Disappearances

“Thanks for coming with me to go shopping Twilight.” The white unicorn smiled at her friend, sunglasses form fitting to the mares face as her cheeks pressed against the rims.

“Not a problem Rarity, it is a lovely day out and Spike was busy reading his comic books and I needed to get some shopping done as well.” Twilight responded cheerfully as Rarity giggled.

“Well dear you know how boys are with their superheroes and such, especially when they are kids.” The two mares laughed warm heartedly as they approached the town square market Rarity sniffing the air and smiling. “Seems Pinkie has baked for the market today, let's head over to sugar cube before we start.” Twilight nodded, causing her mane to bounce on her head.

“Right, I am a little hungry now that I smell it.” She smiled and followed her friend into the pastry shop where the pink party pony was selling a cake to a dark blue pegasus who smiled, paid her bits and flew out past the two unicorns. “Hi Pinkie Pie, getting a jump start on the morning?” The purple mare asked as they approached the counter.

“Ya, Mr and Mrs Cake went to Manehattan to get some fancy baking supplies for this upcoming winter festivities, they have some big things planned this year for Hearth's Warming Eve.” The pink pony smiled brightly and quickly zipped into the kitchen, whipping up three milkshakes before joining her friends at a nearby table. “So what are you two up to today?”

“I needed to go on emergency fabric shopping because a certain little filly decided to try and make Applebloom a new bow and used all my purple fabric I needed for a customers dress.” Rarity sighed and sipping from the milkshake glass with an angry expression in her eyes.

“Don’t be to hard on her Rarity, she was doing it for AppleBloom's birthday and she did pretty well if you ask me.” Twilight smiled at Rarity before turning back to Pinkie Pie. “As for me I needed more quills and scrolls, and a new feather duster because Spike accidently burned ours up when Celestia sent in a letter.” The three giggled to themselves before Pinkie Pie looked up as a dark brown earth pony mare knocked open the door, causing the bell to loudly clash.

“Oh can I help you Autumn Oath?” She stood as the mare ran over, her pale blue eyes wide and her blond mane and tail unkept.

“Have you seen Berry Mint?!” The mare yelled as she ran up to the three.

“Berry Mint? No, I saw her go home yesterday after school with Yellow Rose. Why has something happened?” The party pony turned very serious as she saw the mother's concern, the mare inhaled deeply before exhaling as if she was trying to keep calm.

“Yes that's true but when I woke this morning she was missing, I checked all over town and my little baby is just gone!” The mare had tears building up in her eyes. “I even asked Zecora who just went back to the forest to please keep an eye out. I can't find my baby anywhere and no pony has seen her!” She lowered her head as she began to sob, Twilight felt her own heartbreak for the pony as Pinkie Pie tried to comfort the grieving mare.

“This is strange, fillies don't normally go missing in the dead of night.” Twilight stood as she spoke, getting the mother's attention. “Everypony will split into search parties, I will organize everything and we will get your filly back safely into your arms Miss Oath.” Twilight smiled as the mare stood straight.

“Do you mean it?” Twilight nodded and the mare hugged Twilight tightly, tears pouring off her face as she cried. “Oh thank you thank you thank you! Thank you so much Twilight!” The mare smiled and patted the mother's head once more before she nodded Rarity and Pinkie Pie out the door.

“Call everypony to town hall for an emergency town meeting! I will talk to Mayor Mare and we will get this underway.” Pinkie and Rarity nodded before splitting up, Autumn following Pinkie with a relaxed look over her face as the ran alongside the baker.

“Ok everypony listen up!” Twilight yelled as she stood tall at the podium in front of city hall, the town of ponies looking up at her with weary eyes, most of them squinting in the late fall sun. “There is a pony missing!” Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash fluttered their wings as they stood next to her, flapping them and flying over the crowd passing out a flyer with a picture of the young filly Berry Mint. In the poster she was smiling brightly and her dark blue mane in a ponytail and her light violet coat shining in the sun with her ice blue eyes sparkling. “Berry Mint disappeared from her home last night at an unknown time, however we do know it was sometime after 10:30 when her mother Autumn last checked on the young filly before retiring to her room.” The crowd inspected the picture, Autumn standing in front of the crowd crying over the picture of her filly as Pinkie Pie rubbed her back in her best effort to console the mare in her time of sorrow. “We need to split into teams and search for the filly! I want everypony to split into teams of 5 and search every nook and cranny, I want a team of all pegasi to search the Everfree forest and report back their findings to me. Everypony Else check in every fifteen minutes with status updates please!” The crowd nodded and quickly found their teams of five as well as a group of ten pegasi taking the job themselves to search the forest, the mare pacing nervously at Twilight's side as the ponies began to search for her child.

Pinkie found herself becoming jittery as the minutes turned into hours, the sun beginning to set before she leapt to her hooves. “Somepony should have found her by now!” Twilight looked up from her scroll, the fillies mother asleep at her side thanks to a magic spell of relaxation.

“Pinkie please lower your voice, Autumn is finally asleep and I want this time to go back as quickly as possible to her. We are all nervous, this has never happened before.” Twilight sighed and looked back at her scroll, using her quill to make several marks by a few teams that had already checked in at their normal fifteen minute mark.

“Still why has nopony found her!” Pinkie began to pace as Twilight looked down at the mother who was crying in her sleep. “Ponyville isn't that big and she shouldn’t have gone that far into the forest!” Pinkie stamped her hoof in frustration and sighed as she lowered her head, perking her ears up at the sound of wings.

“Twilight…” Twilight looked over at Rainbow Dash who lead the group of pegasi, though her face was blank. “We found her.”

Pinkie perked up quickly and ran up to her friend. “Oh that's wonderful! We can wake up Autumn now right?” She looked back at Twilight who remained lying beside the mother, as though not to wake her.

“Rainbow, why did you sound so blank about that report.” Twilight tilted her head, her eyes searching Rainbow Dash’s for any way to read the pegasus in front of her. Rainbow lowered her head and stepped aside as the same dark blue pegasus that Pinkie had sold the cake to flew forward with the tiny filly in her arms. Twilight grew pale as Pinkie squealed, the pony ran up to meet the flying pony.

“Berry Mint!” She took the filly quickly from the mare before freezing, her joy bleeding from her face quickly at the tiny fillies stiff body. Pinkie fell back onto her haunches with the filly in her arms, staring down at the filly whose eyes had been closed by hoof. “N...no...how did this..how could this..” Pinkie’s mane quickly deflated into its straight form and Twilight looked down, tears welling up in her eyes as Rainbow watched her friend hug the filly close to her in silence.

“Round up everypony back to the square, Pinkie come with me inside city hall. We have to wake Autumn and tell her this news.”