//------------------------------// // Good And Bad Fairies // Story: Twilight In Plain Sight // by Mitch H //------------------------------// Dusk Shine fingered the crystalline medallion she always wore under her clothes. Twilight had made a habit of looping feedback from all of her remote sensing fetishes and widgets to this focus, and over the past few weeks, Dusk Shine had emplaced a good many devices in and around Metternich Park. A half-dozen around the playground, three tucked under various benches and tables by the rail station, a handful under the bushes around the old mill, and a full array surrounding the little woods that Flurry Heart had adopted as her own. There was someone napping on one of the sheltered benches beneath the eaves of the old mill. Gilda, the ash-haired biker. Butterscotch's guard-dog was asleep on the job. As Dusk crossed the grass and walked across the access road to the mill's parking lot, she got a better look at her target. Butterscotch had been soaked to the skin by the skyburst, and wasn't paying attention to her surroundings. Her back was to the woods, which was now bustling a bit in the aftermath of the rain, and a few birds and critters were emerging from the brush around her, nosing about here and there. Had she been trying to feed the animals? Dusk Shine strode up to the rain-dampened picnic table, and grimaced at the wetness. Butterscotch jerked to attention, suddenly aware that she wasn't alone. Dusk sat down on the driest section of the bench, and tried to ignore the water soaking into her jeans.  Dusk looked up at the confused pink-haired woman.  She looked to be about Twilight Sparkle's age, but Dusk knew that the street life aged girls quickly.  Butterscotch could be as much as five or six years younger than Dusk Shine. She decided then and there on a direct approach. "You scared my little girl." "Oh, oh I am so sorry, I didn't see anyone, I'll go, I didn't mean to-" "I don't mean just now. We're alone right now, although I suspect your friend is somewhere over by the mill, where I can't see her."  Dusk frowned censoriously at the now-flustered Butterscotch. "I mean the other day, when you left your mess on my front porch," Dusk continued. "I mean the other day, when you left your kill on my stoop like an alley-cat offering up a mouse to a family she wanted to adopt." Butterscotch jerked back like she'd been struck, wide-eyed. "I can deal with this sort of random disorder, random violence," continued Dusk Shine, evenly. "I am like you. I am an adult, who can make her own choices, and make her own decisions.  My little girl, on the other hand, is not. She's still figuring out how the world works." Dusk Shine thought back to some of her recent studies, and improvised, maintaining steady eye-contact with the now thoroughly alarmed biker girl. "That's what children do. They test the world, they make hypotheses, and they evaluate these little theories against the world that they see.  They discard the ones that don't match what they see, and keep and imprint upon the ones that explain what the world presents them.  Some researchers call this 'reality-testing', but others insist on reserving that term for schizophrenics and others with psychiatric issues. I like to generalize the idea across all individuals, not simply the stressed and damaged. Because sanity is a continuum, and madness is not a precipice." Dusk Shine wished she could get close enough to use physical contact, but this was a flighty bird, and she'd be off like a flash if she got too touchy-feely. "You see, you remind me a great deal of my little girl.  The world did something horrible to her at a very young age. It betrayed her.  It proved to her that it wasn't predictable, it wasn't kind, it wasn't safe. Children need, before all things, predictability.  She has all the wrong reflexes now. I've seen her survey a room like a combat veteran, and sit facing the entrances and exits. I've seen her put on a face when we go out into public. She is far older than she should be." Dusk sighed. "And this is my fault. I did not intend for my little girl to see what she saw, but I was responsible, that's on me. We do what we think is right and necessary, but our choices imply our consequences." Butterscotch hadn't said another word, just sat there, curling up tighter and tighter, as if she was trying to disappear inside that fall of pink hair. "I said that you remind me of my little girl, and I'll tell you why. I had to disarm her this afternoon, as we left the house. She sneaks knives and blades from my art supplies, from the kitchen. Six years old! And she feels the need to always be armed. You've got another blade on you, I can tell from your posture. "But you aren't a little girl, are you?" Dusk Shine stared at the teary-eyed woman who was a good four inches taller than her. She'd broken eye-contact, and was staring at a pair of budgies who were worrying at a pile of feed someone had spilled out onto the gravel path wending its way back into the woods. She's closing down, turtling up. How do I…? Dusk leaned forward, waving her left hand in front of Butterscotch's distracted stare. "I'm going to have to ask you to talk about it," she said, forcefully. "I can tell you, the world can tell you that you did wrong, but that doesn't mean a thing, does it? That would be just giving you another thing to endure, to survive. And that's kind of a cheat, isn't it? Another way of regressing, another way of remaining a child. Waiting in your room until the big people's fury passes. No, we're not doing that. Butterscotch, what did you do? I need you to talk to me now, Ma'am." Butterscotch was looking at Dusk Shine now, meeting her gaze with huge, shining eyes. "I ki-killed a man," she stammered. "Yes you did. And what else?" The tears were starting to fall, now. "I ran away from my boyfriend." "Hrm, no, I don't think that's what we're talking about, here. Why does that come to mind?" Butterscotch's reddening eyes darted left, right. "It - it was why I had to kill him. I walked away, and the rest fo-followed. I tried to start over, and-" "I don't think that's true. In fact, I'm pretty sure that's not true. That's a malformed theory, a hypothesis which should be discarded. That man attacked you and yours because he was wrong, he was selfish, and he was arrogant. Your responses were, perhaps, extreme. They certainly were an offense against order. And the things that followed… let's talk about that. What did you do after the man bled out?" "Stole his Harley, drove it somewhere where they wouldn't find it." The biker chick pursed her lips, thinking. "So you covered up your crime? That is itself an offense. Perhaps, worse than the original act. Certainly in the eyes of the authorities." "I-I know. It makes me look, look-" An aborted gesture with both hands, defensive. "The lawyers call it mens rea. I've spent a great deal of time recently listening to that particular argument, yes. Worse, it makes your friends look guilty. Are they?" "No! No, nobody helped me, nobody's to blame for this but-" Opening up, shoulders back a little - ready to surrender?  But her friend was awake, and approaching. In a second, the sound of her boots on the gravel would be audible... "Miss Butterscotch, you know that isn't true. Isn't it, Miss Gilda? Do you want to join us?" "Nah, that's ok, Spooky. Dweeb, you OK?" came a raspy voice from over Dusk's shoulder. Dusk didn't turn to look, she kept staring into Butterscotch's mesmerized eyes. "I'm... I'm OK, Gilda. I'm sorry, Ma'am.  I don't know what you're talking ab-" "Let's not backtrack, Butterscotch." Quickly now, running out of time and space here… "I won't call you by your old name," Dusk Shine said quickly, rapidly, "because you killed Fluttershy with that knife as surely as you did that Salvaje biker you left moldering on my front steps. And please don't waste time. We don't have much of it to spare. You all botched your disposal, you surely did. And the authorities just picked up your weak link. You three, you're loyal to each other, that's admirable. But you included someone who has no reason to be loyal to you. Hayseed Turniptruck is in custody. I see no reason why he won't give you up, aside from simple animal stupidity. You have very little time at all." Dusk Shine heard a thump in the grass behind her, and she finally turned to look, seeing a wide-eyed Gilda laying flat on her ass, cringing away from Dusk as if she was holding a gun on the diminutive biker. Dusk Shine turned back to Butterscotch. Because Butterscotch was the person who mattered in this situation, whose fate was in the balance. "Miss Butterscotch, I won't ask who you are, because you've told the world that with your knife. I won't ask what you want, because the world doesn't care about wants and desires." Dusk thought swiftly, planning what she had to say. "The time for victimhood is over. You're not a child. You are now responsible for the things you do, to defend yourself, to defend others. I could argue that what you did to Stormbringer was self-defense. It's a hard case to make, but a justifiable one, I think." Dusk Shine leaned forward, and rested her clasped hands on the drying planks of the picnic table. "How are you going to show my little girl, show all the children that the world is orderly and safe? How are you going to make restitution for the chaos which you've brought here with you? Because I don't think that you are beyond saving. I think that you have choices here.  I just need to know what your goals are, what you're looking to be when this has all unfolded. Who do you want Butterscotch to be? What do you want for her?" Dusk finally broke eye-contact with the poleaxed pink-haired woman, whose clothes were still soaked from the rain, whose makeup had run down her face like rust-stains across an old park bench. More birds and chipmunks had emerged from the woods and found the piles of fish-kibble laid in an arc around the still-silent biker girl. Must have gotten it all from the feeders. Making friends with Flurry Heart's subjects and woodland minions? "Who the hell are you, Spooky?" asked the ash-haired biker. "You don't look like a cop to me. You look like the woman who taught second grade at my old school. Does anyone know where you are? Why are you poking your nose in here? We might just slice it off." Gilda was trying to seize control of the situation, blustering. It was, apparently, what she did. Dusk didn't like to mess with these girls' relationship, their dynamic. But she needed to keep this conversation under control. "You will do nothing, Miss Gilda," Dusk Shine said, sharply, dismissively. "You've already screwed up badly enough as it is." Principal Cinch's words, my voice. "The idea to dispose of the body? Aggressive, ambitious. Too much so. You really messed this one up.  And I'm pretty sure it was your idea, wasn't it? The other two, they're in mourning, and in shock, respectively. You're the one with the initiative. Why didn't you just dump the body somewhere in Tennessee or Arkansas?" The biker's defiant body-language decayed a bit, turning awkward as Dusk Shine stared her down. Dusk's medallion sparked a bit, and in the back of her head, she felt a vehicle approaching them from behind her. The park was starting to fill up again, as the usual crowd emerged from their dry refuges, and the afternoon sun dried away the remains of the rain. A motorcycle was driving up the access road to the parking lot behind Dusk. "We- that idiot said he did it all the time. People just – nobody keeps track of the ashes that come out of the crematorium. Evidence, yeah, but bodies sometimes." The biker was rubbing the back of her ash-colored shock of hair, looking mortified. "If that kid hadn't come running out when she did, the idiot would have just unlocked the garage, and that woulda been that!" "Why not just store the body inside the garage? Why was it out in the open, in public? This was all so unnecessary, Miss Gilda." "Damned if I know, I guess the moron didn't want to share his side-gig with the rest of 'em?" Gilda's favorite posture was legs planted, left hand grasping her right elbow. Left-handed? Irrelevant. "And so you and your girl here sat with a corpse for hours, waiting for darkness?" "It wasn't that long," said Butterscotch, interrupting them. "He left it in the van for most of the day, and we stayed out of the way until the funeral home people were distracted with the viewing." Bootsteps crunched across the parking lot behind Dusk. They weren't reacting with alarm, rather, both were opening up a bit. Must be Blitz. "But why my front steps?" Butterscotch shrugged, embarrassed. "It was just, the easiest place to lay it down. While Hayseed went to collect the keys. And while Gilda moved the van." "And you hid back by the alley." She nodded. "What the fuck are you two doing?" demanded Blitz from behind Dusk Shine, interrupting what had been developing into a pointless waste of time, as far as Dusk was concerned. Nobody was telling her what she needed to know, which was… "Miss Blitz!" she improvised. "Please, come and join us. We're discussing the mess you've all made of things." The rainbow-haired bantam came stomping around, absently kicking one boot through a pile of feed in the grass, and scaring away Butterscotch's critters. "Who the hell are you?" A tangle of braided muscles, rainbow-tinted hair, and rather watery fury. Yet more bravado? "Hello, Miss Blitz." Dusk dragged more of Cinch out of her traumatized deep memories. "Or should I call you by your proper name, Rainbow Dash? I know why Butterscotch here has taken up a new name, but you? You've been living the life of Blitz for so long, I can't get a read on the whys and wherefores. But if you must know why I'm here, I am taking your friends to task because they scared my child with their body disposal antics." That was interesting. The third biker had twitched when Dusk had said 'child'. Let's poke at that, and see why she's jumpy about mention of children. "Did the doctors help you with your stomach bug, Blitz?" asked Butterscotch, looking concerned, even worried for her friend, almost to the point that it looked like she might have half-forgotten having confessed to manslaughter not ten minutes earlier. "It wasn't a stomach bug, 'Shy. Er, Butters. You! What's your name!" Dusk wasn't the only one at this table trying to keep control of the situation. "My name is Dusk Shine, Miss Blitz. I'm trying to figure out why you all have inserted yourselves into my child's life in the way that you have." And there it was, the twitch again. And maybe weakness in the legs? Blitz sat down at the table opposite of Dusk Shine, next to her dejected friend. Twitchy about the mention of children, and a stomach bug that wasn't a stomach bug? "I rather think that you and yours could use a fairy godmother, Miss Blitz. The hammer's about to come down on all of you. You're running out of time." "Hammer? Butters, Gilda, what the hell has this grifter been telling you? What have you been telling her?" "We ain't been saying shit, Blitz. She just knows shit. She's a fucking bruja." It was becoming impossible to focus on all of their microgestures, Dusk was losing her grip on the flow of the discussion. Focus! "Ain't no such thing as witches, Gilda. You know that. She's been pulling that cold reading bullshit on you all. We've been through this! They're always frauds. Damnit, what do I always say? Stay away from the fortune tellers, Gilda!" "Miss Blitz, I think you should stop insulting me, because you are in a very delicate situation." Ha! Another twitch, another tell. Was Blitz educated enough to recognize what that was a euphemism for? Maybe. "And I rather think your future is such that you will be wanting more good fairies than bad, come the christening." And that was the fifty-ring. "You want me to be a fairy godmother, Miss Blitz, because you're in all sorts of trouble, aren't you. It's the dead boy's, of course?" "Fuck you! You could have put all that together from these jabbermouths! I know your kind! You're reading me, you bitch!" "Your friends don't know you're pregnant, Miss Blitz. I'd wager you didn't know yourself until – just now? Been to the Urgent Care? I'm new to town, so I can't be sure which one you've just visited, but I'm willing to bet it's the one out on the far side of College Heights. No. I think you knew. Yes, look at you. You just didn't want to know, did you?" Dusk Shine leaned back, and looked at the colorful little biker, like a twist of rawhide knotted around itself. She's so thin… Butterscotch isn't the only one on the edge here. "And congratulations, by the way. I'm guessing you'll be keeping it? I would, if I were you. But I admit I don't know you very well just yet." Well, that certainly got their attention. And it hadn't even required any magic. Blitz was easier to read than Goodnight, Moon.  Which, thank Harmony, Flurry Heart had finally grown out of demanding every night before bedtime a few months ago, though the worn, almost tattered book still sat on a little shelf at the foot of Skyla's bed. Wind Rider's grandchild, Dusk Shine suddenly realized.  And under the warmth of that realization, a seed sprouted. Not just a seed, an idea. A plan. But only if it was what Butterscotch needed. Dusk Shine turned to the tall woman with an evil man's blood on her hands. "I asked you before, Miss Butterscotch. What is it you want?  Do you want judgment? Do you want to be saved? What do you need? Because we can do nothing for you, until you decide who you're going to be." The tall girl who once had been Fluttershy, and now was Butterscotch, looked desperately to her right and left, to her friend and to her lover, begging for help. But they can't make your mind up for you. Only you can do that, child, thought Dusk Shine. "I want to start over," Butterscotch said. "I want to be a better person than I am. I thought I wanted to be stronger, wanted to- and then this happened. I just want to start over again. Can I start over?" "I think," Dusk replied, "That might be arranged. Miss Blitz, you will have to reconcile with your man's family, I'm afraid. There's no other way that doesn't lead to you and your friends being arrested for murder and accessories after the fact. Let me explain…"