The next day dawned bright and sunny without a shred of clouds in the achingly blue sky as Sunny walked out to the Marestream with her friends filing out behind her. Excitement hung intoxicatingly in the air, and it was almost enough for Sunny to shrug off the uneasy feeling she was carrying around.
“Everypony, grab your things! We’re going to Zephyr Heights!” Zipp cried from where she hovered by the Marestream, her sunglasses on and her wings spread wide to catch the breeze whisking off of the ocean just beyond the Crystal Brighthouse.
Sparky scampered around underhoof until Misty finally scooped him up and carried him into the Marestream where she started playing with him while everypony else loaded up their bags. The Unity Festival was scheduled to last for three days, but Queen Haven had invited all six of them to come a day early to walk them through the entire festival, schedule, and events, because Sunny was featured in a few of them, being the alicorn defender of pony unity that she was. The festival officially started tomorrow, apparently opening with Sunny giving a speech in front of everypony as an alicorn. But she wasn’t too worried about it. She just hoped she could have her friends up on the stage with her. She could do anything with them by her side.
The Marestream soared through the sky as the six ponies flew to Zephyr Heights, the countryside passing below them in streams of color. The ponies stood in the cockpit on their individual spots, singing along to Pipp’s newest single as they approached the tall mountain peak jutting into the air in the distance. The gleaming golden and white palace that wrapped around the top of the mountain and the city that spread out at the base were all shining in the rising sunlight, but even from a distance Sunny could tell that Zephyr Heights was decked out for the largest party ponykind will ever know. As the Marestream descended over Zephyr Heights, Sunny could make out the streams of glowing lights and earth-pony-grown strings of flowers framing windows and doors and wrapping around railings. Posters advertising the Unity Festival were posted all over the city, and homes and shops were flying improvised flags with a picture of the Unity Crystals on them.
Up at the castle, there were ponies bustling to and fro with strings of decorations in their mouths, or jotting down notes on clipboards and checklists, or rushing about shouting orders to other ponies. Hardly anypony noticed as Sunny and her friends gently landed outside one of the palace doors and slipped inside the castle.
“Oh, my darlings, thank hoofness you’re here!” Queen Haven called across the throne room from where she stood in front of her throne with two other ponies: Phyllis Cloverleaf and Alphabittle, who were helping Haven with the festival. The three leaders had been talking before Sunny and her friends entered the room. Alphabittle and Misty embraced as Haven spread a wing over each of her daughters.
“We were discussing the schedule and all the events we have planned,” Haven explained, leading the group onto the stage erected in front of the three thrones. “Pipp, dear, I know you wanted to start off the music festival, and Izzy, we were wondering if you could lead some of the craft sessions for the foals? And Zipp, there is one dinner - one - that I want you to accompany me to. It’s a formal banquet with some of the most influential ponies in Equestria, but I’ll leave you alone for the rest of the festival, deal? Oh, and of course Sunny will be coming to that, so you won’t be alone-”
“I am?” Sunny blinked at the queen.
“Well of course, you just saved us all by defeating that evil alicorn and returning all of our cutie marks! Not to mention all the other feats you’ve accomplished. And you are-”
“An alicorn, I know.” Sunny rolled her eyes. Her being an alicorn seemed to be a major theme of this festival. She understood how much it meant for a Unity Festival, being the physical symbol of all of ponykind living in harmony, but she wished she didn’t have to be the only alicorn in Equestria.
I didn’t used to be, she thought, her mind wandering back to her friend Flurry Heart.
“So what time is the feast?” she asked, trying to be lighthearted.
“Oh, it’s tomorrow evening after the opening ceremonies and the festival is in full swing,” Haven said, waving her hoof airily. “Afterwards there will be the parade-”
“There’s a parade?” Izzy gasped. “Why did nopony tell me? I think I still have enough time to fashion a parade float…”
“Oh, you don’t have to, Izzy,” Alphabittle assured her, “we’ve already got one set up for the six of you.”
Of course they do, Sunny thought. She was starting to understand what it must have been like for the Guardians of Harmony back in Ancient Equestria after they had successfully saved the world a few times. Everypony wanted to honor them in some way, but at the same time, they were always expecting something from them. Sunny was worried how much further it would go before she cracked under the pressure.
“Now, come on,” Haven said brightly, leading the way out the throne room. “We have so much to show you!”
The three leaders of ponykind lead Sunny and her friends through the castle and outside the grounds, showing them all of the amazing features they had built for the Unity Festival, including the street vendors lining the palace green out front that reminded Sunny of the Maretime Bay craft fair, the wooden stage under the together tree that Misty grew for her Cutie Blossom Bash, and walking them through the scheduled route for the parade through the city below. The dining hall of the palace was filled with tables and benches for ponies who would be hungry during the festival. A maze had been set up below the palace that resembled the journey Sunny and her friends had to take to collect the Unity Crystals - starting in Maretime Bay, then journeying to Zephyr Heights, the mystical forest of Bridlewood, and finally back to the little seaside town of Maretime Bay to bring all of ponykind together.
There was so much to see that Sunny was turning her head constantly, trying to see it all, and she still felt that she was missing most of it. Before she knew it, they were being led back to the palace as Haven was telling them, “Now, you six get a good night’s sleep, you hear? We’ve got a big day tomorrow.”
“Of course, Your Majesty,” Sunny said before stifling a massive yawn. She hadn’t realized how tired she was.
The queen smiled and left to find her own chambers with Alphabittle and Phyllis in tow, Zoom the guard trailing them. Thunder led Sunny and her friends to their rooms.
“Wow,” Misty said as they passed by a window and were allowed one last glimpse of the city as the sun set behind it, silhouetting it in golden light. “It’s all so beautiful!”
“Just wait until you see it tomorrow,” Pipp promised with a squeal. “Oh, it’s going to be magnificent!”
“I can’t wait for Electric Blue to play,” Hitch said excitedly. “Oh, and the Dreamlands!”
“And that craft fair looks so amazing!” Izzy chimed in.
“Come on, ponies!” Pipp said cheerfully. “Let’s all get some sleep so we can kick off the most amazing festival Equestria has ever seen!” She gracefully rose into the air and soared off to her own bedroom, back from when she was a princess in Zephyr Heights. Zipp flew off to her own room, and Sunny, Izzy, Hitch, and Misty were all given the spare bedrooms that they had used before, when visiting Zephyr Heights on previous occasions. Sparky, who had been riding on Hitch’s back all day, shocked into obedience by all the excitement going on, gave a large yawn and blew a small flame of dragon fire that curled into the air before fizzling out.
Watching the flame made Sunny think of her letter, set aflame accidentally by Sparky. She wondered if, among all the other powers Sparky’s dragon fire had, delivering messages was one of them, and if so, where her letter was now.
“See you tomorrow, ponies,” Sunny told her friends before she ducked into her own room and shut the door behind her. Before turning on the lights, she walked over to the window and looked up at the night sky, studying the constellations in the night sky. Most of them were barely visible because of the light pollution of the city below, but she could still make out one bright one: a bright star surrounded by five other ones, all shining with a light that felt almost… magical. Sunny sighed and rested her chin on her hooves.
When she and her friends had managed to defeat the Legion of Doom, King Sombra, and stop the other tribes from going to war with ponies, Sunny had foolishly allowed herself to think that things might be alright now. She tried so hard to convince herself that they had vanquished most of the evil that posed a threat to them that when danger was staring herself in the muzzle, she still didn’t fully acknowledge it. And even then, she was afraid that things would revert back to her days on the run with her friends with every creature at each other’s throats.
But everything was peaceful now. Right?
“It’s going to be okay,” she told herself. “Everything is going to be okay.”
The next day, everything was most certainly not okay.
It started when Sunny, Izzy, Zipp, Pipp, Hitch, and Misty gathered in the throne room after breakfast. Queen Haven, Alphabittle, and Phyllis had not been present, so Pipp suspected that they might be in the throne room. They were obviously not.
“It’s the first day of the Unity Festival,” Pipp said nervously, trying to come up with alternative explanations. “I’m sure she’s just busy overseeing some final preparations or something! And I’m definitely sure that there’s no reason to panic-”
The door burst open, and Zoom and Thunder burst into the room. Thunder was screaming, “Everypony panic!”
“Shut up, Thunder!” Zoom snapped, slapping him with her wing. She skidded to a halt in front of the six ponies while Thunder, who was so panicked that he couldn’t see straight, plowed right into her and knocked them both down. Zoom was the first to recover, snapping back to a rigid posture like it was her natural default and giving her fellow guard a distasteful glance before she turned back to Sunny and her friends.
“What’s going on? What’s happening?” Pipp asked anxiously, her panic spilling into her voice.
“It’s terrible!” Thunder wailed from his place on the floor. He attempted to scramble to his hooves but couldn’t in his tangled-up position. Misty bent down to assist him.
“Thunder! Keep it together!” Zoom hissed out of the corner of her mouth.
Thunder took several big breaths, but Sunny could tell he was still hyperventilating. “We were stationed outside the queen’s room for the night, doing our guard duty,” he said breathlessly. “And we saw nothing suspicious. Nothing! And then when morning came, she never came out! We thought she might be sleeping in, so we thought nothing of it, and then we thought that maybe she left through the window or something, but it’s not that! It’s something much, much worse!”
Zoom rolled her eyes and moaned softly to herself.
“And then we were asking around and looking for her, and we thought maybe she might be with Alphabittle or Phyllis or checking on the festival, but we checked all those places and she wasn’t there, and none of the other guards have seen her this morning, and we didn’t tell anypony because we didn’t want them to raise a panic-”
“And you definitely haven’t done that,” Zoom muttered.
“-and then we came here to tell you because we felt that you should be the first to know-”
“Know what?” Zipp demanded, her blue eyes flashing. She was hovering in the air just in front of her mother’s throne, and both of the guards flinched as if she was in charge now.
“Apologies, Highness,” Zoom whispered, bending into a bow; Thunder copied her. Zipp seemed to realize what she had done, and she flushed, avoiding looking at the guards as she landed on the ramp, pawing at the carpet with her hoof.
“It’s just a lot to process,” Thunder said in a voice that was strangely high-pitched.
“I don’t suppose you’re going to tell us what it is?” Hitch asked.
Zoom stood up once again and straightened, looking each of the six ponies in the eye before she opened her mouth and spoke:
“The queen of Zephyr Heights is missing.”