Hidden in the Clutter... Again
The next morning, Izzy woke up to find Sunny sitting at the kitchen table, still reading the journal she’d taken from Zephyr Heights. The earth pony was pouring over it intently and barely looked up when Izzy said, “Good morning, Sunny!”
“Morning,” she muttered distractedly, turning a page. Izzy tilted her head at her friend.
“Um… are you okay?” she asked cautiously, taking a seat next to Sunny and nudging her. “Ever since you got that journal, you’ve been spending all your time reading. It makes me wonder if you found something disturbing in there.”
Sunny finally looked up and turned to the purple unicorn beside her, and Izzy wasn’t sure if she was all right or not. Sunny had dark circles under her eyes, indicating that she hadn’t been sleeping well (though to be fair, none of them really had), but her eyes were bright and excited. “Sorry, Izzy, it’s just… this journal is so… interesting. It talks about everything my dad knew. I mean, look at this.”
She pulled out her father’s journal and opened it to a page, pointing to it with her hoof. “This drawing of a chest. My dad didn’t know what it was. He could tell that it was magic, and he tracked the source to a big tree, but he couldn’t find any remains of it at all. But look-” she enthusiastically flipped to a page in the purple journal, “-there’s a picture of the exact same chest in here! It came from something called the Tree of Harmony, and Twilight Sparkle and her friends unlocked it with six keys, one for each of them, and it gave them rainbow power to defeat somepony named Tirek, who was stealing all the magic in Equestria! Then the chest turned into this castle, which then grew a map of Equestria that sent them on quests to solve friendship problems!”
“Wow.” Izzy looked back and forth between the two journals. “That is certainly something.”
Sunny nodded excitedly. “And look! My dad found this bell, and it’s obviously ancient, so he assumed it was from the time of the Guardians of Harmony, but it wasn’t! It was before that! Look, this page says that the bell belonged to somepony named Grogar, but then was stolen from him by Gusty the Great - she sounds pretty great - and hidden atop a mountain, where it remained for centuries before Tirek and some ponies named Chrysalis and Cozy Glow got their hooves on it and used it to nearly take over Equestria, but then the Guardians of Harmony blasted them with magic rainbows and the bell disappeared!”
Izzy opened her mouth to say something, but Sunny was on a roll, and there was no stopping her.
“And this talks about a pony named Starswirl the Bearded, and it sounds exactly like the pony that my dad had a picture of! He was around more than a thousand years before the Guardians of Harmony, but then he got trapped in limbo for all that time before Twilight Sparkle freed him! He’s the one who planted the Tree of Harmony! Izzy, I’ve been going through this journal for hours, and I still probably don’t understand a fraction of what’s in here!”
Izzy blinked, shocked that Sunny had finally stopped talking. “Uh… good for you,” she said uncertainly. “Does it talk about what you should do if all three pony tribes separate and magic disappears?”
Sunny sighed, her excitement dying down a little. “Not quite,” she says. “It says that the three pony tribes did separate before Equestria was founded, and just like Hitch found out, the Windigos appeared, nearly freezing the entire land. But the tribe leaders’ number-twos realized that, just because they look different, they’re all ponies, and came together, which was enough to defeat the Windigos. They then convinced their leaders to come together, and they founded a land where all ponies could live in harmony: Equestria. They celebrated this occasion with Hearth’s Warming Eve. Later, during the Guardians of Harmony’s time, not only the three pony tribes, but other creatures separated, and the Windigos returned. But some ponies in each of the tribes told everypony that they had to stick together, because they were stronger that way. The tribes all united and defeated the Windigos once more.” She rubbed her eyes, her exhaustion creeping up on her. “Makes me wonder why none of my super-awesome speeches ever worked.”
Izzy giggled. “I think they had all lived in fear for too long for a simple speech to win them over without any action,” she said, putting her arm around Sunny. “But hey, you did make some pretty good speeches, or so I was told.”
“Really?” Sunny looked up, her expression happier. “Who told you?”
Izzy flushed and mumbled something Sunny couldn’t make out. “Sorry?” she asked teasingly, playfully elbowing her friend. Izzy’s cheeks turned an even darker shade of red and she muttered, “Hitch.”
Sunny grinned at her. “Oh, really?” she asked playfully, seeing the flush in Izzy’s cheeks continue to rise. “And when was this?”
“After magic came back,” Izzy said so quietly, Sunny could barely hear her, her face looking like some sort of strange mutant tomato with a horn. “We were talking about you and your horn and wings and how hard you had worked to bring everypony together, and he brought up that you had been trying to get the message out ever since you were a little filly, picking up where your dad left off. And, I don’t know… I thought it was kind of sweet.”
“What was sweet?” Sunny asked teasingly, and Izzy’s face, if possible, darkened even more, but she was saved from answering when Pipp and Zipp entered the room, bickering about Pipp’s cell phone. Zipp was saying that the rebels could use it to track them, and that it wouldn’t pose much usefulness to their quest, as there would most likely not be anything about the old days on the Internet. Pipp said that it was necessary to stay in touch with what was going on outside of Maretime Bay, and so that she could record their adventure and post it online when this whole thing was over. When Hitch stumbled in, yawning, Sunny declared that they should go get donuts for breakfast, which was met with a chorus of cheers from the ponies.
After a very healthy breakfast of frosted donuts and smoothies from the smoothie cart where Sunny used to work (she quit after she had to move out of Maretime Bay), the five ponies headed over to the sheriff’s office, where, once they got inside, they found Sprout digging through files, making quite the mess.
“Sprout?” Hitch said at the same time that Sunny said, “What are you doing here?”
The former deputy flushed, which was visible despite his deep red coat. “Oh, hey guys,” he muttered. “I was just, uh… thinking that I might help you look for stuff about Ancient Equestria. Stop everypony from going to war again. Since, you know, it was kind of my fault ponies almost went to war last time…” His eyes flicked to Hitch and he blushed some more.
“Thanks, Sprout,” Sunny said warmly. “I really appreciate it.” Sprout gave her an uncertain smile before pulling something out of the heaping mess he’d made.
“There’s not much here, but I did find a mention of Manehatten,” he said, flipping through the pages of the file and stopping at one. “This must have just gotten missed when they got rid of everything else, because I can’t find anything more, but… Here, just have a look.”
Sunny and her friends crowded around Sprout’s old desk. What he had found was an old newspaper clipping about a dangerous snowstorm that was sweeping Manehattan. Ponies were freezing inside their homes and forced to look elsewhere for shelter.
“That’s interesting,” Pipp muttered.
“You can say that again,” Sunny agreed. “Sprout, do you think there might be more of these… wherever else files might be?” The earth pony nodded and led them to the back of the room, where he and Hitch pulled a ladder out of the ceiling that led to the attic. Pipp stayed behind, pulling the newspaper clipping closer as she studied the picture.
“From what I can tell, every single sheriff before me kept absolutely everything and buried it somewhere up here,” Hitch said as he climbed up the rickety ladder, Sprout behind him. “In case they need it again.”
“Cool,” Zipp admitted as she poked her head through the hole in the ceiling and looked around. “There must be as much history in here as the archives in Zephyr Heights, right, Pipp?” She looked around for her sister, but she wasn’t there.
“She’s downstairs,” Izzy reported, pulling Sunny through the trapdoor. “That picture really seems to have her stumped.”
Zipp shrugged. “Nah, it’s okay. I don’t think Pipp knew there were archives in Zephyr Heights.”
“This is going to take forever,” Sunny moaned, surveying the mess with a defeated look on her face. “I wish ancient history didn’t have to be so buried.”
Hitch put an arm around her shoulders. “Hey, now we have something to do all day,” he said brightly. “There’s got to be something up here that can help us. Come on. You take that corner with Izzy, I’ll take this one, and Sprout and Zipp can take that one. I’m sure it won’t take that long.”
“Uh, you sure you don’t want some backup, Sheriff?” Zipp asked, giving him a worried look that he quickly brushed off.
“Relax, I’ll be fine,” he insisted, pulling up a box and opening the flaps, a look of defeat briefly slipping through before he quickly replaced it with one of confidence. “I’ll be fine,” he repeated, more to convince himself than anypony else.
The day seemed to crawl by. Sunny’s back ached as she dug through box after box, file after file, case after case. They were all dated pretty recently, only within the past one hundred years, and her feeling of defeat continued to grow and grow.
At one point, Pipp poked her head through the trapdoor and said, “Sunny, can I borrow your journal that you got from Zephyr Heights?”
“Sure,” Sunny said distractedly, pulling the book out of her bag and, giving it a longing look, wishing the answers would magically reveal themselves to her, tossed it to Pipp, who immediately began to flip through pages, intent on finding something specific that she obviously didn’t care to share with the rest of them.
“You think maybe you could help a little?” Zipp asked, looking up from the drawer she was digging through to glare at her sister.
“I am helping!” Pipp said indignantly. “There’s just something I need to fact check real quick…” She disappeared down the ladder, muttering to herself. Zipp rolled her eyes and went back to work.
By noon, the exhausted ponies trudged across the street to get more smoothies before going back to work. Sprout picked up a strawberry smoothie for Pipp, and even though Zipp scoffed that her younger sister would never drink something so plain and common, when he gave it to Pipp, who was still at the sheriff’s station, flipping through Sunny’s book, she absently took a sip and murmured her thanks, not making any mention about the taste.
Sunny sighed and tossed away a file about an earth pony caught stealing from Canterlogic, so desperate to have means to protect himself, and picked up one about a young filly who had been arrested and charged for painting slogans on the pavilion in the center of town. A photo of the accusee was paperclipped inside, and Sunny blinked. She was sure that she recognized that face from somewhere. Brushing away the fine layer of dust covering the image, she made out a young colt with a bluish-gray coat, blue mane, and purple eyes. His smile looked so familiar…
Even before she read the description of the case, Sunny knew exactly who it was. Tears sprang into her eyes as she carefully straightened the picture of her late father.
“Guys!” Pipp cried, bursting into the attic, waving her phone, making everypony jump. “I think I just found something amazing!”
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Which one?
Ohh it looks like Izzy has a little crush on hitch
It looks like they are trying to find any information so far they went to the Sheriff's office to check if there's anything what happened to Manhattan which that must be really bad if a city something that big be destroyed that must be really sad but it looks like pipp was trying to find something in the picture but it looks like she found something and whatever it is I hope it's a good one
Zipp, you really care for Hitch don't you?
It sounds like whoever wrote this book was crazy. How could a chest turn into a castle? Just because the book is supposedly written by her heroes doesn't mean she should blindly trust it. /s?
Know what… I won’t mind seeing a Hitch X Izzy ship since I don’t believe I have seen that yet.