//------------------------------// // Now And In The Hour // Story: Twilight In Plain Sight // by Mitch H //------------------------------// Dusk Shine and Skyla attended mass the next morning, in the closest approximation of 'Sunday Best' Dusk had been able to put together for the two of them. Their best wasn't very good, not just yet. She had concentrated so far on work clothing, and thus had been forced to come to church in her cleanest pair of slacks and a nice blouse, with a cross-shaped crystal brooch she'd made herself. Skyla was a little more dolled up, but it was easier to get frilly second-hand clothing for children at short notice. They grew out of even their best clothing so quickly, after all. Children's finery could often be found barely-worn in the second hand shops. Our Princess of Heaven in College Heights was the closest local Harmonist church; the only one in Dashville, really. This part of the country was overwhelmingly, fiercely Accordist, but those churches were just too austere, too stern, too… too much for Dusk Shine. Even a Harmonist church like Our Princess was more familiar, more comforting. The church building itself was, sadly, a modernist horror, all swooping curves and weird materials. It was one of those asymmetrical postwar architectural oddities that sometimes looked as if some alien species had descended from outer space to leave behind unsettling fortresses of steel and concrete, with gravel and stones embedded randomly and roughly in the concrete. The parishioners of Our Princess were likewise a peculiar mix of railroad retirees, university employees, students, and the odd professor or two. The priest was a young and bulge-eyed Friar Minor with an astonishing afro poof of hair; Dusk had heard from a pew-gossip that the bishopric had brought him in from some poor country in the western Sahel. All she knew was that his French-inflected lilt reminded her of Twilight's grand-mère; it made the pastoral sermon strangely nostalgic for Dusk. This was Skyla's second mass here in Dashville. Her second, ever, honestly. As far as Dusk could tell, Cadance and Shining Heart hadn't even had Flurry Heart baptized. Dusk didn't know how to address that without exposing them both to gossip and examination she didn't care to invite. For the time being, she had explained baptism to Skyla, and told her to deflect questions on the subject as part of being 'Skyla'. The little girl sat piously in the pew next to her 'mother', watching the ceremony, the ritual and the choir with innocent eyes, not at all overly intense or hawk-like. Their voices rose to join that of the rest of the congregation "…full of grace. The Lord is with you. Blessed are you among women, and blessed are you…" Dusk could feel the strange shape of the old, half-familiar words, half-forgotten. They sounded different in English, and she had to keep close watch on herself lest she sing the responses in her grand-mère's church's native tongue. Twilight's parents had been, at best, holiday Harmonists, and most of her experience of mass had been during her summers spent with Grand-Mère Clair, who had been oddly intense on the subject of regular church attendance. Twilight Sparkle had been less than enthused by the experience of French-language mass, and when she'd moved north to join her brother and his new Crystaller family, she'd shed the habit of church attendance without any real twinge or sense of loss. She wasn't sure what Dusk Shine thought about church, not really. She was still learning how to be Dusk. Dusk Shine needed to be seen as pious, Dusk thought. It was another piece of protective coloration that would help establish the two of them as themselves, and no-one else. The resources of Our Princess of Heaven would also help when it came to taking care of Skyla when Dusk Shine couldn't keep an eye on her. Bubble Berry had lectured Dusk extensively when she'd finally been able to break free and retrieve Skyla from the put-upon child care director. It had been very late, and if Bubble Berry didn't keep a second shift for the children of women who worked the evening shift, Dusk would have been in a great deal of trouble with the henna-haired Bubble Berry, indeed. After finally winding down, Berry had taken a deep sniff, leaning uncomfortably close to a flustered Dusk Shine, and conceded that Dusk hadn't smelled 'like smoke and whiskey', and dismissed her with a warning to 'never do that again, y'hear?' So… yeah, Dusk Shine needed to expand her circle of acquaintances, and among the respectable and unobjectionable, if she could possibly manage it. Respectability was an armor, and associating yourself with the respectable extended, in a limited way, that armor over yourself. So she and Skyla were pretending as hard as they could, sitting piously among the congregation. And so we pretend to be what we wish to be, in faith that masks mold the face that wears them. Dusk Shine listened to the hymns, and thought about what she'd done the day before. The consequences were unfolding as she and Skyla sat, inactive, here in a church. The bikers were gathered, somewhere, north of town, doing whatever it was that biker outlaws did to celebrate the life of one of their dead. What heathen ceremonies were they performing to remember Soarin, fool, lover, clown, and now never-father? Dusk didn't even know if Gilda and Wind Rider had returned from their Orphean travel into the black night, to retrieve the proofs of manslaughter and death left somewhere in darkest Tennessee. She could only put her faith in those she'd met, that they would find the motorcycle and the murder-weapon, that they'd bring it back here, to Dashville, for the police to find in the possession of the right man. She saw, in her mind's-eye, the old man, tired beyond belief, riding on a dead man's motorcycle, panniers full of incriminating evidence, appropriately covered in misleading fingerprints. She saw him riding in state, among his chapter's loyal fellows, carrying his son's ashes on that boy's last ride in this world. She hoped that they'd gotten Blitz to ride in a side-car or something like that, to convince her that she needed to stop riding about like a wild-woman, until at least, her unborn child was better-seated in the woman's small and under-stocked womb. Dusk Shine looked up at Our Princess's Mother-statue, in a position of honor beside the chorus. She raised up her voice with enthusiasm as the Hail Mother resumed, "…Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death." Dusk Shine returned to her life as a school-teacher and a mother, biding her time. She did not contact any of the principals of her little conspiracy, kept away from the police and didn't even seek out Poppy Seed. Not that this kept Poppy from her door. The deputy marshal stopped by the apartment the next Wednesday after school, to look in on Dusk and Skyla. Poppy Seed, over-tall and awkwardly crowded in Dusk's apartment's narrow hallway, looked around uncomfortably, unsettled and nervous. "I could have sworn we'd gotten you something bigger than this. How are the two of you fitting in this shoebox?" Poppy shuffled into the living room, which was itself fairly narrow and crowded, a worn couch facing the television shoved up against the thin interior wall, and a pair of armchairs shoved into the room's spare corners, their leather cracked, their wood frames battered and just short of splintered from decades of abuse. "Have a seat, Miss Seed." "Nah, that's OK, I just wanted to look in on you two, and make sure you weren't in any sort of trouble, or having any issues. I thought I'd hear from you about this body business, but you've been quiet. Nobody's been bothering you?" "No, ma'am, not at all. It's been a quiet week. We've been careful, and kept a look-out, but nothing so far. Has there been news I should know about?" "Well, it turns out it had nothing at all to do with you, just a stupid, crazy coincidence. They found the dead man's property. Being ridden around by the murderer, if you can believe it! The balls on these bikers. Like a damn Mongol lord, stealing the horses of the men they killed." "They made an arrest?" "Oh, yeah, a couple of 'em. The local drug lord ambushed the victim over in Arkansas, we think over a drug shipment the dead man was tracking for his own gang. Maybe planning to rip off a shipment?" "Oh, my. How terrible. They found the drugs?" "Yeah, you can put a pin in the performance, we're not in public. And no, it wasn't crystal molly. Common household meth, typical biker bullshit. So, a simple gangland killing. They just got interrupted getting rid of the evidence. A wild coincidence, that's all." "A coincidence birthed by you people putting us in an apartment next door to a criminal enterprise, it appears." "Look, nobody really made the connection between the funeral home and the bikers in a business sense before this. God knows how much evidence has gone up that chimney stack over the years. They're getting the funeral home to install a set of motion-sensor cameras to record what goes in and out of that crematorium from here out, now. The funeral home operator swears on a stack of scripture that any misuse of the damn thing was the responsibility of individual employees, etc, etc, the usual ass-covering. You know how that goes." "So we'll be under observation now as we come and go from this apartment?" "Aw, nah, the cameras will be inside the garage, I think? I dunno, I didn't pay close attention, I can ask if you like." "That would be nice…" and then they went onto other subjects, such as the management of the assets which Twilight had paid into the program when they'd first been signed up, and so forth. The arrest of Wind Rider finally made it into the newspapers a few days later. It made an impressive story, matching in most particulars Dusk Shine's imaginings of how it should have happened. The detective Soft Eyes had waited at the end of the Steel Horsemen's 'final ride', and stood surrounded by uniformed police as they watched Wind Rider and Blitz empty Soarin's ashes over a county road as a strong westerly wind blew the dead biker's remains across the fields and the asphalt. When the outlaw bikers had finished with their 'illegal disposal of a corpse', Soft Eyes and his men advanced on the old biker, and took him into custody for the crime they'd just observed. It was at this point that one of the uniformed policemen had noted the Texas plates on the motorcycle Wind Rider had been riding. Shortly after someone discovered those plates listed as the other dead man's vehicle, all hell broke loose. Even now, Wind Rider was refusing to confess to anything, but the newspaper reports insisted that they had the murderous biker-king dead to rights. Salvaje violence had been savagely reciprocated, and the authorities had intervened. This was not Texas, after all! He had it coming was not the letter of the law in law-abiding Virginia. Bail had been set, and paid. Wind Rider was already out, and no doubt sitting back in his title-insurance office, fighting his rear-guard action against cancer and its endless hosts of misery and agony. The mechanics at Silversmith Custom Motors left a message for Dusk Shine at some point that week, letting her know that the parts for her Beetle's scheduled maintenance had arrived. Saturday morning, she stopped by with the Beetle to drop it off, planning to walk the relatively short distance home. While Dusk Shine was talking with Silver Back outside of his garage, she looked up to see Gilda and Blitz leave the title insurance office across the way. She thought maybe she'd seen the grey head of the dying man through his office's filthy glass door, but that might have only been Dusk's imagination. "Oh, hello, ladies. Miss Shine, these two are new arrivals, I think maybe you saw last week-" "Yes, Mr. Back, I remember the conversation. I trust you ladies have settled your dispute with that angry man?" "Aw, don't take Wind Rider too seriously, ma'am," said the solid biker-mechanic. "He's got a hell of a bark, but his bite's been over-stated by some." "Wasn't he in the papers this week? The man was responsible for that corpse on my stairs! I think his bite has been stated exactly!" "Yeah, well, I don't care what the papers say, some people just have it coming, and that Salvaje boy definitely had it coming, don't you think, ladies?" "Uh, yeah." "I guess?" "Anyways, these folks are from out west, same as you. Where'd you say you were from, Ma'am? Somewhere out on the coast?" "Southern California. Santa Monica." "Right, right." "Silver, Texas is over fifteen hundred miles from Santa Monica!" laughed Blitz. "The view from Forge Road according to the New Yorker?" Dusk Shine smiled. "I think I saw you at the police station the other week. Weren't there three of you?" "Aw, Butters is at work right now. We're going to pick her up, she should be done pretty soon. It's a nice day, thought we'd maybe go feed some ducks or something." "Metternich Park is nice this time of year, isn't it?" The two biker chicks climbed on board an old-fashioned motorcycle with a classic side-car. It hadn't been a vehicle either of them had been driving the last time Dusk Shine had seen them. She couldn't help smirking. "Goddamnit, lady, don't make fun of me!" fumed Blitz from her somewhat comedic perch in the side-car. "They won't let me ride a hog anymore, the overprotective so-and-sos." "Shaddup, Blitz, you're embarrassing us. Nice to meetcha, Miss Shine. See you around," And off they roared. "Well," said Dusk Shine, turning around to the bemused Silver Back, "that seems like rather a turnaround. They reconciled with Mr. Rider?" "Yup. Th' prospect of a pup in the kennel will bring even mean old junkyard dogs like Wind Rider around, if you give them them time to get used ta th' idear. Almost enough to bring a tear to yer eyes, ain't it?" Then he turned to discussion of labor and parts charges, and they dropped the subject. Dusk Shine and Skyla found the biker girls sprawling around the demolished remnants of a picnic lunch in the grass sward between the still-abandoned mill and the riverside woodlot at the back of Metternich Park. Blitz was dead asleep, curled up on a battered blanket in the afternoon sun, and the other two were sitting closely together on the picnic table bench, leaning backward against the table and gazing fondly down at the sleeping woman. Skyla suddenly spooked, and went dashing past the three intruders into her world, racing into the woods before any of the women could react to her presence. This left Dusk Shine standing embarrassed, staring somewhat irately in the direction her daughter had disappeared. Finally, she looked down at the two bikers, who clearly couldn't decide whether they should be ashamed or amused by the situation. "Oh, go ahead and laugh, it's better than crying, I suppose." "Is- will she be OK? I knew we shouldn't have come, uh-" "Oh, shut up, dweeb, you can't help it by curling up like that. Sorry we scared your little girl, Miss Shine. Wasn't sure you'd come after Blitz and I dropped the hint. Sorry she didn't stay awake long enough to greet y'all, but, well." Dusk Shine looked at the obliterated lunch spread, and made the obvious deduction. "Food coma?" "Oh, sort of?" equivocated Butterscotch. "We've been feeding her a lot of carbs, that can make you sleepy." "Well, good enough," said Dusk Shine, set down her own picnic basket on the table, and sat at the far side of the same bench, trying not to crowd the two of them in their cozy cuddle. "I brought my own contributions, but that can wait until she finishes her nap, I suppose. And Skyla will emerge once she's determined that you haven't done anything to her sanctum. Or maybe when she gets hungry enough, I can't be sure, really." "Your daughter's name is Skyla?" asked the tall pink-haired woman. "That's an interesting name. What's it mean?" "Honestly? I have no idea. Family name, her great-grandmother named her, wouldn't tell anyone else what it meant." That lie was starting to get well-worn, it almost had the shape of truth. "Funniest thing," said Gilda, looking lazily over her shoulder at Dusk. "Dweeb here and that slugabed on the grass down there are from California, too. Some obscure northern city I'd never heard of before. Both of 'em left that burg separately, went through seven kinds of hell, and somehow ended up tripping over each other in a Dallas convenience-store parking lot thousands of road-miles away from where they started. Hell of a thing, coincidences." "Yes, quite a coincidence. What town in northern California are you two from, originally, Butterscotch?" "Oh? You don't know? You seemed to know so much, I just assumed…" "Irrelevant details sometimes don't come up if I'm focused on other matters. What town?" "Uh, Canterlot City? We went to Canterlot High School together, before Blitz dropped out. I suppose it doesn't matter after all of these years. I got my diploma, and she didn't, but it didn't really help me that much." "Hell, girl," objected Gilda, "you got more than that, didn't you? Sounded to me like you're at least two-thirds of the way to a degree in veterinarianism or something like that." "Veterinarian science, Gilda, and those credits belong to Fluttershy. I'm not sure how I'd start that back up again as who I am now." The two of them started in on what sounded like a well-worn argument, gently fought but heartfelt for all of that. But Dusk Shine was having difficulty focusing on the girls' plans for the future. Twilight Sparkle had grown up in Canterlot City. Gone to a private academy, never actually set foot in Canterlot High School, but she knew where it was, passed by it now and again with its preposterous, over-sized marble horse-statue and imposing façade right up against the south side's main drag. What are the odds? Skyla finally crept out of the woods an hour later, as Gilda and a drowsy Blitz argued about whether to go buy some more food from the coin-operated dispensers way the heck over on the other side of the park, or to just feed the critters gathered around Butterscotch from the crumbs and remains of their picnic. Butterscotch's soft-spoken description of where they were living now – an apartment courtesy of Wind Rider, a generous loft in a converted warehouse deep in the back of the Bottoms – came to a halt as she caught sight of the skittish little girl. Skyla's gaze bent down towards the animals – the birds and chipmunks gathered around the feet of the shyly smiling pink-haired woman. Then she stared up at Butterscotch, looking for all the world like a wary alley-cat assessing the threat presented by a kindly-faced old lady standing over a bowl of dry catfood on a back porch. "Hello," said Butterscotch gently. "What's your name? I'm Butterscotch. Do you want to help feed the critters?" Skyla nodded, silently. Dusk Shine watched her daughter step out of the shadowed woods to join mommy and mommy's new friends in the warm sunlight.