//------------------------------//
// Chapter 9: Cake Caper 
// Story: Twilight Sparkle and the Cake Thief 
// by Noble Thought 
//------------------------------//

With nothing else she could do that night, and with the promise to Shining Armor still fresh in her mind, she wandered through the motions of getting ready for bed all over again: brush her mane, brush her teeth again, put on her nightcap. By the time her head hit the pillow, she was already drifting down into sleep.

That night, with thoughts of a war in the heavens swirling around her, and a younger Princess Celestia using her wisdom, intellect, and power to broker a deal with them all, her dreams were plagued with visions of her mentor failing over and over again, in different, all too horrifying ways. The sun gone dark after the moon swallowed it whole, the land reduced to an icy waste. The moon reflecting the full light of the sun, turning all of Equestria into a scorched desert littered with the bones of its once subjects.

And all throughout, she was the one who’d let it happen, by not knowing enough, not knowing the right things, or in one particularly horrifying instance when the world had turned into syrup and pancakes, because she hadn’t turned in her homework on time.

She woke to her internal clock a full ten minutes before the small desk clock was set to go off. Her covers were flung half to the floor, with only one spare edge tucked under her flank keeping it from falling to the floor. One of her pillows, the one she hugged close to her, was on the floor, its case somehow under her right shoulder and wrapped halfway around her neck. The other had lost its case entirely, it being wrapped around a hind leg, but the rest of it was still under her head.

After making her bed and making sure she hadn’t done anything else to the bed or its fittings, she checked on Spike.

The poor guy was still sleeping with a comic clutched in one claw. The place it was turned to was apparently a two page spread of a unicorn mare looking up at the moon from atop a giant unicorn horn. The dialog balloon was obscured by Spike’s claw, but judging from the expression, she was shouting.

Twilight’s morning routine served as a calming balm on the lingering phantasms of her dreams, and by the time she had brushed her mane and tail, brushed her teeth, and showered in the empty communal bathroom, the last tatters of bad dream had faded to a faint disquiet.

By that time, Spike was blinking his eyes and yawning. The comic had been put away in his personal bookcase—three shelves of nothing but comics representing four years of accumulation based on his allowance from Twilight’s mother as their adopted son, and copious donations from Shining Armor’s foalhood collection.

“Coming down for breakfast?” Twilight asked him.

After a yawn, he nodded. “Sure. What’re we having?”

That was right. The school cafeteria was closed for the winter holidays after yesterday. She rapped a hoof on her forehead for not thinking of that sooner. “I… suppose we’ll find out. Maybe we can go to the kitchens and make something ourselves.” It wouldn’t be the first time she’d made some abortive attempt at cooking breakfast at the school, and the thought didn’t fill her with confidence. Today was the day. She had to get her plans finalized.

“Go take a bath, Spike, then we’ll go down for breakfast,” she decided, pulling quills and cards from her desk.

“Aww, but I just had a bath yesterday!”

“Being scrubbed down by a carpet does not count as a bath. For one, it doesn’t get behind your spines. Or other places.”

“Oh, trust me,” he grumbled, but pulled a towel from the room’s small linen cupboard and stalked into the bathroom. “It got me plenty clean.”





Breakfast in the cafeteria level found her in the company of only two other ponies, Muffins and Crunchy Crust, both of whom she had only seen in their wing of the castle. Not that there was a prohibition against non-students eating in the student cafeteria on holidays, provided they bring their own food, but it was uncommon. The doors to the cafeteria line were closed, as she’d expected, but at least she wouldn’t have to cook, she saw.

“Good morning, Twilight!” Muffins called, startling Crunchy into accidentally squishing his muffin into a ball. “We’ve got muffins!”

The white star on Crunchy’s forehead blazed pink as he looked away, trying in vain to decompress his muffin. “’Morning,” he murmured.

“They look delicious,” Twilight said politely, then smelled the warm scent rising from the platter piled high with them. “And smell amazing. Thank you!” She pulled one from the pile and sat down with them. “When did you get up to cook all these?”

“Oh, no problem, and just around five. Normal time. Crunchy helped, but he was a little reluctant to come. Something about making a mess of things yesterday.” Muffins grinned across the table, seemingly unaware of Crunchy’s embarrassment.

“She’s evil,” Crunchy muttered in between nibbles of his muffin.

“Oh, come on. I am not evil. I’m the bubbliest mare you’ll ever meet! I’ve even got the cutie mark to prove it.” She laughed, unrestrained by tray of muffins or dark story, and its echoes chased each other around the cafeteria like playful foals. “You’re just upset that Twilight didn’t notice you mooning over her.”

“Eee-vil,” Crunchy hissed, but he didn’t move, and a cautious glance up at Twilight seemed to strengthen his resolve. “M-Muffins told me why you wanted our help.” He swallowed, his throat bobbing harshly. “I, uh, I’d like to help. If I can. I mean, I can do some things, but leave me out of the sting, okay? I… I don’t like confrontation.”

“Obviously,” Muffins said, rolling her eyes and rolling a muffin towards Twilight with a flick of a wingtip. “I will likewise have to call out. I’ve got to fly to Ponyville and help my mom before tonight’s blizzard.”

“Ponyville?”

“Yeah, little town, down by the Everfree Forest.”

“Oh.” She could recall the town vaguely from geography lessons, but little about it other than it was known for its apples. “So just Spike and I, then?”

“I’ll stay with you, Twilight!” Spike said around a bite of muffin.

“Thank you, Spike.”

“I guess so.” Muffins looked apologetic. “If we don’t catch them this year, there’s always next year.”

“I don’t think there will be.” Twilight shook her head slightly. “Something about all of this is nagging at me, and I can’t put a hoof on it. It’s something important, though. Something…” She glanced at the two kitchen ponies. “I’m not sure I can share everything I know with you. Some if it was said to me in what I think is confidentiality, even though it was never said explicitly.”

To Twilight’s surprise, Muffins looked guiltily down at the plate of muffins and nodded.

“What?”

“I… I can’t say. That confidence thing. I don’t want to share something I wasn’t supposed to know.”

“About the thief?”

“Er… Can we talk about something else?” Muffins rolled one of the muffins toward herself with a wingtip, pointedly not looking at Twilight. “I don’t feel comfortable even thinking about it.”

“Um. Suuure.”

“Bait!” Spike said and grabbed a muffin off the plate to take a big bite. “We leaf baith. Shomethinf—”

“Chew, then swallow. Don’t talk with your mouth open, please.”

“Yeth, motherf.” Spike rolled his eyes, finished chewing, and swallowed. “We leave bait. Like I suggested last night. Cupcakes. Big ones. With frosting like a cutie mark. Or,” he patted his backpack, slung beside him on the long bench. “A cutie confection.”

Crunchy blushed even looking at Twilight, but his voice was more under control as he said, “I can always make another one for you. If you’d like. I mean… I’m getting better. It wouldn’t take but a thought.”

“Sure. Can you make two today?”

“For you? Of course!”

“Not for me. I want them to be yours and Muffins’s cutie marks. I’ve already been recognized. I don’t want to scare the cutie stealer… the… Shoot. Sable always has a nickname for them. Like the Blind Burglar, or the Tempestuous Thief.”

“Yeah, that last one doesn’t really roll off the tongue,” Muffins said, frowning. “But I agree it is important to name them. Ooh! The Caked Crusader! Because they’re on a quest to steal cake!”

“No, they’re stealing. I wouldn’t call that… but—” She thought back to the war. Suppose it was a cult of ponies, but not like she thought of them as, but as a faction of the losing side in the Battle of the Eclipse. Maybe they’d held a grudge for so long that they considered it a crusade of sorts. “That… might work, now that I think about it.”

“Caked Crusader! Your time is up!” Spike shouted, thrusting his half-eaten muffin in the air like a sword. “The Juvenile Justice Jury comes for you!”

Crunchy snorted a laugh, then covered his muzzle and continued giggling, trying not to look Spike in the eye. Muffins, either less afraid of Spike’s ire, or less restrained, burst out laughing and fell off the bench into her back, wings stretched up to hold her sides as gales of laughter wracked her.

Twilight couldn’t help herself either, but managed to stay in her seat at least as she struggled, failed, and kept on trying to contain her laughter.

“What?” Spike asked with a half-laugh, staring around the table. “What’d I say?”

“J-Juvenile J-justice—” Twilight managed to get out before breaking out into a fit of the giggles. “Where’d you g-get a name like that?”

“Well… From the Juvenile Justice Jury comics, of course.” Spike tapped his claws together, looking flushed. “Shining Armor gave them to me last year,” he added, sounding defensive, “and I love them. See, they’re all sidekicks of the Power Ponies who went off to start their own team when they got tired of being sidekicks.” He fished around in his backpack, pulling out a comic. “All that’s left of them in the original comics is Hum Drum, and there’s a big emotional arc about him deciding not to follow the Triple Js in Power Ponies number 45. Of course,” he said, waving a claw dismissively, “he tried to deliver the final speech in the middle of a battle between the Power Ponies and Maneiac, and set off the—”

“I get it, Spike. Really, I do,” Twilight said quickly, lips quivering with the force of contained giggles. She swallowed and coughed, tapping her chest with a hoof. “I don’t need to know everything about them to understand why it’s important. We’ll call ourselves the—” She had to pause and swallow another fit of the giggles. “Juvenile Justice Jury if it makes you happy.”

“Thank you.”

“Now that we’ve n-named everything,” Muffins said with a titter, quickly stifled, though her eyes shone bright, “What’s the plan? And how can we help you get ready?”

Twilight pulled out a stack of cards, tapped them lightly on the table to sort them, and started laying out pieces of a map, copied from Princess Celestia’s master map that morning.

Because she had been in a hurry, she hadn’t much of a chance to experiment with it, but she had found by saying the name of a room and thinking about what it looked like, the map would show her the room in exquisite detail. The same for ponies, if she said their name and thought about what they looked like in her mind, showing the section of castle they were currently in, but not which specific room. At least, she assumed that was the case. Having no time to think further on it or experiment with it, she had brought it back to the kitchen and traced out its every contour onto nine index cards which she laid out for her companions to see.

“This is the kitchen where the cake is.” Twilight pointed to a green oval she’d drawn on one of the cards farthest from the door. “This is approximately the construction area for the cake.” She next indicated a red line drawn from one card to the next in a straight line configuration. “And this is the optimum path to the cake from the entrance.”

When she sat back, Twilight watched her companions puzzling over the map.

“What if they come in from the skylight?”

“The skylight? But it’s solid glass. And they’ve never come in that way before. Spike, this is a crime of habit. According to Honey, it’s the same every time, year after year.”

“But what if—” He cut off, looking down at his feet. “What’s the point?”

Twilight glanced around the small group, settling on Muffins, who was giving her an encouraging smile and a subtle head bob towards Spike. It took her a moment, but she got it.

“Spike, I don’t think they will. But we’re also showing a lot more interest in the case than before, too. So who knows. Maybe they will try something.” A thought hit her then, and she chuckled. Brilliant! “Here’s a new word for you, Spike. Contingency. I want you to come up with as many contingencies as you can. And then plan for them. It’s called contingency planning. It’s something Sable does all the time.”

“Yeah? What’s that mean?”

“It means, in this instance, possible events in the future. I want you to come up with as many ideas as you can, and write them down. You can use as many note cards as you want.” Twilight peeled off twenty from her stack, and floated a quill and inkpot from her saddlebags towards him. “You’ve come up with so many different ideas, Spike. I would greatly appreciate you continuing that effort.”

“Will do!” He snatched up the offered items and started immediately drawing and writing.

“Nicely handled,” Muffins murmured across the table.

“Thank you. And thank you for, er, teaching me a little bit about colts.” Twilight shot a glance at Crunchy, still not sure how to handle that confusion.

“Hey, no problem! So… what’s the main plan?”

“Well, the main plan is the original plan that Spike came up with last night. The decoy cakes. Or bait cakes.” She frowned. “Spike, what’s a good—”

“Baked bait,” he offered. Twilight could tell he wasn’t really paying attention anymore. He didn’t even look up when he offered the suggestion, but he did smile.

“Hrm.” Twilight pursed her lips. “Not quite… Maybe… Tricky Treats?”

“I like it!” Muffins laughed and slapped a hoof against the table. “It’s like… Nightmare Night! But no Nightmare Moon.”

Twilight kept her gaze from rising to the ceiling by main force of will. “Right! No Nightmare Moon. So. We lay the Tricky Treats in the center of the kitchen, already plated, with your two cutie marks on top. We can tell the chefs that I asked for two cakes to share with my friends tomorrow.”

“Well, you are. Aren’t you? And shouldn’t we make four? You, me, Spike, Crunchy.”

Twilight clicked her tongue. Muffins was right. “Of course. Four. Crunchy, can you make something like a cutie mark for Spike, too?”

“Sure can. What should it be?”

Spike looked up. “I’d like a green flame.” He pursed his lips and blew a thin stream of the magical flame up to a few inches above his nose. “Like that.

“Can do. So…” Crunchy chewed his lower lip for a moment, looking off in the distance. “Why four cupcakes specifically? I thought it was two pieces of cake.”

“Two out of how many? I don’t think we can rely on the thief choosing just our two pieces. With more options to choose from, the more options there will be for them to take. And,” she glanced at Spike, still happily drawing and writing on his notecards at a furious pace, “it’s always two, right? Not three or four or more some years, then less, or more. This isn’t a regular crime.”

“And, um.” Crunchy looked down, up, anywhere but at Twilight. “Why are, um is, the thief going to take our cupcakes instead of the regular cake?”

“Because we’re going to borrow the pieces the thief would have taken.”





“Borrow?” Honey Cake asked. “How do you borrow cake?”

Twilight smiled. “Borrow, and in this case, hide the cake. I would like to borrow the pieces that would normally be stolen. The sixth and twelfth month pieces. I promise I will not let any harm come to them. In fact, I would suggest putting them in one of the smaller kitchens, closer to the castle barracks. I very much doubt a thief would want to get any closer to the barracks than necessary.”

“Mhmm. You’ve thought this out, I see.” Honey Cake sighed and swiped a hoof at a seemingly permanent flour stain on her coat. “I admit, I would like to see us lose one less piece of cake this year. Let’s hear the rest of the plan.”

Twilight hesitated, fighting to trust her memory instead of checking her notes for the umpteenth time. “Well, once the pieces are hidden, and the thief comes in here looking for the pieces they’ve always stolen, and they’re not here, we’ll be able to catch them. Or at least follow them to where they’ve been hiding. Once they’ve been caught, and the plot exposed, there won’t be any benefit to stealing cake again. I mean, other than delicious cake.”

“And what will you do when some unsuspecting, hungry guard inevitably checks the refrigerator for a late night snack?”

“Well… leave a note asking them not to eat it at Princess Celestia’s request?”

“And you have this note, of course.”

“No.” Twilight scrubbed at her chin. She couldn’t even ask Princess Celestia for a note after she’d been asked to ignore the thief. “I’ll leave a note, in that case, asking them as Princess Celestia’s personal student to not eat the cake. They’ll listen to me, won’t they?”

“Hmm. A hungry guard versus a piece of paper, even one signed by Princess Celestia herself, tacked to a plate. You have seen the guard eat before, right?” When Twilight shook her head, Honey Cake laughed softly. “I’ve seen calmer tornadoes. Tell you what. I’ll lend you my kitchen for the day to cook enough to feed the night guards so they don’t go looking for something to eat. You do that, clean up, and bake the four cupcakes to my satisfaction, and I’ll lend you the two pieces of cake. Does that sound like a deal?” Honey Cake glanced behind Twilight to the three onlookers. “Oh, and you can have Muffins and Crunchy Crust help you out, too.”

“And me,” Spike called.

“Your helping your friend—”

“Sister! Twilight is Spike’s sister.” Muffins laughed, tapping her hooves together.

Spike and Twilight shared a look, and she started giggling. He snorted and looked away.

“Oh, come on, you totally are!”

Honey Cake laughed too. “She’s right, you know. She is more like your sister than a teacher, and family is very important. You both help each other, even though each of you annoys the other.”

“Yeah, well, big sisters are supposed to be frustrating, right? She is totally that.”

Twilight scrunched up her nose, annoyed. “We are not.” Her eyes grew wide at the seeming admission of sisterhood. “Anyway, it’s my job to teach and educate you, even if you find it annoying or frustrating.”

Spike made a matching face and stuck out his tongue.

Behind them, Muffins laughed raucously, followed a moment later by a nervous titter from Crunchy.

“You are definitely siblings,” Honey Cake declared with a hearty laugh of her own. “You’re just like my oldest filly and youngest colt, Twilight.” Before any more complaints, she slapped a hoof on the floor and glanced up at the skylight where morning light was spilling in and down the smooth inner surface of the dome’s supporting wall. “Morning is on the move, and you’ve only got five hours or so before the kitchens officially close down. There’s a lot of cleaning we have to do before the feast tomorrow evening, so you four better get moving.”





It took Twilight and her companions four hours to bake enough muffins for the entire night shift of guards, all fifty of them, aided by the industrial scale of the main kitchen and its ovens. In the end, one hundred muffins on ten platters waited to be carried down to the northern barracks kitchen, the one closest to the throne room, and the barracks most populated during the winter months. They were responsible for the personal safety of the Princess.

Twilight had hoped to visit her brother there and explain things, but the guard captain she talked to said he’d already left to return home. The captain, who identified himself as Rough Tumble, snorted—an act that in no way diminished the way he seemed to resemble his name in some indefinable way.

“Hmm. I was hoping he’d help. See,” she gestured at the ten platters on the cart rolling behind her, pushed by Crunchy and Spike with Muffins hovering above to ensure none of the muffins fell off. “I wanted to do a favor for the guard tonight, and feed them.” The two pieces of cake balanced on a plate in a telekinesis spell were covered by a small glass dome with a note taped to it and a black cloth tied around the top knob to hold it there. “And this,” she indicated the plate, “is going to be kept safe in the barracks kitchen fridge. Preferably in the back. It’s for the feast tomorrow.”

“And the cart of muffins?” He asked, sniffing the air, his eyes brightening.

“As payment for a job well done. In advance.”

He snorted, shaking his head. “Sure. That’s what it is.” A small grin parted his lips. “Miss Sparkle, I’ve been around a long time, and I’ve seen a lot of ‘covert’ actions.” He laughed at a joke only he seemed to understand. At least, Twilight didn’t understand what it was all about. “This smells like a bribe to not eat whatever is under that covering, rather than a payment. Am I right?”

“Um. Sure. I guess it might be.” Twilight cocked her head at the guard captain, then at the plate hovering in front of her. “Can I tell you the real reason we’re doing this?”

“I’d be insulted if you didn’t.”

“Do you know about the Winter Solstice cake thief?”

“Oh.” Rough Tumble made a faintly disgusted face. “Sure I do. Not sure why you’re getting all worked up over that faerie’s tail, though. You tweak and tweak and never get more than a hair or more off that pony’s posterior. I suspect Princess Celestia told us to lay off so as to not waste time on a harmless prankster.” He nodded at the cloaked cake. “Nice touch, though. Not gonna help any, I’d wager. It needs something more, or you’ll just get more cake stolen, and maybe this lot ate.”

“Like what?” Rising panic forced Twilight to take a breath. What did I overlook? “Hide the whole cake?”

“Well, no. Ya can’t really hide something that big and keep it undisturbed. ‘Specially not in a castle as busy as this. But, y’see the thing about pranksters is, they like to be acknowledged. It’s the thrill. The skill it takes to pull off something like this. Usually they don’t care about bein’ caught, cuz that’s part of the game to them. This one, though…” He rubbed at his chin again, looking off into the distance.

“What about this one?”

“Well… Is’ gotta be some kinda family tradition to keep it goin’ on this long. Y’know, like a family pride kind of thing. That’s the only thing that’ll keep something so silly. Blood, y’know. Pride in yer family’s history.” He shrugged. “Lotta us in the Guard, we’re lifers. Our moms and pops, too. And their moms and pops before em. And so on, down to… who knows. Mayhap some snide little fool got their tail chewed a few centuries back, started stealing cake. Thought it was a point of pride to keep on keepin’ on, brought their kid in. Who knows.”

“So… I just give up?”

“Nah.” He grinned. “I figure somepony’s gotta catch up to ‘em some day. Heck! Maybe I’ll toast ya a cider someday for finally stoppin’ that nag.” He laughed softly, a rumble of rocks down a mountain. “Jus’ feel like it needs a little more.”

“Maybe a note? Maybe if we just asked please to the thief directly, they would stop. If it’s been going on in a family like you say, then maybe the current generation doesn’t really know why. Maybe if they knew it was causing grief to the Princess, they would stop.”

“Could be. Could be.” He was nodding for a moment, then shrugged one hoof. “Sure. Why not. I’ll keep a personal watch on the, er, goodies.” He nodded at the covered plate. “And my mares and stallions won’t even question it if they’ve got some a’ Muffins’ baking—” He gave the young mare a wink. “—to distract em.”

“Thank you!”





All the way back to the kitchens, Twilight was composing the note in her head, throwing out ideas and thoughts as often as new ones popped in. Rough Tumble’s suggestion that it might be a family feud extended into centuries on some decision of Princess Celestia’s or another had been low on her list of possible reasons.

Most families, she had assumed, would stay in Canterlot because they enjoyed living in the auspices of the capital city and under the protective gaze of Princess Celestia’s ever vigilant eye. But if they had stayed for a more sinister reason…

But he had also been right that the real reason for a family maybe doing that would almost certainly be lost to the centuries. Maybe the rightly reasoned letter would work to dissuade them from even taking the cupcakes.

If it is, in fact, a pony doing this. Ever since she had overheard Princess Celestia talking to an empty chamber, she had become less and less certain that it was a pony. There were strange things out in Equestria. A ghost would be the least of those strange things, and scholars and explorers were constantly discovering new, although truly only new in the sense that they had been rediscovered, artifacts, creatures, and scrolls that told of even more improbable things lost to the distant past.

That Equestria was a land of ancient ruins and myths wasn’t up for debate, as far as she knew. Even Canterlot had its store of historical sites buried in plain sight and disregarded except for the curious few. The First Hoofsteps upon Mt. Canter, for example. It was a set of three gold inlaid horseshoes at the bottom of the mountain, just outside a cordoned off cave. When she had placed her hoof on one, a thrill of excitement had filled her, and an awe at standing in the same place Smart Cookie had once stood.

She had long been convinced that it wasn’t just a feeling of excitement, but a reaching out from somewhere, or somewhen, else to her. A ghost of the past, as in Princess Celestia’s explanation.

Muffins stopped ahead of Twilight at an intersection, tail frozen in mid flick. Crunchy, whom she’d been talking to quietly, kept going for several pony lengths before he was aware of her absence.

“Oh no! I’m gonna be late!” Muffins shouted, pointing at a clock in a niche along one wall, the hour hand pointing at three, and the minute hand at three quarters of an hour. “I’ve gotta go now!” Before Twilight could do more than offer half of ‘What’, Muffins had thrown a foreleg over her neck, planted a sloppy kiss behind her ear, and bolted past Crunchy, giving him a flick and a wink as she passed. “Talk to you next year, Crunchy!”

She leapt with an echoing laugh and caught a wingful of air. Moments later, the sound of an upper balcony aerie door opening and slamming shut again announced she was gone.

Evening, and the night beyond it, were fast approaching.

“Well, would you look at the time,” Crunchy said, his cheeks reddening even under his darker coat, and the star on his forehead took on the look of a particularly ripe raspberry. “I… uh…” His tail flicked back and forth as he desperately looked anywhere but at Twilight.

“So…” Twilight murmured. “Um. Thank—”

“I’vegottago!” Crunchy blurted, and before Twilight could parse the rush of garbled words, he was gone, hooves clattering down a side corridor.

“Colts are strange,” Twilight said flatly, watching his tail disappear around a corner leading to a mare’s bathroom. Muffled screams erupted from the hall, and Crunchy dashed out again, not looking back even once.

“Yep. They sure are.”

“Aren’t you a colt, though?”

“Pfah. No. I’m an adol… adultess…” Spike frowned, tapping his chin.

“Adolescent? Adolescence?”

“That’s it. I’m an addled essence dragon!”

Twilight opened her mouth, thought better of it, and snorted a laugh. “Yes, Spike. Yes you are. But in that context, it would have been adolescent. Addled essence means something… different.”





The skylight was bleeding orange and gold into the kitchen when they arrived, draping the frosting with a dappled gilt pattern and setting the cutie confections to blazing with internal light.

As Twilight watched, a drift of snow occluded the gleaming brilliance, then snuffed it out as the dome was covered by a sifting drift of gold, fading the kitchen back to a cheery copper peppered by the reflected flicker of the fireplace, the one active remaining oven, and the stabler unicorn lamps bracketed to the walls.

“All set?” Honey Cake asked her from one of the counters. She was engaged in rolling out a thin crust and alternately sprinkling cinnamon and sugar on the dough.

“Not quite,” she said and walked to her saddlebags. She pulled out a quill and small scroll of parchment to start a note. “I want to write a note to the thief, so they don’t get angry.”

Honey cake looked at her quizzically for a moment, then nodded. “Alright, dear. The kitchen is yours then. Be sure to bank the fire in the main oven at nine o’clock sharp, and if you want to get a handle on cleaning up for us, that would be mighty appreciated.”

“But I’m not—” Staying overnight. But she was. All night if she had to. “Is there a checklist?”

“Of course.” Honey Cake pointed to a scroll tacked to the wall beside the door. “It’s all in there. Tell me all about it tomorrow, okay?”

Honey Cake left then, leaving Twilight and Spike alone in the warm and cozy kitchen, with its fading golden glow turning purple and red by inches.

Dear

She paused, staring at the page. She couldn’t call the thief a thief. That would be confrontational and likely produce a counter to the effect she wanted. She tapped the feathered end of her quill against her lips.

connoisseur of fine cake,

That looked about right, she decided.

Please accept these four cupcakes, of a volume equal to or greater than the two slices of cake you would have otherwise

She left the nib sit too long in one spot in the place she would have written stolen and sighed. She pulled out another small roll of parchment and transcribed all she had written so far, then stopped to think.

enjoyed tonight. We made these cupcakes especially for you, and included the finest of confectionery toppers representing on each one of the helpers who put their work and toil into creating these cupcakes for you. The frosting for mine, Twilight Sparkle, is a purple fudge, and the cake is red velvet with a touch of coloring to make it match my coat. Spike’s is the minty green frosting with the flame confection, and a double-fudge cake. Muffins chose vanilla and lemon-drop icing. Her confection is a series of bubbles, and Crunchy Crust made one with a cream cheese frosting on a plain red velvet cake. His confection is a pie crust in a tin.

She pondered the names and the descriptions, sighed, and pulled out another scroll. On this one, she transcribed everything except for their names, leaving only the descriptions of the cupcakes and their ingredients. The thief didn’t need to know whom had contributed what.

We hope that you will enjoy them.

For her signature, she hesitated, wondering if she should sign it at all. Or if she could sign for her companions. Or even for Spike.

In the end, she decided to sign it simply.

Best wishes,

Twilight Sparkle