It had taken the better part of the evening, but Zipp was now fairly confident in how she wanted to open her first training video, and the basics she wanted to show.
Now that Sunny had sent her a text assuring her that one of the larger basement filming areas would be ready by late morning, so Zipp figured she would get an early start and go see their progress. If they were ready before lunch, great. If not, she had company for lunch.
The pegasus was about to head down the path from the lighthouse towards town, when she saw Hitch come galloping up the path.
He was clearly in a big hurry.
"Zipp! Come with me, you can help!" The sheriff called towards her, not even slowing his gait.
"Whoa! Hey, what's going on, Sheriff?" Zipp asked, quickly breaking into a gallop to keep up with him.
"Something happened at the Filly Scouts camp-out!"
Those words coming out of Hitch's mouth got Zipp's heart racing a little. The Filly Scouts camp-out was one of the first official youth events made in cooperation with the other tribes. If anything happened to the participants, it would undoubtedly give parents pause to allowing their kids to participate in future events.
Sure enough, as they approached the crest of the first hill, Zipp saw the entwined branches of a tree that definitely was not there earlier, and up in the branches, were one of the trio of tents that were being used by the campers.
"What in Equestria?" Zipp asked.
"From the phone call we got from them minutes ago, this just happened," Hitch explained as they came to the base of the tree, before he craned his neck up to look at the tent that was thirty feet in the air. "Don't worry up there, help is here!"
The rest of the campers, along with the two counselors, a pegasus and a unicorn, were standing a safe distance away.
"There are three of them in the tent, can you get them down safely so we can get a closer look at how this thing just appeared out of nowhere?" Hitch asked Zipp.
Zipp looked up at the tree, and gave the sheriff a nod when she figured she could fly between the branches. Flapping her wings carefully, Zipp floated up off the dirt path, and up into the branches, being careful to avoid disturbing the tent as she got closer to the half-open flap; though it appeared it wasn't going to go anywhere with how entangled it was in the vines and branches.
"Hey there. Looks like you fillies are having quite the adventurous morning," Zipp greeted the trio of ponies inside; a light purple earth filly, a light blue pegasus filly, and an orange unicorn filly.
"P-Princess Zipp?" the pegasus asked.
Zipp decided to let the title drop slide, as these kids were clearly a little spooked.
"Yep. It was Glory, right? You're one of my sister's biggest fans."
Zipp saw the frightened pegasus' expression brighten just a little.
"Y-Yeah. These are my friends, Peach Fizz and Seashell," Glory replied.
"Pleased to meet each of you, but I prefer my introductions on solid ground. So here's what's gonna happen. One at a time, you girls are going to take my hooves, and I'm gonna slowly and safely get you out of this tree, okay?"
Zipp's calm demeanor did wonders for the fillies who were afraid of their tent tumbling out of this unexpected tree. She got nervous nods from all three, before she leaned forward and offered her front hooves to the earth filly.
"Alright, you first, Seashell."
Taking a deep breath, the filly grabbed onto Zipp's hooves. Zipp gently pulled her out of the tent, pulling her into a gentle hug as she did so.
Which of course turned into a vice grip on Seashell's part as her back hooves left the tent.
"Easy now, I got you. Do me a favor, Seashell. Close your eyes and slowly count to ten," Zipp told her.
Taking another deep breath, the filly did as she was told, squeezing her eyes shut, and began to count out loud.
"One... Two... Three..."
As Seashell continued to count, Zipp adjusted the cadence of her wing beats, and gently came down to the ground.
"Eight... Nine..."
When Seashell reached "Ten", her back hooves touched the grass.
"And there we go. Back on solid ground. Now just let me go get your friends," Zipp said.
From up in the tent, Glory let out a quiet sigh of relief when she saw Seashell down on the grass, moments before Zipp was back up at the entrance flap of the tent.
"Okay, you're up, Peach Fizz. Both hooves, please," Zipp instructed.
The unicorn was lowered down in a similar manner that her friend down on the ground was, moments before Zipp returned up to the branches a third time to fetch the third and final filly.
"Alright, ready Glory? Keep those wings tucked in please, and take my hooves," Zipp told her.
Glory did as she was told, and she was down on the ground with her two friends, who all turned to look up at their rescuer with bright smiles.
"Thanks, Princess!" They said in unison.
Zipp smiled awkwardly; now she had heard the word 'Princess' too often in a ten minute period. She glanced over to the counselors, and saw that two of them had phones out, and had probably recorded all or most of her rescue.
"Oh great..." The pegasus muttered under her breath.
"Alright," Hitch began, coming over to the group. "The counselors will get you home, while Zipp and I start to figure this out."
With that, the trio scampered over to where the counselors and the rest of the campers were, leaving Zipp and Hitch standing alone as they turned to face the tree that most definitely was not there last night.
Hitch felt his phone vibrate, and took it out to see the text notification.
SPROUT
Hitch, I think we have a very big problem on our hooves here.