The line kept moving forward at a decent enough pace and we soon walked into the bookstore proper while talking a little among ourselves and the others in the queue with us.
The stallion and mare just ahead of us were engaged in an in-depth discussion about the details of one of the books they had both read, but since I had not read either of them I was not following the plot lines they were referencing.
Once we were in the store, I let my eyes wander the shelves and the books laid out on them, and traced the queue to the start of it in an effort to spot Cubitus signing his books.
There were roughly twenty-odd ponies ahead of Flashfire, Seafoam, Palina, and myself, and they all stood waiting to get to a table in the middle of the store.
An older, distinguished-looking earthpony sat on a chair behind the table, holding a pen in his mouth to scribble something in the book before him.
His greying mane, which at some point must have been a darker mauve, was styled short and combed sideways, and even from this distance I could see it was held in place by hair gel as the light of the lamps around him reflected off it.
The fade on his blue coat made it look more like the greyish skintone of bottlenose dolphins, even as it was marred by splotches of white covering most of his face, and extending down his neck to the rest of his body.
It made it seem like some painter had spilled a bucket of white paint on him while he was running past, and made him look ever so more unique compared to the more uniformly painted ponies in the queue before him.
After putting the pen down beside the book, he looked up to say something to the pony standing in front of him, and I could see his eyes were a green tone, either pea or swamp green or something closely related to it.
The other pony received whatever was said to them with a big smile and dipped their head down as a sign of respect before retrieving their book, and the queue moved forward again as it was the next pony's turn to get their book signed.
I looked past the writer doing the signing to the few ponies on the other side of the desk and noted one of them staring at me intently.
They stood a few paces behind the author as if they were guarding them, and I couldn't shake the fact they looked incredibly familiar to me.
They were the spitting image of Shining Armor from the show, save for them being a pegasus rather than a unicorn.
As I was looking at them across the distance, they suddenly took a step forward, whispered something to the writer, and then disappeared between the nearby bookshelves.
I frowned at myself as I instantly lost sight of them and instead looked over at Palina.
"Did you see that?" I wondered of her.
"See what?" she countered, her attention more on the ponies immediately before us than anything.
I shook my head at her. "I guess not, then."
"Pearl, hey," I suddenly heard whisper from behind me to the right, and I turned my head to look in that direction.
The pegasus guard was standing off to the side of the queue between a pair of bookshelves, and motioned at me to join them.
"What is up with everypony wanting my attention today?" I lamented, and shook my head at them.
"Oh, come on," the stallion in question sighed. "Get out of line and follow me already."
"Why?" I put to them, noticing that the other ponies in the queue were watching us with growing interest.
"Because Crook trusted you in Canterlot, and now you should trust him?" the pegasus put to me.
I blinked and looked him over again.
He just stood staring at me with a raised eyebrow, motioning once again for me to join him.
I sighed deeply, then motioned toward him with my right forehoof.
"We should probably follow him, Palina," I suggested to the earthpony beside me.
"We're with her," Flashfire pointed out, apparently not keen on letting me go off by myself.
"So am I!" said a unicorn mare behind me, even if I had never seen her before she had joined the queue.
"No, you're not," I shut her down immediately. "I don't even know you. You don't know what's going on. Maybe I just need to pay my outstanding balance or am getting kicked out of the store? How would you know?"
The mare huffed at me and opened her mouth to say something, but I very pointedly turned my attention back to Flashfire instead.
"You and Seafoam can come along if you don't want to wait in line to get a book signed?" I started, "but Palina and I should be fine. I'm just going to see what this is about, and I'd rather Palina stick with me if it's all the same to you."
Seafoam made a noise I could only describe as one of pure horror at the thought of leaving without a signed book, and quickly shook his head at Flashfire.
The pegasus rolled her eyes at him. "I guess we're going to stay in the queue. Holler if you need us, I'm not sure that stallion can be trusted. He gives off a weird vibe."
"Why does everypony keep saying that about me?" The pegasus who had revealed himself to be Crook groaned. "Look, I'm just borrowing Pearl for a second or two. You can have her again after that."
"She's not our property," Flashfire returned. "She can make up her own mind. You just don't get any funny ideas, mister."
"We're in a bookstore," Crook countered. "What's the worst I can do? Force her to read?"
There was some laughter from the other ponies in the line with us.
"Point made," I decided. "Let's see what this stallion wants from us, shall we Palina?"
Palina stared at me for a long two seconds, then lowered her ears. "This is just what happens to you, isn't it Pearl? You just drift on the waves, not caring where they take you?"
"Humor me," I suggested to her, then turned my head to reassure Flashfire; "I'll be back soon, just wait outside the store for us if you've got your book signed before then."
"We'll stay in the store in case you need help from family," she told me in a low whisper instead.
"Thanks for the concern, but he's also family so I should be fine," I whispered back with a smile.
Before Flashfire could say something else, I followed after Palina and Crook as they disappeared around the shelving.
Crook led us through the store to the back, behind where I knew Cubitus was spending his time signing books, and into a little nook which had just the one path leading in and out of it.
I looked at the signage above the books, and it suggested they were catalogued under "Esotericism".
Not only did I not know what that meant from the top of my head, but going by how old these books looked and how much dust had gathered on them, I was not the only one.
Crook looked between Palina and me, and then back at Palina.
"Aren't you going to introduce me to your lovely earthpony friend here, Pearl?" he wondered with a wink in her direction.
"Palina, meet my cousin Crook," I sighed. "He's apparently notorious for chasing after fillies and mares in many a pony town. Crook, this is Palina, and I'd rather you didn't try anything with her. She's under my protection."
Crook's face fell and he let out a snort. "Okay, that hurts; like anypony needs protection from me? I'm entirely safe to be around."
I raised my eyebrow at him.
"I'm not going to do anything to her, I promise," Crook decided. "So what are you two doing here in Baltimare? I thought you were going with Burst, Pearl?"
"I am staying with my cousin Hammer, yes," I corrected him. "That's where Palina found me."
The pegasus looked a little confused at the correction, then sized Palina up again.
"Not family?" he realised.
"Not family," I agreed.
"Can she be trusted?" Crook asked, his expression changing from interest to worry.
"In so far as any of our family can be trusted with our secrets, yes. She has her own to keep, so she knows of the importance of not talking about it openly," I explained.
"Do I want to know?" the changeling wondered.
"No, probably not," I decided.
Crook frowned at my answer, but then let out a deep breath and collected himself again.
"I'll accept that and move on, then," he stated, clearly not wanting to open Pandora's Box right now. "To each their own secrets."
"I appreciate it," I returned with a warm smile in his direction.
Palina, for her part, was just silently following this back and forth, her brow furrowed as if she was thinking some heavy thoughts in that head of hers.
I smirked at her. "You want to ask something, don't you?"
"Many things," she agreed.
Crook sat down and moved his wings a little as if to shake some tension from them.
"Let's first ask Crook why he pulled us out of the line, then you can ask your questions afterward," I suggested to Palina.
I pointedly turned my attention to my cousin, and raised my left eyebrow at him.
"Oh, that's easy to answer," he answered with a grin. "After we had escaped Canterlot, I got talking with Cubitus about his next book, and since I had no other plans yet, decided to tag along with him to serve as a bodyguard of sorts. At least, until he sets sail for the isles again."
"So that's why you look like the pegasus version of a certain former captain of the Canterlot Royal Guard," I realised.
"If I do, that's entirely by accident, I assure you," he warded off. "Anyway, him and me got to talking about you while we were gathering up. He remarked about how you made him think of a new character for the book he's writing, but he wanted to ask you for permission to base it off you first."
I sat down as well, not sure what to say to that.
"That sounds like some high praise," Palina considered, "to have your name written in the annals of history in that way."
"I hardly think the annals of anything have something to do with this," I quickly countered. "He just writes fiction, as far as I'm aware. It's not like anypony is going to be interested in some fictional character named Pearl."
"I mean, I would want to read more about you," Palina decided, staring up at me. "There's something about Pearl which is so different from how everypony else reacts to things. Like, I could not escape Pearl when she chased me through Hoofton yesterday; she wouldn't let me out of her sight. Any other pony would have given up after two attempts to shake them off."
"Wait, what?" my changeling sibling replied with a start. "Why would Pearl chase you?"
"Because I told her I knew what she was?" the seapony explained to him.
"You know that wasn't all there was to it," I protested Palina's simple explanation. "You broke into my cousin's home before I gave chase."
"She did what?" Crook exclaimed in shock.
"Oh, and she was very forceful in telling me she was not who I knew she was," Palina continued, staring me down from where she stood as if I had been the one at fault somehow. "And to say there weren't any more of you anywhere nearby."
"I mean, you accused me out in the open after I chased you down," I pointed out, much to Crook's growing dismay. "There's a time and place for such conversations, and they're not out in the middle of the street."
"We were in an alleyway," Palina countered defiantly.
"Right beside a busy street," I huffed. "Didn't you hear the echo of our voices between the buildings? Anypony could have listened in on our conversation!"
Crook scraped his throat and tried to rejoin the conversation. "Yeah, probably wise to not..."
"But I was right," Palina interrupted him with some agitation to her voice. "I was right about you, Pearl. And now there are more of you here, in Baltimare?"
"Hold on," my changeling brother tried to interject.
"There are no changelings in Baltimare," I insisted with some emphasis. "For the same reason there are none in Hoofton. But I do have a lot of extended 'family' here, and we can talk about them in the open as long as we don't get into too much detail."
"But you know I know that they aren't who they say they are," Palina pressed.
"Yes, and no," I sighed as I wondered how we got into this discussion again. "I'm the earthpony Pearl. This is who I am right now."
"But you're not," Palina whined.
"Yes, she is," Crook defended me, finally finding the point where he could add to the conversation again. "Just like I'm the pegasus Snowdrift. And that's all I am right now. It's all that matters."
"She called you Crook," the seapony protested.
"Which is a nickname they give me because I have a crooked tail," my brother explained to her.
He pushed himself up on all fours again and turned slightly so we could see the hairs of his tail with a very definitive sudden bend in them halfway down it.
Palina puffed her cheeks out in a show of her annoyance.
"'Ello, 'ello, what have we 'ere, then?" Cubitus wondered as he walked up into the little nook we were all in. "It's good to see you again, Pearl. Who's your friend?"
I turned to face him, but my exasperation must have been clear on my face as he stopped walking and turned his ears back.
"Bad moment?" he wondered.
"Just an awkward moment, yeah," I agreed. "Remember how Meadowsweet needed some time before she could accept us? Palina isn't fully there yet."
"Ah, I'm sorry, I could go back to signing books while you three sort things between yourselves? Celestia knows I have more fans waiting," he suggested.
"How do you... Why do you do this?" Palina asked of nopony in particular.
"Well, the lads and lasses want to have their books signed, and my agent thought it would boost sales to do a sneaky surprise signing event while I'm passing through town, so here I am," Cubitus answered her.
Palina frowned and shook her head. "That's not what I mean."
"Well, have it out then? What do you mean?" my older brother wondered. "I can't very well give you an answer if I don't know what the question is, now can I?"
"There are so many of you here in this city! Enough for Pearl and me to just bump into you all while we're just out in the street. Why not show yourselves openly and demand to be seen and heard? You've obviously got the numbers on your side," the seapony wondered.
"There really aren't that many of us," Snowdrift warded off. "If you've seen more of us than you normally would have it's purely because you're walking around with Pearl, I assure you. We wouldn't normally reveal ourselves to others."
"I can only speak for myself, but I have a wife back home. We have been happily married for years now, and I would hate for her to look different upon me knowing I am not the earthpony she wed," Cubitus explained.
"Same goes for a lot of others in our family," I added for Palina's sake. "Note how you approached me; you broke in to the house I was staying in. Would you have done that to a regular pony?"
"Well, no, but..." Palina started, but I shook my head at her and interrupted her before she could finish.
"No, exactly. You wouldn't just barge into somepony's home and tell them that you know they're a unicorn, a pegasus, or an earthpony," I pointed out. "Why would you?"
"You know why I did that," Palina sighed as she deflated somewhat.
"Yes, because you blamed me for something someone in my extended family did to you," I suggested. "What if I held you responsible for everything your family did, even if you didn't know them and what it was?"
"Ah," Cubitus realised. "Don't fall for the pitfall of generalisation, because it could be used just as easily against you."
"There he goes again," Crook sighed. "Dude, I love your books, but don't do that preachy thing."
"I'm not preaching; I'm dispensing knowledge," the author among us corrected him. "You're too young to know, but there was a period before our Queen's rule where we had open relations with the ponies."
"We could walk among them openly in their frontier towns for a while, and had trade with them," he continued. "Until we were accused of crimes without having had a hoof in them. We were accused simply because we were nearby and weren't ponies ourselves."
"It did not matter that we were innocent; we looked different, so we were an easy target," Cubitus sighed darkly.
"I was still a youngling back then, but quickly learned it was better to only walk among them in disguise so we could escape detection," he continued. "We had to put our masks up and force ourselves to fit in with their society without revealing who we were if we wanted to continue to live among them."
Palina's ears drooped slightly.
"I didn't know," she mumbled under her breath. "If you're not out to harm others, why would they attack you? It makes no sense."
"Life does not make sense sometimes," Cubitus smirked. "Sometimes good ponies are tricked into thinking their neighbours are their enemy, and it's easier to do that when that neighbour looks different from them."
"I told you we feed on love, right Palina?" I wondered. "It's not like it costs the ponies anything to give us that energy; a lot of them dispense it freely while among friends and loved ones. We just gather that energy up out of the air."
"That's one way to describe it," Cubitus considered.
"Right," Palina agreed.
"But if you wake up one morning feeling lethargic, where do you think that energy went?" Snowdrift offered, hooking right into my point. "Obviously you slept badly for some reason, but if a changeling were to walk by, you could just blame them and feel better about yourself."
As he talked, I noticed Snowdrift was getting more agitated.
"Why not? The changeling must have obviously drained your energy while you were asleep, right?" he suggested in a sneer. "Obviously they're sneaking into everypony's bedrooms and they're just sucking the life right out of them? Those horrible, horrible changelings. You'd be better off without them in your neighbourhood."
I extended my right forehoof to gently pat Snowdrift's left shoulder.
"Calm down, hun. She's doing her best to understand. It's not her fault," I tried to comfort him, as it was clear he was talking from personal experience.
"Most of us are just trying to live peaceful lives, just the same as you," Cubitus added. "It's difficult to explain this to the youth; they can be somewhat hot-headed and throw around baseless comments and accusations about things they don't know anything about. That's why I moved to a calmer town myself."
"Don't discount the hateful things adults can say," I warned him carefully. "Where I'm from the kids were doing a lot better on that whole acceptance thing than the older generations."
"One would hope wisdom comes with the years," Cubitus sighed sadly. "Yet, it evades some who could really use it."
There was a collective sigh between us all, but it was interrupted by a unicorn mare walking up toward our little nook looking like the devil was hot on her tail, a clipboard floating in the air near her.
"There you are, Pinto. Your fans are getting anxious," she addressed Cubitus, then looked at the rest of us with some confusion. "Snowdrift, who are these ponies? What are you all doing here keeping my client away from his work? I knew I shouldn't have trusted it when Pinto said he hired you as a guard. Consider yourself fired."
Snowdrift opened his mouth to speak, but closed it again as Pinto / Cubitus addressed the other mare.
"I'm fine, these are just some friends of mine whom I haven't seen in a while. We were catching up on old times," he remarked to the unicorn.
She looked us over again and let out a snort. "Please, these ponies are not even half your age, what old times? If you have special needs, you should just let me know instead of sneaking off. As your agent, I am sure I could arrange something more... suitable than these fillies."
She did a doubletake. "Unless that's what you fancy?"
Cubitus winced and immediately shook his head at her. "Oh, no. No, no no, I'm happily married, thank you very much. You're entirely misunderstanding the situation, Trailblazer. I was just working out ideas for my next book with them."
The unicorn immediately was all smiles. "Oh? I'm happy to hear you've found some inspiration for it."
"Yeah, I just needed to confer with Pearl about..." Cubitus started, but the unicorn did not even let him finish his sentence.
"Oh, I'm sure it will be just as smashing a hit as your previous two books, no matter what it might be about," Trailblazer suggested. "Books which, as I mentioned, your fans are trying to get you to sign for them."
"I'll only need a moment," Pinto tried again, but Trailblazer shook her head at him.
"Come on now, you can have a moment after the store closes. We only have a few more hours to go," she decided.
She quickly and expertly ushered Cubitus out of our little nook, driving him away from us and back toward the signing table even as he tried to protest her actions, but it was clear she didn't take no for an answer.
"The poor guy," Snowdrift remarked flatly.
Now left with just Palina and Crook, I raised an eyebrow at my changeling brother. "Is that his agent?"
"Yep," he sighed. "She's a peach, alright. Anyway, now that I'm apparently fired from my 'job' to guard Cubitus... Why don't I help you out with your little problem? What are you working on this time, Pearl?"
"Why would I be working on anything?" I feigned ignorance.
"Because you've got a reputation," he returned, staring me down. "Here you are with somepony with 'secrets of her own to keep', and you're once again telling them about our family as if you haven't a care in the world."
"She does this often?" Palina queried, and Snowdrift gave her a quick nod.
"It's starting to become a pattern," he chuckled at my expense. "Now, once more; what can I help you both with?"
