Oval and I moved up to the room upstairs, following behind Camellia who retreated to her own bedroom, but Forsythia and Sweet Alyssum opted to remain in the living room.
I was sure the decision had nothing to do with Aly needing a way to escape quickly in case something went wrong, given the lingering distrust of Camellia and Ponies in general when it concerned knowing about us Changelings and acting in good faith.
It was going to be a long road for both of our races to come together, but I was hopeful seeing the progress individuals on either side were making when confronted with the facts.
Oval and I spat our soft resin to the floor, and the stuff somewhat melded together into one bigger bed than the individual ones we had been going for.
I trusted Oval, and she had come to see me in a whole new light in the past days, so we ended up as our Changeling selves cuddled up to one another as we fell asleep.
Celestia's sun had lowered itself beyond the horizon and Luna's moon was already descending down the same way when I woke up and found Oval missing.
I groggily pushed up from the resin bed and wandered to the upstairs landing, only to hear voices drifting up from downstairs.
"...she can so easily trust them." one voice uttered, in clear dissatisfaction.
"Something to do with a 'show' from her world, she says," another voice replied. "Even as a Hatchling she just implicitly trusts them to not betray her. She bares her all to them and... somehow it has worked out so far."
"You know that's not going to continue. Not all of these ponies are as trustworthy as Camellia or Pinkie Pie," a third voice opted. "Are you going to be there for her when the inevitable happens?"
"Why do I have to be the one doing damage control?" the voice which obviously belonged to Oval protested.
"Because you decided to take her in as your ward," one of the others pointed out. "Pearl has been chatting up going to Hoofton with you, so she's obviously going to have to fit in with the life you have built up there somehow. No matter what she was before, she's too young for our world. She's going to make mistakes. You're going to need to be a responsible parent to her."
I considered that voice to be Forsythia's. She had heard a few more things about me than Sweet Alyssum.
"I can't be a parent to her, Celery would have my hide if I suddenly came to her with a daughter from a different relationship. I thought to introduce her as a younger cousin, needing a place to stay at while her own parents work some things out," Oval explained.
"While that might be a good way to explain things to your mare, you're still going to have to take responsibility for Pearl's actions. You're basically going to be her surrogate dad while she stays with you, especially with that kind of a backstory," Forsythia pointed out. "How did you not consider that?"
"Blaze did suggest I was taking on more than I could chew, but I couldn't very well send Pearl off into the world on her own, could I?" Burst sighed out.
"No, you can't," the third voice agreed. "But you know as well as I that some ponies are not to be trusted. They're going to take that innocence of her and spin it around to hurt her and whoever else of us they can rope into their plans. You need to be ready for the fallout."
"If you can't promise us that much, I've got half a mind to abduct her to Ponyville and have her stay with us," Forsythia threatened.
There was a brief silence.
"Please don't take this the wrong way, but I can't let you do that," Oval finally voiced. "You're right; I need to be more responsible for her. But I have been overwhelmed by all that Pearl could do in as short amount of time as we have spent here in the city. She opened doors I didn't even know were there. She was knocked out after falling down the stairs here and I spent hours talking with Camellia and her friend Meadowsweet while worrying about whether Pearl was healing up in my shoddy resin. I'm not a Matron, but I did my best."
"See, that's something a dad would say," Sweet Alyssum pointed out. "You're already partway there; thinking about Pearl while she's asleep. Now you need to consider the damages she can do while awake, and try to get ahead of those."
I shook my head at what all I heard, and turned back to the room to lay down again only to notice Camellia's bedroom was cracked open slightly and she was peering out through that crack at me.
Noting that I had noticed her, she opened her door more and tilted her head lightly.
"Are you okay, Pearl?" she wondered in a whisper, trying to not inform the ones downstairs that we both were awake.
I shrugged at that.
"I don't know. There are some things about my life here which I still have to get used to," I returned in as much of a whisper.
"Like basically getting adopted into another's family, if I heard that right?" the Unicorn realised. "Come, join me in my room. Let's talk as well, just the both of us."
It felt weird to be trusted enough by Camellia to be allowed into her bedroom, but I followed her in as she opened the door more for me.
Camellia's room was just a bedroom as any other, with a dresser and a desk with a mirror above it, the latter at which she obviously applied her makeup. It was covered in bottles of perfume, assorted items for applying makeup, and a few hairbrushes on it in different sizes as well.
A comfortable bed stood opposite this makeup table, in front of the window which had the curtains drawn. It had a few more pillows on it than she had heads, but one of them had a clear dent on it as if she had rested on it recently.
She clambered up on her bed and motioned past me. "Close the door so they don't hear us downstairs, will you?"
I did as instructed, then approached where she had lain down on her bed and noticed she had scooted off to one side of it.
She gently patted the empty side of the bed with her right forehoof. "Please, join me and let me tell you something about myself, Pearl. I think it's high time I lay my own cards out open on the table."
I felt a shiver go down my back at those words, wondering just what was to come next. "Are you sure? Maybe I should first turn into an Earthpony?"
"Whatever makes you more comfortable, Pearl. I have become fairly used to your appearance in this past week. It doesn't bother me as much as it did when we first met," the Unicorn suggested.
I opted to remain my Changeling self and joined her on the bed, facing her.
"I guess what you want to tell me is something you'd rather not have Oval overhear?" I queried, and she gave me a nod in return.
"I'm not so sure he would get it," she answered, expressly using the male pronoun there. "He's so much a guy in all of his mannerisms, that really messed with me when I first met you two. It was only after you both explained how she is usually a stallion that it started to make sense. Seeing him yesterday as you walked back into my house, it made so much more sense than seeing that feminine Changeling form of his."
"I know, right?" I agreed. "I do still call her my sister, and she's fine with that, but it's when she takes on those stallion guises that she just looks like she's who she wants to be."
"It's like she's just pretending when she's out of her disguise," Camellia noted. "I'm sure he would feel a lot happier if I just kept treating him like a guy."
"Perhaps," I agreed. "For what it's worth, I used to be one... before I became a Changeling. I'm not sure I could be one again after all this."
"But you don't feel like a stallion to me. You don't act like one. You're very direct about what it is you're trying to accomplish, sure, but I know other mares like me who are like that. That's not bound to your gender," she pointed out.
"I wouldn't have invited you into my room if I had thought you were a guy," she finished, and I felt my cheeks start to flush.
"I guess I'm just so much more used to this now," I mumbled, not knowing what else to say about it.
I recovered and stared up at her. "So what was it you wanted to say?"
"I overheard the conversation going on downstairs. They're worried about you, and rightfully so. We both took a chance when you followed me into my home that day," Camellia spoke. "Not every pony would have allowed you into their home. Some would have called for the guards. If it had just been Oval, I would've done so myself. Others would have turned that chance meeting into a fight."
"I know," I spoke in return. "I can't thank you enough for taking that chance on us."
"What I'm saying is; you need to be more careful just putting your trust in everypony, Pearl," she warned me. "I have had a few bad relationships in my own past; some boyfriends who turned out to be the wrong ones for me. They hide it well, behind a masque of kindness. Not unlike how you Changelings take on a different look, but more insidious because they don't actually change their appearance."
I frowned at the thought. Pony society had its predators just like in human society, then.
"If you're going to be posing as a young Earthpony mare, as you seem to be planning, you need to know how to spot those who just want to take advantage of you. We ponies learn it as we grow up. We get taught by our dams and grandmares when we're just young foals," the Unicorn continued. "We don't always heed that advice, but they do their best to prepare us for the eager young bucks and elder stallions who are just looking for an innocent filly to take advantage of."
"Not too different from back on my world then," I sighed. "Toxic masculinity is a thing we unfortunately also have to deal with over there."
"Toxic masculinity?" Camellia tasted the term. "Yeah, I guess that's one way to describe it... There's some peer pressure involved, I'm sure, but you'd think they would know they're doing something that's just not right?"
"You would be surprised how easy it is to shut off your brain and just go with the flow your friends decide you should go with," I knew. "When it's normalised that guys look at girls as prey animals, then it's hard to break through that. Like how you fear us Changelings, and we fear you Ponies. How do we break that circle as individuals?"
"Right, you get it," Camellia agreed. "Just don't get taken for a ride, Pearl. I said it before; you're always welcome here. You'll always have a safe haven here, especially if something of the sorts ends up happening."
I smiled up weakly in her direction. "I appreciate the offer. You really do show you care."
"Of course I care," she offered back, giving me a gentle nudge with her hoof to the side of my barrel. "You're a special kind of person, Pearl. You heard what they said downstairs; Forsythia and Sweet Alyssum care as much about your safety as I do. For the same reason; you're not from this world. You don't know our ways. Knowing you were originally a guy where you came from, what do you know of how they behave? How can you protect yourself against their advances?"
I looked down at the bed. "Well, I mean, there's certain behaviours that... Some macho behaviour which I'm sure I could deflect..."
"You're a Changeling, you've got magic which a normal Earthpony filly wouldn't have. This is something you should consider using if you absolutely need to," Camellia pushed. "I don't know how that whole transforming thing works exactly, but you can take on new disguises, right? You should be ready to do so if you need to escape from somepony who just doesn't get that you're not interested."
The way she acted, the things she said, it just drove home the notion that I was now on the side of the 'weaker sex', as they described it back home. The hunted, not the hunter. The girl who needed to keep watch that her drink wouldn't get spiked rather than the guy just hanging with his mates with not a care in the world.
I swallowed as my mind started to go through all the situations I knew from my past where I had tried to get with a girl, or had been with friends who had wanted to get with them. Just approaching them because they looked pretty, even if they weren't actually flirting with me.
It suddenly hit me that I had disrupted girls just wanting to spend some time out with their friends just the same as I was out with mine. I had intruded upon their conversations. I had probably made them feel utterly uncomfortable as I had been sizing them up like a piece of meat.
Something about the face I was making made Camellia reach out and gently pat my shoulder.
"So, about that thing I was going to tell you," she spoke softly, drawing me out of my ponderings. "I have a daughter somewhere out there. I put her up for adoption when she was born, because she reminded me of a dark moment in my life. A bad night with a bad jock."
I stared at her, dumbstruck. She had been leading up to this; talking about stallions taking advantage, but I had not put two and two together until now.
"It's something I don't open up about to just anypony, but I need you to know this. It can happen that quickly; just one night of not paying enough attention. Of going home with the wrong guy," Camellia whispered to me. "That's what hangs over all of our heads. Her father doesn't have that hanging over his; he just wanders about town without a care. He wasn't the one who got pregnant; he didn't have to deal with the birth. He doesn't even know she exists."
There it was. The difference between guys and girls. The guys would just have a moment of fun and then go on to do something else, but the girls were stuck for nine months or longer, dealing with the aftermath.
How long were pony pregnancies? No, don't get distracted now.
I noticed Camellia was intently watching my expressions, and I honestly didn't know what kind of a face I must have been making.
I used my transformation magic to change into my Earthpony guise and smirked at her. "I might look like an Earthpony when I do this, and for all intents and purposes are one while I look the part, except for that one problem. I would not be able to get pregnant."
Camellia looked away. "Wish that had been the case for me. I'm a terrible mother. I prefer tending to my plants."
"It's fine, Camellia. Not everypony is ready to be a mother," I told her calmly. "You made the decision to carry that child to term and give her a life out there in the world. Some people back home would have terminated the pregnancy the moment they knew about it."
"You gave her up for adoption, giving her a life. A chance to become somepony great. She'll have your genes, so I'm sure she'll end up becoming a wonderful mare in her own right," I decided to tag on a compliment.
"I appreciate that, coming from you," Camellia sighed out. "You see where I'm coming from, though? I don't know how much help Oval is going to be in this department. If you need another mare to talk with about these sorts of things, you know where I live."
She genuinely cared, and I gave her a thankful nod.
"I do, and I can't tell you how much it means to me to have somepony like yourself who decided to take this chance on me. Meadowsweet and you both have been nothing but great friends while we were stuck here in Canterlot, and I appreciate it," I returned.
"Oh! Right, what happened with Meadowsweet?" Camellia suddenly decried, a bit louder than I wanted her to.
"She's fine; she's with Tizzy," I quickly quelled any worries the Unicorn might have had. "The both of them have promised to keep one another safe; Tizzy will vouch for Meadowsweet's safety while she's out with my family of Changelings, and Meadowsweet has promised to keep Tizzy safe while she's among you Ponies."
I could hear hooffalls on the stairs.
"I think your outcry might have clued them in that we're awake," I chuckled.