Moonshine shook her head at yet another interruption to her teaching attempts, stood up, and walked away from us. "That's it, I'm done."
I wanted to call after her, realizing how Breeze had undercut her authority during our teaching session, but I also knew just how much I had needed Breeze to make sense of the things Moonshine had barely explained herself.
Breeze brought the pearl a bit closer to her face and frowned at it. "Hey, you've spun all the moisture out of it," she realized.
"I did what?" I wondered, turning my attention to Breeze and tilting my head at her.
"All our resin has moisture in it," Breeze offered. "This little marble does not; it's solid."
"Solid solid?" Oval asked, and the pearl jerked in mid-air as her horn started to glow.
Breeze frowned over at her younger, but slightly taller, sister. "Don't pull at it."
Oval just tugged a bit more, the pearl dancing as the pair of them had a magical tug-of-war with it as the prize.
"Okay, so it's solid," I shrugged. "What's that mean?"
"Nothing, really," Breeze returned, suddenly letting go of the pearl so it flew off to hit Oval in the face.
Oval winced and let go of it with her magic, and Breeze quickly took control of it again to float it between herself and me.
"Look, it's hard as a rock," the other smaller Changeling offered to me, reaching a hoof up and tapping it to the pearl between us. It made the sound as if her hoof had tapped a solid pebble.
I gave her a nod. "So I see. So if it means nothing, why are you so excited about it?"
"Because you weren't even spinning it hard enough to extract the moisture from it, as far as I could tell," Breeze told me. "Did you think of pulling the water out of it at all?"
"Not consciously, but I do have a bit of a dry throat," I realized, looking over as Oval nudged me.
"Hey, ask Breeze if I can have a look, will you?" Oval wondered, rubbing a hoof at the sore spot on her face.
I nudged my head in Breeze's direction. "She's right there, Burst," I stated pointedly. "I'm pretty sure she's heard you."
Breeze giggled softly and moved the pearl over to Oval. "I'm sorry, did that hurt?" she asked in a sugary-sweet tone. "And here I thought I was the foal?"
Oval snorted, but took the pearl over from Breeze with her own magic. "Brat," she tossed at her sister, then walked off in the direction of the lake, the pearl hovering in front of her.
"Er, where are you going with it?" I asked, giving chase.
"I just want to test something," Oval called back, dropping the pearl into the lake as she reached it!
Breeze and I both arrived at the side of the lake at the same time, her horn glowing and her head moving as if she was trying to find the pearl and lift it back up out of it again.
I didn't want to risk blowing a crater in the lake, so I let Breeze do the searching. Instead I turned to Oval, punching her in the left shoulder.
"Why did you do that?!?" I shouted, making heads turn to face us.
Oval lifted the pearl up from behind her, tilting her head. "Do what, little sister?"
I stared at the pearl, then back at the frantic Breeze, and groaned.
"Breeze, she's got it up here," I muttered, flopping down at the water's edge.
My left foreleg slipped off the edge from my movement, and my hoof dipped in the water. It was nice and warm, like a wellspring, and I enjoyed the feeling of the current washing past.
Breeze stopped searching at hearing my words and approached Oval, who was grinning broadly.
"That was totally unfair, sister," Breeze remarked. "Here I thought you were going to dissolve it."
"It's a stone, right?" Oval wondered, lowering the pearl down to the floor between us. "I mean, it looks like a pearl cut from an emerald."
Breeze dipped her head down to get a closer look, then nodded up. "It does look like that. We should take it to a geologist to have it appraised."
"Can I take a bath in this lake here first?" I wondered, to which I got a hearty laughter from both sisters.
"Oh, little sister, we can take you to a much better place if you'll let us," Oval suggested, while Breeze snatched up the pearl again and kept it close to her.
"Let's head to the storage room first to put this away safely," Breeze muttered. "It doesn't look like it could dissolve in air, but I'm not too sure about water."
"Well, that's on the way anyway," Oval shrugged.
Breeze's eyes grew at hearing that. "You're not talking about taking her to a spa, are you?"
"Why not?" Oval wondered. "She learned the basics of magic here, and she already knows the majority of other things she needs to know."
"That's true, I guess?" Breeze mused. "You took care of her basic flight training, even if I had to come in and rescue her in the end."
I lifted my head up at that. "Hey, I think I did pretty well there."
"Don't boast," Breeze told me. "You would have found it a lot harder to keep a controlled flight without us at your side."
"So she can pose as an Earthpony, then; no wings," Oval suggested.
Breeze looked around her a moment, then sighed. "Fine. We're only getting in the way here anyway, and there's no way she's going to get back into the rhythm her batch is in anymore. Blaze took care of that."
"I hatched on my own anyway," I remarked.
"Even if you're born alone, you don't have to stay that way, little sister," Oval chuckled. "I'm officially adopting you into our little band of misfits here."
"Wait, don't we have to put that to a vote?" Breeze wondered, to which Oval stared at her.
"She's been with us for barely two days and you already jumped in to rescue her from an incompetent magic teacher," Oval noted. "I take that as a vote for her to stay."
"Fine," Breeze sighed. "We'll have to go through the common room to let Blaze know where we're going."
"As long as one of you leads the way," I offered, pushing up to a standing position again. "I have no clue where we are in this cavern system, or how to get to the common room."
"Deal," Oval laughed, motioning over to a distant dark area. "Just follow behind me, and try to keep up."