B.D: Memoirs of a Rogue

Chapter II

BREAKING AND ENTERING

Living in a city where nopony stands by your side is tough. It's nigh impossible as a foal. You have to stick together.

That's why we made our group. It started up a while ago, back in the orphanage.

The caretakers locked us up in our room. Smokey Cinders, our leader, was little more than a filly back then, a couple years ahead of us at best. She came up with the plan for revenge.

She had us wait until all the carers had gone home, and at an hour before midnight, we helped her out of the only window in our room. Cinders was thin, and able to get through what she'd now classify as a 'no way, no how' situation with relative ease.

We waited for her return, anxious to see what was going to happen. It wasn't long before we heard a small click from our door, and with it wide open we saw the filly herself holding a ring full of keys in her mouth. She dropped them, turned to us, and smiled.

"Go crazy."

I didn't hear a foal in the room giving complaints. We tore through the building, knocking over candle stands, throwing open drawers, eating the caretakers' food, anything. Smokey even opened the door to the head caretaker's private room, where we found some important looking documents. We shredded them without a thought.

That wasn't the end of Smokey's plan, either.

When they got back, the carers were sure to blame us. Why wouldn't they?

Smokey thought around that.

She told us to go back to our room after we'd finished our fun, and she locked it from the other side. A few minutes later, and we heard something from downstairs.

CRASH.

We jumped at the splintering sound. A few seconds later... nothing. Silence and concerned faces filled the room as we waited, not sure what had happened.

There was a room-wide sigh of relief when Smokey turned up on the window ledge a quarter of an hour later. We helped her squeeze back through, her sudden appearance raising the most important question: "What in the hay happened down there?"

She looked back at us, her devilish red eyes glowing through the dark. "I'm not gonna spoil it for you. Where's the fun in that? How about we wait and see tomorrow?"

The carers woke us up early next day. Positively enraged, they entered the room and asked Jemrock, a blue unicorn colt with a  green mane, if he heard anything the previous night. Jemrock said he heard a loud noise downstairs, and nothing else. We could trust Jemrock.

Turned out the sound was caused by a downstairs window smashing. With the blame passed onto what any sane pony would assume as a burglary, the town guards turned up and made their report. Nothing was stolen, and the only serious damage was the loss of several important documents, ripped up and scattered across the room. One of them, the will of Sir Percival Spoon, promised an intended dowry of three thousand bits to the head carer's personal treasury. A fitting loss for the way she treated us.

From that day on, we didn't live by the orphanage rules. We didn't serve the mayor, nor under the rule of the high queen in Manehatten.

Cinders was our queen. She helped us escape the orphanage three years later, and for the next nine months, we survived by ourselves.

We served under Cinders, and we were happy. Nothing mattered more than that.

* * *

The trip back to the hideout wasn't nearly as daunting as I'd thought. It seemed that chasing after us for the whole afternoon was too much for the guards, and they broke off in either defeat, or sheer laziness.

That said, the roads weren't completely empty. Every now and then somepony in uniform would come our way, but it was hardly a problem. Tip-trotting into remote alleyways and keeping it cautious got us through the parts close to our encounter in the gardens. After that, it was just a case of finding an alternative route to home base without crossing the market.

When we came across the right checkpoints it was straightforward. Little things like the pass behind the florist's house, knowing which way goes where on the three split crossroads with the lamp, even the pile of junk on the corner at Roundhouse... I'd been living in the same city for a while.

While I was effortlessly retracing the entire area, there was hardly a peep from the colt following me. Barn Breaker took a vow of silence since the events back at the garden. I felt bad, but I wasn't disappointed that he shut up. The day's problems were caused by his voice, and it was good to know that it wouldn't happen again.

On the basis of some quick guesswork, the way to the hideout was made much quicker than I would've thought. We could see the entrance to the familiar craggy-looking boarding house. It was late, and I'd wouldn't dare trying to be honest with the owner on where we'd been.

Time for some believable improv.

I took a quick breath and tapped the door with a hoof, perching myself on a stone slab afterwards.

"Here's the plan. I make up an alibi, and you stick with it," I whispered, grabbing his attention away from a particularly uninteresting moth he'd been eyeing for the last minute or so.

He nodded his head, going straight back to it in seconds. Breaker was somehow still able to amuse himself with it flying around one of the street lamps, even after all the commotion that day.

Maybe it's a colt thing?

A green eye stuck itself into the glass peephole, and after a quick scan, the eye disappeared. The door carefully opened, revealing the owner and proprietor of the boarding house, a pale grey unicorn mare.

She was dressed up in blue striped sleepwear, wearing a Phrygian cap with a snowy white bobble on the end.

"Miss Violet and Master Breaker!" she said, looking down at us and speaking in her pleasant, motherly voice.  "Whatever took you? Your friends were very worried about you."

A strand of my mane was covering half my face as I gave off what I'd thought was the most innocent voice I could muster.

"Well Mis'ess Goldheart, we were, uh, buying some bread at the, uh, store," I replied, rubbing a hind leg on one at my front. "We sort of got a bit, well, lost. I'm sorry."

Mrs Goldheart's eyes narrowed.

"You know, there was a robbery today. Somepony stole some food in the plaza."

Horsefeathers.

She knew! How? When? Why did I choose such a stupid alibi? Come on Violet, think a way out of this, quickly.

"Uhh.. Uh.. Miss, umm.. I... I was actu—"

"No excuses, Miss Violet. I know you two weren't the culprits," Mrs Goldheart stated.

"Wait, what?" I asked dumbly, forgetting to put on a high voice.

"The criminals were last seen over by the aqueduct. The guards who came here asked if they knew anyone from over there, and I can't say I do... but if you do know who did it, please, don't hang around them anymore," she said hastily. "It's not right, you know? I don't want you two to turn out as rotten apples. There are enough of those already."

She leant down, and hugged us both.

"Your club is so generous. Taking little foals off the street like you do, helping them out with the bits you make from errands and jobs. It makes me... happy, that the world isn't as sad as we always make it out to be."

Cinders... what did you tell her?

Mrs Goldheart stood up on all fours. "Now it's my turn to say sorry," she chuckled. "Sorry for holding you both up! Come on in, please."

Something didn't feel right, trotting into the boarding house after what she said. I couldn't put my hoof on it, but it made me uneasy.

* * *

She opened the door for me, and the group of seven ponies sitting idly around the room looked up.

"There you go Miss Violet," Mrs Goldheart said, beaming.

"Thanks," I replied, giving a forced smile back to her as I entered the room, trying not to make eye-contact.

"And Master Breaker?" she said, holding the door. The two older colts in the room sniggered.

Cinders was sitting opposite to them on a cushioned bed.  She gave them both death-stares, and hissed something under her breath. The two stopped.

Breaker hobbled into the room soon after, and Goldheart turned to Cinders.

"By the Magi I hope your leg gets better soon, dear," she said, keeping her sugar-sweet tone.

"Thanks Serenity, I appreciate it," Cinders replied. The grey mare shut the door.

With Mrs Goldheart out of the room, Cinders swung her head to me, and my jacket. "Y'alright, Crow? How's the corn?

'Crow', my nickname in the group. It came from my cutie mark, a black bird that had decorated my flank since a few months after our escape. I tended to steal the food for the group, so the nickname was a no-brainer.

I understood her message and turned sideways, revealing the side pocket I'd managed to keep the loaf in.

Cinders screwed her face. "That it? You spent the whole afternoon... on a piece of bread?" She worked her way off the bed, limping slightly.

"The trip back had a long... detour." I sighed, grabbing the bread out of my pocket, and placing it on the table beside a few of the younger foals.

"So... I bet it was you two who caused the problems with the guards today, huh?" she inquired. "I hedge my bets it wasn't your fault, either."

She turned to stare at Breaker, who briefly flinched, kept his mouth closed, and looked to the floor.

Ugh... no point saving his hide back then if he's booted out now.

I couldn't just watch and pray he didn't get thrown out. He was a newbie with only three weeks under his name. Cinders was ready to lose anypony she didn't want. She stared threateningly at Breaker as I said my piece.

"It was me. I alerted Pebbles at the plaza when I took the loaf. Breaker followed my orders as he was told."

Cinders perked up, and eyed me.

"Is that so?" she asked rhetorically, her crimson eyes piercing straight through me. The eyes reminded me how she found it so easy to terrify other ponies. I'd seen it plenty of times on me and the others, so the whole scare factor had worn off a bit.

After a short silence, her attitude faded, and she gave way to a smirk as she walked around me. "You wouldn't lie to me about just anypony, Crow. I didn't know that 'Mistress Violet' was into younger stallions."

At that, the entire room, aside from myself and Barn Breaker, burst out in sniggering fits. The colt was actually staring at me, his mouth slightly agape, as if he really believed what she said was true. I drooped my head low and sulked, my cheeks feeling awkwardly hotter.

"Great. You're a real joker, Cinders," I muttered.

"I know, right?" she sniggered, either not realising or more likely acknowledging and ignoring my clear-as-day sarcasm. She turned to the orange colt, making him flinch.

"I'll let it slide," Cinders said, "this time. Any more incidents regarding your sorry self and we have a serious problem, understand?"

The colt kept staring at me. I looked back at him, shaking my head to make my response to his curiosity as clear as possible. He turned back to Cinders.

"Uh, yeah. Understood."

"Good, I'm glad that's sorted. After we've all eaten, I want the table cleared for the daily meeting," Cinders ordered. She walked out of the room shortly after, and we began preparations for our food.

Dinner was going to be small, but it wouldn't be terrible. Thankfully two of the others, Parable and Yingling, managed to make some bits and pay for a few odd vegetables. We put together a decent soup with the permission to use Mrs Goldheart's fireplace and cooking equipment, and soon we filled various containers from around the room with it. Parable and I cut the bread into fair slices, her using the knife while I held the bread in place with one hoof, yawning. All the commotion from the day started taking its toll on me.

Parable served the foals by the beds. The rest of us took our servings to the other half of the room, where the table was. It was surrounded by two sets of chairs on either side, and another built slightly taller at the back, reserved for Cinders. I took my usual place on far right and Jemrock followed suit, sitting himself on the other chair next to me.

As was considered polite, we both sat towards the Cinder's chair. While this did make talking to one another difficult, we didn't really have another option with the types of chair we used. They were made as lay-chairs—that is, a chair intended for sitting around a warm fire and having a snooze in, not meeting around a table material, but the only ones we had. If I was to try to sit with two hooves in front, I'd probably fall off and embarrass myself further. As I sipped the mild carroty flavoured contents of the soup tin, I heard Jemrock from behind me.

"Don't worry Crow, we all have our off days every now and then. Remember when I slipped over my own hoof when I tried out pickpocketing for the first time a few months back?"

Who couldn't?

It must've been my off day, I thought. Though the colt was the one who screamed, it was my fault that he saw me. Maybe if I tried blending in a bit more, approaching from a different angle, he wouldn't have glanced our way in the first place? I pondered on it.

"You know, I always think back to what my mum always told me, before she left," The upbeat young stallion continued. "She said, 'Jemrock, there's two types of ponies in Equestria. There's losers, and there's winners. The losers always get mopey and sad when they don't do something right, but the winners, they get back up, take it in their stride and do it again, and I didn't raise you to be no loser, gosh darnit!'"

"Yeah, I guess," I muttered as I turned my head to my soup tin again. I could stand his attitude normally, but I was too tired. Finishing the last dregs of the comfortably warm soup, I placed the tin on the floor, giving me room to lower my head and rest my eyes.

* * *

There was a sharp pain in my back. Waking up from what I wasn't really intending to be a full-on nap, I saw the other four ponies sitting around the table, presumably waiting on me.

"Thanks Jemrock," Cinders murmured.

"I'm sorry, Cinders! This really isn't my day..."

"How about we don't make this into a habit?"

She turned to talk to the others, giving me some much needed thinking space. "Hehem. Now that we're all listening, let's talk. Parry, Ying, you two were at Westhoof housing for the day, correct?

"Selling information and pocket-duty as always, Cinders," Yingling said, bearing a cheesy grin. Parable nodded, looking distantly into space.

"Your haul today was twenty bits. It's good, and I won't deny it, but I feel there's room for improvement. Think you can aim for an extra ten tomorrow?"

Yingling shifted his head back, his eyes fixed on Cinders. "Twenty bits has never been a problem before... but I'm sure we'll get there with some teamwork," Yingling replied. He turned to face the young mare beside him. "Ain't that right, Parable?"

Parable nodded, paying even less attention to Yingling as I did with Jem. She was always pretty distant with us at meetings, the meeting we were having being no exception. I never talked to her much before, seeing as she never really wanted to. If anything, she seemed to take more interest in caring for the foals we found off the streets than chatting with us.

There might be something wrong. I should try talking to her at some point, see what's up.

"I know what you did, Jem," Cinders stated. "I appreciate you teaching the unicorn foals a bit of magic, they could really use it."

"No prob, Cinders!" Jemrock grinned.

"Tomorrow you'll be relaying a message, as well as some various odd jobs here and there I need you to go help with. Don't worry; I'll write a list for you."

Jem was, or appeared to be in Cinder's eyes, the perfect pony for the job. He never complained, never spoke out of line, always got on with what he was told to do. I always thought of him as the 'Simple Stallion' out of the bunch of us, and not in a bad way. It was actually kind of nice to get a positive point of view from time-to-time.

"And finally..." Cinders turned to me wearily, "Crow. I think we all know what happened today, so you needn't repeat it. I can't say I'm happy with the other two having to pitch in so we can have dinner. That said, I'm willing to put this aside, providing you can do the next job I've got planned for you right."

Cinders giving me a second chance, no punishment? She was friendly, sure, but not that friendly. The way she had sounded I'd have thought I was going to miss a meal, or something.

"Oh, uhh, so what's the job?" I asked, trying to suppress my relief.

"A client asked us for a burglary job at a big house out on Melody Street, tomorrow."

"You mean somepony from outside the group wants our help?"

She nodded briskly. "Yup. They want you to steal the owner's diary. I'll give you the directions before you head out."

I'd never done a job for a pony out of the group before! I didn't think any of us had, either. I couldn't believe that someone actually valued the skills we had, even wanting help from us, being as young as we were.

"It's clear I don't want this to go wrong, right?" Cinders continued.

"Sure! I mean, yes. Just give me the pony's name tomorrow, and you won't be disappointed, I promise."

"The name isn't important."

What?

"Um, excuse me Cinders, but if I don't know the name, how in Equestria am I meant to get the diary?"

"Like I said, the name isn't important," she said, remaining calm. "The client didn't specify who you're going to rob. They said where, and that, apparently, is all you need to know."

The meeting ended shortly after, and frankly, I was relieved. Departing from the conference table, I found myself soon lying on a cosy mattress with a stiff, but perfectly usable pillow below my head.

First impressions presumably counted, in a business where not doing your job right makes for a quick ride to prison, or worse. Above all, I had to make Cinders proud. Had she not gotten herself injured, she would do the job flawlessly. If I didn't do well, she'd hate me for it.

* * *

Am I home?

I galloped across open fields in an autumn breeze, and I couldn't be happier. The sky was bright, and the apples growing on the trees around me ripe and shiny.

I pranced across the beautiful scene and eventually came across a smooth hill. On the top, two ponies, a gold stallion and a lavender mare, stood together.

Getting closer, I saw the two in detail, making out the short blue-silver mane of the stallion, and the stunning red mane dropping from the mare's head down to form curves at the end, halfway down her body.

"You're back! We've been waiting so long to see you again, dear," my mother said as I galloped towards them. She smiled, crying tears of... joy?

"It's been a while, Violet! How about giving your old pap a hug, eh?" Dad roared, standing up and holding out his front hooves.

I grinned, and took him up on his offer. Charging like a madmare, I leapt into my father's embrace. I expected a warm hug, but instead, nothing.

The two ponies vanished as I plummeted, the hill dropping into darkness. Tall square grey structures rose above and encircled me, belching smog from their windows, suffocating me. I was on the floor, gasping for breath as a figure pierced through the shadows, her fire-like eyes fixed as she whispered to me.

"Crow! Hey, Crow, wake up! Get your lazy flank out of bed!"

I opened my eyes and found Cinders beside the bed, the room pitch-dark. Her furious expression was somewhat unnerving.

"Whu-whats up?" I muttered.

"Does 'robbing a mansion' ring a bell?" she said.

"Uh... no offense meant Cinders, but you said that would be tomorrow," I replied. "'Tomorrow' in Equestrian tends to mean the day after the one before, not the night before it."

"I'd like to ask you a question, Crow," she stated.

"And what would that be?" I asked, drifting back to sleep.

"Who in their right mind robs a mansion in daylight!?" she shouted, startling every pony in the room, and causing me to jerk my head back painfully into a wall. "Please, enlighten me with your logically sound words of wisdom!"

"Erm, well..." I started. "Uhh, heh he, whoops. When am I, uh, supposed to be going about this job, then?" I rubbed the back of my head with a hoof, the pain of my engagement with the wall seeping into my ears.

"How about getting up right now and running out the door in say, ten minutes, before I drag that mane of yours into Serenity's fireplace, and the rest of your head with it?"

"Of course! No problem, as you wish!" I babbled, her threats sounding anything but empty. Jumping out of my bed with an unexplained burst of energy, I made my way to the door.

"Twelve Melody Street," Cinders reminded me. "Break in, steal the diary, tonight. Don't. Get. Caught."

"Ow!"

I blindly waltzed into the doorframe unaware. Maybe not having hairs spread straight over my eyes would help?

I heard a long, drawn out sigh from behind me. Swiping my mane to aside in one elegant move, I made my way past the door, still moving cautiously in order to not injure myself further through the dark hallway.

I was out. Now, about that mansion…

* * *

The night was pleasant, at least. Not too cold or windy, and no rain. The moon reflected light on me and my surroundings from above. The grey forms of buildings stood in front of me, their windows shut, their doors locked. No one was awake, no one was looking. The perfect time to start up a crime.

I strode on for a moment and took the left, presenting me with a lop-sided staircase much smaller than the one in the plaza. Taking a look at the structures made me think back to the dream I had. I hardly recalled the minor details, but it was... strange. I'd had a dream like it before. The fields, and the tree, my parents. Had I seen them before? If it was true, I was too young to keep a mental picture. This dream, this visualisation of what they may look or have looked like, was the only thing I had. I didn't even know if they looked anything like it.

I turned at the second right, the clip-clop of my hooves echoing through the streets. The fields in the dream were all too beautiful.  All my life was spent in the city. It felt like a jail, trapping me from experiencing a different life on the outside. Thing is, the city ran both ways. I could hate it as much as I wanted to, but I needed it to survive. I was never taught how to make an honest living, and I doubted that I'd learn myself.

I crossed the empty road, and found myself in an area with houses ten times the size of the ones back at the hideout.

Melody Street. One of these must be the place.

I trotted alongside the mansions, each bigger than the last, each finally made of brick and chiselled marble, along with some wood and metal decorative pieces in the gardens, with intricately designed benches and statues adorning the walkways leading from the entrances up to the mosaic patios.

There it was. The number twelve, stuck on an oak slab with two dragons playing with one another etched into the wood. The slab had been positioned on a metal fence surrounding the entrance to the mansion, with tiles laid into the earth underneath it. It was a wrought iron fence, with spikes adorning the top. Thus, my task became evermore harder.

The chances of me getting over it were practically null—the top of the fence stretched up, several times higher than me. The poles connecting the fence had nowhere for me to grab onto. I'd need some kind of rope or elevated position to get over, and there was the highly possible and somewhat unwanted chance of impaling myself doing so.

The way around was blocked by the fence and the neighbours' counterpart connecting with one another, sealing the gap between both gardens. If I was going to get in, the only way would be the front.

Does this have to be this difficult? I mean, really?

I took a walk around in search of inspiration. It didn't come in bundles. Simply trying a hoof at the gate predictably didn't work, as it was locked.

I could theoretically squeeze most of my body under the fence, but my head and back legs were too big. It was a shame, too, with the possible way in blocked by a mere few inches. I growled out of frustration.

The nearby mansion was also fenced off. The wooden fence was quite tall, similar to that of number twelve. I could get to the top if I could balance myself, jumping over that way... I didn't like the look of it. The motion would be needlessly dangerous, and the ever-looming threat of impalement stuck out like a sore claw.

The rest of the street was populated with more massive mansions, and their own fenced-off gardens. There were streetlamps positioned next to every other house. None of it helped. I walked up, and sat squarely on one of the tiles leading to number twelve,  bashing the fence in frustration with a hoof.

It was taller than I realised, now that I had a proper chance to look at it. The metal bars were connected at the top and bottom by two horizontal bars, spanning across the entire width of the fence. They were much too far away to be used as positions to hold on to in order to climb up.

Looking down, I saw the tiles below the fence. The space between those was almost enough to crawl under, but... not enough.

That didn't mean I couldn't make the space bigger. An ingenious idea suddenly sprung to mind.

I stood up from the tile, and examined it. The tile, along with the others, were placed at slight inclines, revealing the dirt underneath.

I placed a hoof on either side of the one I was sitting on, and heaved upwards. It was tough work, but the tile slowly rose, revealing the dirt underneath. I placed a hoof on the underside of the tile, and slid it off to one side. Taking a look at the now barren soil, I could see that I'd be able to made a tunnel just high enough for me to go under.

I did the same manoeuvre with the other tiles until the one under the gate was gone. My path clear, I flattened myself on the ground, my back legs spread.

I had just enough room to squeeze under.

I stood up on the other side, my heart beating fast. I was ready to take on the next challenge—the mansion.

* * *

It was magnificent, a work of art, truly a wonderful thing to look at. However it needed to be broken into, one way or another.

Scanning around from the outside, I could see little-to-no way in aside from the windows and doors. I tried both of them with no luck. They were locked from the inside.

Smashing in was not the smartest idea if I didn't want to get caught, though there weren't many other options.

The entry I was particularly interested in was a large glass door at the back of the house. The owner probably used it to cool off indoors on a sunny day while still having a view of the garden, and honestly, I couldn't blame them. The flowers were amazingly well kept and flourished in the rich soil, arranged in colour to make a rainbow across the backyard. The owner was quite obviously either a gardener, or paid one of the best in all of Pastur to do it for him.

Hmm. Sticking on task would probably serve me better instead of admiring somepony's gardening skills.

I quickly formulated a plan of action while staring at the glass door. It wouldn't be easy, and it would require excellent timing on my part. It was also the only possible chance I could get at completing the job without having access to say, a key, which would have been really useful at this point. I really needed to ask Cinders if I could actually prepare for this sort of task beforehoof rather than going in blind.

Well, no time to lose. If I stood around 'til morning I wouldn't have a chance, and Cinders would kill me for being late. Swallowing hard, I trotted onto the patio, turned myself away from the glass, and closed my eyes.

Three, two, one...

I kicked the glass with as much strength as I could muster.

The resulting crash not only gave me shards of glass in my rear, and a high pitch noise ringing in my ears, but a quaint feeling of nostalgia. As the remaining shards came crashing down, I lowered myself, and at a gallop, threw myself inside. I heard shouting coming from somewhere, but I couldn't make out the words.

I bounded into a posh living room area, fit with leather chairs and a stone fireplace. There wasn't time to sit around and gawk at it. I spotted a couple of doors to the side and galloped to the nearest one, opening it and hastily shoving myself inside to avoid detection, and closing the door after. I was in a storage closet, and breathed a sigh of relief. All I had to do was wait.

I could hear what was going on around me. Hoofsteps from above indicated some sort of movement. There was some loud and aggressive barking, a dog tied up in someone's garden, maybe? I winced, hoping that the ravenous-sounding canine wasn't the owner's dog on the other side of the garden, and that I'd carelessly overlooked it.

I waited a while longer, until the hoofsteps had not only passed through the living room, but started making the sound of hooves on marble. A marble patio far away from direct line of sight. Time to initiate step two!

I broke out of the closet, and scurried across the living room floor in the direction I heard the hoofsteps come from before. Any pony at this time would have been sleeping, so I guessed that the owner had come downstairs from their bedroom. Where would a normal pony keep their diary? Their bedroom, of course.

The next room was the entrance room, with stairs to the right and the front door dead centre. The owner had also kindly placed rugs down on the floor and the stairs, muffling my steps. I sped up the stairs, arriving in front of three more doors, one already wide open.

More shouting echoed through from downstairs, in a voice that sounded like a stallion. I didn't have time to waste, and I had no idea where the owner would go. Had he heard me? I thought it near impossible to escape past on a single staircase with the owner chasing me. I had to hope that he hadn't, and carry on to finish the job. I looked quickly through the room. There were two cupboards, each holding several drawers. I opened them in quick succession.

A potion labelled 'Mane Grow', fake teeth... wait, a book? I turned the book around to read the label.

En-kly-ko-ped-ia of Equestrian and outer Equestrian plant life and cul, cult-i...something methods.

The owner appeared to be a pony of deep interest in long words, but I couldn't find his diary anywhere. The next couple of drawers held some scripts and copies of some kind of political speech, but no trace of private entries.

I'd taken a minute or so to scan through everything in the cupboards, and it wasn't there. Where would a stallion in what appeared to be his prime store their diary, anyway?

The answer came to me once I'd surveyed the room again. Under the pillow, which had been skewed in the owner's hurry to get out of bed, was the corner of a dark, brown book.

I threw the pillow aside and to my luck, there it was. The inner border was trimmed in gold, with no title or wording on the front. After flipping through a couple of pages criticizing the efforts of the author's cousin rather harshly in organising a recent Hearths Warming Eve performance, I could tell what this was. I snuck the stylish book into my jacket side pocket, and made my way out.

The owner was nowhere to be seen. I paced down the stairs to the front door, and tried my hoof at opening it. There were a couple of locks that I had to undo, but the door required no key to open from the inside.

There was a small problem, or to be more exact, I was the small problem. The metal bit that I had to pull on to open the door was just out my reach. I backed up and took a leap at it. I managed to bite hold of the handle, the steel cold in my mouth, and rather unpleasant-tasting.

After my weight pushed the door open, I fell down onto the floor, got up, and dashed out of the house. I heard more shouting, and distant barking from behind.

Did they see me?

Locating the gate, I squeezed yet again under the small hole I'd made, making sure not to scratch my back on the bars, as well as pressing my side pocket down to make sure I didn't lose the diary.

A bell started ringing in the distance. It was only a matter of time before the guards would come. I hurried out of the street from the way I came, into the darkness enveloping the roads.

I was soon far away from Melody Street.  A look back ensured that nopony was out chasing me.

I've done it! I'd broken into a mansion, stolen the diary, and the guards were none the wiser.

The way back to the hideout was cold, and dark. It wasn't an issue for me, but was unsettling nonetheless. When I got back I was the only one awake, with even Cinders having gone to bed after I left.

The sky was a dark blue, likely early morning. I placed the diary on the table, and crept back into bed. It took a while to get to sleep again—I was still shaking with adrenaline.

* * *

A faint sound of scribbling on paper woke me up. I opened my eyes, and saw nothing but black. I promptly shoved the bedsheets off of my face, shining light into my eyes, and making everything blurry. After shaking my head gently, the room slowly came into focus, and a familiar dirty-yellow furred mare sat in the corner.

"C-Cinders?" I said, lifting my head up, my front hooves supporting me on the bed.

She stopped writing, and turned to focus on me.

"Y'know, you're the laziest pony I've met, Crow. It's midday," she said. Her voice was much more playful and upbeat than the day before. "You must've been up forever to get that book."

She trotted up to the bed, eyes on me.

"Funny thing, too, since I haven't heard a word of anypony being sighted. Rumour has it a burglar snuck in, but they never found a culprit."

She leant over and gave me a quick hug, with enough strength to leave me winded in the process. "That's the Crow, the Violet, that I know. Thanks."

I coughed a couple of times, trying to get my breath back. Regaining control over my voice, I asked a question that had only recently come to mind.

"So... what am I doing today, Cinders?"

"What are you doing?" Cinders chuckled. "Why in the hay would I give you a schedule on your day off?"

I looked at her, puzzled for a moment, my sleepy brain trying to process what she'd told me.

"A day... off?"

"You deserve it," she said, smiling at me.

I mirrored a smile back to her. She trotted back over to the work on the table, and picked up her quill with her teeth.

...What in Equestria am I supposed to do on a day off?