//------------------------------// // News Flash! // Story: Tales of Another Ponyville // by Paradise Oasis //------------------------------// Great, and I thought this was going to be a slow news day! There I was, sitting at my desk, and going over a stack of papers, when my assistant suddenly came running into my office. "Boss, you're not gonna believe this!" She gasped out, trying to catch her breath. "Oh, you wanted a news story Savannah, well you've got one now!" "Slow down Merriweather. What happened this time?" I ask nonchalantly, reaching for my journal and hoof pen. "Pinkie Pie burn the cookies? Rainbow Dash create a fashion disaster?" As you can tell, I'm used to paltry little stories like those. My name's Savannah Sage; pink body, white mane, ribbon and heart cutie mark- the type of thing you expect from a technicolor pony in a hyper-feminine society such as ours. My line of work is the newspaper business, and I run the Ponyville free press out of the giant building on the edge of town, that looks like a typewriter. We only have Merriweather (my assistant and our weather correspondent, obviously.) and a few breezies on staff, because nothing ever really happens in this town. Yep, you heard that right; wacky and crazy old Ponyville never has anything exciting happen within her city limits. It's been that way ever since I was a filly, and took over this paper from the retiring stallion who was as bored as I am now. I always had a muzzle for news; sniffing out who took who's lunch money on the playground as a foal, and writing expose's for the school newspaper on pony's forgetting to do their homework. That's the problem with a town like Ponyville- everyone here is too nice for any disasters to happen in this town, leaving The Ponyville express as little more than a weekly newsletter. "Princess Wysteria has gone missing!" The excited yellow mare with the purple mane and umbrella cutie mark told me. "The whole town's erupted into chaos, Spike and Pinkie Pie are about to make an announcement at the castle!" "The princess has-?" My eyes go wide, and I look over to our three breezie assistants. "Honeydew Hum, Azalea Moon, Meadow Moon... you three get the presses and the ink ready, we're putting out a special edition today!" "Got it, boss!" The trio of Breezies declare, saluting me in unison. "Merriweather, you and I are heading over to the castle, we gotta get the scoop on our vanished Wysteria!" I race to grab my pink trench coat and fedora covered in flowers and hearts. "Oh, and stop by our houses, and tell your hubby and my hubby that neither of us will be home for supper-they'll just have to stick it in the fridge after they feed the kids." "Great... and he's already upset with me for not spending enough time at home with my family." Merriweather grumbled, rolling her eyes. "Oh well, at least I don't have to listen to him grumble about doing the housework for awhile!" The two of us galloped over towards celebration castle, where a dozen or so mares were already gathered, with Spike trying to calm all of them down. The whole crowd was talking and chattering, not listening to a word the poor flustered dragon was saying as wild gossip flew all over the place. All through the crowd, I head the soft *click, whirrrrr* of a camera shutter, and I knew our dear shutterbug Fluttershy sneaking through the crowd, and snapping every photo she thought looked interesting. (Flutters doesn't directly work for our paper, but is our freelance photographer who provides us with all of our pictures). "Excuse me? May I have your attention please?" Pinkie Pie announced, trotting out of the castle across the drawbridge. "If you'll all just try to quiet down for a minute, I'll try to explain what's going on!" "So what's the scoop, Pinks? I heard Wysteria has flown the coop!" Merriweather and I force our way to the front of the crowd, waving my pen and notebook around in my hooves. "So where did she go? Will she be coming back! My readers want to know!" "We think she may have run away, Savannah. Or was taken against her will." Pinkie announced, eliciting shocked gasps from the crowd. "We found the Twinkle Balloon was missing from the top of the castle, and we think she might have taken it for a flight." "Huh, how come we didn't notice that thing was missing?" Merriweather asked, voicing what I was already thinking. "Reporters are supposed to have a keen eye, we really should've picked up on that detail." "So who's gonna run Ponyville until she's found?" I ask, quickly jotting things down in my notebook with my flexible hooves. "We need a leader in these troubled times, don't we?" "Until our dear Princess Wysteria can be found, her daughter Princess Pinksparkle will be taking over the reigns of government." A little pink filly with a yellow and pink mane stepped out across the drawbridge nervously, staring at the crowd with sad eyes. "Pinkie and I will be her to help guide the little filly, as she runs things in her mother's stead." "Pinksparkle? That poor little filly is so shy, I don't think I've ever seen her away from her Wysteria's hooves when they're outside the castle." Merriweather chimed in sympathetically. "How could she possibly run the whole town on her own, especially while missing and worrying about her mother?" "Not our place to worry about it or question it, Merri." I sigh, secretly holding the same concerns for the poor child, but not vocalizing them. "Our job is to get back and publish this special edition, to reassure the ponies of Ponyville that everything is well in hoof!" Merriweather nodded, and the two of us galloped back towards the paper. But as we passed by Sweetie Bell's gumball house, I could've sworn I saw the strangest sight. I thought I saw a yellow Pegasus with a pink mane fly overhead. She looked very sickly, and had this faraway look in her eyes that was really creepy. I turned my head to say something to Merriweather, but when I looked back, the pony was gone. Oh well, I must be seeing things. Back to the newspaper to get our next edition out!