As the Manesquerade Ball was wrapping up, there were less invited guests in the ballroom and more janitorial and kitchen staff who were emptying tables and sweeping floors.
Over by the punch bowl, Zipp, Pipp, and their friends were polishing off the rest of the beverage before the staff rolled that cart back to the kitchens. Pipp glanced over at the throne, where her mom was lounging in the chair, watching the last of the guests leave as she continually glanced at her phone.
"Mom, everything alright?" Pipp asked, stepping up to the throne. "Where's Alphabittle? Figured he'd be one of the last to leave."
"So did I, dear," Haven replied, as she tucked her phone back under her wing. "But he was one of the first to leave, just as all of you were performing your unity dance. He saw something that made him seriously ill."
"What did he see?" Pipp asked.
"No idea, but whatever it was, he said it was 'impossible.' He left after that, letting me know what was going on when he could make sure he wasn't going crazy. I don't know why I'm already worrying; he's probably not even halfway back to Bridlewood yet," Haven said.
Pipp turned back to her friends who had finished off the punch, and Zipp came up with Misty.
"Mom, I'd like to introduce Misty, our newest friend," the white pegasus told her mom.
Misty took a nervous step forward and gave a bow.
"Thank you for letting me come to this event on such short notice. I had a terrific time, Your Majesty," Misty greeted.
"It's great to meet another one of my daughters' friends, and I'm glad you had such a good time, dear," Haven replied with a tired smile, getting up. "Alright, enough worrying and stressing for one night. He'll get back to me as soon as he can, I'm sure."
"I'm sure everything's fine, mom. He probably thought he saw something that wasn't really there," Zipp reassured her.
After making a quick stop at a snack stand and picking up a few protein bars and a couple energy drinks, Alphabittle made the trip between Zephyr Heights and Bridlewood in record time. He arrived back at the unicorn forest almost completely exhausted, but he refused to sleep yet. He had to know.
He slid the key into his front door, stepped inside, wiped his hooves off on the mat, and immediately went into his bedroom, to his closet, and began pulling boxes out, shoving them out of the way as he made his way back to the bottom boxes in the very back of the storage area. Coming to the very bottom box, he lifted the flaps back, and began pulling out books and papers. About halfway down, he came to what he was looking for, a dusty old photo album, which he carefully pulled out. Blowing as much of the dust off with a long exhale as he could, he set it down on top of the open box, and opened the cover, quickly going through the old photos.
The album wasn't that large, it was one of the last he had been putting together twenty years ago. He came to the last page, and stared down at one of the photos near the bottom of the page.
It was a photo of Misty, in her playpen. He remembered taking this photo, about two months before she vanished. Even though the photo was two decades old, it had spent almost its entire life in the confines of this photo album, so he was certain the colors were still accurate.
Taking a deep breath, he picked up the album and took it over to his nightstand, placing it under the lamp and pulling his phone out and going to the PonyGram app. Looking up Pipp Petals' feed was all too easy, as it was one of the suggested ones on the front page, and he immediately began scrolling down her feed, hoping that she was punctual as she always was with her posts.
Just like had happened at the Ball, he scrolled to the third image down, and his heart skipped a beat as he stared down at the photo.
PippOfficial
Fantastic group selfie from our new pal @MBrightdawn! Amazing time dancing with you all!
Alphabittle's gaze went from his phone screen to the photo in the album, each time the feeling of his heart being squeezed tightened slightly.
He knew he was not going to be able to do this on his own. He had to be absolutely sure that he wasn't seeing things. He got up, closed the photo album, saved the picture from Pipp's PonyGram, and headed out into the middle of the Bridlewood night.
Oak Branch was pulled from his deep sleep by a dull pounding from the other side of his bedroom door.
"Oak? Oak, you in there?" he heard the muffled, panicked voice of his former cook.
Flipping his blanket off of himself, he rolled out of bed, and half-asleep, pulled his bedroom door open, and went over to his front door, and unlocked it. Turning on his porch light and opening the front door, he laid eyes on Alphabittle.
"Alph, do you have any idea what time it is?" Oak asked, then took a moment to see just how disheveled the unicorn looked. "You look like you've seen a troggle."
"Oak, I need someone to tell me I'm not seeing things," Alphabittle explained.
The concern the elder unicorn heard in his friend's voice was absolutely genuine, so he stepped aside and let him inside.
"Let me grab my glasses and get a cup of coffee," Oak said, as he went to back to his bedroom, then over to the kitchen as Alphabittle made himself as comfortable as he could on the couch, which wasn't very at the moment.
Five minutes later, Oak came over to the couch and sat down next to Alphabittle, levitating two cups of coffee with his horn.
"Alright, I don't know how good of an idea this is, because you look like you seriously need sleep," Oak said, passing one of the cups over to his friend. "So what do we have here?"
Making sure the lighting was adequate, Alphabittle opened the photo album to the last page, and pointed to the last photo of his long lost daughter.
"That is the last picture I have of her; about eight weeks before she vanished," Alphabittle explained, as Oak leaned in to take in the details.
Alphabittle turned on his phone screen, went to the gallery, and pulled up the picture he saved from Pipp's PonyGram.
"This was taken eight hours ago in Zephyr Heights," Alphabittle said, setting the brightess to full and set it down on the album next to the photo in question, and watched Oak's face carefully.
Sure enough, the elder's mouth dropped open slightly as he did a double, then triple, then quadruple take of the two pictures.
"Sweet jinxies, Alphabittle..."