“SUNNY!!!”
“Shh, Flurry, it’s okay!” She felt hooves gently shaking her, heard the wobble of concern in Izzy’s voice. “Please wake up!”
Her eyes snapped open and she lay there, breathing heavily, as the ponies around her stepped back, still looking at her with concern clearly etched on their faces. Flurry rested her hooves on the ground and pushed herself into a sitting position, looking around, heart still racing. “Wha-what happened? Is something wrong?”
“Nothing’s wrong,” Zipp said slowly in a tone that clearly suggested otherwise. “Just… you.”
“It was like you were having a nightmare,” Izzy told her, offering her a hoof and helping her stand up. The sky was still dark, her friends’ faces lit by the dying embers of the campfire.
“I… I was.” Flurry swallowed, remembering his laugh, feeling the dread seep into her bones, that awful, awful feeling- “It was… really awful. I’d rather not talk about it now. But I… I saw Sunny.” There was a collective gasp from the other five ponies, and she started talking before they could clamber her with questions. “Only for a second. I was fighting a very… very powerful pony, and as he overpowered me, I turned, and Sunny was standing, alone, and I called out to her, I asked her to help me, and she looked at me, and then-” Flurry stopped, shaking her head. “But I… I think it was her. I think it was the real Sunny. I’m not sure how, but I think we were… communicating somehow.”
Strangely, it was Sprout who seemed to really believe her, at first. He caught her eye and nodded, confirming this, his green eyes sparkling with hope.
“You saw Sunny in a dream?” Hitch asked incredulously. “That… that makes no sense.” He put his hoof to his head and tried to wrap his mind around what Flurry was saying, and what this would mean for them. “Can you, like, communicate or something?”
Flurry frowned. “Maaaybe?” She shrugged. “I honestly don’t know. I think she could hear and understand me, but if we could actually talk…”
Izzy gasped. “We could ask her where she is!” the unicorn declared, giving a little bounce and a huge grin. “That’ll make things so much easier than just wandering around Equestria and hoping we bump into her.”
Zipp gently put her hoof on Izzy’s shoulder and said, “Yeah… I don’t think it’s going to work like that.”
The unicorn deflated. “Why not?” she pouted.
“Just think about it,” Pipp told her, “would they really let Sunny know exactly where she’s being held captive on the off chance that she escapes or finds a way to communicate with the outside world? My guess is she could tell us what the inside looks like… but not anything about the outside or its surroundings.”
“But we could still give messages, right?” Izzy said, looking desperate. “Tell her that everything’s going to be fine, and that we’re looking for her?”
Flurry shook her head sadly. “Tirek, Chrysalis, and Cozy Glow can see inside her head, read her thoughts. If they knew that she could talk to us through dreams, they would probably take control of her mind and force her to tell them everything. I’m sorry, Izzy, but it’s not safe. There’s nothing we can do.”
“What if she figured out how to resist it?” Izzy’s purple eyes were a little wet, and she blinked furiously to keep the tears from forming. “There - there has to be a way. Right?”
Everypony avoided her gaze, and the small flame of hope Izzy had been hanging onto suddenly vanished as her eyes welled up with tears. The unicorn let out a sob, turned, and dashed off before anypony could see her crying.
“Izzy!” Hitch called after her, looking at the others with concern in his eyes. “I’ll talk to her,” he assured them, running after Izzy.
Flurry watched them run off and wilted, feeling that this was her fault. She shouldn’t have mentioned it… giving her friends false hope was the last thing she wanted to do. She turned to the other ponies, saying, “Guys, I-”
“Stop.” Zipp held up her hoof. “None of this is your fault. You can’t help if Sunny decides to randomly drop into your dream, and not telling us would probably make you go insane.”
“We don’t blame you,” Pipp assured her.
“What if Izzy’s right?” Sprout spoke up, lifting his gaze from the ground. “What if there is a way to communicate with Sunny?” Flurry opened her mouth, and he hurried on. “Trust me, I’ve known Sunny longer than anypony, other than Hitch. If there’s anypony that can figure out how to resist a super evil mind control spell, it’s her.”
Zipp huffed, but it wasn’t at Sprout. “I’m tired of sitting here and doing nothing,” she said, sitting on the ground, her wings hanging at her sides. “I want to actually do something - I want to find Sunny and free her and get my mom back.” She wrapped her wings around her and blinked away the tears that had formed at the mention of her mother. Pipp put her hoof on her sister’s shoulder and gave her a little squeeze.
Flurry rubbed her eyes and glanced at the sky. “It’s the middle of the night. Let’s try and get some more sleep, and we’ll talk about this more in the morning.” She shrugged. “Who knows? Maybe I’ll see Sunny again.”
The ponies nodded and trotted off to their respective spots, curling up on the ground in the dying light of the fire. Flurry sighed as she laid her head down and closed her eyes.
“I wish you were here,” she whispered, though she wasn’t quite sure who she was saying it to. Her mom? Her aunt? Sunny? She missed them all, and after all this time, the thought that she might never see some of them - or any of them - ever again, broke her heart.
“Izzy?”
The unicorn sniffed and turned her head to see Hitch carefully approaching. “Oh. Hi, Hitch.” She dragged her hoof across her muzzle and sighed as a cold night breeze ruffled her mane and cooled her tear-stained face. “What’re you doing?”
“I came to see if you were okay,” the stallion said, shrugging modestly as he sat down beside her. He paused, then said, “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine,” she said in an unconvincing tone, trying to keep her voice from wavering.
“You don’t look fine,” he insisted, pushing back a lock of hair that had fallen in front of her face. “I know the stress of everything has been getting to you, but we have to have faith that things are going to get better. We’ll get her back, trust me.” He flashed her a grin. “And maybe we won’t even need to. She’ll probably rescue herself, come find us, and tell us that there was no reason to worry about her.”
“Heh. Wouldn’t that be nice,” Izzy muttered, her shoulders slumping. “I wish it were that easy.” She took a deep breath to try and calm herself down. “But one thing I’ve learned is that nothing in life ever comes easy.”
“That’s true,” Hitch admitted. “But we can still hope for the best, can’t we? I mean, we’re all friends here, right?”
“Friends,” she whispered, her hoof gravitating to her mane. She reached up to where, just under her crystal headband, a piece of paper was kept, and pulled it out, unfolding it and laying it on the ground in front of her. Even though it was dark, Hitch knew what it said. It was the letter that Sunny had sent out with her father when she was just a foal: Dear unicorns and pegasi, you have friends in Maretime Bay. Come visit us!
Just looking at it reminded Hitch of Sunny, and it gave him hope that, if something as small as this foal’s drawing could start a chain of events that led to magic returning, they could get his friend back.
Izzy sighed, and, as if reading his mind, said, “It’s crazy that this is what really started everything - me coming to Maretime Bay, Sunny finding out that unicorns had no magic, going on a quest to Zephyr Heights and finding out that they had no magic either, going on a quest with all of you guys, that crazy fight back in Maretime Bay, and then magic returning… which let to all of this.” She looked behind her, where you could just barely see the dim glow of the campfire from here.
“That’s… actually what I was thinking,” Hitch confessed. He fell silent, then plucked up the courage to ask, “Can unicorns really-”
“Read minds?” Izzy finished. The two looked at each other and burst out laughing. “No, we can’t do that,” Izzy finally said, wiping tears from her eyes. “I’ve always just been really good at guessing what other ponies are thinking or going to say or what they’re feeling because I can see their sparkles - and also because I usually have to imagine the other side of every conversation I have. Most unicorns weren’t up for talking. Except for Alphabittle, and all he wants to talk about is winning.” She rolled her eyes and grinned fondly at the memory of the gray unicorn.
“That must have been hard.”
She nodded. “It was. It was like I was the only one feeling in a world of ponies who couldn’t - or wouldn’t - feel anything.”
“I can’t believe that nopony saw how awesome you are,” Hitch said. “I mean, you’re… you.”
Izzy giggled. “Since it’s coming from you, I’m going to assume that’s a compliment,” she said. “Coming from another unicorn… it’s probably gonna be an insult.” She lowered her eyes to the paper in front of her. “But knowing that I had friends somewhere… it just gave me hope that things would get better.”
She sat bolt upright, her eyes widening with excitement as a new idea struck her. “Maybe… maybe we can give that hope to somepony else. Somepony who needs it.”
Sunny was standing directly in front of him, her eyes widened with anticipation and worry.
Sprout yelped and leaped back, same as her. They stopped and studied each other, and it finally dawned on Sprout, in his dazed state, that Sunny was standing right in front of him.
“Sunny?” he tried, daring to hope.
The mare gasped and covered her mouth with her hooves. “Oh my stars, it worked!” she squealed. “Sprout! Hi!” She enthusiastically waved her hoof at him at a mile a minute, so fast it was practically a blur.
He blinked uncertainly. “Um… hi?” He took a step forward and studied Sunny’s grin (which he swore, over and over again, was the real power source behind the sun). “Are you… real?”
She laughed, and oh, that sound, that joyous sound, how he had missed hearing it. Just that alone made all his fears and worries disappear, and he now knew, without a doubt, that this was the real Sunny - only she could laugh like that, could smile like that, could simply exist the way she did. Nopony would ever be able to replicate Sunny’s… Sunnyness.
“Of course I’m real,” she said, looking very proud for being so, “and you’re real, too! At least, I think. Hm. Are you real?”
“Um.” He sat back on his haunches and poked one of his arms with his hoof. “I think so?”
“Oh, wonderful,” Sunny grinned even wider, “that means it worked! I can actually talk to you guys! Do you have any idea how amazing this is?”
“I think so,” he said, feeling his own face shift into a grin that was probably very goofy, though he couldn’t seem to do anything about it. “I mean… I’m the one you’re talking to.” He was struck by a sudden thought. “Does this mean we can permanently talk to you? Can you tell us where you are? Sunny, we’re co-”
She put her hoof to his mouth to silence him, her eyes suddenly sad, her grin fading. “I wish I could talk,” she whispered, sounding close to tears - clearly, this wasn’t good news. “But these villains - the Legion of Doom - they can read my mind, see my thoughts and memories. If they knew I was talking to you - or if they heard anything you told me - it would be game over, Sprout. They’d come and do something awful to you, and I - I can’t let them do that.” She stepped back and looked into his eyes. “I need you to tell them that - we can’t communicate telepathically in any way, and written messages would be too hard to conceal. I’m sorry, but unless I find a way around it, there’s no way to communicate with you guys. Trust me when I say that I’m trying as hard as I can.”
“But you can resist, can’t you?” he said desperately, his faint hope crumbling away. “You can - you can fight it, right?”
“I thought I had it,” she said. “I thought I could put up walls and barriers and be able to keep them at bay or hide my thoughts, but - Cozy Glow. She’s a tad bit too smart for my liking, and… she’s using things I can’t resist to get in - thoughts and feelings of friendship and trust and hope. If I block those things out… I don’t think I’ll be able to make it, mind link or not.” She sighed and turned away from him. “Besides, every time I do this… it makes the mind link open and easier to access. There’s no way to do it… yet.” She looked back at him, a new fire in her eyes that lifted his spirits as well as hers. “I’m going to find a way - I’m going to get back to you guys."