Ponies of Fayra — Legend of Harmony

Arriving at the west ridge plaza Flare, Zain, and Cozy, who had joined them despite the fact it was nearing her usual bedtime, split up and began asking ponies if they had seen Zeph or noticed anything strange when they woke up.

While Flare herself had come up empty hoofed, Zain had a pony tell him he was woken up by a pony running by in the middle of the night, and that he was fairly sure the pony was heading in the direction of the docks. He didn’t get a good look at them, but could swear they were wearing a hat that matched the one Zeph wore everywhere.

Getting to the docks, the trio once more split up and began searching. None of them were able to come up with any leads. No pony was at the docks at night, and every pony they asked told them the same thing. “It’s unsafe to be on the docks at night.”

As the trio sluggishly walked out of the docks, Cozy began running over to an empty bay. “Is that… It is!”

Trotting after Cozy, Flare looked in the direction she was pointing to see a glow berry floating in the water.

“A discarded glow berry?” Muttered Zain, clearly unimpressed with Cozy’s find.

“Not just any glow berry. That’s one of the ones I gave Flare in her last shipment.”

“How can you tell?” asked Flare in a perplexed tone.

“It has a slight bluish glow. Those only come from one cave chamber, and I’m the only pony who harvests them.”

“So….” Muttered Zain towards Cozy.

“According to Flare, you, Zeph and Argon are the only ponies who eat them. So, unless you were here tossing berries in the water last night, that means Zeph and Argon must have been here recently.”

As an elderly pony passed by, Flare stopped him and asked if anything looked out of place around them.

“The old trot glider that’s usually here isn’t. That’s the only thing I see different than normal. If I remember correctly, that trot glider was taken out of general use a couple years back on account of being too prone to breaking down. No one liked to use it because they were too afraid of getting stranded, so it was put over here out of the way. Since it’s not here, I’d wager it finally got recycled.”

“Or it was borrowed by Zeph!” Declared Flare.

Zain rolled his eyes. “Why would Zeph need a trot glider?”

“I don’t know, maybe because she, uhm… I don’t know, but she was at the library yesterday. We should see if Emmy knows something.”

With no other leads, the trio of ponies made their way to the central library. As they approached the door, Cozy tugged on Flare’s tail feathers. Looking back at Cozy, she saw her motioning with her head to go to the side. Not sure what was going on, Flare nudged Zain and the pair followed Cozy off to the side of the library and to an open window.

“Why are we here, Cozy?” Whispered Flare.

“Because the three ponies from this morning are in there talking to Emerald. I’m going to sneak in through the window and listen in.”

Without another word, Cozy jumped on Zain’s back, jumped again, and glided through the window, leaving Flare and Zain alone.

“She’s lighter than she looks, and she looks pretty light.” Remarked Zain.

“Yeah, the time I talked her into going wing gliding with me, she nearly blew away. She’s the only pegasus I’ve ever known who can actually use their wings to glide in the air.”

“I’ve never asked how did you meet her, anyway? I don’t remember her going to our school.”

Flare laughed awkwardly, not really wanting to share such an embarrassing story. “Well, it’s a long story.”

“We probably have a while.”

Flare bit her lip as she tried to suppress her embarrassment. “It’s kind of embarrassing, but I was out wing gliding, lost my bearings and wound up lost in a cave system. When I started crying, thinking I was doomed, that’s when Cozy appeared out of nowhere and led me out of the caves. After that, I kind of made the habit out of visiting those caves whenever I was out wing gliding alone and Cozy always seemed to be there.”

“Kind of hard to imagine you crying in a cave. You’re one of the toughest ponies I know.”

“To be fair, I was just a filly back then. We were still in Ms. Greenwaters class.”

“Now the question is why were you out wing gliding—alone at that age?”

“Because you and Zeph wouldn’t come out with me enough.” Flare stuck her tongue out playfully.

“We hung out at the beach like every other day.”

“Precisely, which meant I was just alone at the beach half the time. That was back before we were good enough friends that we just hung out after school all the time.”

“So, what did Cozy look like when she was that young?”

Flare thought hard for several long moments, trying to search her memories for a time when Cozy looked any different from what she always had, but came up with nothing.

“You okay?”

“I’m fine. I just can’t seem to remember Cozy ever looking different. I mean, she didn’t always wear the blue bow she does now. That was a gift I gave her a long time ago, but other than that, I just don’t remember her ever changing. I’m sure it’s just change blindness, though. I’m sure she changed, just not enough for me to remember.”

“That’s kind of strange. Then again, this whole thing is pretty strange, and feels like something Zeph would love. If she were here. It’s kind of funny she’s turned into the kind of mystery she’s always wanted. Though I’m sure this is all some weird misunderstanding. Anything that seems too weird always is. In fact, why are we spying on ponies? We should just go ask them what’s going on.”

“That’s true… I just got caught up in following along. We’ll let Cozy have her fun for a few more minutes, then we’ll walk in. If I wasn’t worried about Zeph, I wouldn’t rush her.”

“I still don’t think there’s anything to worry about. Zeph is sometimes reckless, but she’s not dumb. I mean, she did seem oddly intent on trying to help Argon get back to the mainland, but I don’t think she’d actually do it … do I? I mean, that would mean crossing the buoys and that would be dumb.”

“You don’t sound convinced that she wouldn’t do it.”

Zain looked lost in thought for quite a long while before he replied to Flare in an empty, unconvincing tone. “I don’t think she would.”

After standing in an awkward silence for quite some time, the pair decided to go back to the front of the library. When they looked through the glass doors, they didn’t see any pony. Upon entering, Flare also didn’t hear any pony. It was as if they were the only ponies in the building.