As Oval darted off in her haste to lead the way to the common room, I gave a quick look at Breeze.
"I can find my own way, you should tail her," Breeze suggested matter-of-factly.
"For what it's worth; I really needed your help to learn how to use my magic properly," I told her with a smile. "Thanks."
Breeze looked away at my words as if they embarrassed her somehow.
Looking back to the quickly disappearing Oval, I realized I had to run after her before I'd lose sight of her completely, and nudged my right shoulder to Breeze's left.
"Sister is trying to run away from us, we better give chase," I offered, then set myself in motion in an attempt to catch up to Oval!
Not a moment passed before I heard Breeze's hoofsteps behind me, but I focused on Oval up ahead as she dove into a tunnel entrance.
I rushed after her, barely catching her tail rounding a corner, but I was catching up to her slowly but surely.
The tunnel went every which way again, and I was thoroughly confused about my location in the Hive Outpost again when I finally did catch up to Oval standing panting and grinning at one of the doors leading into the common room.
Breeze had been hot on my heels, and bumped into me when I had to stop to not bump into the boulder closing off the entrance, but then the three of us stood catching our breath in silence.
Once we had all calmed down again, Oval pushed the boulder aside and we stepped into the crowded common room again.
I drank in the sound of buzzing wings, watching my siblings fly by through the area, and felt something click inside. It felt good to be among family, even if I was still considered a Hatchling.
Knowing how our magic worked now, it made me want to learn more about the race I now belonged to. I wanted to belong to this group, even more so than I apparently already did according to Breeze and Oval.
We walked down through the paths between rooms, and I realized Breeze was walking a bit closer to my left side than Oval was to my right. I was just about to ask her about it, when a sibling passed overhead.
"Hiya Pearl," they called out as they flew by.
There was no response from any Changeling nearby, so I opened my mouth again to ask Breeze about her closeness.
"Hi Pearl," another Changeling offered up as she walked past us in the opposite direction.
I looked around to find out who they were calling out to, which slowed my pace. Oval slowed as well, looking back at me.
"Something wrong, little sister?" she asked, but Breeze looked pensive.
"I'm not sure," I started. "I may be imagining things."
I joined the both of them again, but we had not made two steps before another Changeling sibling called out to us. This time he was sitting on a ledge above our heads.
"Hey Oval, Hiya Breeze. I heard Pearl finished her magic training?" he asked.
Breeze nudged me with a hoof. "I think he means you."
"I, what?" I returned, looking between the Changeling above us and Breeze in turn, my face the very epitome of confusion.
"Blaze is going to kill Moonshine," Oval breathed out, shaking her head quickly.
"Who told you?" Breeze asked of our brother above.
"Moonshine came through here a few minutes ago babbling about some Pearl having done her teaching in. It was pretty clear she was upset about it, why?" the other explained.
"...and that's how nicknames are born," Oval sighed out.
"Pearl?" I asked of no-one in particular.
"I think you're stuck with it for now, Pearl," Breeze offered up.
"Blaze is three rooms over," our brother pointed out. "She's been pretty mad about something as well."
"Yeah, did you see her after Moonshine came by, though?" another sibling suggested, and our brother turned halfway on the wall he was on to look in their direction.
"Man, I thought I was going to choke on it!" he offered back with a grin.
I looked between Breeze and Oval. "I'm gonna need that spa now, I think," I stated weakly.
"We'll have to tell Blaze we're going. She may want to join us," Oval suggested, moving up to my right side and giving me a light nudge with her shoulder. "Really, as far as nicknames go, you could have gotten hit worse."
"Don't start," Breeze sighed, taking the lead since Oval had moved to providing emotional support.
We made it to the room Blaze was in with me still trying to work out what had just happened, only to find her sitting in the middle alcove in the room, fuming about something.
"Something wrong, sister?" Oval wondered, breaking away from me to find out what was bothering Blaze.
I wandered over to a side alcove and sat down on it, then leaned over to stab my teeth down in the nearest vein. I felt like I needed a drink, and this was the only thing I knew I could drink without issue...
It wasn't so much that I was now suddenly named Pearl, really. It was a good name as far as names went. It was more that I had wanted to find a name for myself, by myself. Over time, after I had figured out where I could go and what I could do in this world.
My human name didn't work, for obvious reasons, yet I had held it in the back of my mind as a backup. Now, though, I was "Pearl". To most, if not all, Changelings in this common room, I was now Pearl. The name had spread through the room like wildfire, it appeared.
"...but then she locks them away in the lower rooms and doesn't let us to them!" Blaze's outcry blasted through my thoughts.
I did a doubletake on that, plugging the holes I had been feeding from, and pushed away from the wall to sit up straight. As I did, I bumped into Breeze who had sat down on my left side while I had been feeding.
Where I expected her to pull away a bit for us to both have a comfortable spot to sit at, she instead leaned into me at the bump, her head lolling sideways until it touched mine.
While Breeze was smaller, she was only so by a few inches. The difference between us while we sat side-by-side could easily be ignored.
I gave her a questioning glance, but noted her looking worried and decided to just let her lean into me for now. I focused back on Blaze and Oval, who were apparently talking about something important.
"...have some use for them, right? Otherwise she wouldn't have us train them like this," Oval suggested to her sister.
Blaze shrugged at that. "When has our Queen ever explained herself to us?"
Oval hummed thoughtfully in response. "Well, we have some better news for you to mull over; Breeze and I adopted Pearl here to be a proper part of our group!"
"Pearl? Adopt? What?" Blaze stammered, looking over to where Breeze was very obviously leaning into me.
I lifted my right forehoof up and gave a weak wave with it. "Apparently that's my name now. Ask anybody here," I suggested flatly.
"Yeah, so she's our sister now and we can abuse her and throw her around and take her to the spa," Oval summed up, then nudged Blaze with her elbow. "Hey, that's an idea; why don't we all go visit the spa in the next town over?"
I stared at Oval's "expert" way of bringing the spa into the conversation, and Blaze turned to face her sister properly to raise an eyebrow at her. "You want to take a Hatchling to a pony spa?"
Oval nodded with a big grin. "Yeah! I mean, she's learned all the things we can teach her here, so it would be good training for her to be out there and hold a guise for a few hours."
Blaze seemed to consider it a moment, her head moving away from Oval to turn up so she could look at the siblings overhead. "It would give us a calmer spot to talk," she mused.
"Less eyes on us," Breeze commented from where her head rested against me.
Blaze let out a deep sigh, but then gave a decisive nod. "Alright, let's go."