The Hidden Student

The mane six ponies spent their morning knocking on various doors within Canterlot as well as in parts of the outskirts of it, taking their time to see the students of Celestia that lived outside the castle. Each pony carried a saddle bag full of the names for each pony and, one by one, visited all they could.

For the most part, the students the ponies met were quite friendly and obliged to give their hoof print- except for a few of Rainbow Dashes due to how she sounded a bit more demanding compared to the rest of the group, driving some of the more shy students back a bit.

When each pony had finished, Pinkie Pie took all of the hoofprint marks they had and compared them with Twilights help. Twilight was quite aware Pinkie Pie was more than likely able to miss some details they could have pointed out.
“No…no…not even close.” Twilight said with a sigh as she used her horn’s magic to hold the note next to other prints. It took an extremely large amount of time but Twilight soon finished. “I can’t believe it!” She exclaimed. “How could NONE of the hoofprints match!? Based on the evidence, the note must have been written by a student! It was the last person that must have seen her!”

“Um…Twilight…” Fluttershy said meekly, looking away from her.

Twilight was beginning to pace, completely oblivious to Fluttershy. “She was expecting a student too…and NONE of the students know ANYTHING about what happened to her?!”

“All of mine said they didn’t even SEE her today.” Rainbow Dash gave a frustrated sigh.

“Same here Twilight,” Applejack added. “and it’s darn easy to tell when someone’s lying in front of me.”

“Twilight.” Fluttershy said again, a little louder this time and facing the purple pony.

“Not even a bit of information from any student?!” Twilight gave a frustrated sigh with Rainbow Dash.

“TWILIGHT!!!” Fluttershy shouted at the top of her lungs and caused the guards to fall on their back in shock.

Twilight even jumped back from the pegasus. “Gosh Fluttershy,” her eyes were now wide open and staring at the pony. “you don’t have to yell. What is it?”

“I couldn’t…I mean…I didn’t…oh…I couldn’t find all the students.”

“You what?” Twilight asked, leaning her head forward to Fluttershy.

“Well…um…you see…I couldn’t find one.”

“Which one couldn’t you find? I mean, their addresses and names are all detailed and I gave you all the information in the book.”

“The book barely HAD any information.” Fluttershy reached in a bag on her saddle and pulled out a slip of paper which Twilight hastily took from her and looked over.

“Name: Mystery. Age…confidential…confidential…confidential…someone who lives up to their name, that’s for sure,” Twilight said rolling her eyes. “how did I not see this when writing them down? Must have been an oversight.”

“See?” Fluttershy said in her hushed tone again. “I mean….I even asked students and not even they knew where that pony lived.”

Princess Luna came in through the set of double doors with her eyes wide and wings spread. “What mystery? I heard some yelling and had to see what was going on…what’s this about?”

“We’re trying to find all of Celestia’s students, we went to every pony that lived near here except-” Twilight started.

“Except FLUTTERSHY missed this one named Mystery.” Rainbow Dash cut in.

“Mystery…Mystery…I know that name.” Luna said quietly. “From the Galloping Gala.”

“Do you know anything to help us?” Twilight asked.

“I must admit, Celestia did mention him to me a few times, and he wanted to visit her during the Gala last year, for what I don’t know.” Luna tried to recall the events of that night. “Celestia had a…urgent matter to attend to during the Gala, so I took over greeting the ponies in her place. It sent quite a few ponies running for the door obviously. One though, wasn’t afraid at all. He was a unicorn too. He had a black mane that was a bit short and cut, and was gray all over. There was one feature though, that stuck out the most and…” she paused briefly. “anyways, he greeted me and wanted to see Celestia, but she couldn’t come. We agreed that he could stay by my side until Celestia returned.”

“A unicorn? Oh he sounds gorgeous though.” Rarity said with her eyes twinkling at the sight of a masculine pony, a long horn and mane overflowing like a river over earth. The pony carrying her away in the night.

“Why didn’t any of you see him at the Gala then? Surely you would have seen him with Luna.” Spike suddenly asked

“We had…complications.” Twilight said blushing lightly as she recalled the incident. “Don’t you remember? We left it early.” she remembered the night all to well, including her friends mentioning their previous failures as well as Fluttershy's...overreacting.

“I was wondering why I didn’t see any of you.” Luna shrugged. “he seemed to be a quiet type, barely said a word to any other pony but myself. He stayed with me until the end of the Gala- and I offered to help him home, but he declined and left himself.”

“Did he say where he lived?” Twilight asked. Wanting to see Celestia at the Gala could only have meant he would have wanted to at another time, and this might have just been the time!

“The Isolated Forest.” Luna replied. “It’s a small forest a little bit away from the castle and not far from a mountain.”

“A forest?” Fluttershy didn’t know how to react to it. Part of her told herself of all the wonderful animals, but the other half told her it was an unfamiliar forest, filled with who knew what.

“We’ll all go together.” Twilight said boldly. “He MUST know something about Celestia.”

Luna’s horn started glowing faintly. “Before you do,” Suddenly a hidden door opened to reveal the elements of harmony jewelery, placed neatly on a pink pillow just on top of a gold pedestal. “I don’t know if you’ll need them or not, but take them just in case.”

The ponies nodded and put on the accessories one by one, Twilight looked back at them happily. “Alright, let’s go find this pony!”