After she had calmed down from her relieved crying fit, Palina and I returned to Hammer and Celery's home while quietly talking among ourselves about the story we would tell upon arriving there.
Taking Palina home with me was an immense risk I was sure Hammer would be none the happier about, but I couldn't very well let the filly freeze to death out on the street or go with an empty belly.
And that story she told me rubbed me the wrong way. As far as I know none of my siblings would risk being found out in a busy city like Baltimare by abducting a pair of ponies from a hotel.
And both the hotel clerk and the guard had just ignored the parentless pony Palina prattling to them in a panic? Ridiculous to think somepony in that position would just leave a young, scared girl to figure it out for herself like that.
It didn't add up and the only thing I could think of was something sinister happening in that town. I knew other changelings were there; I had seen a few disguised as college ponies on the train here. Perhaps they might know what was going on with Palina's parents?
Celery was the only pony at home when we arrived there, and I saw her relief as she found me on her doorstep. But that relief turned to a questioning gaze as she laid her eyes upon Palina.
"Oh good, I was worried you had gotten lost in town, Pearl. I would have hated to be the one to tell Hammer about yet another of his family members having ran off without so much as a goodbye," Celery started before addressing Palina. "And who's your friend?"
"Palina, miss. Short for Palinacanthum," Palina returned with a little respectful dip of her head.
"Oh-ho! Polite, aren't you? And such an exotic name," Celery cooed with clear interest. "Come in, both of you. Maybe then Pearl can explain why she saw fit to jump out of the upstairs window as if she was a pegasus foal learning to fly? Or why she left the bathroom in a terrible mess?"
I winced at the questions and felt my ears and tail droop as I walked in.
"Sorry, I had only just finished drying myself off and walked to the bedroom to get my necklace from the bedside cabinet when I spotted Palina across the street," I mumbled. "I didn't expect us to be away for..."
"Close to two hours, Pearl," Celery suggested with a nod to the grandfather clock in the hallway. "I cleaned up after you this once, but I expected better of you. I don't ask much in return for letting you stay here, but at least ensure you clean after yourself?"
"Yes ma'am," I agreed.
"And to jump out of a window while Hammer told me you had a weak leg... You worry me, Pearl," our hostess muttered as she led the way into the living room.
I turned for the living room as well while Palina entered the hallway behind me, and I glanced back to see some trepidation on her face as she closed the door behind her.
Was it because she had broken in the last time she was here and she was feeling a little bit awkward about returning to the scene of her crime? I could only guess.
"Palinacanthum," Celery hummed as she took a seat on the couch she had sat on just the day prior. "It sounds so familiar, but I can't put my hoof on it."
Palina followed after me into the living room, where I had climbed onto the couch opposite Celery again. I motioned for her to join me and, as she did, I finally took a good look at her cutiemark; it looked like a yellow-and-green striped melon in front of a thick branch laid on its side.
"It's the name of a plant from a distant land, miss Celery," Palina explained to our hostess. "Mother's a linguistics professor and father's a botanist."
Again with the botanists! If it wasn't enough Canterlot was full of them, what with Camellia, Meadowsweet, Applejack, Forsythia, and Sweet Alyssum all having been gathered there in the past week. Now I was sat here with Celery Stalk and Palina(canthum) in Hoofton.
It was almost as if the majority of ponies in Equestria had something to do with plants; if it wasn't part of their name, it was their job or special interest. It made me glad I had a name which had more to do with the ocean, something which was less common inland.
"Ah, do they teach in Baltimare?" Celery wondered of Palina.
The green mare sat down opposite us on the other couch, then gave both of us a look over.
"No, miss, we're only visiting in the area whole looking for colleges for me," Palina answered carefully. "It's why I'm here now, actually..."
"Yeah," I added with an awkward chuckle. "It's why I jumped out the window earlier, Celery."
"Do tell?" Celery prompted, putting her attention solely on me. "I'm all ears."
"Palina's parents are staying in a hotel in Baltimare. They got stuck in Canterlot while sightseeing together, which is where I met them," I explained quickly. "I thought they were all safe and sound in Baltimare by now, but then I saw Palina walking through Hoofton by herself and I had to run over before I lost sight of her again."
"Yeah, I may have left the train too early and I'm not at all sure how to get back to Baltimare without money for a ticket," Palina sighed. "I'm not at all familiar with this city."
"Nor am I, but at least I managed to find our way back here," I stated with no small amount of pride. "Anyway, Palina's parents are probably waiting for her at the hotel in Baltimare. Since you were going there as well, I thought maybe the three of us could go there together tomorrow? If you're okay with Palina staying the night, miss Celery?"
Celery just looked between the pair of us as if she was watching a tennis match and the players were slowly turning into pink elephants.
"It's okay, right Celery? You said you wouldn't put somepony out on the street. You said it to Hammer when he joked about us not getting along together?" I recalled.
Celery's head slowly moved up and down while she had a thoughtful expression on her face.
"Yes, you're right Pearl. That is what I said," she agreed. "No, of course Palina can stay for one night. We'll have to get her to her parents first thing tomorrow. Those poor dears must be worried sick about her!"
I smiled up and excitedly pulled Palina into a hug on a whim.
"Do you hear that, Palina? You can stay here for the night and I'll help you find your parents tomorrow!" I repeated.
Palina squirmed a bit at being held by me, but the idea of being reunited with her parents overwrote the hesitation she felt at being hugged by someone she knew was a changeling.
"I'm so glad," she breathed out while her eyes filled themselves with water again. "I was so worried until miss Pearl found me."
"Well, you're safe here in my home," Celery offered. "As long as you don't make a mess while you're here, we'll set an extra plate at the dinner table for you. You don't have any dietary needs, do you? No food allergies?"
"No, miss," Palina answered through her tears. "I have a mild lactose intolerance but it's fine if I don't drink too much of it at once. I barely notice it if it's an ingredient like in sandwiches or such."
"So you won't want cereal for breakfast then?" I joked as I let go of Palina again.
"Best not," Celery decided. "We have plenty of other food in the house for her."
"And the best tea as well," I noted. "I had some special tea yesterday which Celery gets from a friend who owns a tea shop. I must bring some of it back home to Tall Tale whenever I go back there."
"I'll keep a bag reserved for you, then. I'm sure Honeysuckle Blossom won't mind," Celery offered with a widening smile. "Word-of-mouth beats any kind of paid advertisement she can do for her business, after all."
"It amazes me that so many ponies here in the East are named after plants," I muttered. "And here I am as a single Pearl."
"Is it not the same in the West then, Pearl dear?" Celery wondered. "Are there more sea names, like yours?"
"Tall Tale is built up in a forest close to the North Luna Ocean's coast, so most of our names are related to forest or the sea, as is the case in Vanhoover," I explained as I had rehearsed well enough when Burst and I had gone over my guise's background story back in the Hive. "Some exotic names are based off the mountains, as the Unicorn Range is just to the East of us."
"The North Luna Ocean?" Palina asked with some surprise.
"Yes, it's a cold sea in the Northwest of Equestria," I explained to her. "It might be a really big lake, for all we know. When you stand on the shore and look out over it all you can see are the mountains of the Frozen North to the North of it, where Yakyakistan is, and the Undiscovered West to the South of it, and just a murky horizon further West. It's a sobering view, like you're on the edge of the world."
I only knew this because Breeze had told me, but I tried to embody the emotions those words brought with it to the best of my ability. As far as I could judge, both Celery and Palina took the bait without question.
"I know a few places like that," Palina breathed out in awe at my description. "They really make you think about what's most important to you."
"I can only imagine," Celery chuckled wearily. "The only ocean view I've seen is the Horseshoe Bay from Baltimare's harbour. I don't get to travel nearly as much as Hammer does."
"The horseshoe bay is nice, but there are too many boats on it," Palina decided. "They're so noisy and distracting."
"Well, it is one of the major trade nodes here in the East," Celery reasoned in return.
"Where do they trade with?" I wondered, as I really only knew of Manehattan, Fillydelphia, and Trottingham on this side of Equestria's coastline.
"I would imagine a lot of trade goes between Baltimare and Manehattan. Both are large cities, and to move goods by train or cart might not always be the best option," Celery explained. "I think I heard Honeysuckle say she sends tea over to an island community further North as well, although you'll have to pardon me for not remembering the name of it."
"Trottingham?" I suggested. "I met somepony in Canterlot who said they lived there."
"That must be the name, yes," Celery agreed. "You did meet with a lot of interesting ponies in Canterlot, didn't you Pearl?"
"Well, there was nowhere to go. It was only natural for everypony to mingle," I offered with a shrug. "Once the city opened up again, there was a veritable exodus."
"A what?" the other mare wondered at the unfamiliar word.
"A flood of ponies moving out in all directions as if they wanted to escape the capital before it might lock down again," I explained in terms she would understand.
"Including me and my parents," Palina sighed. "I hope they're at the same hotel we were staying at before we went to visit Canterlot. It's been a week since we left for the capital, so they might have rented the room out to somepony else instead?"
"I'm sure we can find out when we visit Baltimare," I tried to reassure her.
There was a knock on the front door, and Celery glanced in the direction of the hallway and the grandfather clock there. I realised it had been placed in such a way that she could easily see what time it was from where she sat on her couch, but with her guests seating opposite her could not.
Effectively she would always know the exact time, yet somepony visiting would have to get up to check the clock if they didn't have a watch of their own. And, once they were standing, it would be easy enough for Celery to work them out of her house before they sat down again.
"Oh, that must be Margery. I couldn't ask you both to retreat to the guest room upstairs for a spell, could I?" Celery asked with a wry smile. "Margery will want to let me in on the latest gossip, which will take a few minutes. You might want to prepare Palina's bed while I deal with her?"
I instantly moved off the couch and shook my head. "Not a problem at all, Celery. I'll show Palina where the guest room is and I'm sure we can make the bed before dinner."
"Uh, yeah, that's fine," Palina agreed.
I led the way back to the hallway, even as a second knock came from the front door, a little louder this time.
"Impatient, isn't she?" I mused under my breath, but hurried a little faster toward the stairs to get out of the way.
"Margery!" Celery exclaimed merrily as she opened the door behind us, and as I turned to walk up the staircase I caught a glimpse of the nosey neighbour glaring past my hostess in Palina and my direction.
I just continued on my way, knowing that the both of us staying over at Celery and Hammer's home would probably be common knowledge soon thanks to this horrible excuse for a Pie.
"I like Pinkie, but boy does every family have its black sheep," I mumbled as I reached the landing.
"Pinkie, miss?" Palina inquired as she joined me.
"Pie, like Margery downstairs. She's far better company," I decided. "Pinkie Pie just wants to be friends with everypony she meets. Magpie just wants to know everything there is to know about everypony and then gossip about it to others."
"Oh," Palina responded flatly. "I know a few ponies like that."
"You do seem to know a lot of ponies and places," I remarked as I opened the door to the guest room and walked in.
The window had been closed by Celery, but there was still enough fresh air in the room from when it had been opened earlier in the day. I was happy to note my bed and all my stuff was still where I had left it, and the stack of fresh bedsheets was waiting for Palina on the low dresser beside the unmade bed.
"Do you need help making the bed, Palina?" I wondered.
"Ah, yes please, miss Pearl," she coughed uneasily. "I have... never actually done that myself."
I turned around to stare at her, and found her biting her lower lip in embarrassment.
"I'm sorry, but how old are you again?" I had to ask, as I wasn't sure she had told me when I asked her before.
"Fourteen, why?" she finally answered.
"Well, first off; stop calling me miss. I'm not much older than you. Reserve that for Celery or something. And second; you've never made your own bed until now?" I continued.
"We don't sleep in beds like these where I'm from," she revealed, her voice dropping to a whisper.
"What kind of beds are you used to sleeping in, then?" I wondered, confused at her sudden timidness.
"Ah, well, mainly kelp or seagrass..." Palina coughed uneasily, now looking away from me.
Something in my brain tried to find a connection to something but failed to grasp at it.
"Hold up, let me close the door," I suggested as the feeling this conversation required more privacy crept up on me.
I first turned on the lamp on my dresser so we'd have some light, then closed the door and drew the curtains for good measure.
Now, with us effectively closed off from the rest of the house and the city outside, I turned back to face Palina and motioned at her with my right forehoof.
"Do you want to run that by me again? Because I'm not so sure I heard you correctly just now," I asked of her, slightly annoyed at my brain still grasping at straws over something she had just said.
"Ah, well," Palina sighed. "There's no use hiding it; you know I know what you are, so it's about right I told you what I am."
"Right," I agreed, finding myself trembling with an odd kind of trepidation and excitement.
"I'm a seapony, Pearl," she revealed in a pretty direct manner now she had decided to let me in on her own secret. "My parents are as well. My home is in what you call the Celestial Sea, a few nautical miles off your Eastern shores."
"But you don't look like a Hippogriff?" I blurted out, as they were the only ones I knew from the show. Or, at least, my generation of the show.
"I'm not a hippogriff, no," Palina agreed with me. "I'm a seapony. Hippogriffs left their dry lands to find safety in the ocean, but we seaponies had been living there long before they arrived."
I took a step toward her, my interest in her piqued. "Can you show me?"
Palina shook her head. "No, unfortunately I can't. My dad used a magical gemstone to transform us into earthponies, and I can only transform back the same way."
I slowly canted my head sideways at her.
"A gemstone?" I repeated.
"Yes, a magical one," the supposed seapony before me repeated. "Dad used it to transform us all into earthponies so we could walk around among you. I can only return to normal by using that gemstone again."
"So you're effectively stuck as an earthpony unless we find your dad and that gemstone?" I realised.
"That's right," the earthpony agreed with me.
My changeling brain fizzled for a second, and I let my back legs bend until I was sitting down on the ground.
"How... thorough is that transformation? Like you're an earthpony through-and-through now? And, let's say, if you were transformed into a unicorn instead, would you be able to do unicorn magic? Or could you fly if you were turned into a pegasus?" I had to ask, my brain suddenly awash with questions.
"I don't know, but I suppose so," Palina pondered. "Why do you ask, Pearl?"
"And you don't have to expend any energy to remain like that? You're just an earthpony now? If we don't manage to transform you back, you'd stay that way for the rest of your life?" I pressed.
Palina winced at the thought, but then gave a slow, sad nod. "Y-yes, if we don't find my parents and the gem they hold, I will pretty much grow old as an earthpony, as you say."
And here I sat, a changeling wearing an earthpony disguise only by the magic which flowed through me, only by constantly reinforcing that disguise by thinking about it even if it was in the very back of my mind.
If I let go of that thought, ran out of magic, or was rendered unconscious without first reinforcing that disguise upon myself, I would revert to my changeling appearance.
And that's all it was; a disguise. Underneath that disguise I was still a changeling. I was still the insectoid creature who had to feed off of somepony else's love to survive.
A gemstone which could transform somepony into something else, a full transformation, potentially removing that constant hunger which plagued my new family, could be just the reason why Palina's family was targeted.
There would be many among my changeling family who wanted to live among ponies without having to constantly fear the repercussions if they were found out. Without constantly having to feed. With the potential of having foals of their own.
This gemstone was the missing link which made it all fall into place for me. No changeling in their right mind would abduct a pony family from a hotel in broad daylight if it was just about those ponies.
A gemstone which could potentially turn a changeling into a pony was a different thing altogether; I was sure some would kill for that.
Palina brought her right forehoof up in front of my face and moved it from side to side a few times.
"Pearl, are you okay?" she wondered with a worried expression.
"Huh? Yeah, I... I'm sorry, I just went over what you just told me," I apologized. "I think I know why your parents were taken."
"Because of the gemstone," Palina stated, not as a question but a fact.
"Yes. Especially if, as you said, it can transform somepony into somepony entirely different without ill effects," I sighed. "A lot of changelings are searching for magic like that."
"Why? Do you need one to transform as well?" the seapony asked, clearly not aware of how changeling transformations worked.
"No, we can transform freely, but only by using magic continuously to keep up the facade," I explained. "A changeling is constantly wearing themselves out while they're transformed. If they're shocked, if they're hit by magic, if they're exhausted, that disguise will fall off just the same."
"Like so," I suggested, dropping my own disguise to emphasize my point.
As the green flash of my magic washed over me, the colour in Palina's eyes shrunk until she was just looking at me with two tiny pinpricks of darkness on otherwise white eyeballs, and I was sure I could see her fur coat lose colour in a similar fashion from the shock of suddenly sitting eye-to-eye with a changeling.
She recovered almost just as fast, only for her eyes to open far wider than they had before as her fascination took over, and she scanned me from the tip of my crooked horn down to my tailfin and back with them.
"Oh... my... goodness..." she breathed out in absolute exasperation. "I knew it... I knew it! Didn't I say I knew it? I told you I knew!"
I winced as her voice grew louder with every statement, and quickly pulled my earthpony guise back up.
"No, wait," Palina almost begged in a softer voice, her left forehoof reaching out toward me. "I haven't had a chance to look at you properly."
"It's not safe," I simply replied while looking myself over to see if I once more looked like the earthpony I was supposed to be. "There are no changelings in Hoofton, as I told you before."
Palina looked downtrodden at having caught a glimpse of something as exotic as the seapony she had been before she had been transformed herself, yet having it taken away again not a moment later.
She sighed with a slow nod. "You did say that."
"And I mean it," I pressed to her. "What if Celery had come up? I told you she can't know. What if she or her guest had barged into the room to find out what your shouting was about?"
"Then the guards would be called, the city would lock down like Canterlot had before, and we would be in trouble," Palina listed with great disappointment.
"Exactly," I agreed.
"My heart is beating so fast," she remarked, putting her hoof against her chest. "That was a shock. I would have thought you needed to cast a spell or some such; not that it would just happen without warning."
"And that's another reason why I won't show you again right now. You're going to need to come down from that adrenaline rush first, let it settle in your mind what just happened," I chuckled. "How about we make your bed together, and maybe I'll give you a longer look after, once you've calmed down some?"
Palina agreed to that, and the both of us went to work using our hooves and teeth to wrangle the sheets until her bed was ready to sleep in.
Without using my changeling magic which I had used to make my own bed, it was a chore and a half to get done.
I don't know how earthponies did it all the time, but each time I thought I had pulled the mattress cover in place with my teeth, the weight of my hoof pressing down upon the matress would snap it back off from around the corner again.
Eventually Palina and I just worked the mattress off the bed so we could get at it from all angles, forced the cover around it, and then lifted it back upon the bed between our four forehooves.
We had to work together for the pillowcase as well, with Palina holding it open as I pushed the pillow into it with my nose and left forehoof.
Eventually we managed to get it all sorted, with the bed in a state Palina could sleep in rather than on.
She eyed me excitedly afterward. "So, can I see it again? Please? I'll keep my voice down this time."
"Let me ask how long until dinner first, so we don't get surprised by somepony coming to fetch us," I suggested.
I walked over to the door, opened it slightly, and stuck my head out into the hallway. I listened for a moment, my ears perked up atop my head, and could clearly hear an ongoing conversation between two mares downstairs.
"Seems like Margery Pie is still downstairs. We'll have a while to go yet before dinner," I explained as I pulled my head back and closed the door again.
I walked over to the low dresser my stuff was in and on, picked up my necklace, and finally put it around my neck again.
"So that means there's still time for me to look at you again, is there?" Palina wondered with barely withheld excitement.
"What is it with ponies and being fascinated with how changelings look?" I grumbled, but dropped my disguise nonetheless. "You better show me what you look like as a seapony when we find your parents and that gemstone again."
"That's a deal," Palina agreed.