Sunny felt her throat go dry, and she looked at her other friends, all of whom were at a loss for words. Zipp still had a fire in her eyes and didn’t meet Misty’s gaze. Pipp was opening and closing her mouth, trying to find the right words. Izzy was looking down at her hooves, her expression ashamed. Hitch’s face was red, and he looked embarrassed. Even worse, all of them kept stealing glances at Sunny, like she was supposed to be the one who knew what to do.
“Dear Sunny,” Misty read from the scroll, “I don’t know if you’ve been getting my letters, but this one is extra important. Last night, the queen of the hippogriffs was taken, along with my father. They were swimming out to the farthest reef because Her Majesty wanted some space, but they vanished the next morning. We’ve been searching the entire sea for them, but so far, no sign. And I’ve been having that feeling again - the one that says that something’s off. I don’t know what it could be this time, but I really need your help. Please come to Mount Aris so that we can figure this out. I’ve talked to our other friends, and they all report similar things happening in their kingdoms, and we’re going to try and join forces to solve this mystery. You haven’t responded to any of the letters I’ve sent you, but I hope that you please see this one and decide to come help us. Your friend, Kailani.” Misty rolled the scroll up again and looked around at all of her friends. “I thought we were done keeping secrets,” she said, her voice breaking with emotion. “After Opaline, I thought…”
“It isn’t you, Misty,” Sunny said, stepping toward her friend and reaching out. “It’s just… well… I’m not really sure. We just… after everything that happened, I guess it never… came up,” she finished lamely.
Misty turned her gaze to the rest of the letters in the center of the room. “I guess those are all more letters from your secret friend?”
“Some of them,” Sunny said with a sigh. “Others are from… other old friends.”
Misty shook her head and took a step back. Her horn blinked out, and the scroll she had been carrying dropped to the floor. “I can’t believe you,” she said, her voice hurt. “All along I thought you could actually trust me because we were friends…”
“No, Misty, you’re right,” Sunny said miserably. “We should have told you about this as soon as we got the chance. We should have known that it would catch up to us.” Sunny picked up the letter Misty had dropped and dropped it on to the top of the pile. “You deserve to know the whole story,” she said.
The blue unicorn nodded cautiously and closed the door behind her. She looked around the room and saw that all of her friends were wearing matching expressions of shame, and she knew that her friends hadn’t meant to exclude her at all. But it still hurt.
Sunny gave a consigned sigh. “I guess it all started when I found a letter from my dad…”
By the time the story had finished, the lights outside had dimmed as most of Zephyr Heights went to bed and the moon rose above the mountaintop, a thin sliver in the night sky. Misty had quite forgotten her anger with her friends at their keeping secrets from her as the whole tale came out, and her eyes had been frozen, permanently wide, as she stared at Sunny once she had stopped talking.
“We’re really sorry, Misty,” Izzy said sorrowfully. “We really didn’t mean to…” Her voice trailed off.
Misty blinked and shook her head as if to clear her mind. “So, let me get this straight,” she said. “You ponies went on a cross-country journey to lands beyond Equestria to stop an impending war, three supervillains that make Opaline almost look tame, and stop all of ponykind - well, every kind, actually - from making history repeat itself like when Twilight Sparkle fell?”
“Well… yeah. I guess-”
“And there are more dragons and other creatures like hippogriffs and griffons and changelings and… and… and Crystal ponies?”
“Also kirin, yaks, buffalo, and probably some others-”
“And then Sunny beat their mind control and turned it against them and used her awesome powers to defeat them and save Equestria?” Misty’s eyes were shining, and she looked like she she had just been given a lifetime supply of ponycorn.
“It didn’t sound that great at the moment,” Sunny said, thinking back to the hopelessness that she had lived with every day as a captive in the Legion of Doom’s lair.
“Wow,” Misty said, her voice faint with awe. “That is so incredible! How could that be bad? Why would you want to run from it?”
“Well…” Sunny looked at her other friends before she turned back to Misty. No more secrets, she told herself. No more lies. She was going to come clean and tell Misty everything that had happened and everything they were worried about. She took a deep breath and said, “Well, you see, one of the villains - Chrysalis - wasn’t defeated for good. She’s still out there, as is Termite, and he hates us. We didn’t exactly make a lot of friends on that trip. And…” She glanced at the pile of letters. “And my friends weren’t answering my letters. I thought - well, I guess I worried - it might be because they had moved on. I never found out what happened to them after they left to go back to their kingdoms and try to convince the creatures there of the truth.”
“Oh.” Misty followed Sunny’s gaze to the pile of letters, and soon everypony was staring at them. “Well, I guess we might find some answers in there.”
“No,” Zipp said, rubbing at her eyes furiously, as if she was angry at herself for getting tired when Queen Haven was still missing. “We already have one mystery here, and we need to solve that before we get involved in any more crazy world-saving quests.”
“But didn’t Kailani’s letter say that the hippogriff queen had disappeared, too?” Hitch said, pointing to the letter on the top of the pile that was already opened. “Maybe we’ll find some clues in these letters that could help us here.”
Sunny was already itching to get her hooves on those letters. She had wondered if her letters were getting through, but theirs weren’t to her - but apparently neither side had been getting any word. She was going to go through those letters whether her friends wanted to help or not - she had to find out what had been happening to her friends while they were apart.
Zipp sighed and gave a consigned nod, all the fight seeming to go out of her. Her wings drooped almost to the ground, and her exhaustion finally won out as she slumped on the couch in the corner. Pipp flew over to curl up next to her sister, and Zipp rested her head on Pipp’s shoulder as Sunny eagerly grabbed an armful of letters, sat on the floor, and instantly started unrolling them. But before she could read them all, Hitch held up a hoof to stop her.
“Hold it,” he said, cautiously taking the letters back. “We should do this properly - and in order. These letters have dates on them - we should read them in the order that they were sent.”
And so, though Sunny grumbled and was impatient, the ponies stacked all the letters in the order by the date they were sent before Sunny could finally start reading what her friends had sent her.
Dear Sunny, said Hugo’s neat, yet hasty, scribble, I just got back to Griffonstone last night with the zeppelin after bringing everyone back home. Things haven’t changed much here - it’s the same old, same old. But at least they don’t seem like they’re going to war anytime soon. I’m not entirely sure yet, but I think that they realized that there wouldn’t be much point in a war. I think they’re too lazy to try. Whatever the cause, Equestria should be safe. Of course, the changelings aren’t going to fight anymore, and Kailani was sure that she could convince the hippogriffs. Ash and Little Braveheart managed to set the buffalo straight, and Imara fixed the dragon situation (by transforming into a larger, scarier dragon). The kirin weren’t involved much, and Brooks could easily calm them down. Lukas found similar results with the buffalo. So everyone has calmed down, and Flurry Heart was writing to me to tell me about the mysterious disappearance of the Windigos up north. I suspect that this is why.
Please write back to tell me about how things are going in Equestria! I know it’s only been a week, but I already miss you all so much. -Hugo.
Sunny swallowed a lump in her throat, set the letter down, and picked up the next one. This one was from Flurry Heart…
Dear Sunny, it said, it’s really lonely up here. Of course, I have Midnight here with me, but I miss being with all of you. It reminded me of how my aunt must have felt, with all of her friends.
Hugo said that he sent you a letter a couple of weeks ago and that he hadn’t heard anything back from you. He’s really worried, and I have to admit that I am, too. I can’t help but wonder if something might be messing with magic right about now. The Windigos are gone, so there could be some shockwaves that are affecting certain magical aspects. I hope that is all, and that you get this letter alright. Maybe you’re just really busy and haven’t had a chance to reply yet. I’m sure you are…
Not much has happened. The Crystal Empire is so empty, it makes me sad… I can’t help but wonder if I should let it go. It used to be so big and busy and beautiful, but now it’s not. I thought I could bring it back, but I guess I was wrong. I wish I could see you all again. I hope you get this letter and write back. Love from Flurry Heart.
The next letter was written by Imara:
Sunny, Hugo told us that he sent you a letter three weeks ago and hasn’t heard back from you at all. He’s kind of freaking out. I knew that we should have written to you as soon as we got back, but Hugo was all like, “No, I’ll write a letter for all of you, it’ll be easier, blah blah blah.” Blergh. Anyway, I totally would have delivered this letter to you myself, because then I can make sure you get it, but Queen Monarch is making me stay by her side every minute of the day to get the kingdom back on track and repair all the damage that Termite did. Auntie Cercus won’t leave me alone. She thinks this is the best thing that’s ever happened to me. I, personally, disagree.
Either way, we’re investigating what might be going wrong with magic that would make it so that letters aren’t getting through - if that’s what’s happening. We’ve tried a bunch of different magic spells, and Ash even suggested using dragon fire - apparently some dragons can send messages through each other, if you can believe it. But I don’t think anything has worked. I hope we hear back from you soon, but don’t worry - we’re going to figure this out. Please write back. Imara.
Sunny read each of the letters through once, and then she went back and read them through again, trying to form a clear picture of what had been happening to her friends while she was battling Opaline.
From what she could tell, her friends had managed to deal with the crisis of other creatures going to war with Equestria. They had exposed the Legion of Doom’s lies and convinced them of the truth. Midnight had unlocked a kind of earth pony magic, same as all the earth ponies in Equestria. The Windigos were really gone, and no one had seen any sign of Chrysalis or Termite. Other than the letters going unanswered, things had been pretty calm in the other kingdoms until a week ago, when the first creatures started going missing. At first, it was just leaders - the prince of the yaks, the buffalo chief, the changeling queen, the hippogriff queen and her general, the Dragon Lord, the chief of the kirin village, and any other creatures that assumed their roles. Creatures were in a bit of a panic, especially since other, ordinary citizens of their kingdoms started disappearing as well.
The most recent letter, which had only been sent earlier that day, was from Midnight, and it said only:
Sunny, we finally got all your letters, and we figured something out. We’re coming to you now. We’re going to solve this together.
When Sunny finally looked up, her eyes wet with tears, after reading all of the letters, she saw that her friends had all fallen asleep in various positions around the room. Sparky was snoozing on a pillow, and Misty and Hitch had both collapsed on the floor close to him. Izzy was snoring away in Sunny’s bed, and Pipp was curled up on the bench. Sunny blinked and rubbed at her tired eyes before she realized that one pony wasn’t there-
“Zipp?” she whispered, but received no response. Sunny quietly got to her hooves, careful to not make too much noise and disturb her friends as she pushed open the door and poked her head out into the hallway.
Thunder was still standing sentry duty outside the door, but he had fallen asleep on his hooves, his head drooping as he snored lightly. Zoom was nowhere to be seen; maybe she had followed Zipp to wherever she was.
Or maybe Zipp had disappeared as well, and Zoom was searching for her. Maybe it was already too late.