Once I was out of the window, I could see the route the intruder had taken; there was a small overhang which prevented rain from falling onto whoever stood at the front door outside, and this extended close enough to the adjacent building that a jump toward the trellis was possible.
I didn't have time to think about it, I just leapt for it, fell halfway down the trellis before I could correct myself, and then clambered the rest of the way down to the ground.
There was no time to check myself for wounds if I wanted to catch up to the other pony, so I instantly dashed forward in the direction I had seen them flee.
They had similar colours to their mane, coat, and tail as Fluttershy. Maybe a little darker, maybe a little lighter, maybe it was just the play of the sunlight and the shadows of the buildings which made them look ever-so-slightly different, but close enough that I could use that to identify them while giving chase.
Their mane wasn't as long as Fluttershy's, but their tail might have even been longer than that of the shy friend of all animals from Ponyville, at least in so far as I could remember from the show.
I could just see their tail turn a corner up ahead and ran as fast as my hooves could carry me after them, only to spot their tail and hind legs go around yet another corner.
There was no stopping, no thinking of where I was headed, just the chase. I rounded the next corner and spotted more of their hind quarters this time.
It was obvious I could run faster than them, if only by a little, and it motivated me to ignore the strain it put upon my body.
If only there were less ponies out on the streets, if only it was nighttime, I could have transformed myself and flown after them as a pegasus or changeling.
I wasn't even wearing my necklace right now as I had put it aside on my bedside cabinet before taking the bath out of fear of it dissolving if I took it with me.
Just a quick transformation and I could appear as any other pony I wanted, but I could not do so with the amount of eyes on the both of us as we ran through the streets of Hoofton.
I was gaining on the other pony, and I could see their lithe frame draw nearer and nearer, and noticed a few important details.
She was definitely female, no wings on her sides, no horn on her head, and she had an odd kind of way of moving her hind legs as if she was unused to running at the speed we were going.
It was clear she had noticed I was chasing her, as she went around yet another corner. This time a small passage between two industrial buildings, warehouses as far as I could tell.
Before I could follow her into this passage there was the sound of something heavy falling over, and I slowed down as I rounded the corner to find her slumped into a pile of barrels which must have previously been stacked upright until she had impacted with them.
I was upon her before she could get up, and did my best to pin her limbs to either side of her as I towered over her.
"Explain yourself!" I boomed, loud enough for my voice to echo in the space between the buildings.
The mare's green eyes looked up at me in sudden fright, but then she turned them away and a flush darkened her cheeks.
We were both panting heavily, my heart was thumping rapidly, steam was rising around both of us, and sweat was dripping down from my wet fur onto hers as I kept her pinned underneath me.
I needed a moment before I could formulate more questions, and I could wait for her to do the same before answering me, but her blush was enough to make me wonder whether her reasons were nefarious or other.
Once I thought I had calmed down enough again, and had licked around my muzzle a few times, I repeated myself in a softer voice.
"Explain yourself," I demanded anew.
She licked around her own muzzle before looking back up at me with a defiant look in her eyes. "Explain what?"
"You broke into the house," I pointed out. "Tell me why I shouldn't call the guard on you?"
"You're a changeling, tell me why I shouldn't call the guard on you?" she rebutted with a light narrowing of her eyes.
And there it was; Burst and my fears made tangible. This pony apparently knew I was a changeling and had sought me out at Burst's home.
This meant I couldn't let her go.
"How much do you think you know?" I hissed at her while trying to contain either my anger or fear, or whatever combination of the two it was that I was feeling boiling up within me right now.
"I know I saw two changelings run through the streets of Canterlot, and one of them dropped their bag while they passed by the alleyway I was hiding in," she quickly recited. "That address was on the tag."
"That means nothing; they could have stolen the bag from the pony it rightfully belongs to. It doesn't give you the right to break into somepony else's home," I countered.
"That changeling had a green gemstone dangling from their neck. That same necklace was on you when you looked out the upstairs window at me yesterday evening," the mare stated. "And you were wearing it when you boarded the train in Canterlot earlier that day."
Her eyes tilted slightly down, then back up again.
"You're not wearing it right now, but I know it's you," she decided.
Betrayed by my own necklace... but perhaps I could still talk my way out of this.
"Again; that necklace says nothing. They had stolen it from me and while the bag was sent back here to the lost and found because of the address on it, the necklace was retrieved by the Canterlot guards when they captured the changeling who stole it," I lied like the pro I was quickly becoming.
There was a faint moment of doubt on the other mare's face, but then she snorted up at me in defiance of my words.
"No, it's you. I know what I saw. I'm never wrong," she boasted.
I could feel a cramp pull up into my right foreleg. Even without a resin cast around it, even with it healed, it was obviously still the weakest of my four limbs.
"If you don't run, I'll let go of you and we can talk about this like two mature ponies," I suggested to the mare on the ground.
"I won't run," she agreed. "I'm pretty sure I sprained my hip coming down the plant support."
"That explains your odd gait," I realised. "I guess we're both half-cripple then; my right foreleg isn't doing too well either."
As if to illustrate my point, I took the weight off my right foreleg and moved off of the other pony.
I sat on my haunches and pulled my right foreleg up to my chest, using my left forehoof to rub over the sore spot on it.
"How about some introductions?" I wondered, as the other mare picked herself off the ground as well.
"Palina," she mumbled under her breath, that flush darkening her cheeks again.
"That's a nice name," I returned to her with a careful smile. "I'm Pearl. Now what were you thinking breaking into somepony else's home, Palina?"
"It's not somepony else's home if changelings replaced them," Palina reasoned. "It's obviously not your home; that room had nothing in it but two beds."
"Not like it's any of your business, but it's my cousin's home. I'm just staying over for a while," I retorted. "Who are you to decide who's a changeling and who's not?"
"I told you; I saw you in Canterlot," Palina repeated her earlier accusation.
I took a quick glance around. We were far enough from the main road that there were few ponies on the street near us, and we were far enough into the alleyway that we couldn't be easily overheard.
Even so, I knew that there was an echo from when I had shouted earlier. There were no windows in the walls on either side of us, but I couldn't immediately tell what was beyond the alleyway. For all I knew somepony could be standing around a corner, listening in to our conversation.
"Let me be clear to you on something; there are no changelings here in Hoofton. Any talk of changelings out in the open could be a very bad idea for anypony involved. The guards would just have to arrest any and all suspected changelings. They would have to put them in jail until they could be sure they're really not changelings," I warned Palina.
"Falsely accusing somepony of being a changeling could also be very bad for everypony involved, as it's not just damaging their reputation but could also spread panic around like a wildfire among other ponies," I continued.
"Having come from Canterlot, as you say, you could see how that kind of panic could end in the town getting locked down, disrupting all trade going through here," I noted. "What do you think those traders would do to somepony who made them lose all that money over a false accusation?"
"It's not false," Palina grumbled.
"Again; there are no changelings in Hoofton," I repeated myself. "Because if there were any, or it was suspected there were, it would be very bad for all ponies in the city. So it's obvious that there are no changelings here."
I wondered how fast she was on the uptake here. I needed her to be on the same level as me on this, because otherwise I would have to do something stupid to make sure she couldn't become a worse problem to me and Oval than she already was.
Palina seemed to mull my words over, then drooped her ears down.
"I see what you mean," she agreed.
"Good, I can work with that," I sighed out in relief.
"You are, though," Palina whispered under her breath, locking her eyes with me again.
"There are no changelings in Hoofton," I repeated pointedly.
Palina frowned at me just repeating that one line, then put her attention on rubbing at her left hip with her left foreleg instead of pushing the issue further.
"How badly does it hurt?" I wondered, hoping she didn't need medical attention. "Can you still put your weight on your back leg?"
I could see Palina shifting her weight a bit back and forth, but then she nodded.
"Yeah, I don't think I sprained it, it is more likely just a pulled muscle. I'm just not used to running," she sighed.
I gave her an empathic nod. "I know how that feels. I have had to run a lot recently as well, and I used to sit around doing nothing for most of the day. Then again, I didn't break into somepony else's home, so there's that..."
"I had to know if you were hiding my parents," Palina exhumed. "I know now that you don't have them, but I couldn't be sure before."
I did a doubletake.
"Your... parents? Why would I be hiding your parents?" I asked bewildered.
"Because changelings took them away from me, and I've been looking for them since," the other mare offered with a sad undertone to her voice. "I thought I'd find them in Canterlot after hearing that changelings had taken over the capital, but the only two I saw there were the pair who lost their bag as they ran by me."
"It was the only lead I had, so here I am," she chuckled wryly.
I just stared at this earthpony in front of me while trying to parse what she just told me.
"Changelings took your parents... so you go to the capital because it's supposedly under attack by them... find a bag dropped by them, leave a threatening note in it, then go to what you assume to be their house?" I had to repeat for myself.
Palina stared at me as if she didn't know what I was getting at.
"Yes, why?"
I reached out with my right forehoof and tapped her in the forehead. "Excuse me for asking, but how does that brain of yours work?"
The other mare stared at me from around my leg, confusion evident on her face.
"What do you mean?" she wondered, not getting it at all.
"You would walk boldly into a lion's den to give them a piece of your mind, wouldn't you?" I sighed, realising she had no idea about the potential dangers she had invited upon herself by going sleuthing herself.
Palina's left ear twitched and she slowly leaned her head toward the right, obviously not getting it.
I dropped my leg and stared at her. "Just... how old are you? Don't you know how dangerous this could have been for you?"
"I don't care," she huffed. "I can't go home without my parents, so what other option is there?"
I felt a cold chill run down my spine at hearing her words.
"You can't go home?" I repeated out of shock more than anything.
Palina shrugged a bit at that, her ears slowly drooping down as she considered her situation in earnest.
"How long ago did your parents get taken?" I croaked.
"A week ago now," the earthpony sighed darkly. "We were visiting Baltimare since my parents want me to enroll in one of the schools there once I'm old enough, but they were taken away from the hotel room we were staying at."
I blinked as a feeling of unease fell over me.
"I had taken a second dessert after dinner but my parents went back to the room before I was done eating it. When I got to the room myself, there were a pair of grey changelings in the room with my parents, who were themselves stuck in green coccoons," Palina continued to explain. "I had never seen something like that, but I feared for my life seeing it, so I ran back to the lobby."
"Are you sure that's what you saw?" I queried.
I was astonished that a pair of my siblings would abduct ponies from a hotel room like that.
Why would they be coccooning them in the room like that?
Palina probably saw her parents immobilised by resin and assumed from limited knowledge of how we changelings did things, rather than them being in a proper coccoon.
"I'm sure I saw my parents in green coccoons with a pair of grey changelings beside them, yes," Palina returned forcefully. "There was still a bit of green on the ground when I dared to return to the room, but both my parents and their captors were gone."
"How much? Was it solid or moist to the touch?" I had to ask.
"I didn't touch it, so I don't know," Palina huffed. "It disappeared into the carpet as I looked at it, and was gone not a minute later."
I recognized the fleeting nature of the soft resin I had used to make a bed out of back at the Hive.
"Okay, that sounds about right. So what did you do next?" I wondered.
Palina snorted. "I went back to the lobby and told them what I'd seen, but they said there were no changelings in Baltimare and wafted me away again. I didn't want to sleep in the room my parents were abducted from, out of fear the changelings would come back, so I ran for the nearest guard station."
I thought it sounded fairly suspicious that the lobby clerk would claim there were no changelings rather than raise the alarm. Ponies would most likely have called for the guard, but this sounded more like the way I had treated Palina's accusations.
"The sun had already set when I got to the guard post, and I was told they couldn't help me until the morning. When I asked them where I could sleep safely, they said to go back to the hotel. I felt like nopony was taking me serious," Palina grumbled.
Another suspicious reaction, although perhaps they had received a few too many fake reports from bored students over the years and just didn't feel like Palina was genuine?
I could remember my student years and the prank calls made during that time of my life back on Earth.
"So I went to the train station and caught the last train to the capital," the earthpony continued to explain. "I thought; if the local guards won't want to help me, I'll go talk to the princesses. Surely they would want to know my mom and dad were captured by changelings, especially considering the long hist..."
Her voice trailed off and she made a face as if she caught herself saying something she had not meant to.
"H...hist... History of the princesses taking care of Equestria together," she recovered.
I smirked at her.
"I'm sure that wasn't where you were going with that, but go on," I pressed with a bemused smile playing around my lips.
"You know full well what I found in Canterlot, miss Pearl; you were there," Palina stated in an accusatory tone. "The city was supposedly being besieged by changelings and everypony was on edge. I couldn't get near the palace; the guards wouldn't let me through the gate into the courtyard when I tried."
"So I roamed the streets with no idea of where to go next. I just wandered through the alleyways to try and come up with a new plan, and then a pair of changelings ran past me," she continued. "One of those changelings dropped their bag almost right in front of me before they disappeared again."
"And you found yourself with a new plan; find the address listed on the bag," I surmised.
"It was the only thing keeping me going," Palina sighed. "And now I'm out of ideas again. This city is even less hospitable than Canterlot. I barely figured out how to get food or find shelter."
This filly was too much. She just ran around like a headless chicken, somehow surviving on the streets of Canterlot, and now Hoofton, while on a quest to find a changeling who could lead her to her parents?
"Don't tell me you have been sleeping on the streets this past week?" I groaned worriedly.
"Oh, no, I found some empty homes in Canterlot thanks to the city being locked down, and I found an open crate last night on the back lot of a nearby warehouse which had enough straw in it to be comfortable," she pointed out.
"That... would be sleeping on the street, in that last case. More importantly; where did you get your food from?" I had to ask, my worry only growing.
"Street vendors. I do have a few bits to my name," she offered with a shrug. "Although less so every day..."
This problem pony, this fool of a filly, this mad mare, was turning into quite a headache.
There was no way I could let anypony who knew or suspected anything about me to roam free without knowing they would be able to keep my secret. Especially since Oval's life and her ability to shelter our kin when they would come to Hoofton was in jeopardy.
If this girl slept on the streets and was starting to run low on funds to get herself food, how long would it take her before she would sell the knowledge she had of changelings here in Hoofton just for a meal and a warm bed?
"Damn you," I groaned as these thoughts ran their course in my addled changeling brain. "I'm going to have to take care of you, don't I?"
A flash of fear flit across Palina's face.
"T...take care? How?" she wondered, trying to regain her composure.
"I think you should come with me to meet my cousin and his wife. They're your best hope to getting a roof over your head and a warm meal in your belly tonight. And, I guess, while you're staying with us, I might as well try to help you find your parents..." I grumbled.
Palina flicked her right ear as she processed what I told her.
"I can't let you sleep out here. You look younger than me, and I'm sixteen. So you can't be more than... what, twelve?" I considered. "Who knows what could happen to you? No, Celery wouldn't have it. She would want to offer you a bed and a meal if nothing else."
"Fifteen," Palina almost whispered back to me. "And you can't mean that. Not after I broke in?"
"Celery doesn't know that. She hasn't seen you, has she? She just know I ran after you. We could... We could..." I started, then trailed off.
We could, what exactly?
I couldn't very well introduce her as one of Hammer and my family members. I needed a different excuse for why I was bringing this stranger back to the house.
I couldn't tell Celery about the break-in. I couldn't tell her about Palina's accusations, which were more true than I was ready to admit to her until I knew she could keep the secret.
I couldn't tell her about Palina's parents being abducted by changelings, either.
"Maybe we met, back in Canterlot..." I started slowly, a story slowly formulating in my brain. "And then we lost sight of one another while changelings were running through the streets."
So far so true; Palina had met me in Canterlot, and then I had run off with Oval to end up at Camellia's place; a pair of changelings running through the streets.
"So you went looking for me to make sure nothing bad had happened, and found out I had travelled to Hoofton," I spoke with more confidence to my voice as most of it was true, in a way. "And then, I saw you through the window as you were standing across the street. That was you, yesterday evening, wasn't it?"
Palina nodded slowly. "That was me, yeah. I saw you in the window."
"Okay, well, so, you're here without your parents because you were worried about me, and now you don't have money for a ticket to Baltimare to rejoin them?" I pondered. "We can explain me jumping out of the window to follow after you as me trying to not lose sight of you, as I didn't expect you here without them? I don't know this city that well myself yet, so I would have acted solely in your interest; to make sure you're safe, you see? I'm sure Celery would like that; she's a caring mare herself."
I glanced aside for a moment. "And of course you don't have money to take the trip, and I'm too worried to let you go by yourself... so it's best if we travel to Baltimare together sometime soon."
"See, Celery wants to go to Baltimare anyway to return a book to the college library, and she offered that I could come with her. So we're planning to head that way regardless," I revealed to Palina. "We can easily have you tag along under the guise that I feel like I should bring you and your parents together again. Which, technically, is the closest thing to the truth we can make it without raising suspicion."
"Once we're in Baltimare, we'll head off on our own while Celery returns her book," I reasoned, "The two of us should be safe enough around the college campus for Celery to trust us to go off on our own and meet somewhere nearby after. And then I can help you find your parents there without her getting in our way. How does that sound?"
Palina licked her lips oddly, then shook her head in bewilderment.
"Why go through all that effort?" she wondered.
"Because Celery doesn't know about any changelings. Not any who certainly are not anywhere near Hoofton, nor any who are certainly not near Baltimare. And we'd like to keep it that way," I grumbled darkly. "It's either keep that secret and act out a little story so Celery takes you in for the night and we can go find your parents when we're in Baltimare together, or we part ways here, now, and you'll probably never see your parents again..."
"I don't know of anypony here who could help you with your problem, and I don't know if Canterlot's guards or princesses are interested in it either, given they just had to deal with a whole changeling threat there," I reasoned. "As you said; the bag was dropped in front of you, so fate may have had something to do with that. I might as well try to help you."
Palina's eyes welled up as she realised she might have finally found somepony to help her find her parents, and she gave me a quick few nods.
"I'll keep your secret, Pearl. I just want to find my mom and dad again," she promised. "I was starting to lose hope."
"I don't blame you," I sighed darkly.
I reached out a bit awkwardly with my left foreleg to pat her shoulder as tears flowed down Palina's face.
"There, there. Let's get back to the house and tell Celery our little story. It should convince her to let you stay the night, and we'll probably go to Baltimare first thing tomorrow," I reiterated.
And once we were there, I wanted to have a good, long, private conversation with that hotel clerk...