The Royal Thief

by LTBroski

Chapter 3: Questions and Answers

Chapter 3 – Questions and Answers

Az snapped awake, tied up on the floor of his apartment. He struggle against the knots, but they proved to be well-tied. Dammitdammitdammmitdammitdammitdammitdammit-

“Who the hay are you and why did you steal Fluttershy’s Element?” A purple unicorn in a brown cloak stood imperiously over Az’s incapacitated form.

He cleared his throat, fixed the mare with a withering glare, which he quickly softened, and answered “I am Azure Wind, or Az, provider of rare and valuable items, book aficionado and” he looked at the rest of his captors “Canterlot’s master thief.” The mares in the room gasped collectively. “As for the Element nonsense, I’m afraid I do not know what you’re referring to, nor am I acquainted with a Fluttershy. And if I may ask the names of my captors?”

The purple looked around the room at her companions, some of whom nodded. Last night’s mark was hidden behind a cyan pegasus with a rainbow mane and tail. The unicorn looked back at him before shrugging off the cloak, revealing a pair of wings. Az’s eyes widened. Dammitdammitdammitdammitdammitdammitdammitdammitdammit. I am dead. I am so dead.

“I am Princess Twilight Sparkle. My friends here are Applejack” she motioned to an orange earth pony sporting a Stetson, “Rarity,” a white unicorn, “Rainbow Dash,” the rainbow-colored elephant, “Pinkie Pie,” a pink earth pony messing with his kitchen, “and I believe you met Fluttershy last night. As for the “Element nonsense”, what you stole from my friend last night was an Element of Harmony, the Element of Kindness to be exact. It is-“

“I know what the Elements of Harmony are, thank you.” Az looked up at Twilight agitatedly, still trying to calm his nerves. “Have you not seen my collection of books? I probably know more tidbits of random information than you’ll ever know.” He glanced down at his cutie mark. “As I am sure you have figured out, Princess. I was unaware the Elements had taken the form of expensive-looking necklaces however. Can’t blame me for that much.”

“You watch yer mouth when talkin’ to Twilight” Applejack interjected. Great, a country bumpkin.

“It’s fine, AJ,” Twilight said. “Now that we’ve cleared that out of the way, I’m curious as the wards you have placed around your apartment here. I’m sure everypony else has questions of their own as well.” They nodded. “What kind of spell did you use to be able to cancel magical abilities? You obviously have no way to use the high arcana yourself.”

“And I’ve heard tell that you’re the smart one.” he replied sarcastically. “One does not need to be a unicorn to call upon arcana. The books in the upper left the middle bookshelf have methods of generating wards and using other sorts of magic.” He saw a fire light behind her eyes. Resigned to his fate, he sighed “if you choose to look through it, please understand it is ancient. Older than Celestia-“

“Princess Celestia” Twilight interjected.

“Older than Princess Celestia ancient” he finished. She galloped away, drawing a bit of a chuckle from Az. “Next?”

“Where’s your flour?” Pinkie Pie called from across the room. Confused, he looked to the other mares standing around him with a raised eyebrow. Receiving no help from their cold stares, he called back “top shelf, next to the oats.” “Thanks!” came the reply.

“You seem awful calm right now, considering your position,” Rarity stated. “Most ponies I can think of would be blubbering at this point. But besides that, who designed this armor for you? It seems a bit tacky, but I can see a certain sort of elegance to it.” She held up his armor.

“As for the calm part, this is hardly the first time I’ve been caught. Granted that was years ago, when I was just a pickpocket. The new part is that you actually found my place. But I digress, I can’t tell you who made the armor for me, and thank you I guess?” She nodded and walked off, still inspecting his armor.

“Um, why did you pick me?” Fluttershy asked from behind the elephant disguised as a pony.

Had his ears been worse Az would not have heard her, but as it was, he looked up to Applejack for some sort of guidance. “Should I be honest?” he mouthed. She shook her head. This is what I get for being a big softie. Might earn me brownie points with the Princess though… “Because I like a challenge,” he replied. “I made note of how the guards treated you as you entered the castle, and figured it could be a bit of fun. Apparently I was right.” He winked at Rainbow Dash, who rolled her eyes. “You hit like an elephant by the way” he directed at her.

“And how would you know that?” came the sharp reply.

“Because I’ve been tackled by an elephant before.”

“Um, oh. Oh.” She looked away, drawing a chuckle from Applejack.

“Had you not stolen something from my best friends, I have a feeling we could have gotten along fine.” Az raised his eyebrow at her. “Well, and your choice of profession. Bein’ a thief and all. You probably have never bought anything before have you? I mean, look at all this stuff.”

Az fixed her with a reproachful look. “Everything you see in here was acquired by legal means. Anything I’ve ever stolen either goes in that room back there” he nodded his head back towards his safe room, which he noted was obscured from his vision since the door was open. “The rarer books I found on expeditions.” Huh, guess I should have added archaeologist to the list of stuff I do.

“Even so, we’re gonna need to do something with you” Applejack said to him.

“Like give you cupcakes!” A pink hoof shoved a cupcake into Az’s mouth. As fast as she’d appeared next to him, Pinkie Pie disappeared again. Applejack rolled her eyes.

“Hey Twi, what do you think? Should we hand him over to the guards? Twi? TWI!”

“Huh? Oh, sorry.” Twilight looked up from the books she was looking through. “I was actually giving that some thought. Luna told me about some stuff recently that I think would be perfect for Mr. Wind here.” He felt his heart drop into his stomach, which promptly tied itself in a knot.

“Az is fine.” He swallowed hard, this wasn’t going to be pleasant.

“Az then. Simply shipping him off to prison would be a waste of his talents.” The knot undid itself. There may be a way out of this after all. She began walking around the room and stopped next to the safe room suddenly. “Wait, is that..?” she looked at him.

“Maybe.” He grinned sheepishly.

“Is what what Twilight?” Rainbow Dash asked. Twilight walked into the safe room and shortly emerged carrying a familiar-looking tiara. Rainbow looked back at Az. “You didn’t.”

“Maybe.” The sheepish grin refused to go away.

“Well this just confirms what I want to do with him.” Twilight sat down, straightened herself out and cleared her throat. “Mr. Azure Wind, as is my right as a princess, I will give you a choice in this. You have two options: you can go to jail, where it is unlikely you will ever see the light of day again, or you will enlist in the Equestrian military with the purpose of joining the Secret Guard.” She looked at him square in the eyes “which will it be?”

“Heh, not much of a choice is it? What is this Secret Guard anyways?”

“Special operatives tasked with keeping Equestria safe from all manner of hostile forces. To my knowledge, they are trained the arts of stealth, espionage, sabotage, and extremely brutal combat.”

“Check, check, check, and not check. Always something to learn I guess. Although, the “Black Dagger” will have a reputation to live up to eventually.”

“Wait, you’re…? Even better” Twilight said with a sly grin. “So what is it? Jail or the Secret Guard?”

Looks like Dad’s getting what he wanted. “The Secret Guard then.” He looked around his apartment and sighed. “And as for my apartment, use it as you see fit, princess, the wards…well I need to be released to disable those.”

“…Fine.” Her formal demeanor had vanished. “Applejack?” The cowpony untied the knots holding Az hostage. He stood up, stretched, and flexed his wings. First things first. He walked over to Fluttershy, still hiding behind her cyan companion and leaned forward.

“Fluttershy, I am very sorry for having put you in this situation. I had no intention of causing you harm, emotional or otherwise.” He stood up, looked at Rainbow Dash, and muttered “Elephant.” Applejack chuckled again. He winged up to the section of his library holding the warding spells, carefully flipped through a few pages and returned the book back to its place. He flew over to Rarity, who was in the process of locating all the pockets in his armor. “Rarity I need that for a moment.” He fished through a few of the pockets before finding his knife. The mares tensed up upon seeing it, and Rainbow Dash flared her wings. “Relax, if wanted to kill any of you, I would have.”

He walked into his safe room and flipped around a panel on the wall, revealing a series of runes drawn with chalk. He held the dagger in his mouth, held out one of his hooves, and made a small incision. Immediately after doing this, he smeared the fresh blood over the runes. “That should do it” he called into the room. Twilight teleported up next to him to inspect his work.

“Yup! So what did you have to…oh. It’s that kind of magic.” She had spotted the blood smeared over the runes.

“Yeah. So as for my library, I’m fine with you using it, Princess, but please don’t make it common knowledge. Researchers tend to be messy. As you’ve noticed, neatness is kind of a big deal in here.” He walked back into the main room, returned the knife into its pocket before walking towards the window. “I guess that goes for the rest of you fine mares as well. Use my place as you see fit.” Looks like the post-heist remorse has finally kicked in. He turned to Twilight. “So when do I start?”