Faith... everything start with a seed of faith.
Religions have come and religions have gone over the years in the magical land of Equestria, even some coming back again, and again, and yet again, like that flu that you never properly got rid off. Some religions ended up being called cults, some stamped as false, and most of them known as rather silly.
Why would you even need a religion, or a new one for that matter, when you could see the two alicorn sisters, goddesses over the sun and moon, whenever you wanted to. So long as you had enough bits to buy the train ticket of course? Faith, and beliefs, are for when you can´t see who's pulling the strings after all, and who among us haven't seen our fair princesses? Or done our work when winter had to been cleaned up?
Many religions have over the years promised better lives, but what better life could you give a pony like us in Equestria? Others promised the true wisdom behind the universe, but always ended up giving riddles to those that followed them, or sillier things. An especially popular cult had, on its last day of it’s regime, given all its followers the number 42, as if that was the meaning of life and everything, it was also those whose sign was a towel of all things.
But this group of fanatics... I am sorry, this new group of believers was different... are different, because when they promise something, they deliver on it, and then some. And what did they promise?
I am glad that you asked, they promised what no one had given anypony before. What only a few possessed, and what the masses whispered after time again and again... A new life, an eternal life, both for the dead and for the living. Resurrections, blessings and cures.
On their first day, the day when the Everbloom finally bloomed, or so is the day called in their holy book, did the first of them, the prophet, the Gardener, save a dead foal on the street; the poor young thing run over by a wild cart filled to the brim with barrels overflowing with wheat. Mother, father and puller alike were heartbroken. Crying their sorrow out on the open street, they didn’t even see the first Gardener of Everbloom performing his miracle, the first and last time it was done in public. First realizing that something was changed as their filly foal asked why they wept, why they were sad.
Within mere days the ponies of Equestria drove in herds to the Gardener, to him...nay, it was to them, the Gardeners. They came towing grannies, grandpas, stillborns, and those who had left all too soon. And a few lucky left again, walking where they before had been driven, lifted or dragged, a few lucky ones got a change anew... and the unlucky ones were buried in holy soil, some few for the second time.
Sick ponies did also seek the Gardenes, many of them dancing on the knife's edge, cures, tonics and spells keeping some ills away while side effects brought others, a puzzle of a game to keep them alive and well. Many of the sick were old ponies, ponies in the autumns of their lives, but not ready to leave yet, so much to see, even more to do, jokes to laugh at and happy tears to cry when the young grew up, cutie marks came forth, mares and stallions got married, and new life was brought into the world. But most of the sick that came where the young, those that were scared, those too green to wither already and die, those with only one summer in school, without a kiss from any special somepony. Those that were bedridden in the morning ran and played by the evening, both young and old enjoying this new spark they had been given. Miracle cases one and all. Wonders and joy all around, the best thing to ever happen since sliced bread and somepony got the idea to eat oats... but something was wrong, really really wrong, it was just not showing yet, the happiness overpowering the bad smell that was in the air..
The cult of the Everbloom grew each day, a new leaf springing forth on the tree so to say, each day a story about another life that had been given the fruit of live, but each day was there something new wrong with the world as well, reports gradually beginning to be written throughout country, the ink not even having dried properly on the first before the second was started. At first they were small things, something only for the mayors of small towns to worry about. But the weed grew, its roots soon spreading to the bigger towns, until even the largest cities could see its stalks. What was once a headache for smaller ponies became the headache of bigger ones. From mayors to councils to Lords and Ladies, none were able to keep the weeds down, the only thing they succeeded in was keeping it away from the eyes of the people, and the eyes of the twin rulers. Only once all else had been exhausted, when the nobles had been found out and asked ‘what was happening?’, was a single report given to lay at the hoofs of the Princesses, a single report saying the truth, how bad the situation was, how all emergency stockpiles had been used, where all the numbers on the economic papers had gotten their red hue from, and big things began to happen, big things that never could be undone again.
There had not been any pattern at first, no logic, no order, save that all of it had began only days after the first miracle of Everbloom. But there was no evidence, only a coincidence. Hardly enough to accuses a pony with a following that rivalled that of the Princess'. There were no lines between A and B, no patterns to draw between the sprouts, or at least none that would make any sense to a sane pony.
Someone had to find the connection, someone had to find the root of it all, but no one could hope to succeed alone.
