//------------------------------// // Interlude: Like a Thief in the Night // Story: Rekindled Embers // by applezombi //------------------------------// Interlude: Like a Thief in the Night              Textile and Needle Point were unsettled.  The entire day had been a struggle at the shop.  More than once, Textile had been tempted to just close up the store for the rest of the day and hide.  He knew Needle Point felt the same way; she was moving woodenly, her ears slicked back against her head, her hooves dragging against the floor.              There were too few customers coming to browse.  Textile understood that; after such a shock the day prior, ponies didn’t know what to do with themselves.  Go on with their daily lives as normal?  How?  Just yesterday, a terrifying voice from the sky had blasted heresy and terror over the entirety of New Canterlot City.  How could anypony recover from that?              A few ponies had come in looking for travel clothing.  Textile understood their reasoning, too; it wasn’t about faith, it was about safety.  Something strange, something big, was going on in the city, and some ponies didn’t want anything to do with it.  Ponies were packing.  Ponies were leaving.  It wasn’t a flood, yet, but the trickle was steady.  Textile and Needle Point had spoken, though.  They weren’t runners; this was their home.  Even though they hadn’t heard from their daughter in over a year, if she were going to send word, it would be to their home.  This was the city she had fought for. Their daughter, the proud Knight.  If they abandoned the city, what would Emberglow think?              Textile and Needle Point prayed nightly to Saint Rarity that she was safe.  It had come as a painful, physical blow to hear the heretics making their absurd claims about Saint Rarity.  How dare they?  Ever since Emberglow’s Knighting, most of her parents’ prayers had gone to their daughter’s favored saint.              As the last few customers left the shop, Textile watched the slowly creeping hands of the clock, while his wife worked on clothes in the back.  Ten minutes to seven, closing time.  Then the door popped open, the bell ringing its tinkling welcome.  The sound was a jarringly cheerful counterpoint to the prevailing mood.              The pony who entered was…odd.  She had cream colored fur, and a jet-black mane with a garish pink streak.  Her blue eyes were piercing and danced with a cheerfulness that seemed somehow unnatural.  She was wearing a black blouse, and a skirt that was so short it was nearly scandalous.  Textile could almost see her cutie mark!  Over the blouse she wore a pair of saddlebags; the buckles were undone.  On top of all that, she was chomping loudly on a piece of gum.              “Hey,” the mare said as she saw him notice her.  Her voice was friendly, but a little flippant.  She began to browse the shelves, as if nothing were odd or wrong.  The fur on the back of Textile’s neck raised slightly; he was definitely getting a sketchy vibe from this pony.  Having owned a retail store for years, he had long since learned to trust his instincts when it came to sketchy ponies; though shoplifting was rare, it wasn’t unheard of.              “Hello, welcome to Needle Point Textiles,” he said politely.  Just because you thought somepony might be stealing didn’t mean you couldn’t be nice.  Sometimes good customer service was enough to scare off a potential thief.  “We’re closing in ten minutes,” he added.              “Oh sure.  I’m just looking around, anyways.  I can leave if you need me to,” the mare said, chomping on her gum.  Textile had to fight back a comment.              “No, you’re fine.  Are you looking for anything in particular?”              “Nope.  Just saw your displays, and I thought some of your stuff looked interesting.  Thought I’d come in and browse.  It sucks you’re closing so soon.  I love small shops like this one.”  The pony began to peruse the shelves, idly flipping through the merchandise.  Her movements told another story, however.  She would pick up a dress to look at, but her eyes would scan about the shop, rather than looking at what she was holding.  She was casing, then.  Looking for blind spots in his behavior.  She was definitely up to something dishonest.  It made him sick.  Why couldn’t ponies just tell the truth?              Textile glanced back into the work room.  His wife had gotten up, and was poking her head into the storefront.  Without saying anything, he raised his eyebrows and nodded towards the oddly-behaving customer, his ears pinned back.  Needle Point, having been married to her husband for twenty five years, was able to easily pick up on what he was conveying.  She casually stepped onto the sales floor, stepping behind the counter so that Textile could move out among the displays.  As if he were merely preparing the store for closing, he moved among the racks of dresses and shirts, rearranging and straightening each row of product, while always managing to do so within line of sight of the strange mare.  She looked up at him with a knowing smirk, before going back to what she was doing.  She knew that he was on to her; this was fine.  Textile didn’t mind if she knew she was being watched; she was much less likely to steal that way.              The sketchy mare browsed until it was only one minute before closing time.  Textile deliberately moved right up to her.              “I’m sorry, miss, but it’s just about seven o’clock.  We’re closing up.  Did you need any help with anything?”              “Actually, I have a small favor to ask of you,” she admitted, and Textile groaned inwardly.  Here it was, the beginning of whatever scam she had planned.  “A friend of mine is gonna be on the radio in just a second.  Do you have a radio?  It’ll only take a few seconds, then I’ll be out of your hair.  I’ll even buy something, if you need me to.”  She looked at him sheepishly.  “It’s kinda the whole reason I found an open store.  Please?  It’s really important to her that I hear it.”              That was odd.  He wondered what her angle was.  But they did have a radio; Emberglow had bought it for them last year, shortly before the letters had stopped coming.  It sat on a shelf behind the counter.  Maybe she could listen, and then leave.  He looked back at Needle Point, who shrugged.              “Look, I know you think I’m just here to steal something.  I’m not, I swear.  I have bits, I’ll pay you…” she’d stopped chomping at her gum, and now the mare just sounded earnest.              “Why didn’t you say so in the first place?” Textile asked, and the mare blushed.              “Hey, sure, just walk in off the street and open with ‘hey, can I listen to your radio?’.  It’s totally creepy.  I… I didn’t know how to ask without sounding weird.”              “Well, you managed anyways,” Textile grumped, and Needle Point shot him a look.  “What frequency should I turn it to?”  The mare rattled off the frequency, and Needle Point turned the dial, looking for the station the mare asked for.  At first there was nothing, only whining static.              “I’m sorry, I don’t think…” Needle Point said, before suddenly the static cleared, and a mare's voice cut into the shop.              “Hey, good evening, ponies!  Congratulations on finding the frequency of Truth!  You’re listening to Radio Free Equestria!  New Canterlot City’s best and only-est pirate radio station!”              “This is… th-the heretic broadcast!” Needle Point shouted, horrified.  Both ponies spun on their erstwhile customer, only to realize she had retrieved something from her saddlebags.  A small, round object, black, with a silvery pin sticking out of the top.  A pin that was now clenched in the cream earth pony’s teeth.              “Hold still.  Don’t move.  We’re gonna listen, and nopony’s gonna do anything weird, or I pull this out and y’all get to meet your Saints really quick, kay?” the pony said, her eyes darting back and forth between the two older ponies.  Needle Point was shaking with fear, and Textile felt a cold lump in the pit of his stomach.              “Why…” he began, but the heretic made a slicing motion with her hoof.              “Shush.  I told you, I’m here to listen to a friend on the radio.  We all sit here and listen for five minutes, and then I leave.  Promise.  Nopony does anything heroic, and nopony gets hurt.  I swear to Celestia.”              If there were any doubt they were dealing with a dangerous heretic, it was gone.  Husband and wife looked at each other fearfully, and Textile shook his head.  They would be patient, for now.  Meanwhile, the announcer on the pirate radio station had continued.              “…extra special program, in the wake of yesterday’s long-awaited good news.  Tonight’s guest is a friend of the big guy himself, and she wants to reach out to her parents.  We’re not gonna say names, to keep folks as safe as possible, but I hope your parents recognize your voice.”              “I hope so too,” said another mare’s voice, and Textile and Needlepoint’s jaws dropped in shock.  It was their daughter, Emberglow.   A thousand emotions buzzed through Textile’s head.  Relief, because Emberglow was alive.  Horror, because her voice was coming to him from the heretic broadcast.  Confusion.  Dread.  Joy.  Gratitude.  But he didn’t even have a second to process it all, because the radio kept playing Emberglow’s voice. “Mom?  Dad?  I’m so sorry that you have to hear me like this.  I would have sent a letter, but letters aren’t safe.  I’m pretty sure they’ve censored the last few I sent.  You probably never even got them.”  Over the radio, they could hear their daughter take a deep, calming breath.              “I don’t know if you’ll ever forgive me.  I don’t know if you’ll even believe me.  But that thing you’re afraid of has happened right now?  It’s probably true.  I’ve joined the ‘heretics’, as you call them.  Only, they’re right.  We’ve been lied to, deceived, for years.  I’ve seen things that have broken my heart, and destroyed me to the core.  I’ve had to rebuild myself from the shattered pieces of my faith.  And now I see everything so much more clearly.  The Diarchy is made of nothing but hate.  Hate for unicorns, hate for other creatures, and hate for anypony who’s even a little bit different.  I couldn’t be a part of hate any longer, and they tortured me when I said so.              “Mom, Dad?  You’re in danger.  I know the two of you would never do anything to betray the faith.  But you also raised your daughter to be honest, to seek truth and justice.  And that’s what I did, even when that rocky path led me to where I am now.  And because of me, my choices, you’re going to be hurt.  Tonight, after dark, a team of Knights Mystic are going to show up at your home and ‘disappear’ you.  I’ve sent a friend to come try to get you out safely, if you want.”              Both of Emberglow’s parents glanced at the strange mare, who wore a silly grin and was mouthing, ‘That’s me!’              “I know you won’t believe me.  Maybe you think this is magical trickery, or maybe you think I’m being coerced.  I’m not.  So I’m going to prove it to you, by sharing something nopony else could know.  Remember the night you gave me my dress?  My twelfth birthday?  I was awake that night, listening with the window open.  I heard the two of you speaking and crying.  Mom… I love you so much.  I heard you sobbing because you thought I would never have foals.  You wanted, more than anything else, to hold a foal in your hooves again after the Knights Mystic so cruelly ripped you away from your youngest, just for the nonsensical offense of being a unicorn.  You were in tears because you thought you’d never have anything like that again.  I heard, Mom, and I remembered.” Textile looked at his wife.  He remembered that night.  She was in tears then.  She was in tears now.              “I want you to be safe, mom and dad,” Emberglow continued.  “I want you to go with my friend tonight.  My friend will bring you to me.  I want to tell you about these things face to face.  I want you to know that you can have what you’ve always wanted, mother.  Because I’m with somepony now.  And I’m going to have foals, mom.  Just like you always dreamed for me, even if you buried those dreams because they weren’t mine.  I want you to meet my special somepony, but I can’t introduce you if you stay in the city.  Because she’s a mare.  And she’s a unicorn.              “I’m so sorry I had to tell you this way.  You can’t begin to understand how much I wish circumstances could be different.  But I need you to believe me.  I need you to trust my friend.  Please escape the city, so we can see each other again safely.  You can be disappointed with me, you can hate me forever, but please trust me now.  Please.”              “Well, folks, what a story!” the announcer’s voice came back on again.  “Let’s hope this story has a happy ending.  Hopefully we’ll be back with an update in a few days.”              The sound cut out as Textile reached out and turned the radio off.              “What…” he began, stunned.  He looked back at the mare.              “Call me Bubblegum,” she said, taking the grenade pin out of her mouth, and tossing the ‘grenade’ gently into the air.  Textile nearly shrieked until he saw the weapon gently drift up, then down.  Bubblegum tapped it slightly with one of her hooves, and it shimmered slightly before becoming nothing more than a cyan colored foal’s balloon.  “Sorry about that little deception with the balloon.  I had to be sure you’d listen.”  Gone was the flippant tone; now the mare sounded sincere.              “This is too much,” Needle Point sobbed, collapsing to the floor.  “It’s too much, I can’t…”              “Look, I hate to be an ass about this, but we don’t have a lot of time.  So I’m going to need you two to work through this and pull yourselves together really quick,” Bubblegum said.  “It’s seven o’clock now.  Sundown is in about an hour.  As soon as it gets dark, a team of Mystics is gonna be here to black bag the two of you.  I don’t know what their goal is, but I can promise it’s most likely that you two are gonna end up in an unmarked grave somewhere outside the city.”              “Why would they… we’ve never done anything wrong!” Textile insisted, his voice rising with panic.              “Yeah, I know.  Emberglow knows that too, that’s why she set this up.”  Bubblegum snorted.  “I’m so bucking tired of innocent ponies getting hurt because of those Mystic plotholes.”  She sighed.  “Here’s your options.  You take ten minutes to grab whatever you can’t live without.  I’ve got food, so only mementos and stuff that’s irreplaceable.  Then I cast some spells and sneak us out of the city quick as I can.  You get to see your daughter, and meet her marefriend.  Maybe you get some answers to the numerous questions I can see in your faces.  Or option two: you stay here.  You don’t believe me, and you stay in your house until the Mystics show up.  Maybe I can take on the team of them, and save you.  But then there’s no time for packing.  And maybe I fail, and all three of us die.  Please pick option one.”              “How can we believe you?” Textile asked.  It was just like Needle had said.  It was too much.  It was all so overwhelming. He needed time, he needed space.  The walls felt too close, the racks of clothing felt confining. “How can we possibly…”              “I can’t answer that.  It’s up to you to decide if your daughter was telling the truth on that broadcast.  When she told that personal story, was it something only she would know about?”              “I had no idea she was listening,” Needle Point said softly.  She was trembling slightly as she spoke.  “Do you think maybe it really was her?”              “You’re willing to fight Knights Mystic for us?” Textile asked, bewildered.                Bubblegum nodded. “I owe a lot to Emberglow.  She saved my life, and my foal’s life.  So, yeah.  I promised her I’d die before I let you guys get taken.”  Bubblegum looked away, a faint blush visible on her cream fur.  “I don’t usually get emotional and stuff, but your daughter’s special.  And maybe you don’t believe this, but I still take my vows as an Adamant pretty seriously.  Protect and defend.  I just defend the right ponies, now.  Innocent ones, like you two.  So… decision time.”              “Do we dare?” Textile asked his wife.  He felt sick.  Needle Point looked pale, as if she were also about to vomit.              “I… I don’t know.  I want to trust her.  Saints defend us,” Needle Point sobbed out.  “What if she’s right?  Disappeared?  Like Oak Chips, never seen again?”  Needle Point paused for a moment.  “No.  No!  I want to see Emberglow again.  You heard our daughter.  She says we can trust this mare.”              “Okay,” Textile eventually said, his heart pounding.  “We’ll go with you, Bubblegum.”              “Nice!” Bubblegum said with a grin.  “I might live to see my husbands again.  Now, we have enough time for one set of saddlebags each.  We don’t need food or clothes, so as I said, just grab any keepsakes you’d be heartbroken without.”              The process wasn’t difficult; Needle Point grabbed their photo albums, and after a split second of hesitation, dashed into Emberglow’s old room, emerging with two items: the purple velvet belt with two cutie mark medallions, all that was left of Emberglow’s old dress, and an old carved toy of an armored pegasus.  Textile retrieved his wife’s journal, his favorite pair of scissors, and his own idea sketchbook.  After a moment of his own hesitation, he retrieved his worn, battered copy of the Book of the Saints.  It seemed odd, bringing the holy book when he was knowingly running towards a den of heretics, but he couldn’t part with it.              When Textile and Needle Point, both terrified and panting, made it back down to their sales floor, Bubblegum had changed her clothing into something a little more practical; it wasn’t armor, but she was covered from head to hoof in black cloth, mottled with a dark gray camouflage pattern.  She wore a rune gauntlet on one hoof.              “You’re all ready?” Bubblegum asked, barely waiting for Needle Point’s nod.  “Good.”  Her confident smirk did a lot to shore up Textile’s own nervous terror.  “Hey, if we get out of this alive, I can show you my scars.  Ya know, where Emberglow helped patch me up.”  She hesitated, a nervous cloud over her face.  “Um, I hope it’s okay.  When your daughter saved my life, my husbands and I decided to name our son after her.  Neither Emberspark or me would be alive if it weren’t for her.”               “You named your foal after our daughter?” Needle Point looked torn.  Textile wasn’t sure how he felt about that.              “Mm hmm,” Bubblegum said.  “Wasn’t kidding when I said I owed your kid.  Okay.  Now let’s go.”              “We have a back door, if we need it,” Textile said.  Bubblegum raised her gauntlet, her brow furrowed in concentration.              “Yeah, uh… that’ll be good.  Get in close.”  She began casting.  Needle Point stared in awe, and even Textile watched with interest.  It had been decades since his time in the military, the last time he’d seen casting up close.  “These spells will dampen noise and make us harder to see.  They’re not perfect, though.  We’ll still need to stay quiet and move quickly.”  She finished her spell, and the air seemed to waver around them.  “Now I’m not one to assume the worst, but my job is to take a blade before you do.  And I take that seriously.  So if we get found out, I’m gonna say run, and you both are gonna run, okay?              “If for any reason we get split up, I need you both to book it towards the mountain.  Find the train tracks and follow them until you see a tree split in two, growing around a metal wedge.  You can’t miss it.  Wait by that tree, and either I’ll catch up, or somepony from the Discordant will know to look for you.  Repeat those directions back to me.”              Apparently military training and conditioning never really left.  “Find the train tracks up the mountain.  Follow them until I see a tree split by a metal wedge.  Wait for further instructions.”              “Good.  Hopefully I won’t die, though, so it won’t matter.  C’mon, show me to that back door.”              The back door exited into a narrow alleyway that serviced all the stores on the north end of the street.  The residents made sure to keep it clean and clear of garbage.              Bubblegum went first, checking both directions before motioning them out into the alley.  Textile and Needle Point followed behind.  Needle’s face was awash with anxiety, but she smiled a little when he put a hoof on her barrel.  Side by side they followed the strange Knight into the dark alley.              The silence of the city was sinister.  The sun had only just set, but ponies had been retiring earlier in order to escape the growing cold.  The snow in the alley even served to muffle their hoofsteps, leaving only the crunch of compacting snow to announce their passage.               They only made it as far as the end of the block, where the alleyway met Diamond Street, when Bubblegum pulled up short.  She held a hoof to her lips, then pointed down at the snow where the street met the alley.  It was dark, nearly impossible to see in the shadows of the buildings around them, but Textile stepped forward to see what she was pointing at.              The snow was churned up, with dozens of hoofprints.  It was as if there had been a fight.  Textile nearly gasped when he noticed something else; dark splashes of something against the white snow.              “Blood?” Textile whispered, and Bubblegum nodded, holding a hoof to his lips.  She motioned for them both to crouch down, and she looked all around, both directions up and down the street.  And then she looked up.              Textile heard the whisper of feathers in the air, and jerked his head up, shoving Needle Point behind him protectively.  It was a Knight, a pegasus, who landed in the alley behind them.  He wore white armor, only with Saint Fluttershy’s cutie mark painted on his flanks.  Bubblegum jumped in front of both of them.              “Peace.  Peace!” the Knight whispered harshly.              “Who the buck are you?” Bubblegum snarled.              “My name is Tir.  Knight Angelic.  Looks like we both had the same idea.”  Textile could hear his heart pounding in his chest.              “Knights Angelic?” Bubblegum snarled.  “No such thing.”              “We’re pretty new,” the Knight said nervously.  “Um.  We don’t have time.  You still have to get the innocents to safety.  We’ve cleared the path.”              “Who are you?  Are you on our side?”              “We’re on the side of peace.  Nothing more or less,” Tir said.  “Now hurry.  Me and mine will watch from the skies.  We have a ride for you already.  We’re going to take you all back to Lady Emberglow.”