After work activity (complete)

[crestchan]

Lunar knight sighed as she walked home. She had spent the day working and was tired. She had done a lot so she couldn'the wait to lay down, maybe take a nap. Knight was usually busy with work, so there was a bunch of stuff that she didn'the have time to do. A lot of it was studying or practicing, but there were other things as well.

Knight arrived at her home and smiled to herself. She walked inside and looked around the place she called home. It wasn'the very big, but it was a nice home. Knight glanced at the old chest plate she had found. It was in the corner. Knight had painted Princess Luna's mark on it. Knight smiled to herself and walked over to a desk. She opened a drawer and pulled out a book. It was a notebook that she had been using for a while. It had been a while since Knight had used this notebook. She set it down and started to flip through it. There were a lot of pages used in it. Knight was close to the end of it. Of course she had never shown anypony what was inside this notebook. There was a lot of writing that focused on Princess Luna. There were some poems but mostly there was what she should say, if she ever met the princess. The last few pages were used to write down a speech, for if she made it to being Princess Luna'so personal guard.

Knight pulled out a pen and started to write something down. After a while she put her pen down and read what she had written down. "Mares and gentlecolts." She started to read. "I am up here today because of my friends encouragement, my motivation and the lovely princess herself..." Knight blushed after reading the and crossed something out. "Let'stand not turn this one into a confession...again." she said with a sigh and picked the pen back up and started to write again.

[joxis]

Baldoire was casually strolling through the deserted streets of Ponyville, not clanking along and bothering every household bordering his path, since he was not wearing a full set of armor, but his 'working attire', consisting of a yellow hard-hat, a sleeveless shirt, tight braces and a solid pair of trousers. At sunset. At the end of a workday. Of course, there are many circumstances that would make this situation not senseless and not pointless. However, looking for a job wasn't one of those reasons, and that was precisely what Baldoire was doing. By noon, everypony he had a conversation with made it very clear that every manual labour they wanted to be relieved of had already been booked for a moderately bulky Earth pony.

Of course, a day without work to do wasn't so dramatic. But since his debut in Ponyville, it had been a habit to find a job for the day and at the very least be denied a task. Hence, it is through half-aimless wandering that he ended up in a dark, spooky alley of the Ponyville residentials, and was accosted by three ponies in cloaks : Two pegasi and one unicorn. The pegasi blocked his path back and the alley was a dead end. "Alright, runt." Spoke the unicorn. "I'm surprised nopony knows the drill around here, so I'll explain it to you." He uncovered his face, allowing Baldoire to identify his demise. "Your money." He paused, taking a menacing step forward. "Or your-"

He was cut short by the most violent headbutt he had felt his entire life. Before he and his accomplices could recover from the shock, Baldoire was already yelling in a nasal voice from yesteryear "Ah-ha ! Thieves ! If today be not a day for labour and earned treasures, it is a glorious one for justice !" As soon as he had concluded, he made a run for the pegasi, who would've had a hard time, had their leader not telekinetically held their assailant up in the air.

"Think you're big game ? I'll show ya who's yella." Declared the bandit, removing Baldoire's change from his pockets before sending him flying to the other side of the residential areas. The danger passed, he turned to his minions. "Okay, first of all, that was weird. Second of all ..." He showed them what the crazed Earth pony had on him. "... Is that even still a currency today ?"

Meanwhile, at the very same time, a confused Baldoire crash landed through a roof, right onto a notebook, right onto a desk, right next to a violet-coated Earth pony.

[crestchan]

Lunar knight  dropped the pen and grumbled. She knew that what she was doing was most likely a waste of time, seeing how she wasn'the even part of the royal guard. Knight sighed and glanced out her window. She noticed the moon and smiled, wondering just what kind of dream she would have that night. It was at that moment somepony decided to drop in, literally. A pony came crashing into her home and into her. Knight let out a cry as she was hit, sending her not book flying through the air.

Knight groaned as she lay on the floor. She could feel a pony on top of her. She started to stir, but she was still dazed from the collision. She tried to make a mental check list of her injuries but it took her a while before she could really think straight. Knight figured she was alright, maybe a little bruised. She got up and looked at the pony who crashed into her home. Knight noticed it was a grey pony. "Hey, are you alright?" She asked hoping that he wasn'the to badly injured. She glanced at the hole that he made. Knight was probably going to have to hire somepony to fix it, or do it herself. Knight glanced back at the pony who had dropped by. He didn'the seem to be that badly hurt. Knight hoped to get some answers from him. Mostly she just wanted to know why he decided to crash into her home. Knight glanced at the mess made when he came crashing in. Not only was there the pieces of the roof but the crash had knocked her books off the shelf and knocked over her armor. She didn'the want to miss out on a day of work just to clean up.

[joxis]

Baldoire was fine. No, really. Landing head first through a rooftop isn't that bad when you're wearing a hard-hat, which by some odd miracle didn't fall of his head during his forced flight. And even without that extra protection, he wouldn't even have a head commotion. Sure, his nervous system went haywire, but as far as he was concerned, this was an everyday feeling of which he noticed the absence less and less, concussions having earned a special place in his daily round. Since the entire impact of the collision went into his head, he quickly recovered and took a look around himself. This place reminded him very much of his own house, minus the legal minimum furnitures. After a dozen glances, he remarked the owner, standing a couple of metres away from him, glancing upwards at the future repairing labour and promise of a cold, cold night if it wasn't done quick. And then he recognized her.

"Ooh ! Good evening, miss diligent royal guard mare lady !" This title sounded and it still sounds better in his head. "I hear you are not deaf to my unwarranted arrival !" Of course, he didn't hear her ask him whether he was okay or not. Anypony with a hearing loss of more or less 30% such as his would've ignored the worried informalities like he did. "Either way, you are just the kind of pony I was looking for !" He resumed, "for you see, bandits of unspeakable baseness did deprived me of mine genuine 1000 forged Griffon kingdom coins ! Oh ! How woe is me !" He concluded, raising his voice and mimicking fainting perhaps a little too much within his interlocutor's personal space, a possibility which confirmed itself as he put a hoof on her shoulder. "And you ! You are destined to accompany me in mine quest ! It is not impossible that I could accomplish my deeds by myself in two ticks. Yet ! I am truthful to you : I am in need of a charge and a maecenas, both in pony, preferably ! Hence we go ! If you are to accept thine quest, follow my lead, good fellow !"

It is on this needlessly hard to decipher prose that he instinctively went to the door, opened it and would've found you to open it even if it wasn't unlocked like it was here and now, and proceeded to begin his investigation by going back to where he had been ejected. As he did, though, he stopped two metres from Knight's house, not because he didn't know his way, which he always did, but because something had fallen from his hard-hat, landing right on the ground. He read aloud to make the inexistent bystanders know he was in fact reading, "Ode to our Nocturnal Lady, dedicated to our beloved Mistress of the Night ..."

[crestchan]

Knight sighed to herself. It appeared that he was looking for her, so it was good he crashed into her house. The pony started to talk about bandits. Knight really didn't think she would find bandits in ponyville but if there were, she didn't want to be wrong. "Alright." She started to look around. "Hold on." Knight said as she saw him going towards the door. She looked at the floor looking for her notebook. "Where is it?" She asked searching the floor for it. The notebook shouldn't have gone far. Knight wanted to put it away before she left, to go anywhere. She then heard it. She heard the otherpony reading from it.

There was a blur of violet and blue as knight jumped at the other pony. She landed on him and grabbed her notebook. She then rolled and hugged it to her chest. "D-don't just read otherponies stuff like that." She said blushing. She didn't know just what he had read but she had heard something from it. Knight hoped he didn't read too much. Knight looked at her notebook, hoping it wasn'the too badly damaged. "You shouldn't go taking things that don'the belong to you." She looked back at the other pony but was still blushing. She started to walk back into her house. Knight wanted to put this back in her desk and to lock the drawer. She didn't want anyone else to read it. She wasn't sure how many ponies heard the reading. Knight sighed wondering just how the male pony was going to react to what he had just read.

[joxis]

Far from cut to the quick by the righteous assault, Baldoire, again, recovered immediately. "It is now blatantly obvious that you are dying to accompany me on my quest !" He declared. "And judging by your ability to write in verse with little to no spelling mistake, you and your family are now to be proud, for you shall chronicle the justice which we are just about to dispense !"

For some reason, he had an itching feeling at the back of his head that Knight was not eager to become his bard for the night. He dismissed it immediately as he thought he had heard words of interest in what she had said. He wasn't completely deaf either, so he answered back "Ah, your masterpiece", referring to the Ode to our Nocturnal Lady. "Fear not, I am no epos thief. Moreover, this poem of yours dedicated to a nonexistent and only phantasmagoric Damsel of the Night which ..." His tone changed to a more natural and less rythmical one "... Does remind me of something ... No, I'm pretty sure I ..." Only to turn back to a beaming "Surely an author alas forgotten in the meanders of my memory."

"As I was saying, I will make sure to have your craft published by every possible way if ever you have not the satisfaction of filing our upcoming adventure. Speech to mark." As if to prove his point, a sudden head movement he made dropped a second paper on his muzzle. It was blank, but the forbidden odelet's ink had been pressured enough onto the first sheet for the sheet below to be a crystal clear copy of the original. "And here is my guarantee that my word is true !" He announced proudly, folding the paper into one of his pocket in an overly visible manner. "On our way, bard !" He concluded, turning back to give a second try to his and Knight's would-be dramatical departure.

[crestchan]

Knight  left her home and looked at the other pony. "What?" She asked cockinget her head to the side. She wouldn't say she was dying to go with him but she did want to hurry. It was getting late and there was already so much that she needed to do the next day. She walked up to him. Knight had a bit of difficulty following what he was saying. She thought she heard him commenting on her writting. "I don't want to talk about my writting. I don't  really want anyone reading, so publishing is out of the question. So don't tell anyone about it." She said shaking her head a little. She glanced around for a moment. She watched him fold up a sheet of paper. She was curious just how long it would be until they left. Finally it seemed like they were heading out. "Let's get going." She said starting to walk but then added. "And I am not a bard!" Knight did not like being referred to anything other then a guard or something like that. Besides she would be a terrible bard, since she suckered at singing.

Knight started to follow the otherpony, since he knew where they were going. She hoped that it wasn't like he said. She wasn't sure what they would need to do if there were bandits in ponyville. Obviously she would have to take them to someone, but it wasn't like there was a guard posted in ponyville. She guessed they would need to take them to the mayor. That was probably the best option.

[joxis]

It was now dusk's end on Ponyville as Baldoire took advantage of every shortcut in the block to get to where he was attacked in record time. Brushing some dust, grease and garbage from the often humid and disreputable places his GPS implant of a mind caused him to cross. He checked behind him to make sure his enthusiastic chronicler hadn't lost him on the way. He hadn't asked her for her opinion on whether or not she would be up to crossing squalid streets and risking getting herself dirty to arrive sooner at his objective. And he wasn't going either, as he was already on the lookout for clues to where his assailants had gone to. However, it turned out his senses weren't the sharpest, causing him to quickly give up. "Now that I think upon it", he said, "As - and I forgot not since our last encounter, I have a very precise memory in times of need - an honourable member of the royal guard, your deduction skills must be most acute !" He paused for effect. "Then it is decided ! You are now dubbed ... Chronicler-Investigator ! My renown is far from the most vocal of this land, but surely my dubbing has at least some recognition due to the impassioning twists and turns I went through to become who I am today."

Afraid she may have lost him to some point, he stated clearly "Please look for clues leading to the thieves, I'm not very good at it."

He may have just now realised it. Which would explain the change in tone, the understandable words and the near curling up emanating from him. One of the few things that made Baldoire tick beyond how odd he usually is, of all the horrors this world could spawn, was losing pieces of his collection of antiques. He knew them all by heart and could identify them among hundreds even though he couldn't name half of them correctly. Perhaps it was because he didn't want to lose any asserting of himself as a traditional pony. Perhaps deep down, he knew he had wasted years of his life and his every bit in buying them, and didn't want to lose the one thing his young existence had amounted to.

Either way, he likely wouldn't be declaiming refined tirades anytime soon. Instead of his usual either straight up or mathematically precisely twitching demeanor, he was fidgeting against a wall, waiting for his partner to do a bit of legwork for him, glancing left and right from time to time. "Find anything yet ?" He asked hesitantly mere seconds after commanding the investigation.

[crestchan]

Lunar Knight followed, not too happy with the route they were taking but she wasn't complaining. She just hoped it didn't take too long to get there. Knight was glad she wasn't worried about getting dirty. She had done too many odd jobs to be worried about such things. You tend to not mind a little dirt after working a long day under the hot sun.

Knight glanced around, there didn't appear to be anypony there. She glanced around then heard what the other pony speak. She wasn't too fond of getting all the weird titles. "I'm not in the guard yet." Knight said with a sigh. "And just because I am going to be a guard doesn't mean I am going to be an investigator." She said but started to look around. She wasn't sure what they would need to find as a clue. She wasn't even sure if she could track anyone. Still Knight gave it a go.

"So, why is it that you think I would be good at finding clues?" She asked looking at him. Knight kept an eye on the ground trying to find out any kind of clues. It was in an ally so Knight was having a hard time figuring out what was junk and what was the attackers. Just about anything could have been a clue that lead them off the currect trial. "So, what did your attackers look like?" Knight asked trying to get as much detail as she could. She was hoping that would help her figure out what was useful or not.

((Sorry, I have no idea what could be used as a clue in mlp))

[joxis]

What did the attackers look like. That was a tricky one. Baldoire hadn't seen the two pegasi, and the unicorn was only lighted by a very feeble light, Ponyville's alleys being very tall and narrow. "I think you'd be a great detective because your scarf is black like the night or like, like the shadows that, like, lurk about, and spy on us, and stuff." He attempted a praise to stall for time, but his rich rimes, fine lines and fancy vocabulary had all faded away with his loss of a dozen devalued coins. "They were wearing cloaks." He eventually stammered. "Yes ... Yes, they were wearing cloaks !" He repeated with a little more certainty. "And perhaps they didn't take them since they probably want to be sneaky, because they're thieves and because ... Because ..." Recollection flashed before his eyes and memories flooded back. He usually was a forgetful one, but this time he was pretty sure he got it. "... Because the unicorn's pelt was white !" He concluded.

Lunar Knight may have expected more information. But that was all Baldoire had for her for the time being. As he left the alley, he thought he heard something in the distance. It could be the wind rustling through leaves, or a trash can falling over under the weight of the sheer amount of trash bags it contained.

Or it could be coming from Lunar Knight's house and sound very much like them who stole Baldoire's gold. Strolling back into the alley, his tact almost completely blown away by the accumulation of stressful factors, he told his friend the sometime-to-perhaps-be royal guard "Hey, um ... Lunar Flight. I think we should be ... Um, heading back home."

He paused.

"Lunar Knight ?"

[crestchan]

Knight glanced at Baldoire. "What does my decision to dress with, have anything to do with my abilities be an investigator?" She glanced back at the ground as the other pony started to remember what the thieves looked like. She listened and tried to picture what they looked like. Sadly there was not much to go on, so she didn't get a good idea of what they looked like. All she knew was the unicorn was a white pelted pony. That wouldn't really help too much. She did find this pony a little odd, but everypony was different. Knight kept looking around. She wasn't sure that she could do much, but she would do her best and find what ever kind of clue that was left behind.

Lunar Knight didn't notice as Baldoire left the ally. She was still focused on finding a clue. She sighed and looked up to the sky. She wondered if she would find any kind of clue in the ally. She shook her head and rubbed her neck. It was getting a little sore from looking down all the time. That was when Knight noticed that Baldoire was gone, but he soon returned. He started by calling her the wrong name, but he corrected himself. "Why?" She asked looking at him. "Why would we head back?" She was confused by what he was talking about. "I thought you had wanted to catch these thieves. Why would we head back now?" She walked towards him. "Have you found a clue or something? Do you know where they went?"

[joxis]

Indeed there was a ruckus in the distance. Of course, the average ear would've immediately reacted to this stimulus and made a mad dash towards the house. However, Baldoire was one for interminable dialogues even in times of crisis, and Lunar Knight didn't seem alarmed enough to even lead him back home where the Mick-mack was taking place.

"I think I heard them." He stated, unsure about whether he had hallucinated that. "They're ... I think they're at your house, Lunar Knight. Should we ... Should we call the police ? The guard ?" Mere seconds later, he remembered there was no such thing as 'police' outside Manehattan and no royal guard ever descended to Ponyville unless they were carrying one of their royal highnesses for unofficial visits. And the situation had gotten much, much more serious than ever before. Of course, sometimes Baldoire would sometimes accidentally break someone's possessions, or leave an obstrusive artifact in the middle of a corridor. But never had he been the direct cause of a robust Earth pony absolutely able to take care of herself and dismiss a dozen second-rate ruffiants in an instant potentially losing all and every one of her belongings. "Oh no. Oh no no no no." He stuttered in panic, his back against a wall. These moments were both a rare and enigmatic insight into Baldoire's mindset, but however interesting his stream of consciousness may be, it usually showed itself in times of greater emergencies.

In a fit of lucidity, he looked up at his confused interlocutor, stood firmly, shook his insecurities away, and enunciated the situation as clearly as possible. "Lunar Knight", he spoke, "The thieves who stole my ... Stupid ... Heavily ... Devaluated Griffon kingdom coins, they're- I think they've broken into your house. It's all my fault and they'll steal everything ... Oh no ... Furnitures, trophies, food, books ..."

There was a pause as he vainly tried to regained his composure. He felt the exact opposite of well whenever things got really out of control, but eventually, he managed to get one last word out of his head. Intentionally or not, he was looking right into Knight's eyes as he did. "... Writings."

[crestchan]

Knight heard the noise in the distance but she was more focused on Baldoire and what he had to say. She listened as he explained the noise that he had heard. Knight glanced in the direction of her house and listened. She could hear something, but she was unsure if it was the bandits or not. Knight didn't think that they would rob a house. They wouldn't just rob a random house for no reason and there wasn't one that Knight could think of. She didn't have anything they would call valuable, her most prized possession was her chest plate and that thing was just old. She had a bunch of books but none a bunch of thieves would want. "I don't know why they would..." Knight said looking back at Baldoire. She figured it would be better to check anyways.

Knight set a pretty quick pace. She wanted to get there before anyone could take anything, not that she did think that, but if there were she didn't want to be tired from all the running. She glanced at the sky as the traveled to her home. Knight hoped that this would not take much longer. She knew that the next day was going to be rough. She had stayed up much longer then she normally stayed up till. She glanced at Baldoire to make sure he was still following. "So there were only three?" She asked as they moved. "Two pegisus and a unicorn?" She glanced back at Baldoire, to make sure he was still following. She didn't want to arrive with no back up. Knight could see her house off in the distance. It was time to find out what was going on.

[joxis]

"Yes, yes, they were three, that's ... Just three." Confirmed Baldoire. "A-and that's also right, yes. Two pegasi. One unicorn. They're the ones who robbed me, they were, and probably, uh, the ones robbing your house- assuming somepony is robbing your house, of course, of course. No ... No jumping to conclusions."

Stressed did not even begin to be the suiting term to describe him right now. He was nearly breathing angst as he roamed the empty streets of the residential area. Hotter on Lunar Knight's heels than ever before had he been on anypony else, this was surprisingly the first time he had to deal with so many things going wrong in less than an hour. At start, he gave a lazy smile of obfuscated theatricality every time she would look back to check on him. Over time, though, his head went in the clouds more often, he became aware of all and every fear of the night he never had to cope with. He feared the grasshoppers chirping, he feared the elusive silhouettes of bordering alleys, and he feared his and Knight's enormous shadow on the walls.

For the first time of his life aside from his visits to the Everfree, Baldoire felt fear. "I think I heard something else." He whispered as they came closer to their destination. "I don't think I heard that when they attacked me, m-maybe that's the pegasi's voice though, they didn't talk or anything, haha, so there really is nothing to worry about."

They were right in front of the house. A weak candle's light could be seen piercing through the broken rooftop. Suddenly, something was flung out of the residence through that very same roof. It crashed on the other side of the walls, where neither Baldoire nor Knight could see it. As it fell, other, smaller impacts could be heard. To the Laymane, rocks heckled by a carriage crossing a road. But to Baldoire, it was the very distinct sound of thirty millenium Griffon kingdom coins bouncing on a dirt path.

One would hope the unicorn thief didn't land on a sharp or blunt object.

[crestchan]

Lunar Knight had started to get worried. She wasn't sure why her home would be targeted for thieving, but it seemed to be happening. Knight was not sure what was happening when they stopped in front of her house. The Unicorn was thrown out of the hole in her roof and went flying off into the distance. Knight had nothing in her home that could do that. There was nothing in her home that could remove a pony with that much force. Knight started to hope that another pony had heard the ruckus and had decided to lend a hoof. Maybe it was the Mare do Well, although Lunar Knight hadn't heard anything about that pony for a while. Knight took a deep breath and charged in. What she saw in her home made her stop.

Standing in the middle of the room was her chest plate, but it was not alone. It seemed to be a full set of armor now. The only thing that marked it as her's was the painted on symbol. It seemed out of place with the rest of the armor. The full set seemed to be darker then her piece. There did not appear to be any markings on the other pieces of the armor. Knight was not sure where it all came from. That is when the suit moved. There was something in the armor and it was attacking the would be thieves.

It was obviously not a pony inside the thing since there appeared to be dark tendrils coming from the gaps in the armor. It was these things that were attacking the thieves. It was tossing them around the room, adding more to the mess. Knight didn't know how to react to the sight. It was something from a dream, or a nightmare. "W-What are you?" She asked the suit of armor, which turned to her. It shot out a tendril at her. Luckily Knight was able to duck in time.

((that was all I could think of. Hopefully this is aloud.))