Forever

    Twilight had searched through nearly every book in her library. Only a few seemed remotely accurate to the situation. Maybe she just wasn't looking in the right places. She checked every book that she knew of, but the information just wasn't there. All of the books she could think of were just old pony tales and had no true evidence. Nothing would help her find Pinkie Pie at this rate, and time was only adding to her stress. The longer she waited, the more there was a chance that something bad could be happening to Pinkie.

    Three loud knocks were heard at the door. "Twilight? Are you in there?" The southern drawl was unmistakeably Applejack. "We're all here and we have some things that you might want to see.

    Twilight walked to the door and opened it slowly as if all hope was lost. "Unless it's about where Pinkie is, I probably wont care." The disappearance of her pink friend was driving her happy spirit into the ground. Pinkie was all she could think about.

    "Actually Twilight. It is."

    This made the purple unicorn very happy. Her eyes were glowing with hope. "What is it?" she screamed with excitement. "Where is she? What do you know?"

    "Unfortunately, Twilight," Applejack sighed, "We don't know where she is. All we know is that she is gone. We all got these letters from her. They all talk about how sorry she is for things that she has done, or in my case, hasn't done. Then she said that she may never see us again."

    "It doesn't say where she went?" Twilight questioned. "Not even any clues?" She grabbed the letters from her friends and began inspecting them for herself. "Who gave these to you? Why didn't I get one?" She had entirely forgotten about the mail that she had just brought inside. "We need to find her. Does anypony have any ideas as to where she might be?

    "I'm afraid not darling." Rarity chimed in. "We discussed it on the way here, but none of us could think of anywhere that we have not already checked." She looked down at her hooves in sorrow as if this had all been her fault.

    Twilight looked over the letters once more. She took note of all of the details. "She's clearly sorry for how she treated you all." Twilight began analyzing the letters out loud. "She clearly felt like she was not being a very good friend. I bet she thought that we would all be better off without her, so she left. We weren't even good enough friends to realize that she felt that way." Tears were beginning to form in her eyes. "Now she's gone. It's all our fault. We should have picked up on her feelings, but we didn't. Now we need to find her and explain how we feel about her. Like how much we love her parties, her smile, her laugh," Twilight inhaled deeply and continued the list, "the way she pretends to read books to seem more book-smart, how cute she is when she curls up into a ball and falls asleep on my floor."

    "Um. Twilight." Applejack interrupted the seemingly endless trail of words. "Is there something that you need to tell us about you and Pinkie Pie? Because these don't seem to apply to all of us."

    Twilight was shocked at how easily her mind got side tracked. She was saying things out loud that she never would've considered letting out of her own mind. She looked away as she began to blush. "Never mind what I just said. The point is, we need to find out where she is, and we need to get her back." Her voiced changed to one of determination. "Now who has any ideas as to where somepony would go if they thought that they were unworthy of being around their closest friends?"

    "Maybe she went home." Fluttershy said quietly from behind her friends. "Wherever that is."

    Twilight thought for a moment about what she just heard. "I don't think I even know where Pinkie is from." She momentarily dropped her motivation and fell back into her feelings of sadness. "I've spent so much time with her. We've been such close friends. Not once have I asked where she was from." Tears were now trickling down her lavender cheeks. "Now we may never find her."

    "Maybe we can help." Said a small voice.

    "Yeah. We might know where Pinkie could've gone." Said another mysterious voice.

    "We would love to help you guys out." Rarity had recognized this third voice as her little sister's.

    "Why are you and your friends listening to our conversations, Sweetie Belle?" Rarity was not fond of it when Her little sister would eavesdrop on their conversations.

    Apple Bloom answered for Sweetie. "We were spying on you guys to see if we could get our cutie marks." She was too honest sometimes, much like her sister.

    Now it was Applejack's turn to cut into the conversation. "You really shouldn't be treating other ponies like that, Apple Bloom. You'll get yourself into trouble someday if you keep snooping around like that."

    "But Applejack." Apple Bloom whined. "how can I get my cutie mark if I don't try everything?"

    "I told you to just be patient and your cutie mark will just come to you someday. Searching for it won't speed up the process."

    "Will you two cut it out for a minute. Now is not the time for this conversation." Twilight was not playing around today. "Now what can you three fillies tell me about Pinkie?"

    "Well." Scootaloo spoke. "She once told us about how she got her cutie mark, and she may have mentioned where she was when that happened. I'm guessing that it was where she lived."

    "So where was it?" Twilight asked sternly.

    "It was some rock farm somewhere. That's all we know though." Scootaloo was straining her brain to remember more details about it but there wasn't much more that they were told.

    "Sounds like you three should go and try to find the exact location of it then." Twilight said enthusiastically. "Maybe you'll get your cutie marks in searching for things." She put on a very non-genuine smile, but the three fillies couldn't seem to tell.

    "We're on it!" the trio yelled in unison.

    As the cutie mark crusaders rode away on Scootaloo's scooter, Twilight turned to her friends to reveal her plan. "OK. That should keep them busy and out of our way. Now let's head to Canterlot and see if Celestia has any knowledge about which rock farm Pinkie used to live on, and where we will be able to find it. Are you ready girls?" Twilight was now beaming with hope. "Let's do this. For Pinkie!"