Friendship is Tartarus
I could already tell that it wasn't a normal day, as there was a lot more bright, sickeningly vivid colors strung up everywhere. I could see them all when the wind carried different sights through my branches. It's strange, having so many images coming through to you at once, but it all came strangely together. I knew what was happening around me, and one of the things I saw that day was a new face coming in by royal chariot. Except it wasn't royalty. It was a purple unicorn and what I thought was a baby dragon. As it later turned out, it was a baby dragon.
I hope that thing doesn't stay long, I thought, it being a fire-breather and all. At the very least, that it doesn't come near me often.
The first thing the unicorn tried to do was talk to the irritating pink one that had a high chance of a diabetic future. That was her first mistake. The pink pony simply gasped and zoomed off, and the unicorn looked flustered. Apparently she was in charge of overseeing preparations for the event that called for so much pink and purple. A Summer's Son Celebration or something like that. It looked to me like she didn't want to be there, or at least didn't enjoy social interaction.
I think I like her, came a half-sarcastic muse from wherever my mind is. Nopony really studied magical tree anatomy.
The unicorn left to go do something else, and later came back to be knocked into the mud by- THAT WAS HER, THAT WAS THE ONE THAT TRIED TO CARVE HER DUMB INITIALS INTO MY TRUNK! Because of who I now knew as "Rainbow Dash," I had an R and half of a D itching at me. The rainbow one then proceeded to clear the sky in about fifteen seconds, which means that I didn't get watered that day. As a matter of fact, I hadn't been watered in a while. Now I know why. Nag.
As "Twilight Sparkle", as was her name, left again, I noticed an unusually large group of ponies entering my- Oh no. It was the pink one. She was throwing another Celestia-forsaken party, and this time in ME. There ponies coming in carrying things, streamers, confetti, party hats, a punch bowl, punch, a cake, an ALLIGATOR. I heard somepony talking about spiking the punch bowl. They had hot sauce. Horseapples.
It took a while to set up, I suppose, but they were in time a few minutes before Twilight showed up, accompanied by a yellow- wait, why was she coming HERE? What could she POSSIBLY have to oversee in the LIBRARY!?
"...You wanna hear about today?" said the dragon.
"Oooh, YES please!" came the enthusiastic response from the yellow pegasus.
"I am so sorry, how DID we get here so fast? This is where we're staying while in Ponyville, and my-" and that was all I needed to hear.
Oh Heavens, no! Please, spare me! Not only is it a dragon, it's a BABY dragon, he can't even control his own fire breath!
The time to file a complaint was apparently up though. The two entered my door, and stood in complete darkness, discussing some pony called Nightmare Moon when:
*click* "SURPRIIIIIIISE!" There were ponies everywhere with hats and noisemakers and confetti and noise noise noise noise NOISE! And that's when I learned the pink one's name was Pinkie Pie. But then she started talking. Oh, sweet Celestia, it was terrible. Twilight made a good point about libraries were supposed to be QUIET. Then she accidentally drank hot sauce and locked herself in her new room. As for the downstairs proceedings, ponies were starting to get drunk just as soon as they all started to leave to... watch the sunrise? I still don't get it. Well, I was lucky. But not lucky enough to have them leave without cleaning up their mess.
I watched the big building in the center of town, or at least what I could get of it, when there were sudden flashes of lightning all striking right there. I could tell it was magic lightning. I can sort of sense magic like that. Then I caught snatches of some very loud declarations coming from the same place.
"Blah blah eternal night blah blah blah forever blah." Well that didn't sound good. I needed my sunlight. Soon enough Twilight was back here with her baby dragon, whose name was Spunk or something, and she dragged a handful of irritating "friends" with her. It was a sort of interesting cast gathered in that library, with a Canterlot bookworm, a wannabe-Canterlot fashionista, a tree-hugger, a future diabetic, a baby dragon, a redneck, and that nag braggart pegasus.
Twilight layer down some lore on this Nightmare Moon she was talking about earlier from a book, and they all got the brilliant idea to go very deep into the Everfree Forest and fight that super-charged goddess pony throwing a temper tantrum. With any luck, they won't come back.
I would have preferred eternal night...
So the little crud buckets left, the pink one bouncing again, and the blue nag flying. Again. I wondered what that was all about. Did she have a flight fetish? Was she allergic to ground? I hoped so. That would be great. But sadly unrealistic. Wait a second, they seemed to have left some pony behind... OH NO. I couldn't believe it. Those absolute idiots choose to go on a death quest, and they DIDN'T bring the drunk fire-breathing baby dragon? WHO is going to stop that thing from trying to singe his name on the wall or something dumb like that, huh? What, did they think he was going to clean up the huge mess that had already been made? NO. Well, that was just great.
I saw him lying in what looked like a laundry basket with a lampshade lying near. At least the little pyromaniac was asleep. It wasn't a very windy morning. Or night, I should say. Well, it was technically morning, but the sun hadn't yet come up, so I'm not sure what to call it. The point is that there was a sufficient lack of wind, so I wasn't picking up much picture. I did get the impression of darkness though, and it unnerved me to think that that might be my life. My branches shook a little at the prospect, which is my equivalent, as a magic tree, of a shudder. I'm the only tree in Equestria that can shudder. Huh.
It grew quite boring as time dragged on. I mean, normally there were at least a few ponies out and about, even in the darkest hours, but right about now they were all probably huddled in the big building in the middle of town, shivering like I just attempted to and waiting for their- how many had left? Five? Probably five "heroes" to come back with good tidings. What a stupid lot of ponies, if that's what they were doing.
Is the dragon still asleep? I checked. OK, it's still asleep.
Ponies started filing out of the big building slowly and shakily looking around, probably going to look for extended safety in their homes. There was a pair of ponies that strangely enough ran off in the direction of the Everfree. A brown earth stallion and a grey pegasus with lopsided pupils. There were three rather lost-looking fillies. The couple who ran the bakery right over on the corner. A few members of the weather team. All that's missing is Waldo, I thought as almost the whole of Ponyville started back to their homes.
Suddenly, though, my ponywatching was disturbed by the strangest sensation I had felt since being brought to life. I had never experienced anything like it before. If I were to guess, it was like if the ground had given way beneath me unexpectedly. Then came the feeling of being dragged down- no, more like sliding, if anything, down a hill. Then the sliding came to an abrupt stop, and I felt what it must be like for a pony to dangle over the edge of something very high, holding on to something. Then there was the voice.
I caught a single word being said in my mind, almost to me.
"...honest..." I couldn't hear much else after that, it was just a whole lot of it was weird ringing, but not like the sort of ringing you heard when you're dizzy, or after an explosion. It was a magic sort of ring. I knew just that much from being a magic creature. The voice in my head just then was also magic. The little bit of inference I was making was cut short then by the sensation of falling again. That, too, though, was also cut short. Gently, though. I simply felt falling, then stalling, then nothing. Everything was absolutely normal again, and it was terrifying.
What in the name of Celestia was that!? Why did I have those feelings, and how was I able to place them? How did I so surely name something like falling if I'd never felt it before? And sliding? I'm a tree! The most I've felt was uprooting, replanting, and hollowing out! And what was that word all about? Honest? What's honest? And about what?
I was shaking in my leaves. Of course, I had little time to shake, as I caught another sensation. There was no falling involved this time, but a general sense of danger. Of course, it lasted only about 30 seconds until there was again nothing but ringing and a word in my head that I didn't put there.
"...kindness..." This one made just as much sense as the last, and left just as much magic feedback. I asked myself the same questions I did last time, just less violently. And then, not two minutes later, it happened again.
It didn't surprise me as much this time. In fact, I started to wonder if I was having a dream. Unfortunately for me, trees- even magical ones- don't dream. This feeling was a lot simpler, but much worse. I felt fear. Fear at nothing in particular, just pure, unadulterated fear. It was horrific, not being able to know what I was scared at, or why I was scared, but just being SCARED. And then, just like that, it was replaced with momentary joy, and once more, a word. This time, the word took on a rather sing-song, elongated tone.
"...laugh..." Aside from the ringing, I don't know what I was expecting. Laugh? It was better not to question it anymore. I wasn't even startled when half a minute later, I got the feeling of distress. It was strange, because it was more of a second-hand distress. Like somepony else was in despair, but it left me affected as well. But then the issue was once again hastily resolved, and the mystery word of the minute showed up.
"...generous... Oh for crying out loud.
Next I felt worried. Not worried for me, but for somepony else. No, wait, I was worried for them and for me. No, I was worried about what the other pony might do that could hurt me! The feeling, like the others, didn't last, and was soon replaced by a wave of relief.
"...loyal..." Well, now I saw a pattern. It appeared that some supernatural being was trying to teach me morals and values in the strangest, most inefficient way possible. I had something to ponder over until the next flash of emotion. Until I felt a very real wetness inside my trunk. Spike had woken up and puked. Great. It then got better with another emotion: absolute hopelessness.
I felt defeated. By what, I can't be sure, but just then there was something new. I felt a strain, a magical strain, as if I was actually USING magic, and a lot of it. It sapped me of just about everything I had, and would've killed if it hadn't been for something that wasn't the spell keeping me alive. A few seconds later, there was a sense of realization, hope, reassurance, courage, confidence, fondness, and most profoundly, friendship. It was as if, to make up for the horrors of the night, somepony upstairs noticed and granted me with everything good in the world. But who knew for how long.
...MAGIC! The last one was so loud, so profound, and unexpected it left itself reverberating in my head while the good emotions of mine continued like nothing was happening. I doubt anypony else knows how it feels to be startled and simultaneously not startled. I hope I never do again. It was like an out-of-body experience. One that was put on halt almost immediatly as all the magic that had been sapped from me just moments ago came rushing back like a whirlwind, though it didn't stop there.
I felt a surge of power that kept growing and growing, and it felt like I was linked to other sources of power as well. It got so intense that I- it didn't cause me not to see anything- but it caused me to see EVERYTHING. Or just about, at least. Everything around me was suddenly much more vivid, clear, magnified, and so were the sounds! Oh, I could see or hear just about everything in all of Ponyville!
And then things started to go beyond the borders of a mental connection to whatever was causing this, as I began to shake and tremble with power, and my branches started whipping around slightly. I became aware of letting off a faint glow, until everything turned to nothing as the magic was too much to handle and I blacked out.
The Origins of Tree
*I'd really like to be a tree
- Fluttershy*
Hello, I am tree. I don't have a specific name. The closest it comes to is "Twilight's Tree". I am Twilight's Tree. And I am here to tell you about the absolutely Hell-ish experience I've gone through while housing and being kept under the care of that purple chaos magnet. First though, how about I tell you how I got here.
I started out as a little sapling in what the ponies call the Everfree Forest, not too far in, but deep enough to stay ignorant of what goes on outside the forest's border. I was a happy, ignorant little sapling, until some dumb zebra sorcerer came along and enchanted me. Then he dug me up and took me home to display his new "live tree" to his family. Yeah, the spell that zebra cast on me gave me a mind of my own then, a life beyond photosynthesis and a fight for sunlight with other plants. And it sucked. I mean, yeah, I could move my limbs on my own now, and I could speak telepathically if I concentrated hard enough, and I lived long enough to really GROW, but then one day mayor and a couple of guards ponies came and said "you can't have that it's too dangerous blah blah blah threat to the environment blah" and uprooted me. Very painfully, by the way.
I had to be relocated using unicorn magic, as I was a bit bigger than the one-story houses in "Ponyville" at this point. One must wonder why I was put so close to civilization if I was such a "dangerous creature". Well, I overheard a couple of real-estate agents talking, and I guess the mayor couldn't afford to build a library, but wanted one anyhow. And guess who was excruciatingly hollowed-out and redecorated for the job? Well it wasn't Fluttershy. I was cut open and shelved and all that, but while it didn't actually kill me, it drained the magic from the spell. So the good part about being a live tree that can move and telepathically communicate was now the good part about being a tree. None.
The spell was honestly the only thing keeping me alive, so I could move a limb every once in a while if I wanted to, but I'd kill myself doing it. And all for a library, really. Isn't that the sickest thing? I mean, I couldn't "hear the screams of my fallen brethren" from the books, but I KNEW they were there, it was bad. I was a tree with DEAD TREE PARTS in me. It was terrible. It wasn't too bad for several months, except for that one pegasus that tried to carve her name into my trunk. What a nag.
Then that magical menace of a bookworm came to town. And to learn about friendship, of all things.
