The better part of a week later, three fillies seated at a Hayburger table sighed in unison. Twilight Sparkle, sitting across from them, smiled adoringly as she methodically picked at her hayfries. “So… I take it the search isn’t going very well?”
“You can say that again,” Sweetie Belle said morosely, sipping at her milkshake.
Scootaloo hadn’t touched hers since it arrived at the table. “We must have talked to every mare in Ponyville, and none of them have any clue who writes the stupid column,” she said, tapping the table absently.
Applebloom looked up at Twilight with a small pout. “Are you sure she lives in Ponyville?”
Twilight grimaced and looked back at her apologetically before responding. “No, Applebloom, I guess I’m not. I could have been wrong. But don’t forget Pinkie Pie; you said she couldn’t tell you because of a Pinkie Pie Promise. That should tell you something, at least. Pinkie knows who she is, even if she can’t tell you.”
“That still doesn’t help us find her,” said Scootaloo, still glaring at the table over crossed hooves.
“No, but there’s still something you haven’t tried,” Twilight consoled. “I tried telling you back when I first showed you the article. Why don’t you write Aurea Lillium a letter?”
That caused the fillies to rub their chins in thought; somehow, the idea hadn’t crossed their minds, but now that it had, it was quickly overtaking all their other thoughts.
“Hmm…” Applebloom wondered out loud, “She must get a lot of mail… that’s kinda her thing.”
Sweetie Belle seemed to be riding the same train of thought. “And all those letters have to get to her somehow… but we already asked all the mailponies. Ditzy Doo thought Aurea Lillium was a fancy name for the ‘Eastern Lights.’”
“It doesn’t matter if they know what the letters are for or not,” Scootaloo pointed out. “If Aurea really lives in Ponyville, then someone has to deliver her mail!”
Sweetie Belle had another rejoinder; “But no one knows what her address is to send her letters. So where do they go?”
“It’s obvious, ain’t it?” Applebloom replied. “All the letters must go to the newspaper! Ah bet that Ink Blot guy we talked to sends them all to her place. Don’tcha remember? He said he couldn’t send us to talk with her, but he didn’t say he didn’t know where she lived!”
“That’s it!” Sweetie Belle exclaimed. “If we send a letter for Aurea to the newspaper, we can follow it to find out where it goes!”
Twilight looked back and forth between the Crusaders in surprise; that wasn’t what she meant when she gave her suggestion.
Scootaloo groaned and rolled her eyes. “Ugh! Do you guys have any idea how long it takes to deliver a letter? Sometimes I have to wait two weeks to hear from my pen-pony, and he only lives in Cloudsdale. And you want to follow Ditzy Doo as she delivers this letter twice?”
Twilight had no words. She decided to just sat back and see where this led.
Applebloom hmmed. “Well, we already know it’s going to the paper. Why don’t we wait there for someone to deliver it?”
She jumped back as Scootaloo suddenly leaned in close to her face. “Two. Weeks!”
Sweetie Belle had an idea. “Well, what if we skip that part and take the letter to the paper ourselves? I bet they get letters for Aurea Lillium every day. We can drop off the letter there, then wait for it to be picked up. Then we can just follow it from there.”
Scootaloo and Applebloom looked at each other. “Well,” Scootaloo began, “I guess it’s not so much waiting. We can find out when the mailpony is headed that way and get there right before they do.”
“Sounds like a plan!” Applebloom declared. “Now let’s go write that letter!”
With that, all three Crusaders hopped down from their bench, and before Twilight could so much as blink, they were gone. She sat in silence for a moment, then burst into giggles when she realized she was trying to measure the reaction time of her blinks. After she calmed back down she paused, then made a mental note to continue the measurements at home with the proper equipment. “Now I have to know…”
A little less than two hours later, the Cutie Mark Crusaders were back outside the print office of the Ponyville Express with a letter in a bright orange envelope (to make it easy to keep track of).
“Alright,” Scootaloo whispered dramatically, “Let’s go over the plan.”
“What plan?” Applebloom asked, confused. “We just walk in, give somepony the letter, and wait out here. And why are you whispering?”
Scootaloo shushed her. “We don’t want them catching on to us!”
“Oh, for pony’s sake!” Sweetie Belle exclaimed, snatching away the envelope from Applebloom and marching between them to the door. Scootaloo and Applebloom hurried to follow her inside.
Peg the Receptionist was at the front desk again. “Welcome to the Ponyville Express,” she began without looking up. “What can I… oh, it’s you three again. What do you want this time?”
“We want to send this letter in for Aurea Lillium,” said Sweetie Belle, setting the letter up on the desk.
“Huh?” Peg asked in confusion, blinking at the painfully orange envelope. “You want us to send a letter for you? I got news for you, kid, 'cause we’re a newspaper, not a post office. Get it? I've got news, because... Oh, hello, sir. What can I do for you today?”
The Crusaders followed Peg’s eyes to an Earth Pony stallion in a snappy business suit, who was suddenly standing behind them.
“Yes, hey, hello!” he said animatedly. His distinctive, rapid speaking style earned him strange looks from the three fillies below him. “M’name’s Pin Stripe, from Glow News Syndicate in Manehatten, that’s right. I simply must, y’hear me, must talk to the brilliant quill behind Aurea Lillium! We have ay once-in-a-lifetime offer for this little strip, and we will see it printed across Equestria, mark my words!” The Crusaders exchanged looks of happy surprise.
Peg blinked, giving Pin Stripe an odd look of her own. “I’m sorry sir, but Lillium is an independent freelance article.” She spared a sidelong glance for the fillies still in front of her desk. “I don’t have any contact information for the author. If you want, I can set up an appointment with Ink Blot, who’s in charge of our Lifestyle section and handles the column.”
“Y’know, I completely understand, don’t you worry. But I really must talk to this pony in person.”
Peg nodded and pressed her button again. Buzzz. “Mr. Ink Blot?”
There was a definite pause before his answer came, and when it did, Ink Blot sounded amused. “Yes, Ms. Percolator Peggy?”
The fillies snorted. Percolator Peggy shot them a murderous glare. “There’s a Mr. Pin Stripe here from Glow News to talk to you about Aurea Lillium.”
This time the pause didn’t last long at all. “Well send him right up!”
“Will do, sir.” Peggy turned back to Pin Stripe. “Mr. Blot will see you now.”
“Thank you, and salutations to you, good madame.” Pin Stripe said, striding smoothly past the desk toward the stairs. All three of the Crusaders had the same thought as he left, that he sounded like an old radio host.
“Do you girls still need something?” Peg’s voice interrupted their thoughts.
They engaged in a staring contest with her for a moment, until Sweetie Belle broke the silence, with a smile fit for tallying a bountiful candy harvest after Nightmare Night. “Percolator Peggy?”
“It’s Perky Peg, or you can turn around and get outta my lobby right now,” Perky Peg responded with a deadpan look that promised no patience as far as her name was involved.
“Nah, that’s okay,” said Scootaloo, sweeping the orange envelope off the desk and putting it into her saddlebag. “We’re leaving.”
Peggy glared at them as they left, giggling the whole way. She narrowed her eyes as she distinctly heard one of them say, “Perky Peg? That’s even worse!”
“Whoah!” three fillies said in unison as their scooter-wagon caravan crested a large hill west of Ponyville, revealing a low-altitude cloud cottage in a small, isolated valley.
“I had no idea this was here!” Scootaloo said. “I thought Rainbow Dash had the only cloud house in Ponyville! I want one!”
She shared an excited look with Applebloom. “Mah sister and I take Winona for walks around here sometimes, but ah never knew there was anything behind this hill!”
“Get down!” Sweetie Belle hissed at them, hopping out of the wagon and crouching low to the ground. “I see him!”
Applebloom and Scootaloo quickly dropped down next to her. “I almost forgot we were following this guy,” Scootaloo remarked. Though she would later relate the incident as an awesome high-speed chase through Ponyville and the surrounding countryside, getting here had actually been more a matter of following Pin Stripe’s taxi at a safe distance and trying to look casual. When they left the town, Scootaloo was forced to rely on Applebloom’s knowledge of the area, and take alternate routes around the hills to avoid being spotted. At one of the larger hills that met the main road Pin Stripe was taking, they had watched him leave the taxi behind and start climbing the hill on foot. They decided to take a guess, and picked another hill, the one they were now on top of, to get to wherever he was going. It looked like they picked right.
Pin Stripe was standing next to a small pond, amidst what looked like a simple garden, nearly underneath the front porch of the cottage. He looked up and tilted his head at the house for a moment. Must be wondering how to get up there, Scootaloo thought.
Then he started yelling at the top of his lungs.
“Hello! Aurea Lillium! I’m here to talk to you!”
He kept up his shouting until a very white pegasus mare in a cozy-looking dusky blue robe and matching slippers appeared suddenly on the edge of the porch, looking down at Pin Stripe with eyes of fury.
“That’s her! That must be her!” Applebloom exclaimed in excitement. Two hooves immediately met her mouth to silence her.
“Quiet! We’re hiding, remember?” Sweetie Belle reminded her.
“She doesn’t look very happy to see him,” Scootaloo remarked.
They were too far away to hear what was being said, but the mare held an aggressive stance and appeared to be shouting down at Pin Stripe, who was slowly backing up with his ears pinned back. There was a pause, as the white mare seemingly waited for his response, then she tilted her head and listened with growing interest. Much more calm now than she was a moment ago, she glided down to meet Pin Stripe on the ground, where a rather one-sided conversation commenced. Pin Stripe repeated his eccentric mannerisms from the lobby of the Express, and the mystery mare leaned in with rapt attention.
Now that she was closer and holding still, the Crusaders finally got a good look at their quarry. Her mane and tail were as white as her coat and were long and wavy, without any apparent attempt at styling. Her eyes were a kind of weak pink. Rose pink, Sweetie Belle decided.
Pin Stripe’s oration went on for a few more minutes, then he swept a leg and bowed to his new associate, to which she nodded dumbly in return, mouth slightly agape. Pin Stripe turned and climbed back up the hill, and the white mare watched him go in silence. When he was gone, she pranced in place and squee’d in excitement, before zooming back up to her house.
“Nope,” Scootaloo concluded, “guess she wasn’t angry after all.”
Up in the cloud cottage, Lily flopped herself down on the living room couch, then gripped a pillow against her face and screamed into it.
“AAAAAAAAHHHH! Ohhh, my gosh. Ohhhhh my gosh. I can’t believe it!” she said, sitting up and grinning like an idiot, staring at nothing in particular. “Glow News Syndicate? They like my column! AAAAAAHHH!” She cheered and punched the air, then began flying circles around the ceiling.
Eventually she settled down in a high-backed chair she kept in a corner for guests (it hadn’t been used in years), and took a deep breath.
“Okay, Lily. They need an answer in person at their headquarters in Manehatten, by the end of the month. Oh, I guess I need to go into town get a train ticket, and start packing. And look into hotels. And I guess I should let Ditzy know to hold my mail. And then there’s my garden…” Lily scowled at nothing. “Horsefeathers, I hate traveling.”
Sudden shouting of the words Lily feared more than death itself made her head snap up in alarm.
“AUREA LILLIUM! AUREA LILLIUM!”
That idiot Pin Stripe! I told him this would happen!
Lily zoomed straight through her front door in a poof of cloud, not even bothering to open it, as she soared straight to the source of the commotion on the ground faster than she had flown in a very long time. There she found three small fillies looking worriedly up at her fearsome expression. The furious tirade she had been prepared to unleash died on her tongue as she faced three pairs of wide, startled eyes.
“You… can’t… I… just…”
Lily was the first to admit that she was absolute garbage when it came to dealing with foals. She wasn’t very good at dealing with other ponies in general, but talking to foals completely baffled her. She didn’t understand how it could be done.
Lily sighed. Whatever.
“Just… don’t do that again. I live out here for a reason, and I don’t want anypony bothering me.”
She turned to leave, but the yellow one in the ridiculous bow reached out a hoof. “Wait!”
Lily paused to regard the Earth Pony foal with the trembling lips and shimmery eyes.
“Mah name’s Apple Bloom, and this is Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle. We’ve been lookin’ for you for ages!”
Lily raised her eyebrows with disdain. “That’s the idea. I don’t want fans of the column bothering me at home.” She turned to go again, but this time found a small orange pegasus in her way.
“We read your answer to Almost-Desperate Mom about foals who can’t get Cutie Marks!”
The third filly, a white unicorn, spoke up. “See, we’re the Cutie Mark Crusaders, and we’ve tried everything to try and find our special talents, and nothing’s worked. We were hoping you could help us.”
Lily looked around at the three fillies that now had her surrounded. She examined them more closely. “Say, weren’t you guys Gabby Gums?”
The fillies groaned in unison and threw their heads back. “Why is that the only thing everypony remembers about us?” the pegasus -Scootaloo- asked the world in general.
Sweetie Belle, the unicorn, looked up at her with pleading eyes. “Please don’t be mad at us. We aren’t here to write about you for Gabby Gums. We’re done with that stuff. We just want your help.”
Lily smiled in spite of herself. “I’m glad to hear that. I was afraid I was going to have to move again. Now, can you girls promise me you won’t tell anypony about me being the one behind Lillium?”
“M-hm!” the three nodded together, beaming.
Lily opened her wings in preparation to leave. “Good. It was nice to meet you, um, Cutie Mark Counselors, was it?”
Applebloom’s eyes hollowed in a look of betrayal. “But wait, what about helpin’ us?”
Lily stopped, hovering a few feet off the ground, to look back at Applebloom coolly. “Aurea Lillium helps ponies. Lily doesn’t. Sorry, kid. Read that article again, it’ll help you more than I could.”
“We have!” Scootaloo spoke up. “We’re doing what you said! You said a helping hoof is just what we need, and you sounded like you were just like us when you were our age, so we decided to find you!”
“Trust me, guys, I’m not the one to help you.”
“But you said you tried everything before you found your Cutie Mark, just like we’re doing!” Sweetie Belle objected. “You must know what we need to do!”
Lily looked back and forth between them, starting to feel very stressed.
Applebloom dropped the last straw. “Come on, Miss Lily! Couldn’t you just tell us how you found your Mark?”
“I can’t!” Lily shouted. “I can’t help you find your talents, because I never found mine!”
Scootaloo paused. “Come on, Lily! Don’t try to fool us! Every pony gets a Cutie Mark, that’s what everyone keeps telling...”
Her objection faded away as Lily swept aside her cloak, revealing her pure white, smooth-coated, very blank flank.
“Happy?”
The Cutie Mark Crusaders said nothing as Lily flapped her way back up to her house.
It was a long time before they made their way slowly home.