With the ponies suspended in our midst, the four of us descended down the slope of Canterlot's mountain side, keeping to a Southeastern trajectory so we would effectively fly diagonally away from the city walls and the ponies guarding it.
If we would be spotted by them it might seem like we were abducting two of Canterlots' citizens, dragging them away from the capital against their will, an idea which would be reinforced by Meadowsweet having a hard time keeping her hind legs still.
With the buzz of our wings once more cutting through the air without sound dampening magic suppressing it, I found Tizzy was perhaps the better flyer of the both of us.
I was still new to flying, having only had the most basics explained to me in my time at the Hive, and what with my main guise being an Earthpony had not tried to improve myself yet in that regard.
Tizzy was born as a Changeling in this world and would have had years to hone her skills while I had still been back on Earth.
Where I had taken the lead as we flew over the wall and waterfall before, now I found myself reacting to my sibling's movements instead.
Considering what Tizzy had said before about the sound of our wings, I was paying extra attention to it as we flew past the darkened slope below us.
Whenever we tried to make more speed or fly up, we would move our wings faster and the buzzing coming from them would rise to a higher pitch. In some cases to as high a pitch as I had heard from mosquitos back home; a sharp, annoying pitch which grated the ears.
If we slowed down, or lowered Meadowsweet down to the ground so she wouldn't struggle as much, we would slow the speed of our wings down and it became more of a bass pitch instead. I could see how it was a way to instantly recognize just how fast you were flying, even in a situation where it was impossible to tell from your surroundings.
Perhaps up in the air during heavy cloud cover, in the fog, or a darker night as the one we were now flying through.
Camellia was having far more fun with this flight of ours down the mountain than her Earthpony friend. I could on occasion hear her "Hip" and "Hoo" as my siblings turned this way and that, resulting in her hind legs and tail swaying through the air.
Meadowsweet, for her part, seemed to be more focused on keeping her stomach from turning over mid-flight.
Crook and Burst dove down a sudden gash in the mountain, accompanied by a surprised "Whoop!" from the Unicorn between them, and I gave a glance to my right side.
"Careful; there might be a downdraft," Tizzy noted. "Let's climb up a little to keep from doing the same thing they did."
I nodded in response and followed her example as we climbed up more than we had done before, much to Meadowsweet's dismay.
There was definitely more wind down here, as if the path we had taken had led us out of a calm nook wedged between Canterlot's city walls and the mountainside. Now the city was no longer protecting us from winds coming from the West, they tried to take us with them as they wrapped around this side of the mountain.
Tizzy's suggestion paid off as we hit a faster stream but managed to cut through it to a higher layer before it could have sent us dropping after the other three and I let her steer us into a calmer patch of air again.
"Where'd they go?" Meadowsweet asked, looking around.
"There," Tizzy pointed out with a nod of her head, and I looked down to spot our missing trio sheering past the mountain as if they were using those special wingsuits from back home.
They had gotten caught in a slipstream of sorts and the distance between us was increasing fast.
"Let's change direction and fly into the winds instead," my sibling suggested. "It will take a bit more energy but we can control our path more easily that way. Turn for the lights of Ponyville over there."
I looked around in surprise.
"The lights of Ponyville?" I repeated, trying to find them.
"Turn right with me," the other Changeling repeated, changing our course from a Southeaster to a Southwestern flightpath.
As we turned into the wind, with Tizzy taking the largest hit considering she was on the side the wind came from, I started noticing a number of small lights beyond the nearby forest.
Canterlot had hidden it from sight where we had stood on the outcrop before, but since we had flown diagonally away from its tall walls we could now see further to the Southwest.
A small amount of lights set against the dark horizon indicated where the town was located, with Twilight Sparkle's castle clearly recognizable amidst the smaller buildings near it.
That town which had taken on such an important role in the show I had seen back home. The town which I simply had to visit at some point in the future, if only because I now had invitations from Pinkie Pie, Starlight Glimmer, and Twilight Sparkle to do so.
The town where our sister Moonshine was learning pony magic from Starlight Glimmer.
Tizzy forced me to fly forward but at a downward angle, keeping us at an angle into the oncoming winds like a sailing ship might do on the lakes and seas back on Earth.
Having to actively fly into the wind was a different experience than sailing a ship into the wind however. Even with Tizzy and Meadowsweet between me and the direction the wind was coming from I could feel us getting pushed around by the harder jets we passed on our way down.
I had no other choice but to follow the hints I was being given by my sibling so we could lower ourselves to the foot of the mountain and finally set the Earthpony back on solid ground again.
When we finally did, I was exhausted.
Meadowsweet was hugging the ground again once she had her hooves placed down upon it, but I collapsed onto it as well as I carefully folded my tired wings back under my backplate.
Sweat was dripping down my body now it was no longer getting blown immediately off by the air passing by us, and I tiredly rubbed it away from my brow as I otherwise lay flat on the grass.
"Let's not do that again until after I've had a chance to get better at flying," I suggested in a weak voice.
"No, let's just not ever do that again, period," Tizzy responded from where she sat on the ground beside the Earthpony.
"I agree; no more flying," Meadowsweet was eager to add to the conversation. "I much prefer having solid ground under me."
"Technically," I started, "solid ground had been under you all the way down. There was just a pocket of air between it and us."
Meadowsweet turned her head to face me and I could swear there was another look of betrayal on her face, although I had trouble making it out in the twilight darkness surrounding us.
I chuckled weakly. "It's a joke, come on..."
"I don't think almost getting killed by Ponies is that much of a joke," Tizzy replied. "And we might still not be safe here. Who's to say there aren't timberwolves nearby? I won't be comfortable until I'm back in a Hive where the Soldiers can protect us."
"Soldiers?" Meadowsweet wondered, the term unfamiliar to her.
"Ah, less said about them the better," I proposed. "Let's just say there are as many different Changelings as there are Ponyfolk... We have our own subspecies, just the same as you."
"And you call one of those 'soldiers'," the Earthpony considered. "Why does that term fill me with dread?"
"Well, we're not soldiers," I pointed out. "We're safe to be around, up to a point."
"Not helping," Meadowsweet threw back. "Do you think the others will be able to find us here?"
"I'm not sure if we ever decided on a rendez-vous point, honestly," I considered with a start. "The idea was just to make our way out of the city, so I'm betting most of them would head for the forest since it's nearby."
"You mean the Everfree Forest to the South?" the Earthpony knew. "That's at least a day's walk from here, and over the Saddleback Hump. The forest near the Foal Mountain would be closer by to the East."
I turned to what I thought the South was, and stared at the shapes in the distance. "Those are not trees then?"
"Well, they are," Meadowsweet agreed with me. "But the forest extends over a set of hills, and past the Saddle Lake before it becomes the Everfree Forest."
"They will probably have gone to the East, considering the wind direction," Tizzy mused, slowly getting more anxious again. "We're going to have to walk that way and meet up with them and we could be found by Pony guards and Timerwolves and Dragons and whatever else, oooh, I don't like this. We ended up too spread out from the others."
"Hey, no, it's mostly peaceful grasslands between here and the Foal Mountain. Although we'll have to cross the train tracks and a river before we get there," Meadowsweet pointed out. "We should be fine, I promise you. I told you in the jail that I would bring you to safety, remember?"
Tizzy gave a slow nod back to Meadowsweet, the Earthpony's words calming her only a little.
"More importantly," I spoke, sitting up. "Let's see if we are out of range of that silly magic spell yet, shall we?"
I sought out the magic hidden within myself and tried to pull it up to transform back into the Earthpony guise I had come to see as my main pony identity; the light-grey coat, aquamarine half-length mane and short tail with light green highlights, yellow eyes which faded to brown, my flanks adorned with a conch shell on its side with a pearl in it as my cutiemark.
As the green flash of my magic passed over me and the expected nausea I had been subjected to by the anti-transformation spell used to protect Canterlot did not, I felt a heavy weight fall off my back.
"We're out of range," I spoke with glee.
Meadowsweet just stared at me in shock, not having expected to suddenly see me turn into an Earthpony like her right before her eyes.
A similar green flash washed over Tizzy, drawing the Royal Gardener's attention away from me in the process.
Tizzy now looked like a Pegasus with a yellow coat, red mane, and blue eyes. Her cutiemark was a rising sun over a curved surface like it was coming up over a hill.
She crossed her forelegs and looked away as she saw Meadowsweet and me staring at her.
"Well, that's a bold look for you, Tizzy," I suggested, taking a few steps closer to her and holding out my right hoof toward her. "I'm Pearl, how do you do?"
"But," Meadowsweet started, looking between the two of us.
"Aurora," Tizzy returned to me, lifting her own right hoof and putting it to mine to shake. "At least in this guise I am."
"See, this is what gives me the heebies," Meadowsweet complained, and I turned to face her with a smile.
"Why? We're still the same Changelings you met before," I asked. "All we did is take on an appearance which you should feel more comfortable with. See? No fangs."
The Earthpony in front of me squinted her eyes at me. "That's not the point, Pearl."
"But it is," I decided. "I'm still Pearl. I'm just more fuzzy now."
"I do like the fur," Tizzy/Aurora sighed. "And the feathers on these wings. I'm already warming back up from that cold, cold wind earlier."
Meadowsweet sat down on her rump and rubbed at her temples with both hooves.
"You don't get it; you can't just transform into somepony else. You just can't steal somepony's identity like that," she demanded.
"I'm not somepony else. I'm me. There is nopony else out there who looks like this," I retorted. "I came up with this look of mine on my own."
"Mine too," Aurora suggested. "I did look at a few of you Ponies as inspiration, but as far as I know there's nopony like me among you."
"But the stories..." started Meadowsweet.
"Are wrong," Aurora interjected. "So, so wrong."