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."