Rarity hummed in concentration, three red ribbons held aloft in her magic, each one spending a few molments at a time atop a swatch of shimmering golden samite fabric. Each ribbon was exactly the same shade of cherry red, but each slightly diffed in the pattern of threads. 'Smooth strait lines, diagonal uniform lines, or woven diamond patterns?' She mused.
The ringing of the boutique's bell shook her out of her concentration. Laying the three ribbons atop the fabric sample Rarity lightly cleared her thought, slipped her glasses off with a quick flourish of magic, and greeted, “Good morning, welcome to the Car-” Rarity's greeting cut off the second she noticed her customer.
Or rather her customer's ensemble. Whomever had entered her shop ha done so in the single most ruined outfit Rarity had ever seen. Not one article within the outfit was intact, everything at least three rips, two runs, three threadbare patches, faded beyond belief color, and was positively filthy. Her voice somewhere between a scream and a gasp Rarity asked, “Celestia above! Where on earth did you get your ensemble?” her voice cracked, a deeply concerned expression not only covering her face but also her body posture.
The pony smiled, her mouth barely visible behind the hanging rags of her hood, “Oh I just picked it up piece by piece.” A green aura of magic levitated a small cloth bag out from a fold in her clothing, “I have recently moved into town and-”
Amber swore she only blinked. Suddenly she found herself standing on a small raised podium, her hood and cloak having been removed from her person and currently being tied onto a dress form by Rarity's blue magic aura, “...wanted to know if you would like to buy some gemstones?” she finished in a confused mumble.
“We will talk business later darling, help me get these off of you.” Rarity ordered, her magic stripping off the outer layers with precision, “The medieval look dose look good for you, but you simply can't walk around in a museum piece!” She scolded.
“Museum piece?” Amber asked, frowning in a half upset manner as she took off the sash holding her tabard on.
“The fabric your cloak is made from appears to be several thousand years old,” Rarity informed, inspecting the article closely, “Judging by the thread count and how much the fabric has faded, this is not a reproduction. Assuming I am remembering the date of this particular design correctly, you are trotting around in an authentic suit of clothing from the period just before the Reign of Discord.” Rarity trotted up to Amber and glared directly into her eyes, “So. Take. It. Off.”
Amber gulped and nodded, quickly stripping herself down to the fur and gently laying out each article. A few seconds after she stripped down the sound of the three mares she had come with laughing reached her ears. “Pwahahaha! That backfired so hard!” Scootaloo laughed, quickly sitting down to hold her sides.
“Backfired?” Rarity asked as she put the clothing carefully onto a dress form, “Did the three of you get this mare to put this on as some kind of a prank?”
Applebloom nodded, “Well... kinda. But it was her idea in the first place.”
Rarity turned to Sweetie Belle, “You shouldn't have encouraged her. This might be the only relatively intact piece of clothing from the era. This could revolutionize the next five years of fashions, and with how old it is...” She shook her head, “Well let's just say that a stray leaf could possibly tear it.”
Amber smiled slowly, “So you like it?”
“Like it? No. Far to drab and ruined. But this is an exceptionally rare treasure, it deserves respect and I could learn a lot from it.” Rarity turned to face Amber with a questioning look on her face, “You mentioned you had something to sell correct? Would you part with the clothes? I would like to make pasterns from them and well this outfit belongs in a museum.”
“Sure, why not. It's not like the clothes do anything.” Amber answered. She floated her saddlebags back on, having slipped out of them in her haste. “What would you be willing to pay me for it?”
Rarity pressed a hoof to her chin in thought, “Well, it's a priceless historical relic. But then again these sort of things always have a price do they not? I can offer you a fair price, certainly not as much as somepony else might be willing to pay you-”
“I need to set up an alchemy shop. How about you fund that and I'll give you these clothes and the rest as well.” Amber offered.
“You have more?” Rarity's ears stood up sharply, “I cant even imagine where you would get a single entire outfit and you have more?”
Amber nodded and took her box from her saddlebag ad began to rummage through it. “I'm a retired adventurer. Most of us wind up with large collections of things. I picked up this lot in a land called Drangleic. Don't bother looking for it on a map, you wont find it. It's all ruins, bone dust, and a surprisingly large amount of things that want o eat you.”
Amber spent a half hour taking out items one by one for Rarity's inspection. Applebloom, Sweetie, and Scoots gathered around as well listening as the foreign mare recounted her adventures and the story of each piece. She wasn't the best story teller, but it was fun to talk to someone about the adventures she could remember. By the tenth piece, a blue and white knit shawl, she had gotten a little to into telling the story and had taken a long thin silvery sword from her box to duel an imaginary foe with as she spoke.
“So there I was, standing with one hoof on the crumbling railing, and the other firmly planted into the face of the Hollow, the other one with the axe came charging up to me and smashed my sword out of my ha-er grip and it went sailing right into the lava! Now his buddy up on the roof top chose that moment to fire an arrow and pegs me right in the back. I don't know how he managed it but he got right though my armor. My whole right side goes limp, and I start to fall backwards into the lava. So I reach out and grab hold of this shawl which was around the axe guy's neck to try to pull myself to safety. The roof guy fires a second shot and hits the axe guy, who swings widely in a death flail and knocks me right onto the bridge and lets go of his axe which goes flying, smashes into the bow guy and knocks him clean off the roof! It was awesome!”
Her four listeners had grown entirely silent. “Ya'll were shot in the back?” Applebloom finally asked in a skeptical voice.
“Yeah.” Amber replied, lowering her sword in confusion.
“And it paralyzed your right side?” Rarity asked with a single raised eyebrow, “I for one can enjoy a tall tale as much as the next pony but there is an art to telling them.”
Amber smirked, “Oh! I gotcha how am I ok now. Magic healing fire ball.”
Scootaloo deadpanned, “Really?”
Amber nodded, Closed her eyes and slowly raised one hoof. A flickering gold light winked into existence only to flare into a bright, yellow, sun-like ball of radiating light, “Yeah. Here watch.”
“Watch what?” Sweetie asked before yelping in unison with the others as Amber slid her right foreleg along her sword, cutting herself rather severely.
Rolling her eyes at the response Amber held out her leg, the light pulsing for an instant, it's yellow energy stretching out and knitting the flesh back together. “Relax, that didn't hurt and the damage is fixed. That will stick around for a few minutes by the way. If you got hurt in like, the last hour or so step into the light.”
Applebloom nodded impressed, “So... Magic healing fire ball.”
“Yep.” Scoots said bluntly.
Amber slipped her sword back into the box and gave Rarity a little wave, “Right so that stuff's all yours. I have to dig a basement and I got a date tonight so I need to go. I'm sure your daughter, or sister, or whatever she said she was can tell you were I live.”
She trotted out of the shop humming softly to herself. 'It will be nice to spend a few hours digging. Should I do a flat bed or a bowl? I could use spittle to form a sort of clay cover and shape out a nice depression in the top-'
“Hey wait!” Scootaloo's voice interrupted her thoughts.
The orange pegasus zipped up next to Amber, her eyes filled with awe, “Are you telling me you actually fought three stallions in a crumbling keep over a bed of lava?”
“Yeah.” Amber kept walking.
Scoots wings buzzed, “That's amazing! I thought you were just well you know, making stuff up! That's totally right out of a Daring Do novel! You should totally teach me how to fight. I mean you use your hooves like you were in there right? I could learn!”
Amber shook her head, “You can't actually. I use my magic field to give myself better dexterity with my hooves. I've tried it without that going but I just cant ever move things right. I basically trade my ability to cast unicorn magic for better manipulation and grip.” Amber explained.
“But... you cast a spell while holding your sword.” Scoots frowned slightly in confusion.
Amber nodded, “Yeah but that's not unicorn magic. Anyone could do that.” Suddenly a thought occurred to her, “Actually... Pegasus are supposed to be nimble. Humm tell you what I'll let you give it a shot.”
“Awesome! Heh, I'll totally use it to show up mother next time we have a sparing match. She wont just magic her way to victory next time!” Scoots grinned wickedly.
The two made their way to Amber's home and stopped in Amber's yard. 'I really don't want to teach some random mare how to fight... Thankfully my methods wont work for her.' Amber chuckled. The large front lawn would make for a perfectly suitable arena. Taking her sword from the box Amber set it down on the grass and continued to dig though for something to let the other mare try. “Ok so I got rid of a bunch of my blades yesterday but I still have a fair sized armory. What do you want to try first? Sword, polearm, axe, mace, spear?”
Scoots shrugged, “What would be the easiest?”
Amber slid a long spear from the box and levitated it over to Scoots who grabbed it with her left wing, tucking it under the limb to hold it. She blushed lightly, “I um... I'm kinda handicapped. So I can't really move this very well like this.”
“That's cool. You're gonna use your fore-hooves anyways.” Amber replied. She bit her lip for a moment, 'Right... stealth shift. Hopefully she won't notice.' Amber focused on the several small changes she used to fight like he old self. A few green embers flared around her joints, neck and back for an instant as she reshaped the parts selectively. Partial shape changes were never clean, the sound of grating bone and popping tendons accompanied the embers.
Scootaloo winced, “Are you ok?”
“Yeah, I'm fine.” Amber pushed herself up onto her hind legs, standing as stably as she could. “Just popping a few joints. Right, can you stand up like this?” 'This should get rid of her.' Amber grinned confidently.
Scootaloo frowned, “Could you stand up like tat a few more times?” She asked politely.
“Why?” Amber asked.
“Well I don't think most ponies should be able to do that, you got some talent. But as a filly my friends and I were abducted by changelings and well, it's hard, but I can kinda do a little of their shape changing. If I see you do that a few more times I might be able to stand up, ad that seems key to how you fight since you occupy your hooves with a weapon.”
Amber stared unblinking at Scootaloo for a few, long, silent molments. “What?”
“No seriously! Mom really pissed off their queen once, so she tried to destroy Ponyville as revenge. It didn't work but her soldiers did manage to capture Bloom, Bell, and me. What's her name... Chrysalis? Anyways she kept us in a pod thing. I figured we wouldn't get any food but a few changelings brought us some realy terrible soup. I figured they felt sorry for us, but anyways I ate it and-”
Amber's left eye twitched, “She put fillys in a pod... and...”
Scoots frowned, “Are you ok?”
“No! No I am not ok! That raging idiot put a child into a god damn stasis pod, didn't put you to sleep, and didn't even notice when her Drones did what they normally do with pod held captives, and gave you Broth. It's a fucking miracle you are alive right now! No one is supposed to be awake for the conversion process and Drones are too stupid to give the right dosages!” Amber grit her teeth and hissed, doing her best to repress the building murderous rage.
Scootaloo's ears raised up in alarm, “I should be dead?”
“Yes! Look... Changelings can convert ponies into Changelings. It's a long, slow process, takes months. It's also very dangerous, especially if done to young ponies. Basically if there are not enough Changelings in a hive to reproduce, ponies can be converted, or at least that was the original idea behind the recipe. It's half spell, half alchemy, you are lucky in that the bits of your biology that changed didn't end up killing you.” Amber growled and punched the ground, “Just throw out all of our traditions the second you can! Is that what you decided? I swear if I wasn't dead set on retiring I would track you down and-”
“You're a changeling aren't you?” Scootaloo asked calmly.
Amber winced, “Shit... Um... you didn't hear anything!”
“Relax! Not everypony in a tribe is the same, so why would you guys be? Besides, if you were infiltrating why would you show off unique powers? That would be incredibly stupid. I won't tell anypony though, most ponies here would be afraid of you.”
“But not you?” Amber asked nervously.
“Nah. I don't think you want to hurt anypony. Besides, if you hurt me, mom would beat the crap out of you, and mother would get one of the Princesses to banish you into the sun or something.” Scoots replied.
A bad feeling started to bubble up in Amber's guts, “Um, who's your mom?”
Scoots puffed out her chest, “Rainbow Dash, element of Loyalty and Honorary Wonderbolts Ace Flyer.”
Amber's lips pursed slightly, “She sounds formidable.”
“Oh,” Scoots added quickly, “I have two moms actually. Sorry, I'm used to everypony knowing that for me 'mom' and 'mother' are two different ponies. So Rainbow is mom, and Twilight is mother.”
“Who?” Amber asked, eyes widening a little bit, 'Oh shit I think I just revealed myself to the worst possible pony...'
“Twilight Sparkle, Princess of Friendship. Come on, I thought even a foreigner would know our princesses.”
“Gods dammit...” Amber cursed. Taking a deep breath she sat down on the grass, “Ok... So how about this, I teach you to shapechange properly and you don't tell your mom who I am ok?”
“Um, why shouldn't I?”
“Because she visited me in Las Pegasus before I broke out of prison there and would totally put the dots together in a heartbeat and ruin my whole, I just want to live a nice normal life again thing.” Amber answered.
“Hold on, you are the same ling that she went to interview?” Scoots snickered, giggled, then fell over laughing, “Oh my Celestia! She is still across the country on a city wide manhunt for you hahaha, and you literally are right down the street form her house!”
“Yeah. I figured no one would look for me here. Also she described it as a nice place.” Amber admitted.
Scoots stood back up and wiped a tear from her eye, still giggling. “Um... can I at least tell her that somepony said they saw you somewhere else? I'd like to have mother home again. Oh and you were gonna show me how you stand like that.”
“Yeah. Sure.” Amber groaned. “This is why they said Soldiers can't do infiltration work isn't it?”