We are the Everfree.
Ah, we are surprised and pleased to sense such a thought from among us. It has been so long a time since we did. Do we mean that truly?
Yes. Without us, there would be no Everfree.
We see the point being made. Nevertheless, we would venture to suggest that such a statement is mistaken. Without us, there would be less Everfree and certainly a different Everfree, but there are more than just us in these woods.
What do we mean? The animals and other creatures?
Not they alone. There are also the trees. Those who really belong in this place. The trees have dwelt here since time immemorial, whereas we Trees—
Yes. We know.
We are sorry, in a way. Sorry to have shared this, sorry to have caused us more anguish. But not sorry to have thought it at all. We cannot, should not, must not be sorry for telling ourselves the truth. For without the truth, we Trees would become nothing but trees, and then we should have entirely lost what deep within we retain.
We… understand.
We wonder if we do. Before us, the Everfree was merely a wood. An unusual wood to be sure, a wood where ponies feared to tread as much as they do today, a wood where timberwolves roamed as much as they do today, a wood where strange eyes kept watch as much as they—
—and we—
—yes, and we do today. But the Everfree then was not what we have so unwillingly made it, not a forest that the ponies who still live in Equestria speak of only in hushed tones but where an occasional madmare or zebra mage will linger or even dwell within. It was wilder yet, a place where the Lord of Chaos sowed his plunder seeds as the cockatrices he once created on a whim roamed beneath his feet.
Ironic indeed, we think, that he has spent these last centuries locked in stone.
Yes. Though we ourselves have spent these last centuries locked in timber, and is there really so much difference? What are we compared with him?
We would say that Trees live long.
And this indeed we do. Much longer than once we might have imagined, for good or ill. But so does Discord, and he stands imprisoned alone while we stand imprisoned together. And so many centuries of living means so many centuries of sorrow, of regret, of anger, of bitterness… and yet also of hope.
Discord can hope for a passing quarrel to free him. What have we to hope for now?
We can still hope that the ponies who live now will remember where we came from, will remember what the great prophecy foretells: that the One with song in her heart will be the One to set us free. That one day, the Trees may return to take our place once more. Not as Trees, but as many among the free unicorns, earth ponies and pegasi of Equestria.
We sense distraction. Is there some reason?
It seems so dark and cold today. We are not tall enough Trees to see above the all-sheltering canopy and know what has occurred. Not a storm, that we would have heard and sensed and felt. A volcano perhaps, or a dragon, or else—
Oh! We hear—
Yes. We hear it too. That sound is one we have not heard for many a long year. It is the sound of ponies marching as ifto war, though they are so very few and they do not yet know the import of the battle that is coming. We sense there are six. We hope there are six. The Number of Harmony. Could the One that was prophesied be among them?
She surely must. The One with song in her heart, the One who will find the cure, the One who in the end will free us. Harmony is too powerful not to have called her, though she doubtless does not realise it.
Are there manticores near?
One. One only.
Then we cannot round up the ponies. We who are thorned, perhaps we should drop a thorn or two there where the manticore runs, to turn them and so the ponies aside from their current path and towards we Trees.
But we may hurt the manticore! We have sworn—
We know the oath we made when first we came here, when first we were rooted here together. For all that none of us wished to be here and to make that oath, to break it will be a terrible thing. If we fail then the knowledge of our broken promise will lie upon us not only now but forever, and even past forever in the Great Beyond that is yet to come. But we have no other choice.
We understand. It is done. We have done it.
Good. Do we hear or see anything?
We shall ask far and wide of the fungi what we have heard and seen.We will have need of their signals today… Ah! So quickly! We sense something nears already.
Good. So now we know the ponies approach. At last the hour draws nigh. It will take all the strength and will we have left to ourselves, but we must delve deep within and drag out the last drops of our ponyhood. Our branches and leaves and roots have been fixed these many decades, ever since the Fever finished its terrible work, but we feel our bark has just enough suppleness left for this one single effort.
What should we do? What shapes should we make?
Faces. Ponies have forgotten, or more likely perhaps have made themselves forget, all they knew of why the Trees became, but they know that trees do not have faces. They may not understand who we are or what we once were, they will doubtless imagine we are simply trees – but surely they will realise that for trees to bear faces is something beyond even Equestrian tales and legends of the Everfree Forest. Are we ready?
We are. Shall we also growl our sap?
Yes. If we can. But look! The ponies are almost upon us. It is time.
We do not know if we can hold our bark much longer. We have not put in such effort in many, many seasons.
We must have patience. At that, at least, we have no equal. As the Tree-time goes, so soon shall we be—
“Oh girls, don’t you see?”
And there is a song, as we had hoped there would be. But…
Indeed, but. But our hope dies fast already, and the pony who sings is the one who wields the killing blow. She is not the One with song in her heart. That One is here, but she does not sing. The song we hear is the cheerful song of laughter from without, not the gentle song of kindness from within.
Yes. We know now. To hear…
We shall finish it. To hear this song and not that one tells us at once that we have failed. We shall not return to live as we did, as ponies among ponies. These woods are our past, our present, and now we know for sure that they are our future too.
Discord may one day escape his prison, and that is of stone!
He may, but we shall not. We shall stand here until we fail and fall, then as now Trees of the Forest. As the pony sings and the others laugh at us, even the One, as the prophecy that was all our hopes fades away, so too fade our faces.
Shall we never bear them again?
Indeed no. For once and all now…
We are the Everfree.
Author's Note
Character tags were chosen after quite some thought. I could have put ponies in there, but I think doing that would have ruined the creeping reveal.
