The relief on my friends' and sister's faces when the door to the cell opened and both Deadbolt and myself walked out, one after the other, was clear to see.
Burst still had some chunks of resin on her torso and her right back legs, but had been biting it off her torso while Camellia's magic pulled it off the leg when we stepped out into the hallway again.
"Pearl here has given me a lot to think about," Deadbolt spoke, motioning in my direction. "Forgive an old blind warrior for sticking to his oath, will you?"
I looked at my sister, who was the one I was most worried about in this situation. Meadowsweet was used to palace life and had taken a more submissive role around Deadbolt. I was sure she would be fine. Camellia was able to control her emotions better than Burst could.
It was just that Burst had so much to lose and was shrinking into that fearful reactionary thinking more and more as we went on. I wish I knew how to protect her from her own mind.
"What does this mean?" I heard my sister ask. "What all did she tell you?"
"You Changelings and us ponies seem to have a lot to lose if things go awry here, am I wrong?" Deadbolt listed simply.
"No, not wrong," Burst agreed, spitting a bit of hard resin to the side. "Although a lot of our family already lost the option of going back to their old lives now they have been revealed for what they are. I still have a family to return to, if this doesn't go all kinds of sideways somehow."
"Right. I'm not entirely sure how I can help you Changelings out, but I'm willing to entertain the idea that we can somehow keep the princesses from having to deal with my dungeon not being able to hold back a swarm of you," the stallion spoke. "If anypony has any bright ideas, let's hear them."
"Well, see," I started now we were somewhat out of the clear, "we're not the only ones working on this problem right now. The princesses might soon be on our side as well, although it might take some time to convince them. Our hope is that the anti-transformation magic might go away soon. And then we just need to take small groups of our family members out of here, disguised as ponies."
"Once more; my task is to keep you locked up. I can have you roam free in these sections but I can't help you get beyond the locked doorway unless those orders are rescinded," Deadbolt stated. "I'm open to most anything else, but even if you were all disguised as ponies; there's one way in, one way out. And I have to keep those doors locked until I hear otherwise."
"Oh, very helpful," Oval sighed. "So we can roam in these halls between cells but you can't let us out? Can you open the cells for our family to come out so we can bring them up to speed? We might be able to help control those who are too far gone."
Deadbolt looked in the direction of the thick doors, then toward the opening leading to the second section.
"Technically you'd still be locked up. So, technically, that could be fine. One or two at a time, sure. I can't promise more than that," he gave in.
"Can you direct us to the nearest cell which contains another Changeling in it, sir Deadbolt?" I asked. "And, perhaps make sure you have the right key for that cell?"
"That won't be but a moment; I know exactly what cell and key combination it is. He has been fairly well behaved, given the circumstances," Deadbolt revealed. "Wait here while I get the key."
As the stallion set in motion to get the key required for this cell, and I mused at his use of 'he' for the Changeling in question. If Deadbolt was right and it was due to our shoulders that he could see whether we were male or female, I wondered whether our brother's behavior was more like Burst or if they were more likely to hold feminine guises while out in public and be the reverse of my sister.
"I'm sorry for vomiting resin all over you, Oval," I apologised to my sibling, walking a little closer to her. "My resin glands responded to my rising panic and I had to do something with the stuff. It worked out, though? We have another pony on our side of the fight?"
"Remind me to plaster you to your bed one day and sit back and watch you chip away at the resin to get your mobility back," Burst half-threatened.
"Why to her bed?" Meadowsweet asked.
"Because I caught Oval unawares, so she wants to catch me unawares. I'm an easier target while asleep," I chuckled. "It's a little petty, honestly."
"A lot petty, if you ask me," Camellia decided. "Lift your hoof up, let's see if I got it all."
Oval raised her back hoof and Camellia scrutinized it. "Well, most of it. Does this stuff dissolve on its own or do you want me to pull the last bits off?"
"It doesn't dissolve that quickly. Water helps, but I'm not sure about my resin as I actually turned it into a pearl while training on how to use it. That's how I got my name," I explained to the ponies. "Now, the soft stuff is easier to dissolve. It won't last more than a few hours. That's why we make our beds out of it."
"Easy to take away on trips, not like those bedrolls you ponies use. They never roll back up as tightly as when you buy them, do they?" Oval posited.
"There's a trick to it," Meadowsweet offered. "You just have to use both your front and back legs to roll it just as tightly as when you get it from the store."
"I'm sorry, but I tried doing that. There's just no way," Oval protested.
"Keep in mind that Burst is usually an Earthpony stallion; he's a bit bulkier than you are, Meadowsweet. I'm sure your smaller size helps you since you can put your hooves closer together," I considered.
"Who's an Earthpony stallion? This here lass?" Deadbolt wondered as he returned to us with a key.
"Oh, yeah. I'm good with stallions. I'm worse with posing as mares because I just don't have a fashion sense. Just ask my mare; she keeps telling me I don't know how to dress myself so she needs to make those decisions for me," Oval chuckled weakly. "If we didn't get stuck here in Canterlot I would've been home by now."
Deadbolt raised an eyebrow at my sibling's statement. "How... does that work exactly? Why don't you Changelings stay with the sex you are? If you're a lass, you're a lass. Don't go muddying the waters any more than they already are."
"It's just what she feels more comfortable as," I offered. "One of our other siblings is most comfortable being a foal, although she keeps having to move around and take up new disguises to not get outed as a Changeling like the one your grandsire knew. She keeps complaining about how she has to relearn all the things she already knows when she's goes to school in a new town. She'd rather avoid the trouble completely."
"I'm having trouble myself wrapping my old head around these concepts, I'll tell you," Deadbolt decided. "Follow me to the third cell up ahead. It's a double, but I only have a single Changeling in there right now. Late arrival, like you lot."
He went up ahead and I walked up to Meadowsweet's left side as we followed behind the stallion. "How are you holding up, Meadowsweet?"
"I think Deadbolt is more similar to me," the Earthpony figured. "The whole idea that you can take on disguises and be like somepony else is strange. I know you two are good Changelings, but I'm not so sure I'm liking being in the same building as a whole heap of them. I'm having trouble keeping my anxiety down."
"I figured as much. Look, you can trust in Camellia to keep you safe. If you lose sight of Burst and me in a crowd of Changelings, just stick to her side. Burst and me will find you two and we'll let you know who we are, although I'm still pretty identifiable with my resin cast," I joked, motioning at the resin surrounding my right foreleg.
"Thanks. I know you're trying, but I'll calm down when this is all over and done with. I am going to have nightmares about speaking out against those guards earlier, I just know it," she whimpered softly.
"I'm sure princess Luna will watch over your dreams again once Twilight talks some sense into her," I offered with a smile.
I couldn't really do much about my fangs, but I was hoping the poor earthpony would slowly get used to them through a sort of exposure therapy; seeing them every so often in a positive manner to help her associate the fangs with something good.
"Here we are," Deadbolt spoke after putting the key he was holding into the lock of the door. He rotated the key with his magic now the secret was out that he could still use it fine when needed, and pushed the door open. "Hey Crook, you've got a couple of visitors here I think you'd want to meet. Take a step outside or it'll get crowded in your cell."
"Crook?" I repeated.
"What was that? Crook?" Burst called out from behind me, walking up to join us a little faster. "Not the Crook, is it?"
"What do you mean the Crook?" I asked, turning my head to look in her direction.
"Ah, is that a familiar voice I hear?" A masculine voice sounded from the open cell, using a melodious intonation as if he was more used to singing than talking.
"That sounds like Crook, alright. Wandering troubadour; keeps getting himself in trouble. Once dated Blaze, but let's never bring that up around her," Burst filled me in as she joined me on my left side.
"You're doing me an injustice, Burst dear," Crook suggested as he walked out of his cell.
I could immediately tell why he had been called Crook by a Matron or the rest of the Hive he had been born into; there was a noticeable bend to his tail fin. It made his tail look crooked as a result. Crooked tail, so Crook was an easy enough jump to get to.
"I could have said you were an impossible womanizer and a rogue," Burst threw back in Cook's direction. "I haven't seen you in ages, brother. Where have you been?"
"Oh, here and there, running from the law and previous girlfriends, you know how I roll," Crook offered in far too familiar a manner.
He approached Burst amicably, but then the two of them suddenly took on stances as if they were about to fight one another! I hesitated to get between them, but this was not something we could use right now. Not now we were getting somewhere with Deadbolt!
Crook faked an attack on Burst, Burst parried with a fake attack on Crook, then the both of them just wrapped their forelegs around one another's neck and hugged each other dearly.
"I've missed you, little brother," Burst sighed in a happy tone.
"No more than I have missed you, big brother," Crook decided in as equal a happy tone.
"Well, it's clear you two go back a ways," Deadbolt quipped. "Are you all related to one another or some such?"
"Not exactly; Crook is from a batch following the one Blaze, Breeze, and myself are from. Which is why I'm his elder brother," Burst explained, letting go of the other Changeling.
"Sister, technically, but we've bumped into one another more often while he was in his pony disguise than not. It's easier for me to think of him as my brother as a result. I swear Burst holds the record for maintaining his guise the longest of all of us," Crook explained as well.
"Oh, on another note," he started in almost the same breath. "I finished that book you gave me last time. I didn't quite enjoy it as much as the previous volume. The writing is going all over the place in this new story."
"Ah, that's good to know. I'll take it back to the library later," Deadbolt spoke in return. "I feel like the writer was too distracted while writing this novel. It took them a long time to release part two, but they wrote the third book in nearly half that time."
"I will have to read it some time, then," Crook noted.
"So," I started, looking Crook over. There were fewer and less deep holes in his legs than I had seen on any other Changeling of Burst's age or close to it. "You're clearly keeping yourself well-fed, Crook. I take it you know about the impending disaster that's about to befall us if the rest of our family doesn't get out of here soon?"
"Oh, my, yes," Crook agreed. "I've tried to explain it to poor Bolt here, but his addled pony brain was having a hard time coming to terms with the urgency of the situation."
"Pearl explained it in a way I could follow in about five minutes of near-continuous talking," the Unicorn stallion grumbled. "You're just bad at explaining yourself."
"That must be why I'm usually not in a situation where I have to do that, then," Crook chuckled. "I much prefer to be somewhere else when the explaining has to be done."
"Which still leaves the question of how you ended up here," Burst pressed.
"Ah, I had this lovely little thing fresh off the train, swept her up with all my charm, and hit a nearby hotel. And then I woke up the next morning to guards surrounding the bed I had fallen asleep on, the girl nowhere in sight," Crook sighed. "Took me all of a minute to realise I wasn't able to disguise myself or talk my way out of it."
"But how were you a 'late arrival', as Deadbolt suggested? If you were around when the anti-transformation magic spread out over Canterlot, you should have been brought in with the first wave," I considered.
"Ah, see, I have this tendency to be very fast and slippery," the other Changeling offered with a grin. "I was captured a few times by a number of different guards before they finally decided to knock me over the head before transporting me. I'll tell you the headache hits differently when you wake up on a bunkbed in a jail cell with it."
"And it's the reason I barely open this door, using the food slot to talk with him instead," Deadbolt explained. "Although given what Pearl told me, I think you lot need somepony like him."
"Someone who's slippery, fast with his words, yet hates explaining himself? I'm not sure I'd know what we need him for," Meadowsweet wondered.
"Oh, I've got an idea," Camellia posited. "He's suave and quick. I'm sure he'll be able to guide groups of other Changelings out of the palace while avoiding detection or by misdirecting attentive guards."
"Aha! That sure sounds like my speciality," Crook agreed. "I'm at your service. Anything for my big bro."