Chapter 1: Walk to the Bridge
Fluttershy was gone. Disappeared. Vanished without a trace. Twilight Sparkle didn’t understand it, couldn’t grasp it. The room echoed with the click of her pacing as the Alicorn took yet another trip around a floor map of the town, eyes directed with intensity at nothing in particular as her brain mentally turned what she knew upside-down looking for something she could have missed.
Twilight’s frustration wasn’t from one of her closest friends going missing. Not exactly. It had happened before, but there had been a place to start looking, and reasons, and clues. Not once had she not known what to try next in their search for Applejack. But this was different; this time, there was nothing. Almost less than nothing.
The agitated equine began another map-lap. On the parchment, every street, from the wide Market Avenue to the smallest unnamed alley, was marked with a red-inked X. So too where the buildings. And the trees. And all of the bushes in the park. And a good number of lampposts and mailboxes. There was literally nowhere in Ponyville that Twilight and her non-missing friends hadn’t checked. The same went for Sweet Apple Acres and the other nearby farmland; the lake; the cliff; Rainbow Dash, in charge of the local weather, had even searched the clouds for the missing Pegasus.
A bang brought everyone’s attention to the door. Twilight stopped pacing, her expression turned from scowl to hope at the positive news she was sure had arrived. Rainbow Dash, resting from her sixth round of the entire town – and much of the surrounding area as well – turned her head from gazing blankly at the vaulted ceiling, but otherwise remained as she was, with back-to-floor and her great blue Pegasus wings spread out on either side.
Rarity, the Unicorn of their group (the only one, since Twilight was given wings when she was promoted to Princesshood), stood swiftly from her cushioned chair, setting aside the book she had been holding in her hooves – still open to page 3, as it had been for the past hour. Spike, the purple fire-breathing reptile of the group, shook his head to chase away the sleep that had been creeping up on him as he watched Twilight’s hypnotic pacing. He stood to greet the new arrivals, as he was closest to the door, but he was brought up short by the saddened demeanor of the pony in the doorway.
Applejack and Pinkie Pie, back from their own search of the town, carried bad news. That is, none. Applejack entered first; she trudged over to the closest chair and sat down hard, eliciting a creak from its sculpted wood. Pinkie, in somewhat better humor, hopped over to the floor in front of the map and sat down hard, eliciting a creak from its marble surface. Nopony dared be the one to break the silence. Finally, Spike stepped forward to offer his postponed reception.
“So, Applejack, Pinkie… any news?”
The farmer in the chair glanced up from her hat, which had found its idle way into her forehooves. Refocusing on her dusty old Strutson, Applejack replaced it atop her head, taking her time as she pondered whether no news really counted as news, and how she could put ‘we didn’t learn anything’ in a way that sounded less… failure-like. With one last adjustment, the orange pony opened her mouth to speak; but was preempted by her poofy partner on the floor.
“Nope, we didn’t learn anything!” Pinkie turned from her intent examination of the constellations made by the X’s on the map. “But I’m sure she’ll show up soon! Fluttershy will be back to feed her animals; she’d never keep them waiting!” Despite the missing friend, a smile was upon Pinkie’s face; granted, it was smaller than usual, but it was otherwise the genuine smile of one of the cheeriest residents of Ponyville.
“Nothing?” Twilight moved closer to the others, stepping carefully around the map. “Nothing at all?” She looked at Pinkie, who brought her hoof to her chin in a rather exaggerated expression of ponderance, then at Applejack, who returned Twilight’s quizzical gaze with one of somber surety.
“Not a thing,” Applejack spoke now, “not anythin’ we didn’t already know, at least. We talked to everypony. Not one of ‘em saw anything strange, and not one of ‘em saw Fluttershy anywhere ‘sides where we already knew she’d been,” Applejack had gotten up, walking in the general direction of the map. Now she stood there, as all of her friends gathered around the illustration, drawn to the parchment as though Fluttershy could be found on it if they looked closely enough. Each pair of eyes traced the path away from Sugarcube Corner and down Market Street, towards the North Bridge. Each pair of eyes came to a rest on the last crossroad before the stream, where a bright yellow question-mark had been drawn.
Staring at the symbol, hoping there was something that she- that all of them, were missing, Applejack continued. “It’s like Fluttershy walked down that last block to the bridge, but never crossed the river. She just… disappeared.”
After a silent moment, Rainbow Dash spoke up. “What if she didn’t cross the bridge, but fell into the river instead? The river’s deep enough, she could have… been swept downstream, or something.” She knew she was grasping at straw – they’d already searched the riverbanks. But they hadn’t checked the riverbed…
That train of thought was quickly stopped by Applejack. “Fluttershy didn’t fall off the bridge, Dash. The CMC were down there, and said they didn’t see nothin’.”
Rarity broke her attention from the map at the mention of her sister’s club and looked at Applejack. “Wait a moment; they were under the bridge? What in Celestia’s mane were they doing down there?”
Applejack raised an eyebrow as she returned Rarity’s gaze. “Do you really want to know?”
Rarity breaking eye-contact was enough of an answer. Applejack’s sister was in the club as well, so if it was something she should know, she was sure AJ would be more upfront about it. And if it wasn’t something important, experience with the CMC understandably gave Rarity caution about asking for details.
“So, that’s it, then.” Twilight brought them back to the topic. “There are no other avenues to pursue. The Sun has set. The bird has flown. Fluttershy… Fluttershy is gone.” Now everypony was looking at Twilight, who continued to stare down, unblinking, at the map on the floor. This wasn’t easy for any of them, but Twilight wasn’t one to give up. Drive herself up the wall with worry, yes. But not give up.
“Hey, look at me.” Twilight didn’t respond, except to produce the first of what was sure to be a long line of tears. “C’mon, Princess. Look over here. Just for a second?” This time Twilight turned her head slightly toward Pinkie, just enough to look from the corner of her eye, her mind too preoccupied to form her usual admonition at being addressed by her title by her friends.
The pink-on-pink pony next to her was wearing an uncommon expression. It was still a smile, but it spoke of a depth of emotion that Pinkie rarely displayed. She placed one forehoof lightly on Twilight’s shoulder, and spoke with an equally uncommon firmness. “We will get Fluttershy back, safe and sound. Don’t doubt it for a second. We’ll find her, I Pinkie Promise.”
Twilight turned more fully toward Pinkie. She knew that her friend was trying to give her hope, but she couldn’t let herself give in. She didn’t see any way forward. “But we can’t, Pinkie. We have nothing; no evidence, no information, nothing. No Pegasus could have disappeared like this. It’s impossible.”
Pinkie opened her mouth for another attempt, but Spike interrupted. “Hold on, what did you just say?” The miniature dragon sounded oddly excited.
Confusion interrupted Twilight’s face for a moment before she settled back into negativity-mode. “I said, Spike, that we can’t find Fluttershy; it’s-”
“No,” now it was Rainbow Dash, beginning to twitch her wings as her mind raced with new possibilities. “You said no ‘Pegasus’ could have disappeared like that. What if-”
Applejack, in turn, interrupted Rainbow Dash. “ ‘What if’ what? What if Fluttershy were secretly a Unicorn? I don’t see what-”
And Rarity: “That’s it!”
“Fluttershy’s been a Unicorn this whole time‽ No wonder she’s afraid of heights!”
Rarity paused only for a moment before continuing around Pinkie’s exclamation. “Fluttershy could have been kidnapped!”
Spike was quick to support the burgeoning idea. “Yeah! And… wait, wouldn’t that be bad?”
Finally, Twilight caught on. Her mood turned upward immediately. “No, Spike-” She paused to think about that. “Well, yes, but-” A shake of her head ejected the tangent. “This is a lead! It’s tenuous; more of a wild guess than a lead, really, but it’s something to go on!”
“So,” Rainbow Dash exclaimed, “are you going to go to the bridge and use a tracking spell to find the magic they used to attack Fluttershy?”
Twilight rolled her eyes. “There’s no such thing as a general magic-tracking spell, Dash.”
Rainbow Dash paused in her liftoff, getting ready to race back to the place of discussion. “Are you sure? Daring Do has that mage use one in-”
“Daring Do is fiction, Dash.”
“No it isn’t; we met her, remember?”
“Fine, it is based on real events; but she obviously uses creative license to flesh the story out, and-”
“How do you know that? Why would she make the spell up?”
“I know, because it’s-”
“Hey!” Twilight and Rainbow Dash, now face-to-face, turned as one toward the door – to find that everyone else had already left. Applejack was looking back at them from the hallway. “You two coming?” she said with a grin, before following the rest of the group out of sight toward the front entrance.
Rainbow and Twilight exchanged a guilty glance before following their friends back to the North Bridge.
⁂
And did you, or did you not, live in Fillydelphia during the year in question?
Well, yes, but-
And did you, or did you not, participate in illicit activities?
I… it was only a little, and-
And did you, or did you not, have any associations with the filly in this photograph?
Um, yes. I mean-
And what, exactly, did you do with her?
We… I told you, we…
Yes?
We wove! That’s all, honest!
*sigh* Let’s start from the top… What is your name?
*whimper*
What is your name?
…F-Fluttershy…
Author's Note
This was supposed to be an entry for National Novel Writing Month, which, for those who may not know, is in November. 
Anyway, I'll be trying to chug out the next chapter soon. I've learned not to give guarantees, though.
