A/N: Before I go any further, I'd like to thank AIOfanNCRM for introducing me to this format.

Anyway, here's my first collection of oneshots. And yes, they're about the guards. Be warned; there will be OCs in this, and not all the stories will be humorous.

Anyway, let's get going...

1. They just can't get his nose right

Arthur Todd (Artie to his friends) was hunched over his desk, his long nose inches away from the parchment he was using. The smell of ink filled his nostrils. Arthur didn't mind this. It helped draw him into his own world, just as the voices around him jerked him sharply out of it.

"Don't forget about the hair! It was dark, and sort of floppy-"

"Longer than ours, but not really long. Not like a girl's. You getting that, Arthur?"

Arthur nodded, pushing his spectacles further up his nose. He'd got it, alright.

When Arthur was a boy, his parents had urged him to find a more useful pastime. They disapproved of the way he'd sit on the steps, sketchpad in hand, drawing a bird or a blade of grass. Waste of time, they said. He'd never make any money with it. Well, Arthur had the last laugh, because his drawing skills were making him plenty of money now. If there was a poster hanging in the streets, you could be fairly sure he was the artist responsible. He'd illustrated everything; bake sales, festivals, plays... and "wanted" posters, of course. They were his real source of income.

He was at his desk, in a dingy little room overlooking the town square, with a trio of guards pacing about in front of him. There was never just one, and they would always be pacing, impatient to tell him some little detail they'd picked up on, often correcting the other men in the process. It was Arthur's job to see through their bickering and figure out which description was accurate. Once he did, he'd copy it onto the parchment, and soon the whole kingdom would know who the guards were after this time. Sometimes the guy would be caught in less than a week, and Arthur never had to worry about getting his hairline right again. But – and this was far more often – there were also the men who seemed to be constantly stealing, murdering or just irritating the Captain enough to get their faces drawn nearly every week. There was one man whose face Arthur had drawn at least fifty times; so often, in fact, that he wasn't even sure he needed those three men to describe him. But here they were anyway, following procedures.

"He's got a beard," announced one of the guards; a skinny little fellow who didn't look like he was capable of growing any facial hair of his own. "Not a proper one. Just a little one, at the end of his chin..."

The second guard sighed. "It's a goatee, Michael."

"Is that what they call it?"

"Yes. My brother has one." The second guard leant against the wall, clearly bored by the whole thing. "And he's got this huge grin-"

"I can't stand that grin," muttered the third guard. He was by far the eldest of the trio, with a bristly moustache and a stomach that just about fitted into his armour. "Makes it look like he's better than us."

"But he's got it, hasn't he, Errol? That's our job; to tell Arthur here what he looks like."

"Fair enough, Luke." Errol turned his gaze to Arthur. "He's got that grin, and this smug expression; one eyebrow raised, that kind of thing. You must know the one I mean, Arthur. You see it on young men all the time these days, when they think they're better than us older folk..."

"What about his nose?" asked Arthur.

The three soldiers stared at him.

"His nose," Arthur repeated, although he dreaded the answer. "What does that look like?"

There was an awkward silence. After a quick glance at the poster – which, apart from a blank spot where the nose should be, was almost finished – Errol spoke.

"Well, it's sort of like a squashed tomato. Bit like the Captain's nose, except smaller."

"It is not!" said Michael.

"Oh, you were actually paying attention, were you?"

"I was, and it was nothing like that! It was really long and pointed-"

"You're both wrong," said Luke. "It's lumpy. If anything, Arthur, it looks like a sock after you stuff oranges in it."

"Why've you been stuffing oranges in socks?" asked Michael.

But Errol wasn't concerned about what Luke had been doing with oranges. "It is nothing of the sort. Don't listen to them, Arthur; they're just silly little boys."

Luke sniffed. "Silly? I'm a lot smarter than you are!"

"Like hell you are! You can't even get a man's nose right!"

"How dare you! I can describe your nose right now..."

Arthur groaned inwardly. This always happened. No matter how many times he was asked to draw Flynn Rider, no matter how many guards were placed in front of him; the one thing they never agreed on was his nose. It was amazing, really. They could remember his hair, his eyes, the expression on his face... but when it came to his nose, they drew a complete blank. All the time.

He didn't even bother asking again; he knew he'd never get a straight answer. He never did. In fact, Arthur suspected that the business of getting Rider's nose right had turned into a competition for the guards describing him. They all saw it as an excuse to prove they were smarter than their fellow soldiers, so the odds of them coming to an agreement decreased even further. All Arthur could do was copy his original poster – yes, even with the blank spot in it – while they got on with upstaging each other.

"Listen, Arthur, these boys are talking nonsense! It's like a tomato!"

"No, it's not! It's like this-"

Fortunately, Arthur was saved from Michael's demonstration of Rider's nose by a knock at the door.

"Come in!" called Arthur. Please come in, he silently added. Please save me from going through this again...

The visitor obliged, and when they saw him, the three soldiers shut up immediately. They stared at the newcomer warily. Not that Nathan Fisher was someone who could strike fear into the hearts of men. Heck, even Michael could've beaten him in a fight. But if Nathan was here, it meant the Captain had sent him, and none of those men were stupid enough to mess with him.

"The Captain wants you back at the barracks, guys," he told them. "We're going to start this afternoon's training session, and he didn't expect you to be here this long."

"It's not my fault, Nathan," sighed Luke. "It's these other two; they don't know what-"

"Tell it to the Captain, Luke. That's not my problem." Then, to Arthur: "have you got enough details there, Arthur?"

"I could see him in my mind's eye, sir."

"Good." And, with that, Nathan swung around and marched out the door.

"Did you get what I said about the nose?" asked Errol as he and the others followed suit. Arthur nodded quickly. He didn't feel like talking about it anymore.

That nose... that damn nose...

He looked at his finished posters, at that blank gap on each of them. Nathan Fisher would be back in the evening, and he'd want these posters ready by then. Well, his superior would. And if they weren't, Arthur could kiss this job goodbye, and the nice salary that came with it.

So, picking up his pen again, Arthur did what he always did when this problem arose.

He placed the first poster in front of him. In seconds, the blank gap was replaced with a nose which looked suitably like a squashed tomato. He put it to one side and grabbed another one, this time making the nose look roughly the way he imagined a sock full of oranges to look. A third poster. A different nose.

After all, one of these descriptions had to be accurate.