

We chuckled at her joke and the conversation devolved into idle banter, every one of us trying to steer clear from the heavier subjects for a while.

I noticed even Aly had warmed up to Camellia's presence and had fallen into a more casual conversation pattern I was sure she had adopted for living in Ponyville.

Before long the light of Celestia's sun rising in the East shone into the room and the mood soured again; the time for parting was upon us.

It was decided that we would all walk over to the carriage warehouse where Forsythia would retrieve their flower cart, then we would walk as a group to the station where we would all part ways; Burst being quite eager to get on board of the first train to Hoofton now the problems were all dealt with.

Aly and Forsythia were no longer leaning as heavily into one another as the previous day, and I blamed it on the both of them just being overly tired.

We retrieved the cart and walked on over to the station together, with Forsythia expertly maneuvering the sizeable thing through the crowds which were starting to fill the streets.

It was easy to see why certain members in our group wanted to leave early.

The amount of ponies on the street just seemed to double between breaths as the city was waking up to a new day, and we soon stood outside the station with the cart as a barrier to allow us to say goodbye to one another.

"We'll be seeing you, Pearl," Forsythia offered to me. "Don't get into too much trouble over in Hoofton."

"I'll do my best," I promised.

"We'll have that chat when I come visit you in Ponyville, Syth?" Camellia remembered.

"What chat?" Sweet Alyssum wondered.

"Yes, if you ever end up actually visiting us, Mel," Forsythia countered, ignoring her mare's question for the moment.

"I'll be in Ponyville about five or six months from now to visit Pinkie Pie, and princess Twilight Sparkle, so maybe I'll see you there too then?" I wondered, "Could be a nice reunion?"

"Oh no, don't tell me Pinkie Pie is going to throw you a party?" Sweet Alyssum groaned. "I can't keep up with her. Flowers don't grow fast enough without magic to be placed at every single party she throws."

"Fortunately she has her party balloons and streamer cannon, right?" I suggested with a wink, to which Aly nodded heavily.

"Speaking of," Hammer Hoof coughed, motioning down the road leading up to the palace.

I turned and looked where she was pointing to see the Princess Twilight Sparkle and her friend Applejack walk in our direction, everypony else making sure she had enough space to walk.

"We need to get us a princess to part the sea of ponies here next time we visit, I swear," I remarked dryly.

"Or just haul a cart, like I do," Forsythia replied with a gentle hoofpat on the wood side of her cart.

"Either case, it beats getting bumped into by random ponies passing by me," I suggested, then perked up as I was sure I just heard my name being called out.

I turned away from facing in the direction Twilight Sparkle and Applejack were approaching us from to spot a familiar Earthpony accompanied by an equally as familiar Pegasus.

"Meadowsweet, Aurora!" I called out to them, waving them over.

"I'm so happy to see you, Camellia, we lost sight of one another at the palace grounds and I had been worried about what might have transpired on your side of things," Princess Twilight Sparkle addressed the Unicorn we were with as she walked up.

She took a glance around the group, then lingered on me and clearly looked straight at my pearl necklace.

I gave her a slow nod. "Nice to meet you, princess Twilight. I'm Pearl."

Applejack laughed heartily at that. "Well shoot, look at you! You’re lookin’ downright adorable, Pearl."

"Hear, hear," Forsythia agreed. "Are you both heading back to Ponyville as well, Applejack?"

"It seems all of us are getting ready to depart," Hammer Hoof pointed out, then added in a flat tone. "What a coincidence."

"I'm sure you'll find a lot of Ponies are making their ways out of Canterlot today," Aurora spoke as she and Meadowsweet joined us. "I'm headed home myself, as well. It's good to see you before that, Pearl."

"And you are?" the Princess asked, confused at all the new faces surrounding Camellia and Meadowsweet.

"Aurora, princess," Tizzy / Aurora offered with a respectful bow toward Twilight.

"I feel like I'm missing something big here," the Princess noted.

"Let's say she's family of mine, Princess Twilight," I hinted, and I saw she picked up on it.

"Well now, that's certainly a surprise," she replied.

"May I ask, Princess? How did you find the princesses Celestia and Luna? You obviously defeated the Tantabus?" I wondered. "We didn't really have much of a part to play in that, I guess."

"Oh, don't say that, Pearl. Your words helped me get through to Luna; she felt so guilty that she had been weakened by her time spent in the moon that she could not protect Canterlot against a Changeling invasion that she gave the Tantabus an open door to bleed into this world," she explained.

"What's a Tantabus?" Aurora wondered.

"Basically a dark cloud which makes you feel guilty about every little thing you've ever done wrong, and a couple of things you never technically did wrong but could potentially do wrong if you're waylaid by it," Meadowsweet explained. "It was very unpleasant."

"And it made us attack our friends," Camellia noted, smiling in my direction after. "Fortunately not to such extent that it left lasting damage."

I lifted my right foreleg and moved it about a bit in the air to feel the muscles in it. "No, not to any lasting damage I can feel."

"I'm happy to hear that," Camellia suggested with her smile broadening.

"Looks like you two are walkin’ home, huh?" Applejack noted to Forsythia and Sweet Alyssum. "Why don’t ya stash that cart here in town, and just haul your flowers back and forth by train?"

"I like the walk, actually; keeps me young," Forsythia returned with a grin. "I'll bet you you can't guess my age."

"Now that's cheating, Syth," Camellia prodded.

"Shush, Mel," Forsythia snorted. "Let me have my fun."

"Now hold on just a minute, are you sayin' she's one too?" Applejack caught on.

"Aaaand we're moving towns tomorrow, there goes my cider fix," Sweet Alyssum groaned.

"Actually, I am pretty sure most of the Ponies on the street right now are family," Hammer Hoof remarked, his thick eyebrows pulled into a thoughtful frown. "But that's beside the point. It's probably not wise to have this conversation out in the open."

"I did say you'd find a lot of 'Ponies' leaving town today," Aurora coughed uneasily.

The princess looked around herself with a look of amazement. "This is ridiculous. I can't tell who's who."

"Let's keep it that way," Sweet Alyssum decided. "Now, we're burning daylight. How about Tia and I get on the road? You all have fun with your respective train rides and I'm sure I'll see you in Ponyville, Applejack."

"Right, that's my cue. Feel free to come visit us when you're in Ponyville, Pearl," Forsythia tagged on. "And you as well, Mel, if you ever do."

"Would you stop it already, Syth? I'm going to schedule some vacation time and visit you next week, see if I don't," Camellia threw back. "I take it you won't be on the market tomorrow?"

"No, I don't think we'll be preparing any flowers these coming days. We'll need to calm down from all the hubbub first," Forsythia agreed.

"Who's this 'we'?" Sweet Alyssum protested. "I'll be the one putting them together, you just make sure I have a batch of fresh flowers in and I'll be right at it again."

Forsythia grabbed hold of her cart and started to maneuver it so she could pull it along to the city gate nearest to Ponyville.

"Remember what we told you, Hammer," Aly spoke to Oval, prodding him in the shoulder. "She's your responsibility."

"Don't I know it," Oval sighed.

I watched the pair break away from us, then looked over at the remainder of our group. "None of our trains go in the same direction, do they?"

Princess Twilight shook her head. "I'm afraid not, Pearl. Even if I'm extremely curious as to what happened on your side of things."

"Maybe Meadowsweet could fill you in?" I suggested. "You did say you were going to keep in touch with her more often again, if it's not too bold of me to say?"

Meadowsweet perked up at hearing her name mentioned. "Oh, yeah, I would like that, but I'll be out of town for a few days first. Aurora said she'd show me what her home looks like."

I remembered what my early days in the Hive were like, and must have made a face as Camellia started to giggle at my expense.

"Not a fan of the idea, Pearl?" Camellia wondered.

"I'm not so sure how well she'd be able to take it. It might be more crowded than this street here," I suggested.

"My personal house," Aurora pointed out, putting the emphasis on the word 'personal'. "Not the family home."

"Oh," I responded as the penny dropped. "Okay, I was thinking family home. Yeah, my bad."

"No, don't take Meadowsweet to the family home," Hammer Hoof agreed. "Maybe if there's a good enough reason for it... but not just for a visit."

I noticed that the princess Twilight Sparkle was just observing us, a thoughtful expression on her face.

"Is something wrong, princess?" I wondered.

She shook her head at me in response.

"No, Pearl, nothing's wrong, but I am going to have to ask Thorax so many things when I next see him," she replied.

"The poor guy," I spoke empathically.

"Should we venture into the station so we can see when our respective trains go?" Meadowsweet suggested.

"Ah, you could do that, but I am going to have to go to work," Camellia informed us. "It's been an interesting few days. I honestly never thought I'd have a princess over as my guest."

Princess Twilight Sparkle smirked at being mentioned. "Ah, I'm sorry for having dropped in like that, Camellia. I will be sure to teleport outside of your home and knock next time I visit."

"It would be appreciated, honestly," the Unicorn returned before turning to face me. "Remember what I told you, Pearl. You all stay safe and take care of one another out there. You know where I live if you need me."

"Thank you Camellia," I answered gratefully. "I am sure to come by if I visit Canterlot again."

While Meadowsweet had asked me to be her friend, I didn't know where the Earthpony lived. I had visited Camellia's house twice now, and I could probably find my way to it a third time.

Her offer to drop by any time it was needed gave me a safe place in Canterlot, a listening ear, and a place to rest. Very welcome indeed.

With Camellia walking off to work, the rest of us walked the short distance to the station and I found myself in the main terminal again.

With the masses going this way and that, I tried to read the signage explaining which train would go in which direction.

One train went to Baltimare, leaving in ten minutes, and I nudged Hammer Hoof. "Is that ours?"

He gave me a nod in return. "Yes, it looks like we're going to need to hurry to the platform if we want to catch it. Oh, that reminds me; we have no tickets on us right now."

I stared in shock at Hammer/Oval. This was something I hadn't thought of before now myself, but she was supposed to be the elder of the two of us.

I planted my right forehoof firmly against my forehead.

"Oh come on... Don't tell me we're going to have to drop by the family home to get some resources to travel?" I worried, making sure to describe the Hive in a pony-safe manner.

"Meadow, would you mind? I'll pay you back once we're at my place," Aurora asked.

Meadowsweet rolled her eyes at the request.

"You didn't have to ask, Aurora. I was going to offer that anyway since it's Pearl we're talking about," she spoke in return.

Meadowsweet gave a wink in my direction before ducking her head down to pull a wallet out from a pouch which had been hidden under her barrel, the straps holding it there hidden by her fur.

After passing some coins to Hammer Hoof so he could run off to get us both some tickets, she turned to the princess Twilight.

"Do you two need tickets as well, princess?" she wondered.

"Ah, thank you Meadowsweet, but Applejack and I were already taken care of by Celestia," the princess answered with a smile to her longstanding friend.

Applejack touched her Stetson hat and pulled a pair of train tickets to Ponyville out from under it to illustrate Princess Twilight Sparkle's point.

"The princess just wouldn't take no for an answer," Applejack chuckled.

"I guess Celestia still wants to take care of her student somehow," I pondered out loud, and noticed a hint of a blush on Twilight's cheeks.

Chapter 48

Before the princess could get over her sudden spell of embarrassment, Hammer Hoof / Oval returned with our tickets and I was forced to say my goodbyes to the others so we could make our train in time.

"I'm looking forward to seeing you again in Ponyville, Pearl," Princess Twilight Sparkle reiterated.

"I'll be sure to plan ahead for the questions you have to ask me when I visit," I returned with a smile.

"Now you stay safe out there in the mean time, you hear? Ah'd bake ya another pie lickety-split if you need any, but applebuckin' season is comin' up and ah'm gonna be busy on the farm for a while," Applejack pointed out.

"I can't very well expect you to ignore the harvest on my account, Applejack," I told her in earnest. "Thank you for your help."

Aurora had an odd look on her face as I approached her to say my goodbyes, and she leaned in to whisper in my ear.

"If you need to use me as a reference, don't hesitate to do so. I could vouch for you as long as you don't tell anypony I'm your grandmare or anything," she told me. "We're not too far apart agewise, so I could easily be your cousin."

"Hammer said he'd be my cousin for the duration of my stay in Hoofton as well. I'm gaining cousins left and right, it seems," I joked.

She smirked at that before pulling me into a sudden hug.

"Just keep your back story simple. It's easy to get lost in the details otherwise," she pressed onto me while hugging me to herself.

"I'll remember that, thank you Aurora," I answered as I hugged the Pegasus.

Meadowsweet just smiled from a step or two beside us.

"If you're ever in the city again, let me welcome you into my home, Pearl. You know where I work, and Camellia can lead you to my home if need be. Don't be a stranger," the Royal Gardener offered up. "You have opened my eyes to new possibilities. I can't thank you enough."

My turn to blush, and I kept holding onto Aurora since I could hide my flush from prying eyes by burying my cheek against her fuzzy one.

"Time to go, or we're going to miss the train," Hammer spoke, forcing me to reluctantly detach from Aurora / Tizzy.

"I'll be sure to reach out to you all," I told the group, but then turned to follow Hammer Hoof toward the train which would take us to Hoofton.

We made it to our train with a minute to spare, and we walked into a carriage which was packed full of other ponies.

"Oh, well, this is a full train," I chuckled. "Reminds me of rush hour back home."

"Let's walk over to one of the other carriages. There's bound to be a place to sit in another one," Hammer Hoof suggested, walking through the space to the door up ahead.

He was stopped by another Earthpony stallion's forehoof as they leaned in to look down the aisle past Hammer at me.

"That's Pearl, ain't she?" the gruff stallion asked.

Hammer Hoof gave a nod up in return. "Yes, why do you ask?"

"Have our seats, bro. We'll find a spot elsewhere," the stallion decided.

He nudged his companion, a lovely Unicorn mare, and the both of them stood up from where they sat.

"There's no need to," Hammer protested, but the other stallion grinned a wide grin.

"It's for Pearl, don't sweat it. Enjoy the ride," they threw back, then walked off to prevent us from protesting more.

I just stared at them as they walked down the aisle to the door leading to the next carriage, feeling my cheeks warm up yet again.

"Well now," Hammer Hoof grumbled, "that's a thing."

He turned to face me, then motioned to the empty seats with his left forehoof.

"You can take the window seat, Pearl," he offered. "I've seen the landscape a few too many times myself."

I obliged and sat down opposite a younger Unicorn filly and what I presumed to be her dam, also a Unicorn.

The pair of them had light-pink pastel coats, but the mother had a white mane with streaks of darker pink through it while the filly had a lightblue mane with streaks of white.

The younger one was busy drawing onto a sketchbook pad by moving a pencil over the paper with her magic, but the older mare looked at me as if to study what was so special about me that another pair of ponies would give up their seats for me.

"Good morning," I told her, but then leaned in to look out of the window at the station outside.

Hammer Hoof sat down beside me with a deep sigh. "When we get home, I'm going to spend a full day and night sleeping. This whole excursion has taken all my energy away."

I chuckled at his complaining.

The carriage shook as the train finally started on its way, and we were soon going out through one of the tunnels.

The mare diagonally across from me used her magic to provide a light for her foal to draw by while we were otherwise in the dark.

The kid was so engrossed in her art project that she didn't look up from her work.

As the light of Celestia's sun returned to my eyes once we left the tunnel I could see a familiar sight; the grasslands to the South-East of Canterlot's tall mountain.

The few copses of trees dispersed out in the distance.

The river further up ahead to the East, and the Foal Mountains to the North-East.

We were following the tracks which Meadowsweet, Tizzy, and myself had had to cross to get to the safety of the small group of trees where I left the pair just yesterday.

The place where I met up with Forsythia again, and then continued on with her toward the Foal Mountains.

I turned to look through the window to my right, past Hammer Hoof and the ponies sitting on their respective benches across the aisle, and could see the grouping of hills which sat beside Saddle Lake, and which were blocking my view of Ponyville beyond that.

We would soon pass by Rambling Rock Ridge on that side of the train. There was just a lot of grassland with a few groupings of trees here or there on the left side where I sat.

I noticed one of the mares on the other benches smiling at me while looking at me directly.

I dared a smile back, and she dipped her head down a little while mouthing "thank you" to me.

I blinked, felt my cheeks glow again, and turned away to look out at the grasslands we were chugging past again on my side of the train.

Too many ponies on this train were part of my Changeling family. Too many of them were suddenly treating me like I had done some fantastical thing for them.

I really didn't know what to do with this.

"With some luck our luggage will be waiting for us at the station," Hammer told me. "Don't discount the importance of properly labelling your luggage, Pearl."

I gave an absentminded nod to that.

He was just making smalltalk, trying to parse what had happened these past days, which had included a night which had been impossible to measure without having a watch or clock handy.

Back home I would have just used my mobile phone and a stopwatch app or something to measure just how long it had been dark for. From what I could gather, it had been nighttime the entire time we had been in the jail.

This also explained why lunchtime had passed by without a food delivery to the jail. This might have saved us from being discovered while we were making plans with all of our brethren out in the open outside of their cells.

While Deadbolt must have an internal chronometer to know just what time it was outside of the jail, his 'good-for-nothing' son and friends must have been waiting for a sign from outside to indicate they could swap with a new group of guards again.

If the Canterlot palace guards rotated out depending on the location of the sun and moon up in the sky, and the moon had essentially been stuck in the same place in the sky while Luna fought off the Tantabus' effects, then they would have been on the same shift for way too long.

I reasoned how this must have led right into our plan as well; if the guards had been on the same shift for so long, they must have had a slow reaction speed, had maybe no idea whether the groups of five that were escaping from the palace grounds were real or hallucinatory, or might have been asleep while we fled the scene.

I felt a nudge in my side and looked up to see Hammer stare me down.

"You okay there, Pearl? You zoned out there," he asked with some concern.

"Yeah, just thinking about things," I answered truthfully. "How long until we get to Hoofton?"

"Twenty minutes," the mare diagonally across from me said. "You're not going on to Baltimare then?"

"No, Hoofton is our stop," Hammer answered before I had a chance.

"And here I thought you were on your way to enroll her into the community college," the Unicorn scoffed in a dismissive tone. "My daughter is going to the Mareland Institute College of Art, you know? She has a full scholarship because of her talents."

I decided I didn't like her, no matter how much she looked like a soft pink candy cane. Maybe more like a sour stick, considering her remarks.

"I can see she's very talented, yes," Hammer Hoof replied more politically than I could have mustered. "What is it she's drawing there?"

The filly moved the pencil aside and held the drawing up for us both to see.

It showed a realistic pencil sketch of Canterlot Palace as it jutted out from the mountainside, with an insane level of detail to it.

"Oh wow," I cooed to the filly, who couldn't help their mom being an elitist. "That's lovely. Why did you decide to draw the palace?"

"Because it was there," she replied with a dumbfounded look. "I draw anything I see."

She turned the sketchbook around again, flipped to a new page, and resumed drawing.

"I see," I responded with a light chuckle. "Because it was there. That should have been obvious to me."

"Does she have any other hobbies or does she just draw a lot?" Hammer Hoof inquired of the mare.

"Oh no, she draws pretty much all the time when she's able to," the Unicorn responded. "She's already sold a few of her pieces to the Whickerthonian Art Museum, you know?"

"Right, how old is she if I may ask?" Hammer Hoof pressed.

"She's seven as of last month, why do you ask?" the mare replied, now starting to look suspicious.

"Have you ever considered she may be a sauvant?" he suggested to her.

The mare's cheeks puffed up and she all but hissed at us. "My daughter is NOT damaged goods!"

"I don't know," one of the other ponies opposite the aisle brought in, now joining the conversation. "If I see it right, she's doing a pretty fine portrait of that mare across from her. That's not something I'd expect from a seven-year old."

I peered at the drawing the filly was working on and spotted my own face coming to life on paper, albeit upside-down from my viewpoint.

"I did not ask you," the mare diagonally opposite me proclaimed to her new target, while Hammer Hoof's mouth pulled into a small smile.

I considered the filly opposite me, the way she was so engrossed in her work, was drawing like she was an inkjet printer or was tracing lines from a photograph.

"That looks great," I suggested to her.

She finished a few more lines, then tore the page out of her book and floated it across to me.

"Here you go, lady," she beamed proudly at me.

I very carefully grabbed hold of it with my forehooves, my cheeks burning again as I was called lady by this kid.

I looked down at what could very well have been a photograph of myself. A face I had only seen a few times in reflections here or there.

A cute Earthpony mare with a pearl necklace.

The conversation between the mare and the ponies across the aisle was getting more heated by the second, until she briskly stood up from her seat and pulled the sketchbook out of the filly's hold.

"We're going to find another place to sit, not near this rabble who obviously want to feel good about themselves not being able to draw 'stump foal' as good as you," the Unicorn mare decided, walking off with the sketchbook.

The filly quickly jumped off her own seat and gave chase, calling out "My draaaawiinngs!"

I felt for the kid and looked back down at the drawing she had given me.

"It's trompe l'oeil, but she wouldn't know if it hit her in the face," the pony across the aisle remarked. "That poor filly."

"How do you know what this is called?" I asked, looking up at the other Unicorn mare's amber coat and her smart blue eyes looking back at me from under her darker blue mane.

"I'm a junior at the Mareland Institute of Art; we did a course on art styles like that just last semester," they returned. "I'll let one of my professors know how she behaved. The kid can't help it, but we may need to keep the mother away from interfering with her child's studies."

"I know hoverparents like that," I sighed.

"Can I see the drawing for a moment?" the Unicorn asked, and I lifted my forehooves with the painting resting on them.

She carefully grabbed hold of it with her magic, then held it in front of her face to study it.

"She's a natural. She kept the pencil pressure light enough to correct any mistakes she made on the first sketch, then went over the lines which needed more volume and built out the drawing that way. I can see why the Whickerthonian would display this," she muttered as she looked the sketch over.

"Do you mind if I roll this up for you so you can transport it without needing to fold it?" the mare asked, looking at me again.

"No, not at all," I agreed.

"I'll need your hairband," the Unicorn told one of her companions, and promptly freed their mane from it.

I watched as she expertly rolled the sketch up, then tied the red hairband around it like it was a ribbon, and floated the roll over to me again.

"You should keep that safe. Get it framed when you get home," she spoke to me as I reached out to grab hold of it again. "That filly might be famous one day, and you'd have one of her early works on your wall."

"Thank you, I will," I agreed.

"We're coming up on Hoofton," Hammer Hoof suggested. "Want me to carry it for you or do you think you can hold onto it yourself?"

"I'll manage," I answered, very carefully taking the piece of paper in my mouth directly after.

"Fwankf," I spoke again, smiling around the roll toward the other ponies.

"Stay safe, Pearl," The mare sitting closer to the window spoke, confirming my suspicion that she was part of my extended family.

"That's more of an emerald than a pearl," opted the stallion across from her.

I just left them to their conversation and followed after Hammer Hoof as he walked in the opposite direction than where the mare and her filly had wandered off to.

The train slowed down as we approached Hoofton station, and Celery Stalk was waiting for us somewhere in this city, in the home Hammer Hoof had so desperately been trying to get back to.

Chapter 49

Hammer Hoof and I left the train to get to a shabby old station, barely representative of this supposed big trading hub I had heard it to be.

It had just a single pair of platforms with the rails laid between them, one providing for the trains leading away from Canterlot, and the other for trains going back the way we came.

I had a faint memory of Oval having told me that trains leading to Baltimare and Fillydelphia would go through this station, but the train to Fillydelphia wouldn't actually stop here for some reason.

Considering how little I knew of the area, that meant my only way of escape from this town if something like what happened in Canterlot occured again, was to take the train to Canterlot or Baltimare.

Those were my two options as I knew next to nothing about the general area we were in.

I prayed to all the gods I could remember from back home on Earth and here in Equestria that I could spend my time here in relative peace and not get hit with another witchhunt against us Changelings.

Two major events in half a year's time was plenty for me, thank you very much.

I followed Hammer Hoof toward the station's main building and to a desk providing ponies with lost luggage, packages sent by mail, and so on.

Oval did a good job describing our bags; and it reminded me of our mad dash through Canterlot.

I knew I had left my bag somewhere out in the streets, somewhere in a back alley, and had thought it and its contents lost.

Oval acted as if she was sure that our bags, wherever they had been left by us, had been found and deposited here, in the baggage storage of the Hoofton train station.

Thinking back now to when we left the Hive, Oval had pressed onto me that I should take at least a bag of clothes along which at least vaguely resembled styles from the Northwest of Equestria, if not from Vanhoover in particular since it was closest to Tall Tale.

We had stuffed a saddlebag with an assortment of clothes I felt I could wear after some scrutiny, as well as some items 'taken with me from home' as if they had some emotional significance.

I remember losing the bag after it got stuck on something while we ran, but when Oval described the bag to the clerk at the counter, they just nodded.

"Ah, sure, we have that bag here," they said. "Let me grab it for y'alls."

I stood dumbfounded, but my sibling just looked back at me with a knowing grin.

"How?" I had to ask.

"Always make sure to label your luggage correctly," she replied casually. "Remember how I insisted on getting your name and my address on it back at the 'family home'? All mail and lost luggage gets sorted here at the station, so it would have been on the first train here once it was found in Canterlot."

"This would have never worked back home," I stated, shaking my head. "Where I come from they would have just nicked anything worth anything, then left the bag where they found it."

"But we're not on your world, Pearl," Oval pressed to me. "Most ponies are honest. The few bad eggs among them keep to some unwritten social rules, and this is one which hasn't failed me yet."

"Got 'er right here," the clerk spoke as he returned to the desk, putting my slightly scuffed messenger back on the counter. "I didn't see the other bag you described, sir. If it has come through here it might have already been delivered to the address on the label?"

Oval flicked her tail at me, and I suddenly realised I needed to fake emotion at seeing 'my' bag again to do my part in this open roleplay of ours.

"Oh, you found it!" I exclaimed in a sudden burst of faked excitement, launching myself forward to pull the messenger bag off the counter.

Once it was on the floor in front of me, I instantly opened it while murmuring. "I hope everything's still in it..."

"We'll buy you a new set of clothes if we have to, Pearl. I told you Celery and I would take care of you these coming months," Hammer Hoof spoke in an effort to reassure me.

"Right," I huffed, rummaging through the bag. "Like I trust you to know fashion... You probably don't have Vanhoover style here in the South anyway."

"Teenagers, am I right?" Oval sighed toward the clerk.

"Don't I know," they returned with an empathic smirk. "Can I help you folks with anything else?"

"No thank you, we'll be on our way. At least, if you're ready to go, Pearl?" Hammer Hoof wondered, looking in my direction again.

"I guess," I stated noncommittally.

I put my saddlebag on my back, secured the strap, and turned away from the counter.

Hammer Hoof walked to my left side and led the way out again, and we soon exited out onto the main street of Vanhoover where merchants were moving in every-which direction with their carts.

"What did you think on first glance; is everything still in there?" he asked as he looked back a moment.

"I think so; several folded up items of clothing, and it felt like most had the more breakable things wrapped in them," I told him. "I forgot what all we packed, honestly."

"I'll make sure Celery shows you the guest room first so you can unpack in peace," Hammer suggested. "I'll use the time to bring her up to speed."

"Yeah, you tell her about how your aunt's nephew's first cousin once removed needed to stay with you for a few months," I joked.

"Oh come on now, Pearl," Oval sighed. "Don't make this more difficult than it has to be."

"I'm not? I mean I did say I'm your first cousin once removed," I protested.

"Right, but my aunt's nephew would be me," Oval pointed out.

"And I'm your first cousin, once removed," I rebutted. "Where's the problem?"

Hammer Hoof stopped walking and shook his head. "Family trees are a confusing thing."

"That's just because you're used to a different type of family where pretty much everyone has the same parent, cousin," I suggested calmly. "Back where I'm from we use a similar family tree setup as the ponies do, so it's easier for me."

A particularly noisy cart pulled by a large stallion bouldered past on the road beside me and I had to flatten my pony ears to drown it out. It sounded like it was filled with assorted metal goods all clanging against one another as it rolled over the uneven ground.

Hammer Hoof looked pensively after the cart as it rolled on, but then let out a deep sigh.

"In either case, you're an offshoot from the Hoof family tree," he pondered. "We'd need to figure out your lineage for Celery."

I took a step closer and stared considered my options. "How about Shells as a family name? Then I would be Pearly Shells, but I prefer to be called Pearl?"

I considered that I did prefer to be called Pearl, since it was basically the only name I could remember having had.

The transformation process had messed with my memories to the point where I couldn't remember my old name back on Earth, nor the names of my family, friends, or coworkers.

I wouldn't have been able to tell anypony the name of the city I grew up in, where I worked, what address I had lived at.

Details like those had just disappeared; my memories had become far more generalised since the transformation.

I knew what line of work I had been in, but I couldn't tell you the company I had worked for or where they were located. I knew I had lived in an apartment building, but couldn't tell you on what floor or what the area around the building had looked like.

"Could work with your cutiemark, yes," Hammer agreed to my suggestion of a last name. "So that brings us to the 'why' your parents sent you to me."

He continued walking down the road, in the direction the noisy cart had come from, and I just tagged on to his right side.

"They needed to talk about some things between themselves or something stupid like that. Adult stuff they couldn't tell their teenage daughter," I considered.

Oval seemed to do a doubletake and I could sense her tense up.

"Well, that's a lame excuse," she decided in a louder voice than before. "I'm sure your parents will fill you in on the actual reason when you get back to them in a few month's time. We'll just have to make sure you don't get bored while you're out here."

I side-eyed him, unsure what brought this change of demeanor.

"Yeah, well... they better," I agreed in a similarily slightly over-emphasized tone of voice, then followed up with a whisper. "What's got into you all of a sudden?"

"Somepony I know is watching us," Hammer Hoof whispered back. "They're following a little behind. If you turn your head a slight bit you can see her in your peripheral vision."

"I'm sure Celery will be happy to have you around; she could use somepony to talk to while I'm out on business trips across Equestria," she spoke in a louder tone again, making sure to emphasize the words 'business trips'.

"It can't be easy on her to have to stay behind," I contemplated empathically.

I turned my head a bit so I could glance back, noting a well-dressed mare following one and a half pony lengths behind us, her ears perked up in our direction. Her smart pink eyes looked out through some thin-rimmed glasses and her outfit suggested she was trying to mimic the high society style from Canterlot.

"Should we reconsider this conversation we're having?" I whispered to my sibling beside me as we continued down the street.

"Knowing her, she's trying to catch me in the act of infidelity with another mare," Oval whispered back. "Anything we can say to make her think otherwise would be helpful."

"I'm sure it isn't easy, no," he answered in a louder voice. "She has her own friends and activities, but I miss being able to do things with her on a whim without having to plan for the next trip, to be honest."

He gave a quick glance back and then smiled wryly.

"Well, she's just taken a side road to get to my home before us, probably to inform Celery about what she thinks she saw, our conversation be damned. That mare's nose is longer than her horn, and she sticks it in everypony else's business whether they like it or not," she grumbled. "Prepare to be scrutinized when we get there as if you're my love interest or something."

"Wonderful," I grumbled sarcastically. "As if I didn't already feel worried enough."

"Just stick to the story. Fill out as few details as possible. Deflect direct questions as best you can," Hammer Hoof pressed onto me. "You know who you are, where you came from, and what the reason for your stay is. Let's try and give Margery Pie there no further ammo."

"Wait, she's a Pie?" I considered. "Wow, I hope she's a distant, far removed aunt or cousin to Pinkie Pie. Pinkie doesn't deserve somepony like her snooping about in her private affairs."

My sibling turned a corner once we got to a crossroads, and motioned up ahead to a building down the road. "There she is, and that's where we're going."

I looked ahead and saw this Margary Pie walk up a small flight of three steps to knock on the door to a building halfway down the road.

It was clearly a homestead built for merchants wanting to settle in town so they could keep an eye on the goods coming into and going out of their warehouses.

It was not as richly decorated as the ones I saw in Canterlot but definitely outwardly appearing luxurious enough to stand out as being more spacious inside than the smaller common homes.

"Well, at least it looks like a nice home. As long as she's kept out of it," I remarked.

"Four bedrooms, two stories and a basement," Hammer Hoof listed. "Celery wanted a big enough home for our children to grow up in, bless her."

I remembered how we were supposedly incompatible with the ponies. How Oval was especially bothered by not being able to get her mare what she wanted.

"Oof, that's tough," I empathised. "Is she still hoping for it or..."

"I can't burst her bubble," my sibling sighed dejectedly. "How can I take that from her?"

"That's a tough conversation to have, yeah," I agreed. "But don't you think she might be blaming herself at this point?"

"I can't exactly come clean about it, Pearl," Hammer Hoof pointed out. "She's been buying into this herbal regime in an effort to help us, and I've been 'going to the doctor' about it."

"You're stringing her along," I told him flatly. "How would you feel if somepony did that to you?"

My sibling sighed and looked down at the ground we were walking on.

"I should really fake a doctor's note and take responsibility, shouldn't I?" she considered. "I just worry she might leave me over it and seek out somepony else who could get her her heart's desire."

I could see that. It was a tough situation my sibling had got herself stuck in.

A lovely situation to wander into as an outsider...

Chapter 50

By the time we made it to Hammer and Celery's home, it was clear that this Margery Pie had disturbed the hornet's nest already.

Hammer Hoof pushed the door open and walked in ahead of me, then immediately turned to the right into the living room adjacent to the entry hall.

He left it unsaid, but I walked in after him and closed the door behind myself nonetheless.

"Oh look, he's finally made it home," a feminine voice called out coldly. "And he's brought his mistress with him. The audacity!"

"Shut it, Mag," Hammer grumbled. "You're making assumptions again and I told you before I'm not entertaining those."

I followed him into the living room where I found the earthpony mare from before seated on a couch, giving me the death glare through those thin-rimmed glasses of hers.

"What? Am I wearing something of yours?" I bit to her, following my sibling's example of not even pretending to be nice toward her.

"I certainly would hope not," Margery Pie huffed as if the thought alone was unimaginable to her.

Given her off-white coat had a purple hue to it and mine a green one, I could imagine we would certainly not wear the same colour outfits.

"Margery just told me she saw you walk here from the train station with another mare in tow," another voice spoke up. "Can you honestly say she wasn't right about it?"

Hammer took a step aside so I could see the other couch in the room on which a light green earthpony mare was seated.

"No, she was right about me coming over here with a young mare," my sibling admitted. "Pearl, meet Celery. Celery, meet Pearl."

I looked my sibling's partner over for a moment.

Her mane flowed down the left side of her neck somewhat like Twilight Sparkle's mane from the show but it was a deeper green from her coat.

She had a light application of makeup on, nothing more than to emphasize her natural beauty.

She was smartly dressed in a lovely patterned sundress from under which I could just spot a slightly bent piece of celery depicted on her flank.

Her hooves were smooth and clearly reflected the light as if she had applied a layer of laquer over it.

"Hi, I guess..." I mumbled as the awkward teenager I was supposed to be.

"He likes them young, doesn't he?" Margery piped up.

"Oh, go find a pond and swim in it," I snorted at her, actually feeling bothered by her comment.

"Why are you still here, Mag?" Hammer inquired. "If you have to know; Pearl is a cousin of mine and her parents asked me to take care of her for a few months while they work some things out between themselves. There, are you happy now?"

"Well, I never," Margery decried in mock shock.

"I'm sure you haven't," I returned to her as sarcastically as I could.

"Pearl, leave it to me," my cousin suggested.

Celery looked me over and I tried my hardest to look like I was a teenager who was in this situation against her will and wasn't sure how to take it. It wasn't too far from how I actually felt, so there was that.

"You could have sent me a letter or something," she offered to her partner. "I wasn't expecting somepony to stay with us. It's rather sudden."

"Oh, great, nopony wants me around," I muttered dejectedly to keep up the act.

"They dropped her into my lap, Celly... I would have loved some forewarning myself, but you know what my family is like; you don't hear from them for ages and then they suddenly show up on our doorstep asking to spend a night or two," Hammer complained. "I don't like it any more than you do, but we can't blame it on the kid."

Knowing what I did about us Changelings, I considered how true Oval's words must be; I could just imagine any one of our family members needing a place to stay overnight and fabricating a familiarity with her so they could crash here.

I looked around the room for a moment now Hammer had drawn the attention to himself again and noticed how there were a surprising amount of fake luxury items spread around.

Even with my untrained eye I could see how Celery had tried to go for an upperclass style without wanting, or being able, to spend too much money on it.

Her obvious friendship with this 'Mag' Pie fitted in with this attempt to break into the upper layer of Hoofton's society.

I suddenly put two and two together; Magpie. A notoriously loud bird who stereotypically gets attracted by shiny trinkets just like the ones placed around the room we were in.

Or, probably more true in this case, somepony who talks too much and too loud about topics she should probably keep quiet about.

Pony names were sometimes deceptively simple to figure out.

Celery Stalk let out a long sigh and pushed up from the couch she was seated on.

"What did you say her name was? Pearl?" she asked, the tone of her voice losing its earlier sharpness.

"You can't possibly," Magpie started, but Celery shook her head at her.

"Thank you for informing me my husband was on his way home, Margery. I'll see you at the club tomorrow?" the green earthpony told her guest.

While not immediately showing her the door, the intent of her words was clear enough to all in the room.

"Well, I can see when I'm not wanted," Margery Pie scoffed.

"Oh, can you?" Hammer Hoof wondered, raising his eyebrow at her. "You certainly don't show it since you keep coming back here."

Marge very dramatically got up on her own hooves and started in my direction, then stopped directly in front of me and looked down upon me past the tip of her nose through those thin rimmed glasses of hers as if I had done her wrong.

"Excuse me," she stated.

"Why should I?" I retorted defiantly.

"Pearl, we /want/ her to leave," Hammer reminded me. "Would you step aside please?"

"Sure," I agreed, staring right back at Margery Pie's eyes. "I will because you asked me nicely."

I took a step to my right so I stood closer to Celery and Hammer, making sure that Margery could not get between us three, and motioned with my left forehoof toward the entryway.

"There you go, see how easy that was?" I had to add to kick Marge's ego down another notch.

Margery Pie huffed again and strode out with her head held high as if she had not just been the target of several digs at her person.

The rest of us kept quiet until the door closed behind her, but then there was a deep sigh from Celery.

"She's from your family, alright," she remarked. "Pearl, was it? Let's not make that a habit if you're staying here for a while. You don't need to draw Marge's ire as well; Hammer here is doing a good enough job of that already."

I turned my head to look at her, confused at the sudden openness from this mare.

"She came for me first," I protested matter-of-factly.

"You can't deny that, dear," Hammer Hoof added in my defense. "We have had a long train ride behind us from Vanhoover, with a holdup at Canterlot, so we're both a little out of it. I'm sure Pearl will mellow down if we give her some time to herself."

"Hammer, dear, first explain something to me; why did I receive your travel bag by post two days ago?" Celery wondered, turning upon her partner.

"Ah, that would be the holdup in Canterlot. There was a Changeling attack, would you believe it??" he started, his tone of voice rising as he dramatized the events. "I had already put my bag on the train, but Pearl was still on the platform. The trains departed to get to safety when the attack happened, with my bag on board! You should have seen it; hordes of them swarming the palace!"

"There were a handful of them testing the city's defenses," I corrected him. "Then everypony lost their minds and locked the place down."

Hammer narrowed his eyes at me.

"Shush, let me paint myself as the hero that I am," he chided me. "There were hordes of them swarming the palace, and they broke into the station, and I had to drag Pearl to safety..."

"Hero? In your dreams, perhaps. You mean you complained loudly about being shoved into another pony's home and told to stay out of sight while the guards combed the streets looking for where the Changelings had ran off to," I corrected him in a tone of voice as if I was getting bored with it all.

"That sounds more like my Hamm, yes," Celery chuckled at me, then turned around and pressed a kiss on my cousin's lips. "Whatever truly happened, I'm glad you're back home again."

Hammer kissed his wife back, and I could just sense the love between them radiating out from them.

It felt good, and I realised I was feeding off them as if I was breathing in secondhand smoke.

I had to remember myself what my guise was about, and turned away in mock disgust. "Ew."

"Oh, just wait until you find your own very special somepony, Pearl," Hammer threw my way.

Celery turned back to face me and shook her head.

"Don't mind him, dear," she suggested in a kind voice. "Now, as Hammer Hoof must have told you before; I'm Celery Stalk. You're welcome in my home as long as you follow a few ground rules."

I mentally steeled myself. Considering the way she presented herself, the decorations in the living room, and her friendship with Mag, I was fearing the worst.

"We don't do titles here. No miss, madam, or any of that stuff. I'm not miss Stalk. Call me Celery and nothing but," she stated and I blinked in response.

"Consider yourself at home as long as you stay under our roof, but please leave things where, and as, you find them. If you break something, I expect you to replace it," Celery warned.

"You're not the first of Hammer's many friends or relatives who have dropped by in the past, and I expect the same from any of you," she pointed out. "There's a guest room upstairs, first door on the left. There are two beds in there; you can pick one for yourself and get settled, but keep in mind you might share the room with another if somepony new comes by."

I blinked a few more times, then tilted my head slightly. "What, is this like a halfway house or something?"

"Our family prides itself on its hospitality, Pearl," Celery Stalk impressed upon me. "As long as you behave yourself and help with the chores, you can stay here for as long as you need."

"I told you she was an amazing mare, didn't I?" Hammer spoke with a big grin plastered on his face.

Celery smiled warmly at the obvious compliment from her partner.

"You should go up the stairs and unpack, Pearl. Celery and I have some things to discuss and preparations to make before dinner," my cousin suggested.

I didn't expect to be so warmly received, even if Oval had tried to convince me that Celery was the best mare in all of Equestria and so on and so forth. I just thought she had laid it on a bit thick because of her love for her.

Now I was basically just given a place to rest at, for an undetermined amount of time, by somepony who seemed to be less interested in who I was and where I came from than I had expected given Oval's worry about my background story.

I half-turned back to the entry hallway.

"Up the stairs and..." I started.

"First door on the left. Second door on the left is a washroom. Our bedroom is the first door on the right, and the nursery is the second door on the right. I would appreciate it if you didn't go into either of those two rooms," Celery explained.

"Yes ma'am," I said on autopilot, then felt my ears and tail droop as I corrected myself. "I mean, yes Celery. I'll stick to the doors on the left side."

I quickly trotted off to find the stairs, while hearing Hammer Hoof chuckle behind me.

"Give her a few days to get used to us and she'll open up more," he suggested to his wife.

The staircase was in the entry hallway, but I had not seen it as it was laid out with the bottom of it toward the back of the house, suggesting the landing upstairs was above the front door.

I clambered up it, hearing the pair of them converse with themselves downstairs.

Once I got to the top of the stairs I noticed the landing bend to the right, and immediately spotted a door around the corner. This was the first door on the left, which would be the guest room I would be staying in for the foreseeable future.

I looked further past the staircase opening to the wider space beyond and saw another door on the left past where the railing ended; the washroom.

Opposite the washroom was the door to Hammer and Celery's bedroom, which would be located directly above the living room if I could judge the layout of the place correctly. Further on the right was another door for the nursery.

I opened the door to the guest room, which opened counter-clockwise inward, made my way inside, and looked around.

The room was spacious, but sparsely decorated as if it was solely used to receive guests and nothing else.

Directly to the left of the doorway, past where the door was now sat flush against the wall, was a rectangular window overlooking the road outside. It was set slightly ajar on a hook to let some fresh air in.

The room extended toward the right, with a single unmade bed in either far corner.

Each of these beds had its own low dresser with four drawers stood perpendicular at the footend, the backs of these dressers was placed against the wall they stood against.

A small table lamp and a stack of folded bedsheets had been placed on each of these dressers and I got the idea that I had just walked in to a hotel room.

I walked on over to the bed on the right side, placed my saddlebags next to the dresser, and then considered my next steps.

Making the bed was probably easier if I could use my Changeling magic, but that would mean drawing the blinds and closing the door, so I first lit the lamp on the dresser to have some light to work with.

I closed the door, drew the blinds, and let my magic wash over me to drop my earthpony disguise.

Now I had a chance to use magic, sorting the sheets and putting them on the bed in the right order was child's play. If I had to do this with just my mouth and hooves, it would have probably cost me way more effort than it did now.

After I had the bed made I focused on my saddlebags and pulled out the assortment of random items I put it in back at the Hive.

A small plush pony was quickly moved to the bed. I would have to remind myself that I supposedly had some deep emotional attachment to it.

I pulled a small number of outfits out of the bags, sorting them into the various drawers of the dresser. Considering the state of the house downstairs, I kept a simple but stylish dress out and instead laid it on the bed for me to slip into before I would go down again for dinner.

The few shells I had managed to find in the Hive were placed in a grouping on the dresser near the lamp, an attempt to emphasize I had either grown up near the ocean or had an affinity for it given my cutiemark.

I was glad none of them had broken during my wild run through Canterlot, nor during the transport of the bag to Hoofton's train station.

Finally, then, I got to the bottom of the bag and found a note I was sure I had not placed in it myself.

Pulling it up into the light revealed a few short sentences written on it in pencil.

"I saw you in Canterlot. I know what you are. I have your address. You can't hide forever."

Chapter 1

The train cart jerked as it started to get pulled away from the station platform at Hollow Shades, and I felt an odd mix of emotions pass over me as I looked at the forest swallowing the last visual remnants of the town. Soon enough there were only trees passing by the window at increasing speed, and I let my yellow eyes wander to the Earthpony stallion sat across from me.

Oval peered back at me with his auburn eyes from under the overhang of his red mane, dislodging the reading glasses from his snout until they fell down to dangle around his neck. He put the folder he had taken from the station down beside him and raised an eyebrow my way.

"What's wrong, Pearl?" he asked, and I gave a light shake of my head, barely enough to set my green mane in motion.

"Feeling like I'm turning a new leaf, I guess," I remarked. "I feel like I'm leaving part of myself behind, a bit of budding homesickness perhaps?"

"I feel like that every time I leave Hoofton," Oval suggested with a smile. "It's fine, really. We can visit any time you want once you've settled in with us."

"That's not what I mean," I returned with a light furrowing of my brow. "You know I can't visit where I want to visit for a while yet."

"Ah, yes, that," Oval realized, giving a glance at the window beside us. "We can't let my mare know about that, but she'll probably welcome you into our home without too many questions."

"I'm not sure I'm following," I started, but Oval's right hoof raised up to shush me.

"Let me finish," he demanded in a soft tone of voice. "I mean she will fire off a few questions, expect answers from the both of us, but as long as you're friendly with her she will accept you for who you are, and leave our secrets at rest."

I stared at him, not knowing where he was going with this.

"Once my mare is satisfied you're not going to upset my relationship with her, we can take trips around Hoofton and I can teach you what I know," Oval continued unabated. "We'll meet with your friends in Ponyville in a year's time, and I hope I can help you to hone your skills before that time. With help from Breeze, Blaze, and the rest, I'm sure you can manage to find a way to return home without issue."

"Yeah, I had thought about that as well," I agreed. "I am going to need a lot of training before I'm ready to tackle that issue."

"As soon as you feel you're ready, my earlier statement still applies; we can go visit it any time you like," Oval repeated. "I'd personally love to see it myself some time."

I thought back at the portal through which I entered into the realm of Equestria and the world beyond it where I now had a criminal record. If nothing had been done about it, I was facing unemployment, potential homelessness, and had nothing left to my name, especially if I had basically disappeared off the radar for a whole year. If I did return at some point, I would have to overcome those issues in turn, possibly while dragging Oval or some other friend along for the ride.

Oval leaned in a bit. "Your ears are drooping."

"If I stop to think about it all, it's still overwhelming," I replied in a whisper. "I'm going to need to find solutions to so many problems, and help my abducted siblings do the same."

"Who knows? In a year's time they may seek you out and have the solution laid out for you? I heard say there were some smart foals among them," Oval suggested with a wink. "You can't carry all that weight on your own shoulders. You'll have to accept you have to spread it around some. Trust an Earthpony on that."

I chuckled weakly at the obvious attempt at a joke, giving her a nod. "Thanks. How long is the trip to Canterlot?"

"About an hour or two," Oval returned, leaning back on his seat. "We'll have to switch trains there but may be able to get something to eat before it leaves. The trip from Canterlot to Hoofton is a lot longer, with a few stops along the way, but there are no stops before we reach Canterlot."

"Define a lot longer?" I repeated while settling on my own seat.

"I keep forgetting to time it. I think it's about three hours? Three-and-a-half?" Oval muttered uneasily. "It's long enough that I forget when I left Canterlot by the time I arrive at Hoofton, or vice-versa."

"Three hours and fourty minutes from Canterlot to Hoofton," another pony remarked, and I looked up to see the conductor standing in the aisle between seats. "Baltimare's an hour past that on the same line. May I see your tickets please?"

"Oh, thank you," I replied, using my mouth to pull my ticket from the bag sat next to me on the seat and offering it to the Unicorn stallion in his blue uniform.

He quickly scanned it and snapped a hole in it with a small device, then turned to Oval who was still digging through his own bag.

"Sir? Your ticket please?" the conductor pressed, and Oval groaned in return.

"I know it's in here somewhere," my travelling companion mumbled with his face half-buried in the bag.

"Didn't you put it in your coat pocket?" I remembered, motioning to the brown overcoat folded up on Oval's other side. "I thought I saw you slip it in there because you didn't want to open your bag on the platform?"

Oval brought her head up, frowned at me, then reached for his coat. "I'm sure I put it in the bag, Pearl," he mumbled as he checked the pockets. "Oh, here it is... huh. You're right."

The ticket was quickly checked and a hole punched out by the conductor, who failed to remark about Oval's difficulty in finding his ticket due to sheer professionalism.

We waited for the stallion to continue on his path through the train before I just had to jab at Oval to release some tension.

"I see why Blaze thinks you should be supervised in your daily life," I suggested. "Is dementia a thing in this world? Are there other ponies who are as forgetful as you, 'cousin'?"

"Watch it, Pearl," Oval warned me with a snort. "I could just leave you in Canterlot to fend for yourself, or convince my mare to let you cook your own meals while you stay with us."

"I might burn the house down trying to cook for myself," I reminded him. "I am not sure your mare would want to take that risk. What was her name again?"

"Celery Stalk," Oval repeated for the fifth time today. "She's the most wonderful unicorn you'll ever meet."

"So her family are the Stalk family, then? Like how Pinkie Pie is from the Pie family?" I tried, pony genealogy still being somewhat of a mystery to me.

"No, hers is an offshoot from the Seed family. Her mother, Celery Seed, married to Sugar Stalk, who was himself part of the Cane family. I actually met his mother Candy Cane before she died," Oval listed.

"...and that makes sense to you, does it?" I tried, finding it exceptionally difficult to figure out how that family tree stuck together.

"It took me a while to accept it for what it is," Oval offered back with a shrug. "The best thing to do is not to overthink it. It makes sense to my mare, so I accept it as part of who she is."

I closed my eyes and reached up to rub with my forehoof at my temple for a moment. "I've known families back home who were so entwined that someone's uncle was their stepdad as well, but this just makes my head spin."

"Doesn't help you figure your own family tree out, does it?" Oval suggested calmly.

"Not really. I mean, if you're Hammer Hoof, and I'm Pearl... how do I relate to the Hoof family?" I wondered out loud.

"We could say you came from a far-away town somewhere only Blaze knows of. What was that one she mentioned before? Tall Tale?" Oval pondered. "I think that's over on the West Coast. Most of my mare's family has stuck to the East Coast, so they would not know the first thing about towns around there."

"Tall Tale sounds fitting," I remarked flatly, opening my eyes to look over at him again.

"If I remember correctly it's near a beach on either the Northern Lunar Ocean or Southern Lunar Ocean," Oval mumbled to himself. "We should find a map in Canterlot."

"I've always wanted to live near a beach, and now you're telling me that Pearl grew up near one? I'm getting jealous of my own guise," I chuckled weakly, leaning a bit closer to the window as the train sped out of the woods and the view opened up.

Oval turned his head as well, motioning out into the distance with his left forehoof. "There's a second set of tracks over there, leading to Manehattan. They will merge with ours shortly before we pass the Neighagra Falls. Sometimes you can catch the smoke rising from the other trains, but the ponies made sure the schedules differ enough that they're not in danger of crashing into us."

"Considering we still have half a day left in trains, I really don't want to consider crashing," I mumbled, shirking up a bit closer to the window so I could get a better view.