A Squire's Tail

by BBkat

Chapter Eleven

The number of disappearing items only seemed to increase as the days went by, along with it also increased the number of sleepless nights that were had due to ear pulling, wet slapping against their face or covers being removed. The older officers tried to calm them by saying it nothing and but that they would look into it nonetheless, but it didn’t seem to help, everypony was jittery and tired. Whoever or whatever was doing this didn’t seem to have any plans on letting up soon.

Chase had tried to cast a simple spell on the door to their room to alert them should anyone or anything come in during the night that wasn’t supposed to, a glorified burglar alarm, but the strange things still happened and the spell was never tripped.

“Maybe it’s a ninja,” said Sky Fire, front legs dangling off the edge of his bed as he peered over to talk to them. “I mean, how else are they getting in without tripping all those spells?”

“It’s not ninjas you dolt,” said Cloud Runner, rolling his eyes. “Why would ninjas even do any of this stuff anyways? Steal meaningless items and bother us while sleeping? Doesn’t make sense.”

“Not to mention I heard that someone got into the cafeteria storage and turned all the milk sour and left the taps on,” said Thundermane, “It was a mess.”

“So that’s why there wasn’t any milk the other morning,” said Chase.

When they’d gone for breakfast one morning they’d been surprised to discover not a drop of milk for them to have with their cereal. The senior guards were trying to keep it under wraps, but it was pretty clear they were just as freaked out as anyone and had no idea what to do or what was going on.

“Maybe it really is ghosts,” said Thundermane. “I mean, what else would it be?”

“Something unpleasant I’m sure.” Chase hung his forelegs over the bar at the head of his bed, giving him a good view of both the door and the rest of the room. “I just wish it would stop, I mean, this place isn’t that interesting.”

“Maybe it’s working its way up,” said Cloud Runner. “You know, steal its way through the guard’s quarters to make sure it can’t get caught before moving onto something bigger, like the Princess’ quarters or one of the forbidden wings of the palace.”

“Now you’re just talking crazy talk,” said Chase, swiveling to look over at Cloud Runner.

Sky Fire and Thundermane had the top bunks while Chase and Cloud Runner had the bottom bunks respectively. From his position the only one Chase couldn’t see was Sky Fire, save for his forelegs as they hung off the top bunk above Chase. Cloud Runner was lounging on his bed, chin resting on the bar on the foot of the bed with his wings relaxed at his sides. Thundermane lay on his back, staring up at the ceiling and occasionally over at them. Chase had to guess how Sky Fire was sitting, though the placement of his forelegs suggested he was sitting widthwise on the bed so he was facing the other two and allowing his legs to hang off the edge.

“Then what do you think it wants?” asked Cloud Runner. “Just to cause trouble?”

“Well it makes more sense than ninjas or ghosts,” huffed Chase. “Or getting to the Princess’ chambers. The real question isn’t what thought, it’s how do we make it stop?”

“Catch it?” suggested Thundermane. “Then evict it like a grumpy landlord.”

Sky Fire snorted, “No duh, but how do we catch it? We don’t even know what it looks like, or how big it is.”

Chase tapped his chin thoughtfully, tuning out the bickering pegasi. Sure his mother had told him about boggarts and gremlins, but not much more than them being mischievous little critters. She often jokingly said they were responsible whenever something went missing, but how to get rid of them had never come up. But if she knew about them surely there was something written about them somewhere.

“Hey guys!” They all turned to look at him, their chattering silenced quickly at the sound of his raised voice. “I was thinking, maybe we should check the library, there’s bound to be a book somewhere that tells you how to get rid of spirits and creatures like that, right?”

“I guess so,” said Thundermane, now sitting up. “Why, you think we should go look?”

“Well we don’t really have anything to lose now do we?” Chase hopped off the bed with a thump, pulling his saddlebags out and double-checking his library card was in it, hoping that that whatever was stealing things hadn’t stolen his card. “Any of you going to come with me, or am I doing this on my own?”

“Eh what the heck.” Cloud Runner shrugged as he stepped off his bed, soon followed by Thundermane and Sky Fire who flitted down from the top bunks. “I got nothing better to do, and who knows, maybe we’ll get lucky and find something.”

Chase certainly hoped so, what other choice did they have?

As the following day was the weekend the ‘lights out’ time was a bit more lax as it wasn’t uncommon for the young trainees to go and enjoy a night out. As long as they were quiet in the halls and weren’t bothering anypony they likely wouldn’t get in trouble for still being up. So even though it wasn’t even dark yet, Chase and the three pegasi found themselves walking slowly and quietly through the halls to the library, trying not to make too much noise.

The pegasi where whispering among themselves, though Chase couldn’t tell about what. “I hope I won’t regret this,” he thought, shaking his head as he turned his attention to the hall in front of him.

The library was thankfully still open when they got there and Chase had to hush the group as they came to the door.

“The librarian in there seems a bit, uptight, so keep your voices down, I’d rather not get kicked out,” he hissed as they came to a stop at the door.

“Yeah you don’t want to anger a librarian,” said Sky Fire. “I hear they bite.”

This earned a few snickers and Chase just rolled his eyes, these guys were impossible. “Fine, all the more reason not to make her mad.” He pushed the door open as quietly as he could and waited for them to follow him in.

“So where would we even start?” asked Thundermane. “The fiction section?”

“Why don’t we split up, two of us check the fiction section the others check the references or self-help sections or something,” suggested Chase.

Sky Fire gave him an amused look, “References, really?”

The unicorn huffed, stamping his hoof in annoyance. “Well where else in the nonfiction section would you look for pest control?”

“Well I’ll take fiction,” said Sky Fire quickly. “Sounds easier and more interesting.”

“Same here,” said Cloud Runner before anyone else could get a word in.

Chase sighed, that left him and Thundermane to browse the other sections. “Alright, we might as well get this over with, and hopefully one of us will find something.”

---

Chase stared at the book in his grasp, resisting the overwhelming urge to throw it at the wall in frustration. While he’d found several books on pest control, none were what he was looking for. He’d found books on dealing with various insect infestations; both in the house and garden, rodents and an inane number of other little creatures, but nothing detailing what he was looking for.

Thundermane seemed to be having the same kind of luck, which was none. Eventually he’d given up looking and simply started taking the books Chase was looking through and reshelving them when the unicorn was done reading them.

“Maybe we should go check on the guys, see if they’ve had any better luck,” he suggested, hanging in the air, a few books in his hooves. “I mean they certainly couldn’t have had any worse luck.”

Chase set the book down with a sigh, “Yeah you’re probably right. Besides if I look at these any more I think I might chuck it across the room. I mean, if we had a rat problem I’d have the solution right here, but we don’t have rats. At least no any rats I’ve ever heard of.”

The grey pegasus chuckled as he gathered up the remaining books to put away, “I wish it were rats, that would be an easy fix.”

He landed beside Chase after he put the last book away and nodded, “To the fiction section.”

Chase chuckled, “Yeah, to the fiction section. I just hope they didn’t get side tracked.”

“Yeah, they’re a bit airheaded sometimes aren’t they? But they’re my best friends so it’s tolerable.” He gave his wings a short stretch as he adjusted them comfortably at his sides, following Chase through the aisles of books. “Sky’s a bit lazy, that’s probably why he took fiction over non fiction, he’d probably fall asleep if he had to go through the non fiction books. Hopefully Cloud’s keeping him in line and from reading some novel.”

“That bad huh?”

Thundermane grinned, “Only sometimes, he doesn’t like to admit how much he likes reading but you give him a book and he’ll be occupied till he’s done,” he said. “Especially that one series, Hairy Trotter. He’s got the whole series, same with Daring Do. Don’t tell him I told you though, he’ll never forgive me if he found out.”

Chase smiled, “Alright, my lips are sealed.” He made a zipping motion across his muzzle to prove his point. “But if he’s that well read maybe he did have better luck than us. It certainly couldn’t have been any worse.”

Almost as if on cue they rounded a corner and just about crashed right into Sky Fire who had a book tucked under one wing. The white pegasus yelped as he skidded to a stop, bumping Chase in the process. “Ah, there you are,” he said, backing up once he regained his footing.

“Well you’re not buried in books,” said Thundermane. “But I’m not sure if that’s a good thing or not. You find something?”

“Ah maybe?” he asked, rubbing the back of his head. “We found some books that talk about them but it’s hard to tell what’s going to be helpful and what isn’t.” He looked between Chase and Thundermane, “I take it you guys didn’t find anything huh?”

Chase shook his head, “No, not unless we’re dealing with giant rats or something.”

“Did learn how to get rid of cloud-mites though, but that’s not going to help,” said Thundermane as they followed Sky Fire.

As they approached the area that Sky Fire and Cloud Runner had been working in they noticed a ton of books just scattered around. Many had simply been put into piles, organized in a manner that only they must have understood. Cloud Runner was seated amidst several of these piles, flipping through a book before putting it in a pile to his right then grabbing a new one from one of the other stacks.

“What’d you do, empty the shelves onto the floor?” asked Chase as he looked around, nimbly avoiding the books as he walked.

“Um,” Sky Fire bit his bottom lip innocently. “Maybe?”

Chase groaned and shook his head, this was going to take forever to put back, let alone in the right order. The librarian would have their heads for sure if. “Well I hope you managed to find something cause we sure we didn’t.”

“Depends on what you consider something,” said Cloud Runner; finally lifting his head out from the book he was reading. “I found a couple books about obscure mythical creatures and a couple on folklore from different parts of Equestria.” He pointed to a stack of books to his left. “I haven’t gone through them yet, but I figure they might be helpful, more helpful than these,” he pointed to the stacks to his right. “So grab a book and start reading.”

They each took a book and sat down in silence, starting to read. Chase had picked up a large book on creatures from myth and legend from all across the world, not just Equestria. It was large, calling itself an encyclopedia of creatures, monsters and spirits. Flipping it open it became clear that it was alphabetized, like a dictionary or encyclopedia. That would make searching easy. Flipping through he came to the ‘B’ section, quickly skimming through it.

“Banshee, Basilisk, Behemoth, Bicorn, Black Shuck, Boggart! Ahah!” He read the names off under his breath and he flicked through the pages, trying to find what he needed. The passage regarding Boggarts was small, not even half a page in length.

“Wait, is that all?” he sputtered aloud as he came to the end of the entry. “That can’t be it, there has to be more.”

“Something wrong?” asked Thundermane, looking up at Chase’s outburst.

“Yeah, the only entry this book has on boggarts isn’t very big, and listen to how it ends. ‘They are very difficult to get rid of’. I mean what the heck? That means there is a way to get rid of them, but it doesn’t say how.” He puffed his cheeks in annoyance as he stared at the book, that had to be the most useless answer in the world. He took a deep breath to calm and compose himself before continuing. “Maybe the section on brownies will have something, it said boggarts are kinda like mean brownies.”

Brownies it seemed were the opposite of boggarts. Brownies were small, helpful spirits who seemed to enjoy doing housework and chores in exchange for a bit of food while boggarts seemed like brownies that Discord had gotten a hold of, preferring to steal things and bother sleepers, doing things that included removing the covers and slapping a clammy hand to the sleeper’s face. Despite being similar, Chase doubted that offering clothes to a boggart would make it leave, nor would trying to offend it drive it off. Chase groaned and buried his face in the open book, talk about useless information.

“You guys found anything we can work with?” he asked.

“Well, this says they like milk and cream,” said Cloud Runner. “There’s also something about pouring seed on the ground because they’ll be compelled to count it, but I think we might get in trouble for that.”

Sky Fire and Thundermane nodded as well, they were getting similar results, lots of information on what they were and what they did, not so much on how to get rid of them.

“This says if an infestation is bad enough the only thing to do is leave and move to a new home,” said Sky Fire.

“Well that certainly isn’t going to help. At this rate we’re just going to have to wing it, so to speak,” said Chase with a sigh as he closed up his book.

They continued looking through the rest of the books with the same results, only finding bits and pieces of useful lore, such as iron and salt being a repellant and hanging horse shoes over the doorway to keep them out of a room or dwelling. They had their own magic but they didn’t seem to be immune to unicorn magic, and if they were none of the books made mention of it.

Chase stretched out as he stood up, gathering a handful of books in his magic and started reshelving them, urging the others to do the same. It was getting dark and soon the library would close, at least for a period of time while the day and night shifts switched places and the night shift set everything up.

“So what are we going to do?” asked Sky Fire as they exited the library. “We found like, nothing man.”

Chase scrunched his face up in thought as they walked, he had no idea what they should do, all the information they’d found was seriously lacking in removal remedies. There had to be someway to deal with, whatever they were dealing with, boggart or not.

The pegasi chattered among themselves, presumably about what they did or didn’t find and what they could do. While Chase wasn’t paying much attention to what they were saying he was aware that they were talking so when they suddenly went quiet and the sound of their hoof beats stopped he got curious.

“Something wrong?” he asked, turning to look back at them.

The three of them looked, almost scared, staring dead ahead at something past Chase. Sky Fire lifted a shaking hoof, pointing at what they were looking at.

“Chase,” he squeaked, wings pinned to his side.

Chase frowned, who or what could have them so freaked out?

“Chase, is that you?”

His ears perked up at the sound of the voice and spun around quickly, perhaps a bit to fast as soreness twinged at the back of his neck. “Wish!”

The Nocturn grinned, “Yeah that’s me. Who’re your scared looking friends?”

“W-wait, you know her?” asked Sky Fire, finding his voice finally. “How, when?”

“Remember the first night, when I got dared to spend a night in the Night Guard’s wing of the place?” asked Chase. “I met her then and we spent the night hanging out.” He looked between the groups, “Wish, these are my roommates Thundermane, Sky Fire and Cloud Runner.” He pointed to each in turn. “You guys, this is Wish she’s cool. And don’t worry, she won’t bite you or anything.”

“Yeah, you don’t look tasty enough,” she said. “But you do though.”

Chase hid his face behind a leg in embarrassment, trying to hide the blush that was rapidly spreading over his cheeks. “Please don’t tease me in front of them, it’s mean,” he mumbled. “And you’re not helping make them less freaked out.”

She huffed in an exaggerated manner, “Fine, I’ll lay off the teasing. But Chase is right I don’t bite. Not ponies any ways, I bite fruit.”

“So please try to relax a bit, she really is nice,” said Chase, finally getting the heat in his cheeks under control. “And you,” he looked back at Wish. “Behave please.”

She stuck her tongue out playfully, “You’re no fun. But in all seriousness though, what’cha doing out here?”

“Coming back from the library,” said Chase. “You hear about all the items going missing recently?”

“I think I heard something about that yeah,” she said with a nod. “Yeah, we’ve been having things go missing while we’ve been out on duty. We come back to our rooms and stuff’ll be gone. What about it?”

“Well that’s not all that’s been happening, something’s been eating the food in the store room and bothering us when we sleep,” continued Chase.

“This guy thinks it’s a boggart,” said Sky Fire, a hint of skepticism in his voice.

“It makes more sense than ninja’s and ghosts alright?” Chase snorted and shook his head, “Anyways, yeah, boggarts. We were at the library trying to find any information on how to get rid of them. As you might guess, we had crap luck.”

“So, you’re planning on trying to catch one?” she asked. Chase nodded and she grinned, “Then you can count me in, this sounds great.”

Author's Note:

Fun fact, Chase's research was anecdotal to my own. Specifically the scene with the monster encyclopedia. I do own a large 'A-Z Encyclopedia of Magical Creatures' type of book and the section on boggarts was laughably small. Like, not even a paragraph in length. So it was off to google and wikipedia.
And yes, this is all drawn from folklore about brownies and boggarts. That said, I did have to play around a bit, since evicting boggarts is, nearly impossible, generally the family in question has to move. Which was obviously out of the question.