We ran until we reached the railway leading from Canterlot to the Southeast, to connect with either Baltimare or Fillydelphia.
We quickly crossed over it after ensuring no train was coming our way, then continued on toward the small grouping of trees up ahead.
If Crook, Burst, and Camellia had followed the winds coming from the West, they might as well have drifted straight to this area and might be waiting for us hidden within.
We slowed down as we reached the edge and I had to get my breath back from the mad dash.
I would have probably enjoyed the run better if it had been a nice sunlit day without the pressure of fear to push me onward, feeling the wind go through my mane and fur as I ran with the other two beside me.
We had been running a lot this night; escaping from the jail, escaping from the city, and now again to get as far from it as we could.
I definitely noticed I had led more of a sedentary lifestyle back home; I had been struggling to keep pace when they decided to run at top speed, and my heart was beating wildly in my chest now we had finally stopped.
Perhaps it was due to how Meadowsweet and Aurora had grown up that they were doing better at running these distances than me?
Aurora's Pegasi form meant she was effectively one of them now, and they just weighed less than the other Pony races as they were made to fly. She had been constantly leading our little group as we sped across the grasslands.
Meadowsweet was an Earthpony, as I was right now, but she had been one all her life and had possibly ran for longer distances than me in the past.
I was the only one of us three wheezing as I tried to catch my breath now we made it to relative safety.
"If our family made it here, they'll be hidden within," Aurora suggested, and a green flash passed over her to reveal Tizzy the Changeling again. "Hey, it's Tizzy and Pearl, and we brought Meadowsweet with us. Anyone else here?"
There was a movement right above my head and I turned to look up at it. A pair of Changeling bug eyes looked down at me from where one of my siblings was resting on a large branch, mostly hidden among the leaves.
He was clearly there to keep an eye on Canterlot and those coming from that direction.
"Wasn't Crook with you?" my brother above me asked.
"They got caught in a downwind while we descended along the mountain and may have drifted off further to the East," Tizzy answered. "Are we safe here?"
"Yeah, the only Pony here is that one," brother spoke, motioning his left forehoof in Meadowsweet's direction.
"Way to tell me my guise is slipping," I grumbled, wondering what tipped him off I wasn't an Earthpony like Meadowsweet.
"Oh no, your disguise was perfect," brother protested. "It's just easy to recognize you with that necklace, given you were wearing it in the jail as well."
"Right," I realised as I felt for it with my left forehoof.
"If you two are done talking, we should head deeper in so we don't draw attention to ourselves," Tizzy spoke and promptly slipped into the cover of the trees.
I gently nudged Meadowsweet to follow, and she did so a few paces behind Tizzy. I came up last while my brother stayed up in the tree to keep watch as he had before.
It was darker with the canopy now overhead of us, dark enough that I had to stay close to Meadowsweet's pink rump so as to not lose track of where she was going, but we soon reached a small clearing.
It was nothing more than the space made by a tree falling and taking a few of its neighbours along with it, but several of our Changeling family had gathered in it so they could do a headcount in the light of Luna's moon.
"So with the three of you here as well, that makes thirty eight of us," one of my sisters spoke to us as we neared the small group of five she was in. "Did you see any of the other groups?"
"No," I answered truthfully. "Crook took us out through the sewers and then past the waterfall. We haven't seen any others. Although we did overhear the Ponies respond to a break-in in one of their stores; someone stole some cloaks or coats from a dry cleaners'?"
"They must have been planning to go for the Southern gate then," remarked my sister. "Bold move."
"Let's hope everyone got out in one piece and didn't get killed by the guards," Tizzy sighed.
"The Ponies don't kill us, Tizzy. We've been over this before," a familiar voice told her, and I turned to face Forsythia walking up toward us. Her strong, bulky legs made her stand out even in the low light conditions we were in.
"Forsythia!" I called out in a louder voice than I probably should have, my excitement getting the better of me. "I'm so glad to see you made it out."
"Same here, Pearl," she returned with a chuckle. "Although I wonder why you didn't leave Meadow here in the city? She lives there, you know?"
"I said I was going to bring Tizzy to safety," Meadowsweet explained. "I had to make sure she was going to be okay."
"That must be that power of friendship you ponies keep chattering on about," Forsythia spoke with a smile and a wink, clearly enamored with the idea. "I hope you're not too overwhelmed by everything that happened tonight? Where's Camellia?"
"We're not sure," I answered. "She was flying with Crook and Burst but they were caught in a jet stream and flew faster past the mountain than we could follow."
"Yeah, I appreciate that you guys didn't make us follow them. I had a hard enough time keeping from screaming out in fear as it was," Meadowsweet grumbled. "I much prefer standing on the ground."
Forsythia looked pensive for a moment. "There should be plenty of hiding places near here. If they crossed the river to the Foal Mountain they might be in the forest there?"
"That's where we thought to go next," Tizzy pointed out. "I just remembered this place from when we waited here before the invasion."
"Right, that whole debacle," Forsythia snorted. "I'm not sure how that went wrong the way it did, but I'm glad there hasn't been yet another attempt."
"Well, it was Twilight Sparkle and Cadance finding one another in one of the caverns underneath Canterlot which turned the tides," I knew. "Cadance used to foalsit Twilight Sparkle, so she was instantly wary of Chrysalis acting different, but nopony would take her seriously until she returned from the caves together with the real Cadance."
"Oh, that explains it then; mannerisms are important to mimic when taking on another pony's identity," Forsythia pondered. "If you don't do that right, then those who know them well enough will get suspicious."
"Or you could just not take somepony else's identity," Meadowsweet protested. "Pearl and Tizzy are their own unique pony, or so they said to me at least. I'm still having trouble keeping up with this whole transformation thing, but I can more easily accept that than I can accept you kidnapping others to take over their lives."
"We don't actually kidnap ponies? Or take over their lives, really," Forsythia protested with some surprise. "At least, I don't? My pony guise is homebrew as well."
"You'd be surprised how many of our pony disguises are, actually," Tizzy told Meadowsweet. "We only take over somepony else's life if we have no other option."
"I think there's a lot of fear going back and forth which is making it difficult to get our facts about one another right," I suggested. "If you truly want to be my friend, Meadowsweet, perhaps you and Tizzy could talk about what all you both get wrong about the other? Figure out what we have in common? Work out a way we can overcome this longstanding distrust between our races?"
"I knew I liked you, Pearl. From the moment I saw you in the jail, I knew you were different from the rest of us," Forsythia told me with a wide grin.
"Well, I'm from a different world so I have different standards to compare life here to," I coughed uneasily, trying to ward off what felt like a compliment I did not earn.
"No, I mean that you're smarter than most of us. Excuse me for saying it, but we have some dumb brothers and sisters in the bunch," she spoke.
"Hey, I resent that remark," a voice called out in protest.
"Well, we do. Especially when the Queen lets loose her pheromones on us, or when we go feral from hunger," Forsythia threw back. "A lot of us end up just going through the motions to survive; taking on a pony guise and settling somewhere or wandering the lands while hoping things will sort themselves out, but you... you think beyond that. Like you have a plan for the future that we're not seeing."
"She's right, you know?" Meadowsweet agreed. "I told you you're the one who got me to fight my fears. You're the one who makes me want to learn more about you all. There's still a voice in the back of my head going 'Meadowsweet, what are you doing? You are alone in the middle of a group of vicious Changelings! Run before you get killed!' but I'm trying my best to suppress it."
"Oh come on, we're not vicious, and we won't kill you. I will personally guarantee your safety while you're here among us," Tizzy offered to the Earthpony. "It sounds like that voice of yours is the same one I have in my head; but it's telling me to be suspicious of you Ponies. Maybe we need to do as Pearl said and fight it together?"
"You two were already well on your way earlier in the jail, I think. You were sitting together as if you trusted one another implicitly," I remembered.
"I was just too tired to think straight, and Meadowsweet offered I could lean into her when I started to wobble, and... well, she's soft enough to fall asleep against," Tizzy stammered, and I was sure she was blushing even it was difficult to tell in this light.
"Yeah, I don't know what made me say that back then," Meadowsweet mumbled. "I just felt like I needed to protect Tizzy given how she was doing when we found her."
"And that's commendable," Forsythia spoke warmly. "Remember the long conversations we had about plants and flowers while I was out in the market? It's not like I would have been doing that if I didn't care about you ponies and what drives you. We're really not that different. We're just trying to live together with you all."
"I'm getting that point, trust me," Meadowsweet sighed. "It's been repeated often enough now. I get it. But fear is not a rational thing."
"No, no it's not," Tizzy agreed.
"So what do we do next?" I had to ask. "If there's only about fourty of us here, then how will we know if the others made it out alright? Do we seek them out or wait for them to come up here?"
"The nearest Hive is past the Foal Mountains, or maybe down South near to the Badlands, and some of our family might be heading for either of the two. If they want to return to Canterlot, once the Ponies get their affairs in order that is, they would stay closer to the city like we are doing now," Forsythia reasoned.
"There's no easy way to figure out who went where," she continued. "If we leave here and the next group comes over, they might think they were the only ones who made it out. If we stay here, others might think we didn't make it. It's not something to linger on for too long; we're used to being on our own. Whatever happens, happens. We'll eventually bump into one another again anyway."
"But Burst and I were traveling together," I pointed out. "I would very much like to be able to find her again."
"Then you should go to the forest across the river," Tizzy considered. "I don't think Meadowsweet would want to fly across the river to get there, so I think we'd best stay here."
"I'm entirely put off on flying, did I say that yet?" Meadowsweet remarked dryly. "I'd much prefer to at least have two of my hooves on solid ground at all times, thank you very much."
"So I'd have to go by myself then?" I wondered, not liking the idea at all.
"I could come along; it's still close enough to the city that I can wander back in once this whole thing blows over, and I should see whether Aly might be hiding near there since it's a larger area to hole up in," Forsythia offered, then straightened herself up and called out in a louder voice; "Anyone who wants to group up to get to the Foal Mountain together, sound off."
A couple of heads perked up, and there were a few "here", "I'm in", and a "sure, why not", from various directions around me.
"Group up at the Eastern edge," Forsythia spoke again. "We're leaving in five minutes."
"It's kind of weird I'm going that way again so soon," I considered. "I arrived in Canterlot by train from Hollow Shades only a few days ago."
"Oh yeah, that's right next-door to the Hive," Forsythia agreed. "That train bends around it, and we'd have to go around as well or fly over the Foal Mountain to get to the Hive from here."
"Right. So do you think that's what our family is doing?" I considered. "Those who went East, I mean. Going for the safety of that Hive rather than go further South to the Badlands?"
"If I wasn't looking for Aly, who is for sure looking for me around Canterlot, that's where I would go. The matrons there can help us control our hunger for a little while so we can merge back into the Pony population again," my sister pondered.
"It's a longer and more difficult route down to the Badlands; there are Diamond Dogs in the area, and the route goes dangerously close past the Everfree Forest with its Timberwolves," she explained with some concern. "Having a tussle with them while famished won't end well, but we have some dumb ones in our family, as I said before. Some might have still taken that chance."
"Will I see you around Canterlot again sometime, Pearl?" Meadowsweet wondered from behind me. "You know where I work, but you might feel more comfortable reaching out to me via Camellia or Forsythia considering the palace guards?"
I turned to face the Earthpony and gave her a warm smile. "I'll be sure to seek you out if I ever visit Canterlot again, Meadowsweet. Just try not to blow my cover when you spot me, okay?"
Meadowsweet sighed. "I don't know how I could know what you looked like next we meet. You're going to have to find me first, unless you look like this every time?"
I considered that. "There's a good chance that I might, actually. I am feeling pretty comfortable like this."
"Are you?" she wondered, a curious look on her face. "I couldn't imagine being somepony else. I don't get how you all do it."
"Well, some of us identify far more with our Pony disguises than we probably should," I reasoned, knowing how Burst felt about her life in Hoofton. "Maybe Tizzy can help explain it to you better than I could?"
"I'm not staying near Canterlot for any longer than I have to, if you don't mind," Tizzy protested. "I've seen too much of it in the past couple of days, even if I was only stuck in its jail. Once it's safe to take a train out again, I'll be on my way home."
"Oh," Meadowsweet responded, a curiously sad undertone to her voice. "I thought you might like to visit my place after it's safe again so we could talk more about that flower you said grows near Tall Tale? Gaillardia aristata?"
"Blanket Flower, yes," Tizzy knew. "You would like it, although I don't think they would grow well in your gardens. They mostly grow in the dunes near the beachfront. It might be easier if you visited Tall Tale with me so I could show you them in their natural environment?"
The Royal Gardener made a face. "Ah, but that would mean skipping out on a few days of work. If I don't return to Canterlot they might think I was abducted by you all and replaced or something. Maybe I could ask for a week of vacation after the shock of this thing blows over and come visit you then?"
"I'll leave you two to work that out between yourselves," I chuckled after watching the back-and-forth between the pair of them.
I had the feeling they were the embodiment of our future together; each working hard to overcome their fear of the other while finding common ground in talking about menial things.
It was much the same as how Thorax and Spike had found common ground between one another, I remembered from the show.
Spike helped Thorax stave off his hunger by just accepting him for who he was and they had become good friends since. Meadowsweet was well on her way to do the same for Tizzy.