Best Served Cold

Equestrian National Post
December 5th, 1923

"Filly Missing For 3.5 Weeks Is Found Dead"
By: J.P. Inkwell

Three and half weeks ago, on November 12th, Double Bubble, 11, and her friend Sundancer, 9, went for a hike in the woods behind Double's suburban home in a recently built neighborhood 12.5 miles outside Vanhoover's city limits. The two hiked for an hour and a half before eventually becoming separated when a hungry cougar decided the two young fillies would be his next meal and chased them. Their separation during the chase was purposeful, with Double revealing, "There was a bit of a fork in the trees, so I told [Sundancer] to go down the right path while I went down the left. I picked up and threw a stick at the [cougar] to get it's attention drawn to me. It worked and it chased me for a bit longer before suddenly giving up and slinking away."

Double told police that after the cougar left, she made an attempt to retrace her steps and find Sundancer. However, the 11 year old was unable to find her companion, and did what she told police she thought was the smart thing to do.

"It took me a bit, and I thought I was never gonna find them, but I found the markers Sundancer and I had been using to mark our path so we wouldn't get lost trying to get back home. It was Sundancer's idea," Double Bubble told police "I followed them and went home. I told my parents and they immediately called Sundancer's parents, then the police."

It wasn't soon after that that the police and the whole neighborhood made a joint effort to form a large search party and find Sundancer. The party searched well into the night before retreating from the woods and going home with their efforts a bit soured. The next few days following the incident, the neighborhood and police department continued their effort to locate the missing child. The search party endeavor was called off officially by the police department on November 24th, but left the case open. Lack of evidence of the filly's whereabouts soon turned the case cold, however, and on the 27th of November, the SVPD (South Vanhoover Police Department) announced that there was nothing more they could do until some kind of lead turned up.

From that day until the 1st of December, Sundancer's parents, Compass Rose (mother) and Astro (father), had begun to lose hope that they would never see their precious daughter again.

"In the beginning, we had had hope that our daughter would be brought home to us safe and sound, but as the days passed and turned into weeks, that hope dwindled down slowly but surely," Compass Rose commented.

"I hated how we were losing hope that we'd never be able to hold [Sundancer] in our arms again. I wanted us to stay in denial, that she was alive, hiding away somewhere safe, but we decided to face the grim reality as it were," Astro added "but then our hope was rekindled when Ms. Winterglass and her team came to our doorstep."

Late in the afternoon of December 1st, a detective from Baltimare, named Seth Winterglass, knocked on the their front door and told the couple that she would find their daughter if it was the last thing she ever did. Ms. Winterglass had heard of their missing daughter from a co-worker and decided to read the ENP report on Sundancer's disappearance.

"It really hit home to me. I knew their pain and I knew in my heart that I had to help, even if it meant crossing the nation just to do it," Said Winterglass.

Ms. Winterglass had her own two children go missing three years prior to this incident on a rainy afternoon after they left from school. They were found two years later, dead and partially decomposed inside the fun house of an abandoned traveling carnival between Apple Loosa and Dodge City. This disappearance and loss of her children are what spurred Winterglass to become a part of the police force. You can read more about Winterglass and her story further on our ENP report, "The Winterglass Effect".

It was with the help of Winterglass and her team that a lead was found as to where Sundancer could've been. It was a scrap of green cloth with a small blue heart embroidered at the bottom. The scrap of cloth was a torn piece of Sundancer's hoof-made bandana which had been gifted to her by Double Bubble. Winterglass and her team, with the help of the SVPD, tracked down Sundancer. After pushing deeper into the forest, a pair of sunglasses belonging to the filly was found, then a sticker-covered water bottle and lastly Sundancer's saddlebags containing three empty bags of trail mix, sunflower seeds and apple slices, as well as a crumpled ball of plastic wrap among other things (two books, a doll and a bottle of sunscreen). Small hoof prints in the soft soil near the found saddlebags led the team out the forest and to the coast of the North Luna Ocean. It was there that Sundancer was finally located.

Sundancer was found in front of a large rock near the water, her body partially sun-bleached from extensive sun exposure and devoured by scavenging animals. She was then placed in a body bag and taken to the coroner. Upon examination, it was determined her cause of death was organ failure (from starvation and dehydration). From what remained of her torn body, it was also determined Sundancer had sustained trauma, mostly to her skull, chest and forelegs. The cause of the trauma is speculated to be from Sundancer's attempt to survive and escape the forest.

A memorial will be held next week on the 13th in Sundancer's honor. Her funeral is said to take place later that week on 16th.