The Fragile Art of Bonsai Trees
The tiny tree stood in the grass, alone.
The tree was very small, only about a foot high. Tiny little branches spread out from the trunk of the tree, and tiny little leaves hung from the branches. Tiny little roots dug into the soil, and a tiny little breeze blew through its tiny little self.
The tree was alone, at least, alone of other trees. A few animals did live in the boughs of this minute plant. A small mouse lived in a tiny burrow at the very base, where it feasted on some small grubs that wriggled in the dirt nearby, and also enjoyed the small fruits the tree had to bear from time to time. Some small crickets lived in the grass, and a small family of small lizards lived on the branches above. A few feet away from the tree was a small ant-hill, where a colony of small ants marched about.
The grass was somewhat tall, about six inches in height. It had not grown for a while, but none of the animals payed any attention to that. Instead, they focused on living in their small ecosystem, day after day, night after night.
On that day, they heard a sound that was all too familiar. It was the sound of hooves slowly and softly approaching them, getting ever closer to their tree. The crickets went silent, the mouse stopped gnawing on a fruit, and the lizards ceased their tongue-flicking.
The hoof noises stopped, and there was another noise that the animals knew and loved. It was the sound of water. Water sprinkled from the sky, lightly, and it dampened the tiny tree. The little green leaves were dappled with water, and the small lizards began to flick their tongue out again, happily enjoying the water that was being given to them. The mouse lapped at a rivulet of water that was cascading down the tiny trunk towards him, and the grubs in the earth began to wriggle around happily as they were moistened. Even the crickets leapt towards the tree to get in on the wonderful water.
The deluge stopped after a few moments, and there was a another sound as a watering can was set down onto the grass. The animals all went about, consuming as much water as they could, all the while the originator of the sounds and water looked down at them in love.
“Oh my, you sure are all very thirsty today,” she said. She was a yellow pegasus by the name of Fluttershy, with a pink mane that flowed softly with each gentle gust of wind. On her back, a saddlebag rested, and in it were several tools. Around her throat, a golden choker hugged her, with a small pink butterfly that lay just above her chest. She missed butterflies.
After watching the animals enjoy their drink, she reached into her saddlebag with her mouth, and pulled out a small pair of clippers. Bending down over the plant, she began to snip the leaves and branches very carefully, making sure that the longer ones were attended too, and the shorter ones were given room to grow. The lizards retreated to the base of the tree as Fluttershy did this, and droplets of water fell to the ground off of the tree as she did so.
After finishing her job, she sighed, and took the watering can up in her mouth. Tipping it so that the water began to fall from it again, she slowly paced around the tiny tree, watering the grass that surrounded the small plant.
Turning back to the tree, she softly called out to its inhabitants. “Come out, little mouse! Come out, little lizards! Come out crickets and ants! I have brought food...”
The mouse slowly rose from its warren, and the lizards climbed off of the tree. The crickets, who had been exploring the dampened blades of grass, bounced over to her, and the ants made tiny little rows as they proceeded over towards her.
Fluttershy smiled. “There we go.” Reaching into her pack once more, she pulled out half of a somewhat bruised apple. The mouse smiled, and extended its tiny paw-hands up towards the apple. Fluttershy slowly lowered it down to him, and he gratefully accepted it.
Fluttershy reached into her pack, and returned with a few leaves, beginning to brown, but still somewhat fresh, in her mouth. Setting them down in front of the crickets, they began to chirp happily, and swarmed the foliage. She giggled softly. “I spent a good long time looking for those.”
Once again, she was in her pack, and once again she returned with something in her mouth. This time, however, she held in her mouth a small cup, with a bit of white sugar at the bottom.
“This was especially hard to find,” she told the ants as she emptied out the sugar onto the ground, and poured a bit of water onto it so that it became a little gooey mess. The ants all scurried over towards the sugar water, and Fluttershy smiled as they began to return to their hive, and back to the sugar water in small little rows.
“Haven’t forgotten about you, of course,” Fluttershy told the lizards, and she produced two very large, very dead moths. The lizards smiled scaly smiles at Fluttershy, who smiled back at them. The reptiles took the moths, and climbed up to the higher recesses of the tree to enjoy it.
Fluttershy watched happily as her little ecosystem worked smoothly, the animals enjoying the foods bestowed to them. “I’ve got someone new for you all,” she said, and reaching into her pack, she pulled a small bird’s nest. Inside was a tiny grey bird, the left half of its body scorched. Its left wing was bandaged, and the left eye was unblinking. She set the nest down on the top of the tiny tree, and reached back into her pack, giving the bird a few slimy night crawlers.
“I hope you like it here with your new friends,” Fluttershy said. “I’ll be around to take care of your wing, of course.” The bird chirped, and shifted a bit it its nest, revealing tiny blue and green speckled eggs incubated underneath her.
Fluttershy grinned as the bird devoured her night crawlers. After a few moments, she turned her gaze on the tree itself.
“Well, I’m back,” she said. The tree sat there, unmoving, untalking, for it was a tree. Fluttershy did not care, however; she always felt in tune with nature throughout her entire life, and even if the plant couldn’t actually answer her, she still felt as though she was communicating with it.
“I hope all of my little animal friends are treating you well,” she said, kicked her left hoof a bit at the grass. “I’m doing my best to keep you happy as well, with the pruning and such...”
The tree was silent as ever, but one of the lizards did make a high pitched noise. Fluttershy had imagined something in her head for the tree to say, and chuckled.
“Well, I’m glad. I’ll keep coming back best I can, but it’s hard, you know?” The tree’s branches rustled a bit as a small breeze wafted past the area.
Fluttershy fell silent for a moment as well, and then opened her mouth to speak again. “You know, I don’t think I’ve ever told you this, but I’d like to be a tree. Sitting with my roots in the soil, peacefully letting water trickle down me, my leaves open to the sunshine, the warm breeze wrapping all around me, rustling my branches, small animals and insects keeping me company...”
Fluttershy fell silent again. Sitting down, she stared at the little ecosystem, and how it functioned, working perfectly in tune with each other. The grubs worked away at the soil and fallen leaves from the tree, the mouse ate the grubs, the ants took care of the mouse’s dropping, and the lizards helped themselves to the ants. The crickets all the while hid out in the grass, gnawing away at it, while soon they would be providing food for the birds. It was quite marvelous, to see how nature worked.
Fluttershy leaned back, laying down in the grass. Her head brushed up against the brown grass, the dying grass that lay apart from the green, watered grass. From somewhere beyond it, a fat brown cockroach crawled past Fluttershy meandering its way towards the tree. Of course, cockroaches survived everything. Well, except for lizards, and soon one lizard was much happier than a certain cockroach.
Fluttershy sat up, and blew a bit of hair out of her eyes. Sighing, she looked away from her beautiful little biome, a tear in her eye. Turning her head, she looked out at where she had come from— the grey ashes still falling from the sky as if snow. There were the twisted and burnt remains of a cottage; her cottage. The Everfree, once a brilliant and abundant place of life, was now nothing more then grey stalks, burnt reminders of what had once been. Laying in the other direction was the smoldering ruins of a place once called Ponyville, but Fluttershy wasn’t ready to look in that direction. Not yet.
Slowly, she got to her hooves, and waved a hoof in farewell to the animals and her tree. The mouse waved a paw-hand back, a cricket lifted a leg in goodbye, and the lizards clicked their tongues.
She smiled, and turned back to walk the way she had come here. Stepping out onto the ashy, ruined earth, she trotted away from the little patch of life in this dead, dead world. Her eyes brimmed with tears as she passed by five wooden markers, each with a trinket of brilliant gold inlaid with a gem of some sort in a certain shape hanging from the top.
