You know that guy you see going into the convenience store late in the evening as they're returning home from a hard day's work, just so they can get a coffee and a snack so they can make it home without falling asleep behind the wheel?
The kind of guy who looks perpetually tired on work days, unsociable to their direct neighbours, and generally keeps to themselves on their free days?
The type of person who would escape into games or series while at home so they could dream of a life beside that of a worker drone trying to climb the corporate ladder even while knowing they're never going to get that promotion?
Well, that guy was me, up until I was whisked away to Equestria and transformed against my will.
My name is Pearl, and I'm a changeling.
Besides the nature of my new species having the unfortunate drawback of needing to feed on the love of other races, mainly ponies, my new life forced me to change to become quite the social butterfly in a short amount of time.
In my time in Equestria so far I've met, and made friends with, half a dozen ponies, and have somehow managed to get many more changelings to regard me as some kind of saviour come to broker peace between our two species.
I have also, apparently, drawn the attention of someone who left me a note in my saddle bag.
A note which now rested on the ground of the guest room in the home of Hammer Hoof, a changeling also known by the names Burst or Oval, and her earthpony wife Celery Stalk, who has no clue about either of us being what we are.
A note with a very daunting message written on it;
"I saw you in Canterlot. I know what you are. I have your address. You can't hide forever."
I stood shocked, my legs trembling, just reading those words over and over again where I stood.
My changeling tailfin was pushing up against the dresser behind me, curved slightly to the left as there wasn't enough room for it to be fully extended behind me, and the feeling was about as uncomfortable as the idea that someone, a pony or some other creature, knew where I was going to be staying for the next couple of weeks or months.
Who would leave such a note? What was their intention? Would they spread this knowledge to others?
How long was I going to be safe here, and would this note lead to a problem for my hosts?
Oval had first adopted me into her clutch back at the Hive, when I was still coming to terms with having been transformed into a Changeling.
She had offered to let me stay with her and her wife so I could learn about pony society and get used to life as a changeling within it.
Her wife had been nothing like I had expected from Oval's worried comments while we made our way over here; she appeared to have just accepted me as one of her husband's cousins, no further questions asked.
I knew Oval feared losing Celery Stalk above most other things; she didn't want her wife to get wise to the fact she was a changeling, and a female one at that.
There were many things about their relationship which could give someone pause: Theirs was an interspecies relationship between members of the same gender, with one of them effectively lying about who they were, and using the other as a food source.
This note may have come from somepony who considered changelings to be the most vile of creatures found in Equestria. Somepony who had decided to take matters into their own hooves and hunt us down as a vigilante of sorts.
There was a definite threat to that last sentence; "You can't hide forever."
If such a vigilante might show up on our doorstep one day, or catch us unawares in the streets of Hoofton, we could have our true selves revealed and get thrown in jail, chased out of town, or worse.
I noticed I was hyperventilating and turned my bug eyes away from the note to look in the direction of the bed I had just made and the plush pony on it.
I had no emotional attachment to it; it was just something I had thrown into my bags in an effort to appear like I had, but now I felt the sudden urge to grab it and hold it close in an effort to find comfort from its presence.
I made for the bed, giving the note on the floor a wide berth, and clambered on it, my magic seeking out the toy and pulling it to myself.
With my forelegs wrapped tightly around it, I fell onto my right side and curled up as much as my changeling body would allow me.
My stay in Hoofton was certainly off to a great start; the peace I had hoped to get here was already shattered before I had good and well settled.
The soft plush smelled musty. It had been stored in a relatively dry room in the Hive, but I could not tell how long it had been there before I had picked it up.
Then it had been in a saddle bag which was lost on the streets of Canterlot.
This bag was found by whoever had written the note, and shipped out by train or cart to Hoofton.
The toy had not had a chance to air out until now, and it stuck out in the clean air of this guestroom.
I clung to it regardless, my eyes closed as I found myself silently praying to Celestia and Luna, the princesses who controlled the sun and moon, that the note was benign.
That it was just someone's idea of a sick joke.
I didn't realise I had fallen asleep in this curled up position until I woke to a hoof shaking me awake again.
"Pearl, for the love of everything, get your disguise back up," Hammer Hoof hissed from under his thick bristly mustache.
I stared up at this larger earthpony stallion looking at me intently with his brown eyes as my mind tried to come back out of a deep well of tiredness.
"What?" I responded groggily.
"I'm so glad I'm the one who came to fetch you for dinner," my cousin breathed out in exasperation. "I can't imagine what would have happened if she saw you like this..."
The memory of how our disguises were our lifeline while among the ponies, how we had been revealed for who we were thanks to that nasty spell back in Canterlot, and how we had been forced to hide away until we could escape the city came flooding back into my mind.
It did little to wake me; it actually made me feel far more tired than I already did.
The reality of the situation had finally set in, and I clutched the plushie a little tighter to myself.
"Can I just rest here for the evening? Just let me rest for a night, and I'll get back to pretending tomorrow? Can I just... sleep? Just not have to deal with this whole life I was thrown into?" I begged, even if I knew what the answer would be.
Oval sighed and shook her head.
"Not now, not while dinner is waiting for us downstairs," she denied me my request. "You're going to have to toughen it out for the evening, but I'll make sure to find some time for you soon to have a moment for yourself."
"Celestia knows I'm going to need some time to think about what happened to us in Canterlot myself. I'll be there for you when I can, but it's very important that we keep up appearances for now," this changeling sister of mine spoke from the mouth of her male earthpony disguise.
I closed my eyes and sighed deeply.
"I so don't want to right now; my head is pounding, I feel like I haven't had nearly enough rest, and..." I suddenly remembered the note and sat up with a start.
The plush pony fell down into an awkward position onto the pillow as my forelegs let go of it.
"Oval, there was a note in my bag. I dropped it on the floor," I revealed, motioning my head at the piece of paper still on the ground.
With the blank side up, it just looked like any other unassuming piece of blank paper.
Hammer Hoof turned around to look at what I was motioning toward.
"Oh, so there is. I probably ran past it because I was worried my sister would accidentally reveal herself to my mare," he pointed out.
"Fine, I'll get my guise back up, but you should read the damn note," I bit to him with a growl. "Then you'll know why I was curled up on the bed just now."
"Sure, I'll read it," Hammer agreed, but I could see my words worried him.
I focused on my changeling magic and the disguise I wore when I arrived here from Canterlot.
The disguise I had first imagined for myself back in the Hive, for our little trip with Blaze and Breeze to the hot springs in Hollow Shades.
I pulled forth the image of the light grey earthpony with her aquamarine mane with some lighter streaks through it, my body changing as my magic washed over me.
My Changeling head- and tail-fins turned into the hairs of a pony mane and tail, curling around my flank as the brown conch shell with the pearl resting just in front of it appeared painted in the short hairs now covering my body once more.
I flicked my ears once they transformed as well, and sighed as I noticed my crooked Changeling horn disappear from sight, replaced by the slight overhang of my mane.
Doing a quick check of my appearance, I settled back into this disguise which was so much more the embodiment of the name Pearl, or Pearly Shells as we had considered my full name to be, than my changeling self.
It honestly made me feel a little better now there was a warm coat covering me like a full body hug, comforting me like the plushy had done moments ago.
Conversely, I saw Hammer Hoof growing more worried by the moment as he read the words on the note after having turned it over with his mouth.
I was sure he was reading it over and over as I had done, his mind doing the same mental acrobatics I had as I had pondered what was to come from it.
Remembering he had mentioned Celery had dinner ready, I slid off the bed onto my four hooves and sought out the dress I had prepared earlier.
I worked it over my head while Oval let her mind wander from one worried thought into the next, put my forehooves through it, and tugged it down so it fit smoothly around my barrel.
"This room needs a mirror," I suggested, turning back to face my clutch sister.
Oval stood as if nailed to the ground, her pupils showing her shock clear as day, and I wondered just how long I had stood in a similar fashion before having moved to the bed.
I walked over to her and gently nuzzled into her larger body.
"Hey, you gonna be okay there?" I asked out of growing concern for her mental wellbeing.
"I put too much work in this life," she whispered, clearly still in shock. "I can't lose this."
"That's what I was thinking; we can't let whoever wrote this get the better of us. What ever their plans are, we'll have to face it together, sister," I suggested, trying to calm her down.
"We've done it before; convincing Starlight Glimmer to listen to us, convincing Moonshine to give our plan a chance, convincing our Queen to stop the planned assault on Canterlot," I reminded her.
"We both convinced Camellia and Meadowsweet that we weren't a threat. Admittedly, Twilight Sparkle was a little too eager to get on board with our plan, and Applejack is just amazing, but we even got Deadbolt to allow us to escape from his jail! We can weather whatever else is coming our way, I'm sure," I concluded, giving a gentle nuzzle with my right cheek against his left.
Hammer Hoof shook his head, nudging my head away from his.
"You don't get it, Pearl. There's more at stake here," he rebutted.
I took a step away from him and turned so I could look at him directly.
"What, more than the invasion on Canterlot, the threat of the Tantabus, or our siblings all starving in the Canterlot jail?" I wondered.
"Far more," he agreed. "This is my marriage which is at stake!"
I stared at him as if he had lost his mind.
"Your marriage is worth more than... Dear sister of mine, have you lost your marbles?" I protested. "I'm sure it feels like the end of the world for you, but do the math here; we saved nearly a hundred, no, wait, more than a hundred of our siblings back in Canterlot. We saved many more ponies and other changelings by preventing the assault upon the capital."
"And what do you think I've been doing here over the years?" Oval rebutted.
I raised my right eyebrow and ear up at that.
"I'm sure I can imagine what two adult ponies would do with one another while married, yes," I returned flatly.
"That's not what I mean, Pearl, and you know it," Hammer Hoof grumbled. "This home of mine is a safe haven for our siblings as much as anything can be while we're among the ponies."
"Is that why you had this guestroom ready for use?" I realised, looking around. "It did strike me as odd, now you mention it."
"We sometimes get 'family' of mine drop by as they're moving around Equestria. My mare is used to it by now, so we have this room set up to lodge them," he suggested. "Celery is amazing like that. She doesn't ask any questions we can't easily get around."
"Hoofton is positioned right in the middle between two of our hives, and trains going from here to the capital might as well have come from Baltimare and its port, which allows for an easy excuse to explain where somepony is from when asked," he explained.
"There are plenty of ponies coming through the station here on the way to or from the colleges in Baltimare, so it's easy to blend in when taking the trains," Hammer added.
"It's also not as crowded as Baltimare is, so a lot of our family uses it as a stop to disappear into the woods from here and return to the hive near here after some time among the ponies, much like the station at Hollow Shades and the outpost there," he continued, using a reference I would understand.
"If we were to just launch ourselves into the busier of cities, there would be more eyes upon us. You would think we could just disappear into the crowds, no questions asked, but there are more guards in the bigger cities and there's always one with their eyes upon those entering or leaving them," he grumbled.
"It's tripped enough of our siblings up over the years that we've changed the way we do those things and are now using sleeper towns or chaotic trade hubs like Hoofton instead. Enough merchants have their warehouses here that it's part of normal everyday life here to have single ponies or ponies with carts arrive from or leave to unknown destinations," Hammer finally finished, his nostrils flaring from the outburst of information.
I started to understand why he was so worried about the letter now. The function this home provided for our family had escaped me until now. I could see why he was so protective of it.
"So you've been providing a safe haven for our family for years now, but that letter could spell the end of that?" I listed to ensure Burst knew I had gotten the gist of it as well.
"Precisely," he agreed with a frown. "We need to figure out who wrote that note and what their plans are before they suddenly arrive on our doorstep and potentially ruin years of hard work of getting Celery and me ingrained in the community here."
"Your doorstep," I reminded him. "I'm just a guest here, after all."
"And you would show yourself to be a good guest to not let Celery wait for you while dinner is getting cold," he suggested, changing the subject away from the whole thing. "It took you a while to wake up and we've been talking for far too long; she might come up to see where I have disappeared off to if you don't."
"What about the note?" I wondered, motioning toward it with my left forehoof.
"I'll get rid of it," Oval decided. "Don't worry about it for now. We'll have to have a conversation about it between ourselves to see what we're going to do about it when we have some more time for it."
"Of course, you're right," I agreed without further discussion. "I'll wait until you're ready for it."
"That's a nice change," my sister supposed. "You somehow ended up taking the lead away from me while we were in Canterlot. I'm still not sure how you convinced those ponies to help us out. It's good to know you're letting me set the pace in my home town, at least."
"Camellia took a chance on us, I had no say in that. Also, Blaze set the pace for us back in Hollow Shades," I protested. "But sure, you're the man of the house and such. I should defer to you for these kinds of things, right?"
My poor changeling sibling let out a brief snort at the word 'man', but then recovered quickly.
"I'm sure that's how they do things in your world, so I'll take it as a compliment. Now get going or Celery will come up to figure out what the both of us are doing up here," Hammer Hoof pushed.
"Yeah, yeah..." I mumbled as I walked past him for the door to the room.
"Oh, before I forget; the dining room is down the stairs and directly to your right. Opposite the kitchen, which is downstairs to the left," he expanded.
"Next to the living room, then. Easy enough," I realised.
"Yeah, the kitchen and bathroom are directly above one another. It's due to the pipes, you see? It's similar to the veins in the Hive, but water runs up through them instead of resin paste coming down," my changeling sibling explained as if it had to be explained at all.
"That makes sense," I agreed just for the sake of not going into another argument with her again.
I exited the room, headed down the stairs, and made for the dining room.