THUD.
The dull sound of a knife stabbing into an old wooden table sliced cleanly through the silence normally found in the desert ruins south of Canterlot. A lone gray mare pulled the knife from the rotting wood with her teeth and, in her frustration, thrust it into the table once more.
“What is keeping you?!” said Silver Spoon in a near holler, trying to ward off the eerie silence that seemed to be creeping all around her like the invisible tentacles of some shapeless demon from the darkness.
The candle on the table, the only source of light to be found now that the sun had set, danced from the force of her outburst. The shadows of the ruined building she had taken shelter in wobbled with the light as if they were excited to finally have company and only added to the feeling of dread that had overtaken her. Silver Spoon was not afraid of the dark, over the years she had learned to mold the darkness and shadows into her greatest ally, but she simply could not shake the feeling that something was very wrong with the ruins she was in.
“If you don’t show…” she muttered in a spiteful whisper, “If you dragged me out here for nothing I’m going to kill you.”
There was nopony to hear her threat. As far as she knew, no pony had set hoof in these ruins since before she had even been born. She couldn’t even imagine why this pony had asked to meet with her here of all places. She had no friends; the only ponies that ever met with her were the ones that wanted to buy some random trinket she had robbed from some rich pony, or to put her on the tail of a pony that they wanted dead for a reason she couldn’t care less about. She preferred to have such meetings in a back alley or the edge of a city, preferably within range of a bar, rather than the moldering ruins of a city that had been abandoned for decades.
Once again she stabbed her knife into the table and looked around the room with a sneer. No doubt this place had once been a thriving city inhabited by well-to-do ponies. Worthless slobs that waddled and chortled about, spending the undeserved bits they had inherited from their rich grandparents on whatever they felt improved their hedonistic existence and turning their muzzles up at those below them. In her foalhood she would have called such a place home, but today it would have been a place where she could have had a field day: one hour of pick-pocketing and threatening and she’d be set for life. Except now…
Now it was abandoned.
All that was left now were broken windows, cobwebs, and boarded up doors found on buildings that were rotting and half-collapsed. The streets outside were littered with what had tumbled off of the buildings as weather, nature, and time let out its anger on them with nopony around to repair or clean up the mess. The building she waited in was no doubt a restaurant: Numerous round tables, most of which had already fallen apart from the ravages of time, were strewn about the room and each accompanied by a pair of damp and moldy pillows. A once beautiful grand piano sat in the corner of the room, still boasting a page of yellowed and unreadable sheet music and an old plant pot filled now with nothing but dirt. Beside the piano was the remains of an old bar which still had several kegs lined up that had been forgotten along with everything else in the room.
“Too bad it wasn’t alcohol.” Said Silver Spoon with a slight smirk, “I’m in the mood for something vintage right now.”
Even the air itself in the room seemed as if it had sat there undisturbed for who knows how long; the room smelled stale and lifeless, like what Silver Spoon imagined an ancient tomb or mausoleum would smell like. When she had first kicked the boarded door open, the stale forgotten air that flowed over her and made her lungs sting was almost enough to make her turn and leave. Even as she entered she felt immersed in an ancient stench that seemed to almost drown her. Only one thing had made her force her way into that air and wait: the belief that whoever had hauled her out here to this crypt had something big in mind. Holding onto that thought, she took her knife in her mouth and rocked the blade gently up and down, letting it tap the round scar above her right hoof.
“Forgive my—”
THWACK!!!
In the time it would have taken to blink Silver Spoon reacted; she had spat the knife onto her hoof and thrown it at the voice. It succeeded in cutting off the sound of the pony that had somehow snuck up on her and struck something solid. She turned and looked, readying another knife in her teeth as she moved.
“—tardiness.” Finished the unfazed pony who had casually sidestepped the knife in time for it to embed itself in the wall not an inch from her head.
With the knife gripped firmly in her teeth, Silver Spoon lowered and bent at the knees, ready to fight at the first chance of a threat from the tall pony that had entered the room. She hadn’t met the pony who had asked to meet her in person, and all she knew right now was this pony was good enough to sneak this close to her without alerting her.
“You can relax.” Said the pony in a calm, liquid tone. “I’m—”
Silver Spoon thrust her knife into the table, cutting the pony off mid-sentence. She already knew what the pony was about to say, but couldn’t decide exactly what was standing in front of her. Every last square inch of the pony was covered; wrapped in a random assortment of rags and covered in a threadbare cloak. All she could determine about this thing was that it was a mare and definitely a unicorn. She had gone to great lengths to hide everything about herself, a fact that made Silver Spoon more than a little wary of her, but couldn’t easily hide the horn on her head that the cloak was wrapped carefully around.
The cloaked unicorn giggled quietly. “A little on edge, are we?”
“A little. Yes.” Said Silver Spoon in a sarcastic tone. “Are you going to tell me why you dragged me all the way out here to this dump?”
The cloaked unicorn nodded gently and let herself collapse into an exhausted slump on the pillow across from Silver Spoon, which sent a cloud of dust and mold spores into the air which laced the stale scent of the room with an awful earthy miasma. She said nothing, making exactly what she was thinking hard to determine. Even through her darkened glasses Silver Spoon could feel her eyes running up and down her body taking note of everything about her.
“You’d better get to the point, you raggedy freak. I don’t have time for this.” Growled Silver Spoon, still remembering the threat she had made earlier. “Get on with it!!!”
A sigh came from within the otherwise motionless cloak. “I’ve heard from a far less than reliable source that you’re one of the best thieves in the country. I’m just trying to make up my own mind.”
Silver Spoon kicked the other pillow away from the table and dropped to the floor across from the cloaked unicorn. “I’m the best, freak. Got something in mind I might be interested in?”
“Perhaps.” Said the cloaked unicorn, cocking her head to the side in a way that somehow telegraphed a cruel smile through her mask. “I doubt this needs an introduction.”
Silver Spoon’s eyes widened as she stared at the crude sketch that had been placed in front of her. It looked like it had been scrawled by a five year old, but there was no mistaking what was on the crumpled sheet of paper. There was only one thing in Equestria that looked like it. A delicate-looking tiara decorated with rounded sapphires polished to sheer grandeur, and topped with a perfectly cut six-pointed purple diamond. It once belonged to the Queen of Equestria, and had been passed onto her protégé many years ago. It was the most valuable hunk of gold in the country, drooled over by every thief and bandit to have ever lived but so valuable and recognizable that one would never be able to sell it.
“This crown belongs to the Princess of Equestria. I want it.”
Silver Spoon stared into the shaded glasses in front of her for just a second, before bursting out into rude laughter in the cloaked unicorn’s face. “You want me to waltz into the royal palace and steal that? I’m done here, but thanks for the laugh.” She stood and began to walk away.
“This is so heavy. Too bad I have to carry it all back.” Said the cloaked unicorn in a seductive tone, followed by the easily recognizable clunk of bits being dropped onto the table.
Silver Spoon didn’t bother to turn or look. She stopped briefly to adjust her glasses and aim a vulgar gesture in the direction of the voice, then continued moving.
“Such a shame. I suppose my source was wrong about you. Not that I expected much from you, I mean, look at you.”
Silver Spoon turned back, grinning ear to ear at the cloaked unicorn. “Are you honestly trying reverse psychology on me? Too bad your ‘source’ didn’t tell you I have a brain in my head.” She pointed her knife at surprisingly large bag of bits on the table. “And you’d have to pay at least twice that to get anypony to try. Me?” She paused long enough to estimate how much was in the bag, “I might think about it for thrice.”
“Four times as much.” The cloaked unicorn said in a completely humorless tone.
The corner of Silver Spoon’s grin quivered as she repeated it in her head. “Ooooh… that’s a lot of money.” She said, licking her lips as she spoke.
“Yes… it is... So what do you say?”
Silver Spoon hemmed and hawed for a moment. She loved seeing exactly how much she could squeeze out of a pony in exchange for a job, but this time she honestly hadn’t expected to be dealing with somepony who would just casually throw money around. That was an absurd amount of cash, even considering what her target was. Slipping into Equestria’s palace and stealing from a princess, especially that princess, what not very high on her to-do list, and yet for such an obscene amount of cash it was almost worth it.
“I’m not going to lie, it won’t be easy. But…” The cloaked unicorn trailed off, looking Silver Spoon up and down once more, “my less than reliable source did nothing but praise your abilities to slip into places unnoticed. I figure if anyone can do it, it’s you…”
The bag on the table must have held more money than Silver Spoon had ever seen, as a bandit or as the spoiled brat of a rich Canterlot unicorn. Four of them were up for grabs, and she wanted the money so badly she could actually taste it. She stood motionless, wondering if she actually could pull it off, and her mouth crept into a cruel smile.
The cloaked unicorn tittered in a tone that rivaled the eeriness of the surroundings and sent a chill down Silver Spoon’s spine. Although dripping with cash, this… thing was giving her a serious case of the creep. She had experience dealing with bad ponies in the past; ones so corrupt and cruel that it frightened and even disgusted her. It was just par for the course for one with her lifestyle and no real standards to attract such company. But this thing, from its always calm and seductive tone to its inequine clothing somehow redefined creepy.
“So I take it you’ll do it?” said the cloaked unicorn and, taking Silver Spoon’s silence as a yes, she continued, “Good. Now take a look.”
The thing flipped the crude drawing over, revealing an equally crude map sketched on the back. Silver Spoon wouldn’t have been able to make heads or tails of it had she not once lived there: It was a map of Canterlot’s upper west side, near the palace. Her lip quivered with mild irritation when she recognized the street on the map where she had lived as a filly, but the bad memories of her foalhood were cut off by the circle marked in one of the alleyways.
“Listen very closely,” Said the cloaked unicorn in a suddenly professional and serious tone, “There is a sewer entrance here. You’ll be able to get into the caves beneath Canterlot. They are abandoned and long forgotten, and won’t even be guarded. You’ll be able to get right into the inner palace without any problems.”
“Long forgotten, huh?” said Silver Spoon with a raised eyebrow, “Except by you? Isn’t that a touch too convenient?”
She sighed deeply. “Yes. Let’s just say I spent some time down there. More time than I would have preferred, actually.”
The vague answer was good enough for Silver Spoon. As odd as it seemed that this thing knew about caves that nopony else knew about, nothing else about her was normal. Somehow Silver Spoon just accepted it and gave a small nod of approval.
“Once you’re inside the palace, of course, you’re on your own. However, you shouldn’t have too many problems. Trust me; the inner palace has very few guards.” Her voice turned sly and she giggled as she spoke, “And you’re the best. You should be able to handle it.”
And how, pray tell, would you know what the palace interior is like?
She didn’t bother to ask; she honestly didn’t care. “As long as there’s as much cash in there as I think.” Said Silver Spoon as she reached for the bag of bits on the table.
“Uh uh uhhh.” Said the cloaked unicorn playfully as she scooped the bag up and stuffed it into one of the countless folds on her cloak. “If you don’t make it, I’ll need this to pay somepony else. I’m not made of bits.”
Silver Spoon glared in silence for a moment before flexing her pasterns and cracking the joints. “Fine. I only hope your ‘source’ was reliable enough to tell you what happened to the last pony that tried to stiff me.”
The cloaked unicorn nodded and ran her hoof across her neck with a grim gagging noise.
“Looks like we have a deal, freak.” She stood and walked across the room to retrieve her knife which was still embedded into the wall. “It’ll take me a solid day to reach Canterlot from here. I’ll slip into the city by daylight, get some sleep and a meal, and then head out after curfew to make the grab. Where are we making the trade? I’m not about to carry that thing around any longer than I—”
And she trailed off as she turned around, letting the knife fall to the floor with shock. The freak in the cloak had vanished; somehow she had left the room silently and without Silver Spoon noticing, and in only a matter of seconds. She picked her knife up and cautiously surveyed the room with it in her teeth. There was nothing: no sign whatsoever that the freak had ever been there except for what lay on the table. Along with the map that had been left behind was a messily-written note, held down by a hoofful of bits.
‘I’ll find you in Broncton when you have it. Have a meal on me.’
Below that was the address of an al fresco diner which Silver Spoon still vaguely remembered from her foalhood, and a scrawled drawing of a heart.
“Why not?” she said with a shrug. “I’m not too proud to refuse charity.” Silver Spoon stuffed the small sum of money and map into her pocket and left the ruined building, eager to turn her tail on this eerie place once and for all. As she left the building she found herself wondering why such a sneaky creature that obviously knew its way around the palace couldn’t simply steal the crown for itself.