//------------------------------//
// Chapter 8 
// Story: Pearl's Travels 2: Canterlot 
// by Makitk 
//------------------------------//

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.

"Camellia and I were speaking, while the two of you were upstairs, about her issues keeping the two of you apart," Meadowsweet explained. "While you two definitely look to be from the same family, 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.