Working on new stuff always, I'll be back before you know it.
On a peaceful night, High Princess Twilight Sparkle discovers a thief in her quarters, and while dealing with him, discovers that he is actually in her employ. She insists that he has no place in her Kingdom, and the thief, Night Silk, disagrees. Now, with his job on the line, Night strives to prove that he is exactly who she needs to work the underworld.
After all, he's not just a thief.
He is a Master Thief.
Cover art by ProvolonePone.
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Is this an alternate universe story?
10428806
Nope, this is after Twilight's coronation.
oh boy, Twilight fucked up big time by not learning WHO that pay went to.
10428809
Sometime after, or years after the coronation?
10428875
It literally says in the first paragraph. About a year.
10428883
I'm sorry for the trouble but it didn't actually say that it's a year later. It more or less hints out that it's a year later with Twilight and I quote, "breaking down the yearly budget". It's quite easy to miss.
10428909
It's not trouble. I didn't make it obvious, I will admit.
Ah. He's that kind of thief.
Well, you could always just go and ask Celestia. And hope she will actually tell you the full truth of the matter, though I'm not totally sure why she wouldn't--I feel like this is knowledge Celestia could trust Twilight with, though I can also still see lots of reasons why she neglected to bring up the matter in the first place, so...
And even then, even if you do manage to snag the right pony, he or she will quickly become the wrong pony again once the next pony in line takes over the whole shebang and then the crime continues, only now in the hooves of someone new who may not play by the same rules as before.
The context for this seems off to me given the lead-in to this statement--do you really mean Twilight will be able to catch him for non-security testing crimes, or did you mean she would not be able to catch him for said acts?
This should be interesting to see play out, because I get both sides of this argument and see the upsides and downsides to both. I strongly predict Night Silk will win out because even Equestria isn't a perfect world, but the point isn't that, it'll be convincing Twilight of that fact that'll be the point of focus for this tale, at least for this stage of it.
10430189
Yeah, I'm in agreement here. Just because Celestia retired doesn't mean Twilight cut off all communication with her. And Spike can still send her messages vis dragon-fire. That should have been the first thing Twilight thought of.
The side-plot about the rivalry between Spike and Raven is somewhat intriguing though. They've actually known each other for all of Raven's employment, and possibly all of Spike's life, but this is the first time they've been "forced" to spend long periods together in a working relationship. Spike naturally doesn't like others hogging his "territory", and Raven feels somewhat lost without Celestia to guide and listen to her, since Twilight would, naturally, be more comfortable with Spike instead. But in a way, both are needed. Spike can get through to Twilight about issues and behaviors she finds personal (as shown in this chapter), but Raven knows more about affairs of state and how to organize the bureaucracy.
10430249 10430189
I'm getting there with Celestia, guys, I'm getting there. She's had a total of six hours, give her a chance.
I am really enjoying the palace life bits of this fanfic~
Still need to read more of Night Silk night to say if I like him too...
Speaking off, I do have to wonder if that was really an accident as much as Raven claimed it to be. After all, I do get the feeling Twilight's staff are trying to keep her out of the know on all of this (a "plausible deniability" sort of approach, perhaps?), so why not Raven too?
I mean, she claims otherwise, sure, but...when you get into business such as this, you do sometimes have to question who to trust.
But hopefully this is all just me being paranoid.
Depends. What was the relic, and how did it come to be there in the first place?
I mean, just look at IRL politics right now.
While I don't really have many doubts that he'll still pull this off successfully, that is still a rather arrogant assumption on his part.
10434958
It's hardly surprising that Twilight's advisors are taking the opportunity to grab power for themselves. Every civil service in every fictional work is, has always been, and always will be populated exclusively by clones of Sir Humphrey.
10436337
Eh, except I'm not sure in this instance it really is an attempt to grab power, but rather just trying to exclude her from the whole process, my thinking being that they know fully well how shady it seems and had fully figured she'd object like this, and were just trying to spare everybody the headache and the publicity, should word of all of this get out. I mean, I'm pretty sure that's why Celestia neglected to point this all out to Twilight in the first place.
But then that would be precisely the problem, because by trying to hide it, for whatever the reason, only makes it seem more suspicious for all involved parties in the long run.
We'll see how it plays out, though.
Raven and Spike be like: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0SlXQo53jfA (Azure would be Pinkie Pie in this scenario)
I can't help but to imagine Twilight is getting more into this than she lets on... After all she has played the tief role a few times before~
I am pretty sure she still has her own tief suit in a dresser somewhere...
I really liked Night Silk in this chapter, keep it up!
And the mafia ponies names hahahaXD
First
Also, love the story
Ah, yes, the bane of white hats in Law and Order spinoffs everywhere - the rules of evidence forbidding fruit of the poisonous tree.
You just have to bring that up in every conversation, don't you?
Okay, two things, Twilight--one: I'd like to see you pull off that same feat, and two: you're going to get him killed trying to egg him on into upping his game, and then you'll have that hanging over your head on top of everything else on this matter.
Okay, you have a point there--I'm sure Blackjack will make that same argument in court, assuming this even gets that far.
But that's just naive--if it was really that simple, Twilight, don't you think said guards would've already done that so much so neither of you would even be there discussing it?
Really, what Twilight needs is a good debriefing on the affairs of her guards and their operations Equestria-wide, with no details left out or held back, so to give her the true picture of what's actually going on out there, because clearly she doesn't understand this, and it's leaving her at a serious disadvantage as well as making her grossly underestimate these sort of problems.
Really, Azure's not doing anybody favors trying to keep Twilight out of the loop on these sort of affairs, regardless of whatever his reasons for doing it are.
Another valid point, and again one that could be used in Blackjack's favor in a court of law. Honestly, I'm sort of surprised Night didn't think of that himself--he's previously demonstrated the ability to consider such details, after all.
I've wondered that too, but I hadn't thought it was actually going to be a plot point. Hmm...
Silly Azure, let me introduce you to the magic of Parallel Construction...
Night Silk can seal a book just fine, but the princess's fries... That's a death penalty!
This has piqued my interest.
Looking forward to future chapters
The point is not that she believes you counterfeited it, the point is that she can't prove that's not the case to any outsiders, especially before a court of law that would need to take such details into consideration when determining guilt or innocence. Without that proof, the ledger basically is useless to her, or really anyone except the party you originally stole it from, who will, of course, deny everything if asked.
Of course, according to Night, that's more or less precisely what she did, except she used him sneaking around to point her in the right direction, at which point she and the guard could do the rest quickly, and more importantly, quietly, because if they hadn't, then Twilight likely would already know something about it on the merit that word of it got out to the rest of the public...which clearly didn't happen in any meaningful way.
By using Night, Celestia could keep such actions quiet, clean, and out of the spotlight, both for publicity's sake, and for the sake of effectiveness, so she wouldn't have to resort to using the guard on a whole like a club to cut that path towards taking these criminals down instead, which wouldn't look good to the public eye, and could be argued as borderline totalitarian at its worse.
Well then, don't go worrying your pretty little head about that, because, semi-ironically, the Great and Powerful Trixie helped with that already.
I mean, there was a whole episode about teaching Twilight how to delegate responsibilities for precisely this reason, after all.
That said, Azure keeps repeating this again and again (almost word for word every time too), but from the start, the excuse has felt...insufficient. Unjustified, even. I mean, yeah, some affairs of crime and security Twilight probably doesn't need a play-by-play for...but some of the things Night has been talking about doing...to claim that they're "beneath the princess's notice" just doesn't quite fly.
Besides, Twilight might not know anything of it...but clearly Celestia was very in the know about it, so that then begs the question--why was it okay for Celestia to know about it, but not Twilight? And as the whole "beneath her notice" excuse would apply universally to them both as princesses, that's where the whole excuse falls apart.
It may genuinely be one of Azure's reasons why he's kept Twilight out of the loop on this...but I remain unconvinced that it's truly the only one.
Celestia actually ended up confirming more than I expected her to. I almost expected her to be very scant on the details or even refuse to discuss anything about it except to reiterate what Azure already has and that Night can be trusted.
In the end, though, I don't know if Celestia's letter really changes that much.
"On time is late,” Twilight said. “Early is on time.”
This is the most Twilight thing you have wrote in this fanfic, so far. Good Job!
Night Silk has been growing on me these last few chapters :3
So... Is Night Silk pulling a "Trixie" and telling his story to Twilight in in the third person...?
I love it~ Don't get me wrong.
Spike plays dumn, but he is smarter than he looks.
Or a pair of sunglasses.
Well, I would hope so. They didn't spend all that time they spent together just playing checkers after all.
And you are stalling, good sir.
And that's a threat, a needless one given the situation too. You, sir, are definitely hiding something. No ifs, ands, or buts about that now.
Hmmmm, using 'Settlers' as part of an argument on having/using thieves ... interesting ...
10442452
The so-called robber was there before any of the settlers, and has a prior and superior right to the land and its resources. Its name is part of a settler black legend meant to justify conquest and genocide
10442470
Technically right, but he has to let them settle down before he can get started ...
10442502
Obviously, he was only driven to thievery by the seizure of what had formerly been his.
Corner pone, corner pone, does whatever a corner pone wants!
That realization. hahahahah.
Night Silk she never gonna let Twilight live this one down.
That does seem to sum up Night nicely.
That, right there--that's what this all ultimately boils down to is that question right there. And sooner or later, Twilight's going to have to settle on an answer...
...Hint-hint.
Azure, you're only digging yourself in deeper saying that. The fact you refuse to discuss those reasons only makes you appear more suspicious, and do you really want that?
I dunno, though...does the argument really carry all that much weight when it's done in a just for-fun game that doesn't have any lasting ramifications beyond the context of the game, and would blur over many of the finer details of those consequences anyway? I mean, consider many of the things most games (video or board) would have you, the player, do, and think just how likely would you to be to do those same things in real life?
I mean, yeah, there's still an argument and a point made in Night's favor through this little incident...but it's still no gamechanger (pun intended
) for the matter between Twi and Night.
Gotta admit I liked this little talk between Spike & Night here, he's right in that Twilight tends to focus on the smaller details instead of the bigger picture (want-it-need-it spell anyone?
)
Looking forward to see what Night does, (now armed with Spike's advice) next time around!
That is a fair point--by burning it this one time, all Night's done is temporarily set back Boot Legger (and the likes), but otherwise does nothing to stop characters such as him for good, the more desired long time goal. By giving Twilight some form of evidence to work with that she could reliably arrest, prosecute, and more with, then she might be able to deal Boot Legger far more crippling blows that might finally put an end to him, and in turn, extend such tactics on to others.
But in Night's defense...what else was he going to do with it? He had chased away the guards, but they and others of their same employ aren't going to stay away forever and would try to come back and claim the goods, and Night may be good, but he couldn't prevent that forever on his own. There was too much there for him to move elsewhere either, and doing so would only mean the evidence has been tampered with, damaging its value as evidence, potentially critically. And even then, just because he found a warehouse with illegal drugs in it doesn't mean they could also definitely pin it on Boot Legger or any of his followers, so may as well ensure it never goes into circulation to begin with.
Still, Twilight's point stands--Night is content enough to keep fighting the battles indefinitely, but he's ultimately only prolonging the fight, allowing the criminals to continue to operate at large. Twilight, however, is more interested in ending the war altogether if she can.
What Night could really use, is more hooves to assist him, preferably a team of guards that can work in conjunction with him, like what he's already been doing in a way, but more directly, so the guards can act more immediately--if Night had a party of guards at the standby the moment he uncovered the four guards and their stash in that warehouse, he could've just sent them in and arrested them, catching not just the illegal drugs, but the guards employed to guard them, and, in turn, a means of connecting it all back to Boot Legger, especially if they can get one of the guards to talk. In the long run, that would do far more damage to Boot Legger than simply destroying the drugs before they can be used.
Okay...but then Boot Legger would still just shrug his shoulders and try again, at least according to how you view it.
Sure, the four guards might--might--have that chance to a better life in the long run (which I suspect is Night's real point there), but ultimately won't effect Boot Legger really any more or less than letting the guard go in and make the arrest would've. Plus, this all hinges on IF the four ponies try to get out at all. If they choose instead to stay in Boot Legger's employ, which is really just as likely, then, again, all you've accomplished is you destroyed some drugs. But the crooks behind it still go free to try again.
Twilight's approach won't magically solve all of these problems either, but hers would still deal the better blow, and if Twilight can land several of those blows in a row and in rapid succession, then the aftermath of that is going to be felt more strongly by Boot Legger--he can, after all, only "shrug his shoulders and try again" so many times if he's losing both product and staff, especially once word gets out that the authorities have their sights on him, because then both potential employers and employees aren't going to be willing to take the risk on him and then he'll lose business, can't keep the crime empire going strong, etc, etc, you get the point.
That approach is just going to take time...and someone to help pave the way to striking such blows, something Night could do, if he'd just work in conjunction with the royal guards.
Really, in the end, I'm starting to think what they should do is combine their approaches together.
Case in point--Twilight's approach would achieve all of those same goals too and I think it'd work faster too...if a large and coordinated enough of a strike can be made, and again that's where Night could help, but he'd have to be willing to let Twilight make the call on that for a change.
And they could. Which loops us around to the far bigger point--why aren't they already?
...which is where my gaze starts turning to one Captain Azure...
And again, Twilight's precisely right on this, what Night's doing isn't really any different from what her approach would be, except Night's just one pony and he has no meaningful oversight--he's just given a blind check and allowed to do whatever he deems is right for the job. Put it like that, and I can see exactly why Twilight has such an issue with it. Ultimately, the royal guard could achieve the same things but with more lasting impact, because they have the numbers to strike multiple places at once at the same time if need be. Can Night really claim to do the same thing?
Night's problem seems to be that he has no faith in the authorities accomplishing these goals, and so he's instead declared a one-man war on it carried out by himself, and expects the crown to just leave him be and let him do it. His heart, I think, is in the right place, but he lacks perspective to see he can't possibly do it on his own even in the best of circumstances, but he won't trust anyone else enough to help, let alone the authorities whose job is to do precisely this sort of thing.
Which again leads back to that all important question...why does he lack so much faith in the authorities? What have they done, or possibly are doing still right now, that has caused Night to have such issue with them?
That all said, Night's more valuable than Twilight gives him credit for and I think quote/unquote "firing" him would be a waste of that potential. He is still useful. How he makes use of his skills would just need to be refocused, and to do that, he'd need to be willing to allow it. If he stubbornly refuses, then yeah, fire him I guess, because then he'd be wasting his own potential in refusing to see working with Twilight rather than against her on this would go further towards accomplishing really the same goals they both have.
Honestly? I think it's because Night has a strong vigilante, almost superhero-like, quality to him and what he does, and Spike admires that, thinks that deserves some praise, if nothing else. Whether or not that praise is misplaced or not, remains to be seen. Personally, I'd like to see Night succeed in working it out with Twilight too, but he'll have to be willing to change his approach if that's going to happen anytime soon.
Yes! I like that line of thought, that's a good line of thought, keep it up with that line of thought!
This is exactly backwards. You present your strongest argument first, to hook the reader, get them on your side, and make them more open to your weaker appeals. If you place your strongest argument last, you've wasted your first impression on meaningless waffle and your stronger points have to work against that impression and the reader's resentment at your having wasted their time.
10446905
And Language (much less arguing), as with many things, is subjective.
10446945
While that is true, the psychology of argumentation is pretty well established. There are multiple tricks that definitively give you the upper hand in an argument, and a persuasive essay is essentially presenting an argument from one perspective without knowing how the other side will respond. Obviously, people can have very different mindsets regarding what's important in an argument, but the tricks that work without a doubt tend to affect us in ways that are not consciously controlled without a strong amount of self awareness. It's appealing to our natural sense of bias that's built into our more basal mental processes. In fact, Twilight expresses this VERY accurately in this chapter. She almost let confirmation bias guide her decision to fire Night, and then a moment of self awareness gave her the clarity necessary to let the bet continue, even if she's already made up her mind.
“If you mention the game again, I will have you buried alive,” Twilight said.
Rookhoof: The princess needs my shovel!
I have never in my life seen a magnetic chalkboard.
10448891
Really? Never once? The standard school chalkboard can have magnets stick to it.
Hmm...depending on just what is meant by "stealthier" and just how much oversight it receives...that might not be a bad idea.
Need more details on the proposed plan first though.
Precisely why I like the idea myself...though I think considering Night as a member of this new group of "stealthier" guards wouldn't be too bad an idea either. He's already demonstrated the ability and the talent, what he really needs is more direction. Assuming he's willing to accept it.
About time. Something's been up with Azure for far too long now.
Somebody's boooorrrrrrrreeed...
Oh, is that it? Azure's trying to find a way to appease the princess without kicking Night to the curb in the process?
...No, there's gotta be something more to it than that, or else he'd have just said so...
Azure raises a fair point...but I still don't buy that he's actually telling the whole story. I don't know what, but I still feel like that stallion's holding something back, and it's starting to make me wonder some very unsavory thoughts about him the deeper I delve into that rabbit hole, so the sooner we can get him to come clean on...whatever the heck it is...the better.
Then don't make them above the law, or at least not entirely. Lay down ground rules, failsafes, regulations, and so on. Even the CIA isn't free to just do whatever the heck it wants, so no reason to assume these "stealthier" guards wouldn't be the same.
Further, I don't think you'd need them to be totally above the law anyway to achieve the sort of things you want them to achieve.
First time for everything, bud.
I mean, I am still rooting for Night, but I still think Twilight's right in that he needs to at least change his manner of approach, and unlike Twilight, we the readers don't necessarily need to see a first had view of what he does because we already have gotten it--the story's given us that repeatedly before now already. In short, I'm not confident Night can really "show" Twilight anything new he hasn't already managed to convey with his stories.
So yeah...pressure's high for him to somehow pull that off anyway.
10446905
Oh, I've long disagreed with that approach to writing research papers, and it's becoming a bit of a dated one anyway--it's becoming acceptable to save it for last in many areas, as a sort of "new age" style for research papers. But Academia is a traditional ol' bunch that doesn't like change, so, surprise, surprise, it's been trying to stick with the old style because tradition.
Regardless, my issue with it is precisely Twilight's--if you give the real core argument upfront like that, then why read the rest? You already know what the paper's core argument is going to be, so if you automatically disagree with it at that point, then why keep reading the rest, even if there's the chance the other supporting facts/arguments given later on help support it? Better (IMO) to instead save it more for last, to encourage the reader to keep going and read the paper in full, giving the best chance for your arguments supporting your stance to sink in.
To be sure, you still need that hook at the start that you speak of, but it can also still be done without giving away the whole core argument in brief at the front.
...buuuut to be perfectly fair, I'm also a prose writer first and an academic paper writer second--I've always thought academic papers shouldn't be afraid to borrow a little from dramatic structure more than they do, so I guess take my thoughts on the matter how you will.
But it's still a subject I feel strongly about, so had to chip in my two-bits anyway.
10450101
The point of a persuasive essay is that the author expects the reader to engage in good faith, and read the entire thing before drawing their own conclusions as to whether the person presenting the argument or arguments is right or wrong from their own perspective. If you can't do that, there's no point to reading a persuasive essay whatsoever. All you're doing is letting your inherent confirmation bias show. By your own logic if you automatically disagree with the MAIN argument, which is going to be presented as the thesis of the entire paper, then it doesn't really matter at all because you're not going to read the full paper anyways. Nonetheless, using a weak argument up front damages the legitimacy of ones arguments on the basis that the hook, the most important first impression the writer makes on the reader, isn't strong enough to make the reader interested enough to actually persist in reading the rest of the essay unless they already had an interest in the subject matter to begin with (which you cannot assume will be the case for any reader). That would be a separate issue, a lack of interest rather than a lack of openness towards the subject matter.
Not to mention having your core argument at the front isn't "giving" anything away. It not only will not be in brief, but the core argument is supported by supplementary arguments that further reinforce it as presented later in the essay itself. Why would you give supplementary argumentation BEFORE the primary argument? It makes no sense because you're supporting something you haven't even presented. It's like trying to build a house on stilts, but you never built the stilts before building the house. Now you can't raise the house onto the stilts because the foundation is on the ground.
TL;DR strong argument first actually draws in readers because it makes one of the best first impressions possible in that it's up front and doesn't hide the main argument behind multiple paragraphs or pages that a reader might have to slog through. Persuasive essays are meant to be accessible to all readers because they're meant to sway opinions in favor of something the writer is presenting, regardless of who reads it.
10449654
You mean a white board?
Huh, there is a magnetic chaulkboard though , my bad
Twilight has an Arsene Lupin in her employ. Maybe she should consider a Golgo 13 as well. Or maybe she can hire him to train others in the Royal Guard and set up a special Section 9 or Wraith Squadron or IMF.
'Tis of a brave young highwayman This story I will tell
His name was Willie Brennan And in Ireland he did dwell
It was on the Kilwood Mountain He commenced his wild career
And many a wealthy nobleman Before him shook with fear
It was Brennan on the moor
Brennan on the moor
Bold, brave and undaunted
Was young Brennan on the moor
Hoping he brings her to one of the worse areas of the underworld, so she can actually see and understand that this isn't something guards cna solve, at least not permanently.