Leaving Burst to Camellia and Meadowsweet, I walked into the cell with the elder unicorn stallion.
The cell was, as expected, a double one; a bunkbed had been set up along one wall while a toilet, washbasin, and small table were on the other side of the room. A single shelf was mounted on the wall above the table.
I walked into the space proper, then had the thought to climb up on the bed and felt it give way a bit more than I had expected it to.
I thought it would have been a hard mattress, maybe filled with straw or something, but this mattress was actually soft enough that I considered it might have been filled with cotton or down feathers or such.
Maybe there were springs under it to help it bend under my weight? I looked up at the latticework holding the upper bed in place. No springs there probably meant no springs under my mattress either.
Deadbolt pocketed the key to the room, then closed the door almost completely, leaving it only slightly ajar, and took up position in front of it.
If ponies had the habit of crossing their arms in front of their chest, I felt he was doing it right now as he looked at me with his ailing eyesight.
"Speak up, lass," he ordered.
"You have lived a long life, by your own admission. You say you barely care what goes on outside of the dungeon, but you have a son in the guard, so you must have met somepony you care about," I listed what I knew about him.
I continued before he could ask why I was bringing his personal life up; "Changelings also have Ponies and other Changelings they care about. A lot of us are spread throughout the pony lands, have relationships, hold jobs, are actively taking part in pony society without ill effect. We're not as bad as we're made out to be."
"As for me; I'm not from here. I was brought here under false pretenses. Where I used to live, I was able to have a full life. We don't need to attack one ponies in order to feed on their energy, which is something that our Queen Chrysalis and others like her forgot," I revealed, opting to keep the whole 'getting turned from human into Changeling'-part to myself.
"Something weird is going on here in Canterlot, right now. We weren't planning to attack the city. We weren't a threat to the ponies living here," I sighed and shook my head as I thought about the next part I had to say. "Yet the princesses suddenly decided to have anti-transformation magic activated. This revealed a bunch of us who were living peacefully in the city."
"We did nothing to deserve this. We did nothing to deserve getting hunted down and put into prison for who we are. You're starving those of us who are in here because we can't take energy from ponies by force; it has to be given willingly," I sighed sadly.
"You have poor eyesight, but even you know we look different from ponykind," I knew from him suggesting our shoulders were somehow an indication of whether we were female or male. "We have fangs, we have different eyes, we have fins instead of a mane. Not all ponies are interested in dealing with us the way we look without our pony disguise."
"If we don't feed in time, we become unable to manage our emotions. We go feral. It's not like we can help it; it's purely a defense against starving to death, as far as I know of it. You may notice my legs are filled in while my sister's have holes in them; these holes are an indication of how starved we have been throughout our lives; the less love we're able to take in, the more those holes grow," I waited a second, then added "And they never close up once they're there."
I held my unhurt foreleg out toward Deadbolt.
"Look at my leg; I have never been starved for love. I have lived together with others all my life. It's possible for our races to live together with no ill effect for either of us; we just have to accept one another," I stated as if it was a statement for peace delivered at the United Nations back home.
"The only reason somepony would want to suddenly reveal a heap of us Changelings among you ponyfolk is to prevent us from attaining a lasting peace. To learn about one another, to grow as equals like the pony races have had to learn as well, if I have to believe the story of Hearth's Warming Eve."
I had to take a breath, and used the moment to pull my leg back under myself again.
"Remember that Unicorns, Pegasi, and Earthponies used to fight. They were weaker for it. They were preyed upon and the world nearly destroyed by their ongoing war. Only when the ponies came together as one did prosperity come to Equestria. Only by the three races combined could the princesses have been born; Alicorns who embed all the races in themselves," I spoke like a professor teaching about Equestrian history from what I knew from the show.
"I came here with my sister because we believe there's a future for us all to live together; ponies and Changelings both. Perhaps other races as well, eventually. But all of my brothers and sisters held captive here are a problem for both of our races; they are turning feral the longer they go without food."
"We must do something about them, because there is no power strong enough in this world to keep them from breaking out and destroying Canterlot in their wake if they become desperate enough."
I lowered my head, looking down at the mattress I was sat on.
"Oval and me, we've been trying to work toward this unity; to gain the trust and respect on both sides. We don't want to fight. We just want to live in peace, and not be hunted down for being different," I spoke in a softer tone, but still loud enough that I thought Deadbolt's aging ears could hear my words.
"We just wanted to see the state of our family here, and hopefully find a listening ear so we could prevent what is about to turn into an all-out war... We don't want war. Most of our family of Changelings want peace. I can't stress this enough; we're trying to do right here. We're trying to be respectable members of society. We just need to hide part of ourselves because otherwise ponies scream at us and attack us."
I reached up with my ankle and touched my fang. "Just because we look dangerous. It doesn't mean we are dangerous. We're not immediately criminals because we look like we could do harm. It's no fair that we're being locked up like this."
I finally fell silent, not knowing where to go from here. I just stared down at the mattress, not knowing what Deadbolt might decide, but leaving it to him to make up his own mind about things.
The key fell onto the floor.
I looked up in surprise at the loud sound to find the stallion sitting down on his rump, rubbing at his right temple with his forehoof. He looked like he was having a hard time of something.
"Are you okay, sir?" I asked with genuine concern welling up for him.
"Shush... you talk a lot, and I have difficulty getting my thoughts in order at my old age," he threw back at me.
"Yes, sir," I stated in return, shutting up.
"If I get the gist of it, young lass, you're saying you lot were unfairly judged by those up the chain for crimes you didn't commit?" the stallion tried.
"More so the color of our skin, the shape of our heads, and the difference in our diets," I reiterated. "We've done nothing but try to live normal lives."
Deadbolt closed his eyes while continuing to rub at his right temple.
Meadowsweet's voice came from behind him through the small crack in the door opening; "You two okay in there?"
"Shush; Deadbolt is thinking," I called out to her.
The stallion shuffled back a little where he sat, using his tail to push the door closed properly. With the key in the room with us, there was no fear of it trapping him and me in there as there was no latch on it, but it shut out the sound of Meadowsweet's voice.
"Back when my grandsire was still a young colt, a classmate of his was outed as a Changeling. He told me the story of how you were not to be trusted because you could be literally anypony. Even the youngest among us could be a Changeling in disguise," Deadbolt spoke.
"We ponies have carried this fear of your kind for generations; how can you trust somepony if they're not who they say they are? How can I trust a Changeling when they could be this or that pony within the blink of an eye?" he continued.
"You can't have a relationship with somepony who just changes into somepony else and cheats on you. Who just takes on a different appearance and name and just disappears on you. You can't trust a Changeling. Everypony knows that, even if the amounts of Changelings we knew of publicly were few and far between until the recent attack upon Canterlot," Deadbolt stated.
"Yeah, my sisters are very upset about that attack. It should have never happened, but we can't disobey our Queen," I offered in return.
"And therein lies the crux of my problem; I can't disobey an order from the princesses," the unicorn stallion explained. "The princesses say 'lock up the Changelings', so I do. That's the extent of my orders, so I have to do that part or I won't be able to see myself in the mirror every morning."
"But surely your orders are not to hold our friends?" I posited. "Burst and me can go sit in a cell for a bit to help you keep to your order, but Meadowsweet and Camellia are not covered by that?"
"Regardless; you all smell like trouble. I can't in good conscience let them go," Deadbolt reasoned. "On the other note... I can't see it; the walls here are hewn out of the mountain. They are thick and strong and impossible to escape through. Even if the group down in third break out of their cells, there's nowhere for them to go."
"You don't understand; there won't be any reasoning with them. They will break through those doors by sheer force of numbers. They will swarm out into the palace and beyond, looking for food. Nopony will be able to stop them as a swarm like that," I pointed out.
"But you said that you need to feed on energy which is given willingly," Deadbolt remembered.
"And our magic allows us to emit a hypnotic field toward our target to convince them that we're their significant other. The more hungry we get, the more powerful our magic becomes,' I warned. "My siblings would make slaves of each and every pony in Canterlot because they wouldn't be able to think about trying to keep the peace. We're sitting on a ticking time bomb here, and Burst and me came here in the vain hope to try and stop it going off somehow!"
I caught the ferocity of my last statement and looked down again.
"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to raise my voice like that," I apologized.
"...in the hopes of fending off an army, we brought the army inside the walls," Deadbolt slowly realised.
"Like a Trojan Horse, yes," I agreed.
"A what?" Deadbolt wondered.
"Don't worry about it; it's something from where I'm from," I warded off. "It describes almost exactly this situation; bringing the enemy army into your midst without realising it."
"Well, congrats lass. You convinced me something weird is going on," the stallion grumbled. "I don't like this one bit, because it goes against everything I know to be true, but the idea that that lot in third section might erupt like that fills me with a dread I haven't felt since Nightmare Moon's return."
"What, that was worse than the failed invasion by us Changelings?" I chuckled weakly.
"Many times; the face of our moon changed, and then darkness fell upon the lands. As far as I know that's not within your power to do," he pointed out.
"Ah, no... I certainly hope not," I agreed.