I took to the sidelines while Blaze, Breeze, Oval, and even Moonshine explained to Starlight Glimmer and Pinkie Pie just how the Hive worked. I had been there myself and seen how it all fit together in some strangely comfortable fashion.
My addled half-Human, half-Changeling brain was only a little disturbed about how quickly I had felt comfortable there, not only in my new body but also among my new sisters. There was that tiny little voice in the back of my head suggesting that there was something intrinsicly wrong about the whole thing and that I should have been more shocked about it than I had been.
If I thought about it rationally, it was easy enough to realize why I had started to feel at home almost immediately after I hatched. Obviously I had always pined to actually be in this world. My fantasies about this place, the fanfiction I read, everything had set my heart to wanting to be here. Any chance, any chance at all, to be part of this world was something I would have jumped at if I had been given the choice.
The fact the choice had been taken away from me did nothing to lessen my enthusiasm of being here. Being a Changeling, rather than a Pony as I had always imagined myself to be, was of little consequence. If anything, it had opened me up to the ability to pose as any kind of Pony I wanted to be in the future. I could change my guise to be an Earthpony, Unicorn, Pegasi, or even an Alicorn if I wanted to be.
This was a golden ticket straight into my wildest imaginations, and in any other situation I would have been crying from happiness after having arrived in this world.
Changeling society, really, was not that bad. What I had seen and heard so far, they were a little hampered by the way their Queen had bossed them around, forcing them to be seen as the big bad evil leeches only few of them truly were. They protected each other, they lived with one another, shared things I could not have imagined from the show's depiction of them. They truly were like one big happy family.
The one thing driving them was to find a place for themselves in this world. A place where they could feed on the love they needed to survive without being chased by everypony else. Oval was a good example of that, what with having married a pony and living a life beyond being 'just a Changeling'. I could really see the pain in her heart every time the invasion was brought up. War would tear her from her mare and could do irrepairable damage to her marriage.
I reached up my right hoof to gently tap at the resin ball hanging from my neck. I still did not fully understand how I made it, but I did make it. This was Moonshine's resin, and Moonshine's leather strap, but my magic had made that resin into the perfect little sphere. I wondered how long it would last.
The two ponies in the room were doing their best to understand just how our family worked, what things to consider when posing as Changelings, and how to act among us. I had been away from the rest of my batch for too long to know exactly how they would react. There may be more bronies among them than would be safe for Starlight Glimmer or Pinkie Pie to suddenly reveal their true selves among them. They could be rushed by fangirling Hatchlings.
"This spell," I started, interrupting Breeze explaining about the guards.
"Sorry, what was that Pearl?" Breeze asked, looking back at me.
"This spell Starlight is going to use to look like a Hatchling," I elaborated. "It's going to be Unicorn magic, right? It's not going to be like our Changeling magic which allows us to change guises?"
Breeze raised an eyebrow at that, then looked over at Starlight. "Yeah, I doubt she could use our magic," she agreed.
Starlight tilted her head a moment. "There is a difference in how your magic works from ours?"
"Yes, although they touch base in some areas," Moonshine offered up with a nod. "I have been studying Unicorn magic in Canterlot's Royal Archives while posing as a scribe there. Boring work, but the scrolls have given me some insight in how your own magic works compared to ours."
"What's the main difference?" Starlight Glimmer wondered.
"Mainly the way you are attuned to it," Moonshine suggested calmly. "Unicorns, like yourself, are connected to the ambient magical energy of the world around you. If something were to happen to that energy, you would be powerless. You could not use magic in a world like the one Pearl came from since I heard it barely has any ambient magical energy at all."
Starlight Glimmer gave a slow nod to that. "That sounds about right."
"We pull our magic from within ourselves," Moonshine went on to explain. "I'm not sure if it is because of the way we feed on love or something else, but we work like magical generators rather than just consumers."
"So Unicorns don't actually have any magic of their own?" I asked, trying to figure this out. "Cause we have myths about Unicorns with magic back on Earth as well."
"Well, they do store magic, right?" Moonshine asked of Starlight, who gave a nod.
"Yes, we do store magic within," Starlight agreed. "I just never thought about where we draw it from, but Moonshine is right; when I try to fill my reserves, I mostly pull it in from around me."
"Whereas we build it up from within ourselves," Moonshine stated.
"I can get magic back by eating, drinking, and sleeping," Starlight pondered, "but it's far easier to pull from the world around us."
"But even pony food is imbued with magic," Breeze offered up. "Everything in our world is brimming with energy."
"That's... true, I guess," Starlight realized. "You know, this actually explains some things."
"Okay, but does this mean we can use magic while on Earth?" I asked. "I mean, I was taken here by humans, but we talked about how they could have been Changeling infiltrators before?"
"We should be able to, as long as we can feed out there," Breeze agreed. "I'm not sure how your world works. All I can go on is what I heard about it from others."
"I will have to be careful when we are out there in your outpost thing, then," Starlight mumbled. "If I draw energy from the world around me, but you don't, that could draw attention from those among you who can sense that sort of thing."
"They are few and far between," Oval suggested. "There are some Matrons who can sense magical auras, but most of us have to train as hard as Pearl to get our magic to do anything useful. Forget about reading others' magic."
"Well, I can read magical auras," Moonshine stated, staring Oval down.
"But you're a "special" Unicorn scribe," Oval threw back, sticking her tongue out between her fangs.
"Okay, can we get back to the lesson here?" Blaze wondered. "If something goes wrong, you're not going to be able to fight your way out of there. The chambers are too deep in the outpost, and there are soldiers posted in every corridor leading to them. Trust me on this; you don't want to go up against a soldier."
"Pinkie Pie might stand a chance," I suggested calmly. "Earthponies are sturdy and can take a few blows, and I've seen Pinkie Pie in an alternate timeline breaking down stones with her forehooves. If Starlight uses her magic to support Pinkie, they could make it out, even if they'd had to dig themselves out."
Starlight Glimmer winced a moment as she remembered the wasteland from the alternate timeline Twilight Sparkle had taken her to.
"It may also help if we cause a diversion further away in the outpost," Oval pondered. "The soldiers are mainly reactionary; they go where they're told to go unless there's an attack on the Hive."
"I'm not going to pull another prank like that," Blaze decided. "Matron had us doing chores for weeks after."
"But it was effective; thirty soldiers out of the Hive within seconds," Oval remembered. "I doubt they still remember."
"Let's keep it around as a plan B," Breeze offered up.
"Oooh, now I'm curious!" Pinkie Pie exclaimed, trembling from excitement. "What'd you do? What'd you do?!?"
"Oh, set off some fireworks," Oval chuckled. "Although we misjudged the fuse timer, so they kind of all went off at once."
"I did warn you Oval gets us in trouble," Blaze told me. "Breeze just stumbles over things. Oval is the criminal mastermind."
"All I wanted to do is show our family how beautiful the fireworks show was that I saw over in Manehattan," Oval grumbled. "I can't help that the fuses got entangled and lit each other."
"And blew a hole in the side of the mountain," Blaze added.
"Still didn't do that on purpose," Oval decided. "Although we would be doing it on purpose now."
"Ah, but where would we get the fireworks from?" Breeze wondered.
"Oh, I have some!" Pinkie grinned, pulling a crate full of fireworks out of thin air. "I never leave home without my party crate!"