No Place Is Safe
It was the morning before the first day of school, and Flurry Heart was tying up the bathroom. Twilight Sparkle needed to get Dusk Shine's warpaint applied, and she'd wanted to get that done before fully dressing in the only good pantsuit she owned. She felt awkward enough wearing the formal clothes she'd worn to the trial for her new job, but until the paychecks started flowing, this was it.
Only Twilight Sparkle would know that the pantsuit she'd used to send a drug kingpin into ultramax was the same suit that Dusk Shine would use to mold the minds of Old Town's youth. But it was enough that she knew, it would be uncomfortable, unavoidably so, really.
"Fl- SKYLA! Hurry up in there, or I'm going to open this door, I swear to Harmony! We're going to be late!"
"Mommy, just a moment, I'm almost done!"
They had to be careful in the parlor and the toilet. The walls were wafer-thin on this side of the apartment, and you could hear the neighbors eating breakfast if you sat there quietly and didn't make any noise to mask them.
The sink started up, and then the door unlocked, and Flurry scurried past Twilight for the front parlor and the TV, a sad, ancient little thirteen-inch that had come with the apartment.
"Keep it turned down, Skyla, they don't want to hear your cartoons!"
"Aw, please, I'm too old for cartoons, Mommy!"
As Twilight got her makeup kit out from under the sink, she could hear, faintly, something that sounded suspiciously like an old TV western.
Only in Applelachia would they have old black-and-white westerns broadcast before 7 AM on a school day…
Twilight finally got Dusk Shine's face on straight, and nodded in approval at Dusk in the mirror.
"Skyla, turn that off and get back here so you can have breakfast! Now!"
"'kay!"
Breakfast for the two of them had been cheap store brand raisin bran and juice, and would be until, again, the money started flowing. WitSec had given Dusk Shine a small stipend for the first few months, but she'd been banking most of that against emergencies. Twilight used breakfast-time to get into Dusk Shine's head, and to grill 'Skyla' on what her kindergarten teacher and peers would be expecting.
"Keep in mind you're going to be at least a half-year older than almost all of them. No bullying, zero tolerance, Skyla. I'm not kidding. You're going to be the big kid in the class, I don't want you attracting negative attention. Think of these kids as your herd, and you're their sheepdog. No nipping, no barking, be a good sheepdog, OK?"
'Skyla' laughed at the image, and replied "Ruff!"
"Good girl. Are you done? Let's wash up."
Skyla was still too short to reach the relatively tall sink in the kitchenette, which was a tiny little pantry-type room separate from the room that held their little kitchen table and refrigerator. But Skyla could hand Dusk Shine the bowls, the spoons, and the glasses, for Dusk to wash and leave in the strainer to dry.
"Good job, now come on out here. Where's your backpack? Uh-huh, uh-huh." Dusk Shine looked through the notebooks and school supplies.
She found one of her X-Acto knives hidden in the box with Skyla's pencils and pens and erasers.
"We've talked about this, Skyla. You can't be carrying at school. That is definitely the wrong foot. Come here, we're going to have to do the full pat-down." And Dusk Shine wasn't kidding, she went over Skyla like a CO turning out a prisoner.
She found a second X-Acto wrapped in a pair of paper-towels and held in the elastic of Skyla's underwear.
"How exactly were you going to sit all day in class with that poking into your back, Skyla? You can't go out in public like this. You will get caught. And you don't need it! This is a safe town. This is a safe place."
"No place is safe."
Skyla had said this in the same even tone she had earlier used during breakfast to announce that a fog was obscuring the view of the neighbors’ lawn and shrubbery outside the window. Twilight felt tears welling under her mascara, and that broke something behind Skyla's hard, too-old face. The little girl's stubborn resistance melted away like an early frost.
"No, no, no – Auntie Twilight, I'm sorry, I didn't mean it, I didn't mean it, don't do that – your eyegloss will run!"
They put the knives back into Twilight's workings kit, where Skyla had found and 'borrowed' them, and Dusk Shine touched up her mascara.
Dusk Shine locked the front door while Skyla hopped down the three rickety wooden steps to the side-walk beside the funeral home's employee parking lot. There was a roaring noise which hadn't been particularly audible from inside the apartment, but which was oppressively loud once they'd stepped outside.
The funeral home was burning a body in the crematorium. That was something that Poppy Seed had failed to mention when she'd briefed 'Dusk Shine' about their new place – the funeral home had installed a full-service cremation facility inside a one-story free-standing garage at the back of the property, and it was directly opposite of Dusk Shine's front door.
At least it was only emitting steam this morning – the first night it had turned on, it had belched forth a full column of green-yellow flame out of its stack, like some vision of Tartarus to come.
The two walked out to the street as the funeral home's big panel-van pulled into the lot. They turned right onto the street, and then right again at the four-way corner in front of the funeral home, walking the three blocks to the elementary school. They passed Twilight's blue Beetle, which had seen relatively little activity since Dusk Shine and Skyla had settled into life here in Old Town. One of the good points of living in an old town center like this was just how much was in walking distance, even if there were more empty store-fronts and 'for rent' signs than Dusk Shine was truly comfortable seeing.
The morning mist was fading as they arrived at the side-door of the big brick building. All signs pointed to a warm, even hot late-summer day, but the river produced cooling fogs every night they'd been here.
Dusk Shine looked down at Skyla.
"Well, kiddo, it's showtime. Game faces, Skyla."
"Game faces, Mommy."
And they went in.
The first day of school was always a madhouse for teachers, but it was worse for a first-time teacher like Dusk Shine. It would have been different if she'd ever had a chance to be a proper student-teacher, but the crisis had killed that dream deader than Twilight Sparkle's family.
Dusk Shine made do. The kids were kids, and although they could smell panic like dogs or any other pack of social predators, Dusk was too self-collected to project her fears. She struggled through the long, long day with a minimum of public flubs, and simply collected the errors and slips in a mental drawer to be gone through at leisure when there weren't over fifty sets of curious eight and nine-year-old eyes staring her down.
She barely had time to interact with the other teachers during actual class; that came afterwards, during the interminable meetings held by first the principal, and then the head of faculty. The working-groups ate up a preposterous amount of time, and towards the end, she found herself staring out of the nearest window at the dying twilight, then the darkness as true night descended on a work-day that just. Would. Not. End.
By the time Dusk Shine was able to get across the street and pick Skyla up from the equally frazzled Bubble Berry, it was very, very dark out. And Skyla was starving. The streets were full of traffic, loud and a bit scary. There were a lot of motorcyclists around, and Skyla kept close to Dusk as they crossed at the stop sign.
They kept on going down the road into the canyon instead of a left beside the school, and found a popular fast-food restaurant that sat on the nearest edge of the park, over the far side of a modest bridge that crossed both the railroad grade and the river, where the street defined the borders between the Bottoms and New Town. Motorcycles continued to roll out of the alleys that led up into the Bottoms, heading across the bridge and up onto the bluffs, as Skyla tore into a happy meal, and then burrowed through Dusk Shine's leftover fries.
The traffic had died down a bit as they crossed back over the bridge, and struggled up the steep street towards the cross-road back up towards home. Dusk picked up a tired Skyla as they passed the municipal building behind which the city kept its salt supplies and snow-plows. As they paused at the three-way stop at the top of the draw, another four Harleys came screaming up the street behind them, the first bike's horn bugling 'Dixie', and the rear-most bike echoing the tune like a roundelay.
Dusk Shine waited at the stop sign until the cyclists were safely up the hill, and away from Skyla.
They crossed over to the safer side of the street, and she hurried up the sidewalk, keeping to the shadowed side of the walk, beside the rowhouses and their stoops. As they approached her blue Beetle, she noted that the row-house inhabitants had turned off their stoop-lights, but their interior parlor-lamps were all blaring, leaving the sidewalks a strange mixture of shadows and half-light.
An older man was standing at Dusk Shine's car, bending over in a half-crouch beside the right rear tire. He was looking at the back of the car.
Dusk put down Skyla, and waved her onto the nearest porch, where she would be out of the range of any trouble.
"Hello, can I help you?" asked Dusk Shine, her hand inside her purse, tightly gripping a can of 'special' mace. Twilight Sparkle had had to use mace on more than one occasion, and had quickly figured out how to enhance the defensive method by her own, special recipe.
"Nah, I'm good," the old man said as he stood up, and up. "But I'd like to help you if you're interested. I take it this is your car?"
"H-how do you figure?"
"Ain't no pretty young lady like you carryin' a child gonna confront a big ugly guy like me if I weren't lookin' like I was messin' with your ride. Sorry 'bout that." And he wasn't kidding, the old man was even taller than the amazonian Poppy Seed, easily two heads taller than the intimidated Dusk Shine. He was bare-headed, holding a motorcycle helmet in one leather-gloved hand, a stars-and-stripes bandana knotted around his throat. His black biker-leathers were aged almost brown with age and wear, and every square inch of exposed skin that wasn't covered in tattoo-ink was knotted up in the sort of scarring left by inept or careless medical care. "Hello, there, I'm Silver Back. And I love what you've done with this beauty. I haven't seen an old Bug in this sort of shape in almost a decade."
"Thank you?"
"Really, I'd love to work on something like this. You're probably about due for some work on the tailpipe, though. Those things always take babyin'. Boy! Probie! Give the lady our card, ya idjit!"
A shadow detached itself from the next rowhouse's porch, unfolding itself from an unobtrusive crouch. As the figure emerged into the street-light glare, Dusk Shine saw that it was a blue-haired, sallow-faced young man with an impassive expression. Skyla eep'd from the stoop behind Dusk, and scurried deeper into the depths of the porch, away from the new man.
Dusk reached out with a steady hand, and took a business-card from the silent young man, who she could now see was wearing much, much newer riding leathers. She looked over his shoulder, and spotted the motorcycle helmet sitting on the stoop where he had been sitting.
"Th-hank you. Uh, Forge Road?"
"Yeah," rumbled the elder biker. "I run a place down in the Bottoms. We specialize in custom jobs and classic-car maintenance. This town might not look like it this time of year, but we're a hub for the classic-car circuit. Every Father's Day, Old Town fills up with car culture folk, thousands of 'em. All you'd need to do is get it registered, and I'm sure the festival operators will be willing to give a slot in the VW and station wagons section."
Dusk Shine took a deep breath, letting her panic-response pass through her, and back into whatever box it needed to be when she wasn't being threatened. This was not what it had looked like.
"Thank you, I'll definitely take it under advisement. We're new in town, and my car hasn't been in for maintenance for far too long." It was then that Dusk Shine registered the bustling activity further up the block, around the now-crowded funeral home entrance. Motorcycles were parked everywhere, three to a stall. "Is… is there a viewing?"
"Yeah," sighed Silver Back. "My good friend's oldest. Damfool idjit went out west, to find his own way. Came back in a goddamn box. Damndest thing, word was he'd hooked up with a decent family club, getting away from our bullshit, pardon my French. Getting away from the One-Percenters, hah? So much for that."
"We don't know what happened," said the blue-haired 'Probie'. "Could have been anything. Accident."
"Flash, you idjit, you haven't seen the body yet. That ain't an accident. Waco fallout, I figure."
"Everything ain't 'cause ah Waco."
"Enough is, and enough, this nice lady don't need to hear our dirty laundry. Sorry, ma'am. You have a good night."
"Thank you, Mr. Back. My name's Dusk Shine, by the way," Dusk said as she collected a wary Skyla, and started walking up the sidewalk in the direction of the commotion.
"Nice to meet you, Miss Shine. Probie, you go along with these fine ladies, and make sure none of the boys give them any trouble, OK?"
"Yessir."
Dusk Shine and a bristling Skyla swiftly walked the half-block between there and the corner, their biker shadow warding off the extremely rough men clustered around the Wax Brothers Funeral Home's front entrance. The usual formal attire of the 'civilian' mourners in the crowd were heavily diluted by clots of men, young and old, wearing riding leathers so stylized and regimented as to compose a sort of uniform, each with a terrifying sigil on their leather vests, a bat-winged horse's-skull with burning red eyes. The rest of those vest-backs were emblazoned with their club-name, the Steel Horsemen National MC.
There was a great deal of glaring and fuming going on outside of Wax's, but Dusk was somewhat reassured to realize that none of the anger was aimed at her or Skyla. They were just passers-by, innocents – civilians.
The Probie stopped following them as they got to the side-walk that led back to Dusk Shine's apartment, and he gave them a solemn wave as they started back into the parking lot.
The glaring spot-light which the funeral home used to light up their employees' parking lot wasn't on, and Dusk Shine's street-light-dazzled eyes strained to make out her own front stoop. Skyla scurried ahead of her mother, trying to get as far from the angry, whiskered mourners out on the street as she could.
So when Skyla came hurtling back towards Dusk when she was still twenty feet from her front door, Dusk couldn't really see what had spooked her daughter.
Skyla sped behind Dusk, and turned to face whatever she was running from.
"Body!" whispered Skyla, her fingers tightening their grip in the fabric of Dusk Shine's pantsuit-jacket. "Cold! Smells!"
Dusk Shine got her mace can out in one hand, and took out her new smartphone in the other, and fumbled to activate the flashlight app. She cast the weak light from her 'phone onto the front steps and small stoop of their apartment.
A biker was leaning up against the first step of their house. She knew he was a biker, because of the leathers.
She knew he was dead because of the cut throat and the blood-soaked shirt under the leather vest.
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Could I be in this please?
Wait. Biker leathers, blue hair, name is Flash. SENTRY IS PART OF A MOTORCYCLE CLUB?! Didn't think he had it in him.
Only the most important details in this story. Unless you plan on having her use the salt in some kind of spell or ritual or something who cares?
Yo, this is turning into a great little murder mystery type story. I’m loving it, and can’t wait for more!
8595557
With the information presented, we still don’t have proof that he does. Not really, at least.
8595578
I care. I happen to like little details like that one, although I won’t argue against you that its importance to the story right now is not clear. It might just be one of those little details, you know?
8595766
Well I for one can't wait to find out how many employees the barber shop has, or how many tooth picks one of Twilights neighbors has on their shelf. Fun little details are well and good, but too much detail given to unrelated information such as incidental environments can distract from the plot.
8595780
Well, I don't have a good counter for that, so I'll cede this point to you.
8595795
Well, to be fair I could be wrong and these details could indeed prove to be very important. Especially if we end up with a murder mystery of sorts. Of course this final development is more likely a horses head in the bed style warning than anything else.
8595578
it reinforces the theme and feel of the town. Not everything has to be a Chekhov's Gun.
8595925
How does there being stored snowplows and ice salt reinforce anything? Besides, the town isn't really the big draw of the story. If it is then the author fucked up pretty badly. You know, what with the murder cult and the people living in hiding and all that.
8595578
Well when magic is involved, as has been established here, I think that it would be a wise choice knowing where large quantities of salt and iron and other magically related items and resources are. It could just be a forced habit that Twilight mentally makes notes of things like the store of road salt. Though, for fairnesses sake, I must concede that it was placed in a bit awkwardly and I'm not completely sure why he mentioned the snowplows, so.
8596139
Maybe they're magical snowplows?
8596130
Because the town is where everything is happening, and it's all foreign to our main characters, and learning more about the town allows us a greater understanding of what it's like to live there.
I know this sounds crazy, but most stories benefit from a little bit of flavour that doesn't strictly advance the plot. Try reading some, and not just reading "writing advice" that was written by people who have never actually read a popular book in their lives. Those rules work for movies, because conservation of information is so important there, but not so much for books, which can often expect much longer periods dedicated to them, and benefit from slow periods to contrast the action/drama/excitement against.
Seriously, go read some popular fantasy- C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien, Terry Pratchett, no matter who you read, you'll find that they always take the time to help you understand what life is like for the people around our main characters, which helps the world feel more grounded, and thus allows for a greater suspension of disbelief when the more fantasy aspects start up.
Well, that last part is more for the "serious" fantasy writers. Pratchett uses it to tell more jokes.
8596166
I'm well aware of the need to set up an environment in a story. There comes a point where you're getting a little too into the fine details however, as with my complaint about where the town stores its winter supplies. At that point it doesn't benefit the story or the environment in the slightest. Honestly she might as well have noted which street the local McDonalds was on. Actually, no, that actually happened.
Also, it's kind of a dickish attitude to take to presume what someone has or hasn't read and to give advice based off of that.
Seriously, I dare you to be more condescending than that.
To quote the George R. R. Martin character from Epic Rap Battles of History:
Jesus Christ!
8596257
?
8596231
You started by saying it didn't matter where it was stored unless it was going to matter to the story, full stop. That's what I'm responding to. You can say "I feel that the city has been well established and we don't need more", but I'd disagree, because it adds a lot to the flavour of the writing, and all these details contribute to the characterisation of Dusk, her attentiveness, the way she's constantly checking her surroundings, and so on.
Also, that quote is... kind of hilarious, considering how Martin ACTUALLY feels about Tolkein's work-
That's a lot of details he wants out of Tolkein for something that literally happens after the end of the story.
8596427
So I'm to infer from this...what exactly? That I have to stick to my starting sentence and argue literally nothing else? Because that seems to be what that sentence is saying. Also, and this isn't a point that really matters, it actually doesn't. It could be stored in the wardrobe to Narnia for all it matters.
Okay then, since you seem to be in defense of excessive details here's a little game for you. Justify the apparent need for street directions to the local McDonalds. How does it add flavor or benefit the reader in any way, shape, or form? By all means, the location itself could be described. Maybe make it a little shabbier since it's located in a town in the middle of buttfuck nowhere or something. The salt and snow plow were just the point I chose to point out.
That quote could have literally been 'I wish we could have hatefucked the Jews out of existence' for all it matters. I quoted a character to succinctly summarize my views on the matter.
This is the comment that started this assfuckery ladies and gents, and I won't be allowed to hear the end of it until I kowtow to the whims of my supposed betters and 'admit' to being wrong for daring to complain about anything in this flawlessly written tail of infinite details.
I was ready to drop this. Read one more chapter, and if someone from the show doesn't show up, I'd stop reading.
I was answered in the form of a biker Flash Sentry, his senior biker (who's character I really like), and a dead body. You have regained my attention thrice-fold.
Crap.
8596450
Here's the thing though- you're complaining about details that take, say, 12 words to give. Just as an example.
This, most recent chapter, was about 2,500 words. In it, we got a few new characters introduced, the plot progressed, we learned about how Dusk was coping at the new job, and we came to better understand the mind of a traumatised little girl.
That's the metric you need to consider when thinking if a story is going too far into details. How much happens how fast, and whether the pace is too slow. I'd say, for about 10,000 words in, well established main characters, a decently fleshed out supporting cast(the list, not the characters themselves), background established, and first major stumbling block hit is a good pace, and removing the "pointless" details would speed it up, and make the story feel rushed, like it doesn't have the time to linger. As an example, consider the details about the rail-line issue. Those are all 'worthless' - I can actually guarantee they'll never goddamn come up. But, they were established in order to give us other useful information, regarding Twilight and what she's capable of. Likewise, while the McDonalds and Salt are 'useless', the establish and maintain the FLAVOUR of the town, ie utter normality and a town that's, collectively, not doing terribly well. This is valuable, because it makes it so that when something pulls the reader, and Twilight, out of that world(IE a murder), it's more jarring. This is the kind of feel you want when dealing with this kind of work. That's not to say it can't go too far- I only made it about half way through Insomnia by Steven King before putting it down for exactly this reason- some 300~ pages in, I was faced with the sudden, awful realisation that nothing had goddamn happened yet.
And yeah, actually, if someone criticises your original point, a rebuttal of that criticism isn't to change your stance entirely and act like nothing's changed.
Anyways, you know what's a great option? Just... not replying if you don't want to have an argument. You're always allowed to walk away. Don't act like I'm holding you here against your will.
First: Flurry is absolutely right, never mind that the cult appears to have already found them (admittedly the dead biker could be fallout from the funeral, or something else completely unrelated ... but I doubt it), but her and Twilight are trying to hide from a drug ring with actual magic, safe involves being on a different continent, at minimum.
(granted, the whole magic thing means finding a competent therapist who will actually listen is almost impossible.)
Second: Flurry needs therapy badly!
Still, if the bikers aren't with the cult, they could be valuable allies, especially since one of their own has been killed.
8596293
That ending, man.
Think that this would sound better as “Would. Not.”
they
8595528
As a corpse? Sure.
8599107
As I said elsewhere, I don't really believe in tuckerization.
I'm surprised she didn't scold her about how easily she could've been hurt, as well.
The implications are heartbreaking, but I can’t help but think of the “weapon removal” scene from Pirates of the Caribbean 3.
So they're not getting a break anytime soon is what I'm hearing.
Flash Sentry as a noble neophyte biker? I am into this.
It's funny because it's true. And this counts as an impressive feat of bravery from Twilight.
No place is safe.
Some proper gallows humor there, damn Dusk Shine.
Also poor Skyla has seen some stuff and taking measures to protect herself. Smuggling X-Acto blades, woof. Clearly not the first time too. Wonder if they're the standard 11 size, or one of the other sizes and shapes that are a bit bigger given the arts and crafts projects Dusk Shine uses as a focus for magical effects. Not be able to do much damage to an attacker with just the blade and no handle, but would be mighty useful for rope and fiber bindings, along with small amounts of plastic like zip-ties. I HOPE that's the use that was intended and not for direct defense for the lit' darling.