Applejack packed the pies up for transport while Twilight Sparkle and Meadowsweet went over the route we had to take through the city to get to Applejack's family cart, stored away in a nearby warehouse.
Camellia had disappeared off to the upstairs, leaving Burst and me to stand around feeling useless again.
My sister turned her attention to my hoof and frowned at herself. "I'm sure Matron's healing resin would have made quick work of your hurt leg, but I've done what I could. How does it feel? Can you run if we have to?"
I lifted my resincast leg and moved it through the air a little, then put it back on the ground again and tried how much weight I could put on it before it hurt too much.
"Maybe if I use my wings to keep most of my weight off it, and even then only short distances so the resin won't crack open," I answered Oval. "How are you doing on the hunger? Feeling more up to it?"
"Yeah," she agreed. "We might have a chance if we can make it to the cart. Once we're in the palace we just need to wait for the princess to put her part of the plan in motion, then we can sneak down into the dungeon to free our family."
Oval peered past me at the staircase as Camellia came back down it again, carrying a bundle of fabric on her back.
Reaching the bottom-most step, she lifted the top fabric off the stack and hovered it in the air between herself and Oval.
"I knew I had a couple of cloaks in your sizes. I hope you can wear them over those... fins of yours?" she suggested.
I reached up with my good hoof and stroked over my head fin. "I'm sure we can handle a little strain on them, thank you for the concern."
Burst grabbed hold of the offered fabric and slung it over her back in one quick motion, flipping the hood up over her head after she ensured it was covering her body properly.
"What do you think, does it hide enough of my features?" she asked, and I couldn't but look down at the holes in her hooves.
Camellia beside me also turned her head down from the cloak properly covering Oval's head and main body, to where her legs were peeking out from underneath the fabric.
She needed a moment, then decided "Booties," and turned away for the storage cabinet under the staircase.
I watched as she rummaged through the small space until she found a shoebox and threw it in the direction of Burst standing in confusion.
The box slid over the ground toward Oval and stopped inches away from her.
"Put those on? I bought them at a fair once but never managed to find the right occasion for them," our host offered up.
I watched as Oval opened the box to reveal four rose coloured boots with small diamonds set in intricate patterns on them.
They looked flashy, like something you'd wear to a gala in the palace or a grand opening of sorts. Entirely the opposite of what I would expect Burst to be wearing if she'd had a choice in the matter.
Oval just stared down at the box before sighing and pulling the boots out of it with her magic.
She put one hoof in a boot, moved her leg around a bit to test whether it sat comfortably, then followed by putting the other three on.
Burst moved her cloak back in place, then stood silently glancing in Camellia and my direction.
The both of us looked her over again and then gave a nod in unison; the holes were covered for the most part.
The small sliver of her uncovered legs still visible under the cloak would be otherwise hidden by the darkness of the night outside.
"I've been posing as stallions so much that I'm not sure about these boots at all, but I'll manage. Thank you Camellia," Burst offered up. "Pearl's legs don't have holes in them, so I'll be the only one wearing boots I guess."
"Ah, I could wear a set if you feel awkward about it," Camellia suggested quickly. "They won't be as flashy as these, but these were meant for the Grand Galloping Gala, and I haven't been able to get invited to that yet. All in due time, I guess."
"It's not all it's made out to be," I chuckled. "It's a bunch of boring ponies trying to outdo one another in stuffiness. Pinkie Pie's parties in Ponyville are much better."
"You are an odd one, Pearl," Camellia offered back with a smile, holding out a cloak to me as well. "The things you know about our world while claiming to have come from another, it makes you ever so exotic. In a good way, mind."
I smiled at the purple unicorn and donned the cloak like I had seen Oval do. I wouldn't need booties to hide my legs as there were no holes in mine yet.
The cast around my leg was the only thing sticking out but Camellia pulled a bandage out of a first aid kit and quickly wrapped it around the resin so it looked like a more regular cast.
It would be impossible to tell from a distance that Oval and me were anything other than unicorns as long as we kept the hoods up.
"It looks like the both of you are getting ready for the trip ahead, nice touch on the cloaks Camellia," Princess Twilight spoke from behind me, and I turned to face her.
"Pearl, if you would stay beside me for the trip to the warehouse? I need to talk about some things I'm sure you know more about than your sibling," Twilight considered.
"I can't tell you about future events as I know them," I warned. "You know how that works out."
"No, no... I'm curious, but I've gone back and forth through time a few too many times myself already," she answered truthfully. "I don't want to have to deal with another paradox to solve."
"Remind me; you've tried to warn yourself to not worry about the future once, what else? I don't want to state what I know since that might give you foreknowledge," I explained my hesistance.
Twilight glanced at Camellia, Oval, and Meadowsweet before setting eyes on me again. "Wait until we're walking, please?"
"You got it," I agreed, wondering what it was that she wanted to know from me.
We set off into the darkness of Canterlot's night after shortly after Applejack had packed up the pies for transport.
The dimly lit streets might once have been bustling with ponies going to and fro, even in the dead of night, illuminated by the various richly decorated lamps on the buildings or up on posts beside the road, but most of the ponies had holed up in their homes and most of the lights were turned off.
Even with few eyes on us, our little group dared not go boldly down the main streets in case a guard might spot us, so we instead followed Meadowsweet and Camellia taking the lead through side roads and little-known alleyways to get closer to the warehouse.
The smell of freshly baked pie wafted out from the covered up pies on Applejack and Oval's backs; the pair of them having been chosen to carry them because their backs were used to lifting things; Applejack because of her life on the farm, and Oval because of her long-held guise as an Earthpony stallion.
And, in the rear, Princess Twilight Sparkle and myself.
It took her a few minutes of walking before she finally opened her mouth, and even then her question came in a conspiratorial whisper.
"Your world, they have foreknowledge of what is to happen here. But we can't use any of that information, lest we inadvertently cause the thing we wish to prevent to happen," she started.
I gave a nod under my hood, looking sideways at her. "Yes, princess."
"Twilight, please," she returned.
"But you said there are more of you here, in Equestria. Changelings who have come from your world, where this is common knowledge. I can't trust them all to keep this to themselves," she voiced her concern.
I agreed with that. "There's the matter of a large swath of us coming here by being arrested for criminal acts, whether entirely made up or not."
"Criminals?" Twilight repeated, giving me the side-eye.
"Well, in my case I was mostly just sharing this..." I wondered how to best explain it, then realised she had lived in a library for a long while; "documentation about your world with everyone who might be interested in it. Somewhat like a great big library except you make copies of the books and give them to other people, who can then give them to other people again. Except I didn't technically own those books I was giving away for free."
The princess frowned at the thought. A big library where the books are not loaned out but copied and gifted out for more copies to be made, it must have been an awkward thing to imagine without having knowledge of the internet and its workings.
"Why would they want to prevent a free distribution of knowledge?" she mused.
"I guess it's more like taking the Apple family's apples from their orchard and spreading those around without paying them," I surmised, noting Applejack's right ear twitched as I mentioned her family.
"I see how that would be bad; they put the work in to grow those apples, after all," the princess agreed.
"Yeah, but it was a sham court in control of our Queen's infiltrators to get more hatchlings for her planned invasion," I reiterated. "The point is; some of the Changelings from the other world have done crimes like mine, others may have done worse. There's no way to know for sure what they're going to do in this new life we've been given. You're right to be cautious."
"Exactly," the Princess agreed. "That's why I need you to help me, if you're willing to take that task?"
"I'm sorry, what?" I stumbled.
"I've got a good feeling about you, Pearl," Twilight revealed. "You've come to this world only a short while ago and already helped to solve one friendship problem, and now you're here helping out with another. If my experience has taught me anything, that means fate converges around you somehow."
"Oh, lovely," I coughed uneasily, not liking where this was going.
"It's much the same with me and my friends. If you know of our exploits, you are aware of how we kept falling from one problem into the next. Even as our group grew with Sunset Shimmer and even Discord joining us," the Princess orated.
"Right," I mumbled, thinking it over.
It was true that I had somewhat fallen into this maelstrom of events which led to Starlight Glimmer and Pinkie Pie joining Burst, Breeze, Blaze, and myself in confronting Queen Chrysalis, but I hardly felt that it was my doing which saved the proverbial day.
Nothing like how Twilight Sparkle frequently used her magic to solve issues... I had just sort of been there. Like I was here, now.
"What, exactly, are you asking of me, princess?" I dared wonder out loud.
"You say you have foreknowledge of events as they played out in your documents. Help me by making me aware of when those events don't play out the way they should?" Twilight Sparkle asked of me.
"I have experience with magic which changes our perception of events, changes our memory, or even our history. I can't be sure I'll be aware of it when something changes due to your relatives doing something," she posited further.
"Just let me know if something seems out of the ordinary?" she finally asked with a smile in my direction.
"So, be your canary in the coalmine," I chuckled weakly. "Well, I'm sure you don't need me to tell you that this Tantabus in Canterlot thing isn't supposed to happen."
"The Princesses should have been able to detect it before it could take hold," Twilight agreed. "Especially Princess Luna given it's a creature from the dreams over which she presides."
I smirked at that. "She created it to punish herself, if I remember correctly. I don't know how it can be here now. It should have been destroyed when you helped her fight it."
"I'm not entirely sure about that, actually," Twilight revealed. "You know how it is; dreams are fleeting. I tried to write it down afterward but only Princess Luna knows what all happened."
"And the documents from my world. I've seen the events unfold with my own two eyes. There was every indication it was destroyed," I knew.
"Can I ask you to tell me about exactly these abnormalities when you detect them, Pearl?" the Princess Twilight asked again.
I gave a nod in her direction. "I'll do my best, princess."