Harmony's Thieves

by 4428Gamer

Colored Paper

...
I used my walking stick to poke and push some of the debris out of our way. When we reached the orchards I immediately noticed the state of all the apple trees around us.

Many of the trees looked like they hadn’t been tended to in a while. Dried up and rotting apples were laying at the base of many trees and the ones hanging from the branches looked off. The yellowing leaves had even began wilting away.

It only made me go faster towards the clubhouse. There were times where we needed to slow down and move from tree to tree, there were goat patrols Joe noticed as we went, but we had made it.

Like I had hoped, the clubhouse was in its own secluded space. Joe couldn’t see any more tracks and neither of us saw or heard the goats anymore. We were safe.

I slowed down to a stop, leaning on the stick as I took a quick breath. The jog wasn’t exhausting, it only took about twelve minutes to get here, but I realized that a human-creature wasn’t anywhere near as good at running as ponies were.

Case in point: Joe.

With heavy breaths and his dragging feet kicking away dead apples, Joe came stumbling up behind me. When he saw that I had stopped walking, he let himself collapse over the nearby tree stump, panting and heaving for air.

“Ya okay?” I asked with a worried brow.

“you...it wasn’t...you’re jogging,” he panted, trying to keep from coughing lightly. “I think you. Being a pony helps.” He took another breath. “You’re stamina.”

I shrugged. “It wasn’t that fast.”

He glared up at me. “You almost sprinted the last third,” he accused. “Jogging is slower than this. Irre Mädchen...”

My worry became a blank stare before I turned back to the large tree ahead of us. This was the one that held the pride and joy of the Cutie Mark Crusaders; our clubhouse.

Despite all of the poorly managed apple trees, possibly dried up too, the clubhouse looked perfectly fine. Not a single nail was out of place.

I let myself relax a little. Seems all clear, I thought.

I craned my neck back and spotted the little watchtower peeking out the top of the tree with a familiar telescope poking through the thin curtains.

Joe noticed what I was staring at and, after he caught his breath, walked up next to me. “A spyglass? That’s even better than a telescope,” he complimented.

I shrugged. “Eh. Ah jus’ call ‘em both telescopes. They do the same thing anyhow.”

“Actually,” Joe began but I cut him off. Sweetie Belle gave that lecture too many times.

“There’s still one thing we need ta do though,” I told him. “We can’t get up without the ramp.”

I pointed up at the green ramp that was currently pulled up thanks to a set of ropes. The ramp is supposed to always be down whenever we weren’t inside. Although, if Scootaloo was here last, she had a habit of leaping off the side of the balcony like a fool. Something about wanting to ‘nail the landing’ or something.

“Is there a way to pull it down from here?” Joe asked but he was already looking for a different answer.

I frowned. “Well, Ah’d buck the tree to try loosenin’ the ropes. Then we’d throw somethin’ at the riggin’. An’ after we remember that none a’ that ever works, we’d eventually call my brother down.”

Joe hummed. “Here’s a thought. Have you tried not raising the ramp?”

I gave him another flat look and he rolled his eyes.

“Right. Aesthetics,” he sassed. “Very well. Guess that means we need to be creative.”

Joe set down the camera and saddlebag on his tree stump before throwing his heavy jacket on top of them. Without it, Joe looked like a human version of Featherweight.

I raised an eyebrow. “What are we doing?”

“Well, my brother is a much better climber than me but since it’s a tree, I should be fine.” Joe walked past me and up to the clubhouse as he stretched his arms. “Is the balcony stable?”

“Pffft. Is it stable,” I repeated sarcastically. “If that balcony can hold up me, mah friends, an’ eleven bags a’ concrete, it’ll hold up anythin’.”

“...” Joe slowly looked over his shoulder at me. “I know I’ll regret this but I have to.” He took a breath. “Why did you have eleven bags of concrete in a treehouse?”

I cringed. “W-Well. We try tons a’ ways ta get our Cutie Marks...tried,” I corrected, remembering my sudden Cutie Mark. “We needed the concrete for an idea Sweetie Belle had.”

Joe squinted his eyes. “For construction working?”

I rolled my jaw. “Nope.”

Joe watched my awkward expression for a few more seconds before turning back to the tree. “Ja. I regret asking.”

Joe started to circle the tree until he found a part where he could climb without the foundation of the clubhouse getting in his way. When he found his path, he took a few steps back and made note of a few of the branches.

Nodding along to himself, Joe hopped in place a couple of times before finally rushing at the tree.

In a matter of seconds, Joe reached the trunk, leapt upwards and wrapped his arms around the lowest branch like a towel.

By the time his first leg wrapped around the tree, he was already reaching for the next branch.

Arm by arm, Joe started pulling himself up until he was sitting on a larger branch catching his breath. For someone who couldn’t run that far, he certainly made it up that tree pretty quick.

“How’d you just do that?” I called out.

“If you grew up around two brothers that love staying in shape, you’d learn a few things too. Like climbing a tree to dig your phone out of an abandoned bird nest for example,” he explained.

“What a thing ta do.” I couldn’t hide my frustration. “Wait. What’s a phone?”

“Not important.” Joe left it at that. As he did, he bent his knees a couple of times to prepare himself.

Then, with a low huff, Joe lunged forward and got far enough to land on the balcony but not before the end of his leg caught the railing. In an instant, his momentum flipped him forward and he crashed with a heavy bang.

I hissed, practically hearing the pain that was radiating from him. “Y’alright? Ya didn’t land on a nail or nothin’ did ya?”

“Fine. I’m fine.” Though it sounded strained, I could see Joe prying himself up on his feet as he fixed his glasses. His face seemed okay but he had to cradle his poor jaw.

I looked over at the saddlebag I was still carrying with me. Looks like that first aid kit was a good idea after all.

I let him spend the next minute slowly making his way back onto two legs as he leaned against the clubhouse itself for support. When he finally reached the ramp’s rigging, he had managed to shake most of it off.

He studied it for a moment, nodding along. “You said you set this up?” I hummed happily. “Efficient. Crude, but efficient,” he made note, finding the right rope without me having to point it out.

I smiled. “Thank you! No pony ever realizes jus’ how much work Ah put into that.”

Joe started pulling the rope as the ramp lowered itself inch by inch towards the ground. By the time it got close enough to reach, I grabbed the lip of the ramp and helped pull it down so Joe could secure it.

I ended up climbing up the ramp on all fours and when I was clear Joe slowly made his way back down to get the rest of his stuff.

Rather than wait for him, I beelined it to the clubhouse door and threw it open as soon as I figured out how to turn the doorknob.

The usual setup was all still there. The podium on the far wall was standing proud with posters and pictures hanging up on the walls. A small table and a few crates were set up along the walls while paper airplanes littered the entire floor. Meanwhile, curtains and small rugs of different designs pulled the room togeth...

Paper airplanes?

I blinked, lightly kicking one of the airplanes that were in front of me. When I opened the door, a few of them caught the breeze and scattered around.

Curious, I bent down and picked one up. All the airplanes were different in one way or another but I could tell they were Scootaloo’s work. For a moment I thought that Scoots was nearby but that hope dashed when I looked closer.

The airplane I was holding, and probably all the others too, had a thin layer of dust across the top of it. They were all old.

I carefully opened up the airplane to look at the inside of the paper itself. There wasn’t anything important written on the page. Only several lines made from different colored pencils.

Then the lines started moving.

I kept my hands as steady as I could to try making sure it wasn’t my eyes tricking me, but the lines kept moving. They were slow and rhythmic at first but begun to pick up speed until they were flailing as if they were caught in a breeze.

By the time they began peeling off from the page and stretching out towards me I had enough. I flung the paper onto the ground and backed away.

The lines continued to slither off the paper with more stemming off of each and every airplane in the room. There were now dozens of multi-colored lines rising to the sky like snakes.

“J-Joe. Joe?” I called out.

I backed up until I was back onto the balcony and Joe was already climbing back up the ramp with his jacket on. When he saw me staring into the clubhouse he looked through the open window and saw the same moving lines.

“What are those?” Joe’s hand stumbled around in a pocket for a moment.

I just shook my head and watched as the lines all continued floating off the airplanes, threading into small orbs of all sorts of colors. As they did, the pencil texture was replaced with a magical aura.

Joe pulled out what looked like a small knife from his pocket but when he noticed what the lines were becoming he let it fall from his grip. It clattered across the balcony.

“Ms. Bloom. What are—” “A-Ah don’t know! Ah picked up an airplane an’ all of a sudden...”

My voice faded from me as the orbs started jittering as if they were about to pop.

“Ms. Bloom, get down!” Joe tried rushing in front of me but he wasn’t fast enough. Without any sound, the orbs popped and those same lines rushed out in every direction. Most of them directly at us.

I flinched, closing my eyes as tight as I could but as the aura struck me, my vision went into a rainbow of hues and my face went warm.

Then, as if those colors were acting as a massive lightbulb, I remembered.

…
    The day was taking its time going by and we didn’t have much to show for it. The three of us didn’t have school today but since Sweetie Belle was with her family for the day that meant there wasn’t much Scootaloo and I could agree on.

So rather than spend the day being bored or arguing what cool thing to do next, I wanted to catch up on some homework. Boring as it was, every student had to finish this long winded paper before the end of the week. And it had to be about something you’ve never tried before.

The one time being a Cutie Mark Crusader is a bad thing. Go figure.

So here I was, spilling over the dozens of papers of all the things the CMC tried when finding our special talent. I needed to know what we haven’t tried before.

Although, now that the three of us had our Cutie Marks, these ideas were more like a list of duds.

“Underwater Basket Weaving?” I read aloud with a perplexed look on my face. “Why would anypony think of that?”

“Dunno,” Scootaloo replied distractedly. “You’re the one who came up with it.”

“Am not,” I said sharply.

“What color is it written in?”

“...Red,” I admitted, burying my face into my hoof. We color coded every idea on these lists in either red for me, green for Sweetie, or purple, for Scootaloo. We never had any blue since Scootaloo used it when drawing -_-_-_-_-_-_.

“Well there ya go,” Scootaloo muttered. She then stuck out her tongue as she expertly folded the last few parts of her new paper airplane with her hooves. “And perfecto.”

I raised my eyebrow. “Those better not be from the list. If it is, Sweetie’s gonna let ya have it. An’ Ah’ll be there helpin’ her.”

“Don’t worry, they’re all blank pages. Remember, we stuffed that box full of paper since we never thought we’d get our Cutie Marks.”

I smiled a little. “Yep. Ah ‘member.”

Scootaloo stood up on three hooves and walked over behind the podium before whipping her hoof forward to let the plane fly.

And instantly banked left into the wall.

I doubled over and laughed like a fool while Scootaloo stood at the podium fuming.

“Yeah, yeah, laugh it up,” Scoots spat. “At least I can make an airplane.”

My laughter settled down a little but the smile on my face remained. “Ya sure? Cause judgin’ by all a’ these attempts.” I waved my hoof across the room at every poor wreck of what were once planes. “Ah think you’re pilotin’ license is put out ta pasture.”

She rolled her eyes but I could see a smile warring against her frown. “Have you even tried making a paper airplane before? It’s harder than it looks, ya know.”

“Well, Ah know if Ah did make one it’d probably go farther than any a’— wait, that’s it,” I cried out.

“What’s it?” Scootaloo gave me a look.

“Ah ain’t never tried makin’ paper airplanes before,” I admitted. “So that’s what Ah’ll do. Then Ah can write that silly paper.”

“Hey, you’re right.” Scootaloo’s smile met mine. “And I’ve never raced paper airplanes with anypony before so I can write about that.”

“Yea...wait.” I gave her a bored glance. “Scootaloo, that ain’t what Ms. Cheerilee meant when she gave us that assignment.”

“Then I’ll say I used math or something,” Scootaloo tried to reason. “Like, I dunno, aerodynamics. Yeah.”

I sullenly shook my head. “Well. ‘Least ya got five days till it’s due.”

“Which means I can work on it in four and a half days,” Scootaloo figured. “But whatever. Let’s make a bunch of airplanes and take ‘em up to theeee.” She hung on that last syllable, racking her brain until an idea popped in her head. “The old bell tower! We can throw them from up there.”

I shrugged, wearing a determined smirk. “Makes sense. Not nearly as many walls fer yer airplane ta crash into.”

Scootaloo donned a smirk of her own. “Oh, those are fighting words. You’re on.”