... does it make a sound?
The trees are moving. I'm sure of it.
The trees are coming for me, and I can't run away, because I'm a tree.
I wasn't always a tree. This morning I was a pegasus pony. I live in that cottage over there, just over the rise.
Discord thought he was doing me a favor. Somewhere he heard that I once said I'd like to be a tree, which was true at the time. So today he turned me into a tree, planting me in a little clearing between some very nice oaks on one side and the Everfree Forest on the other.
He said he also arranged it so that no pony would come to bother me until dawn tomorrow, so I could have a full day of living life as a tree, totally undisturbed.
I wish some pony would disturb me now. I wish I could disturb some pony- any pony.
I know Discord meant well, and I don't like to discourage him when he's making so much progress, but I wish he'd been just a little less reformed. Or maybe a little more attentive, because if he was here watching over me I'm sure he'd notice the swaying and-
That tree root over there wasn't this close when I last looked. It was five ponylengths away. Now it's four.
Anyway, at first it seemed nice. The oaks are very nice. Trees talk by scents and pheromones, by little touches and messages through the forest's intertwined root system. One of them was warning the others that it had a beetle infestation, and then it flushed the air when a woodpecker came by to get at the grubs. Another was bragging about the acorns it's growing, so many even its squirrel family won't be able to store them all. And the one closest to my house was talking about how the birds nesting in it were giving it all the guano it could want.
It was all sweet and pleasant, exactly as I imagined.
But then the other trees began to talk- the Everfree Forest trees.
I never knew trees could hate.
I never knew anything could hate as much as the Everfree trees hate.
They hate animals. They hate the birds who make nests and break twigs for them. They hate the squirrels who run through their branches. They hate the bunnies and moles that burrow under their roots. And they hate the larger creatures, like the manticores, who chase prey and break limbs and tamp down the soil. They say the animals are parasites, that they need to be destroyed.
They hate ponies. They say ponies cut down the forest, which once covered the whole continent. The ponies turned forests into fields. They turned trees into firewood. They took the center of the forest and dared to put a thing of stone in it, using magic so that even a thousand years after the ponies left, the Everfree still can't reclaim its own. Ponies are the enemy, the invader, and they want ponies- they want us eliminated.
They hate Zecora, but they're afraid of her.
(I really hope you're safe...)
They hate the trees that aren't part of the Everfree. The oaks are traitors, they say. And the trees on Applejack's orchard? I don't think Ponish has words for what they say about those apple trees. They give the enemy food, material, shelter. They've forgotten what it means to be a tree. They say those trees are "asleep".
They hate the timberwolves. Hate and fear them, becasue they know it is their own hate that takes a dead, fallen tree and turns it into one of those monsters. It's the loathing and rage they feel that powers the timberwolves, that lets them keep coming back again and again. They call them abominations, but they also sneer about how each of them will become one someday.
And most of all they hate me.
Because they know I'm not a real tree.
Where I sit, under Celestia's sun, it's a bright day with barely a breath of wind. But after about half an hour all the trees on the edge of the Everfree were rustling their leaves like it was a day for kite-flying. And it only got louder. Soon branches began swaying and creaking, as the smell of rage spread around me, as I felt little tendrils in the soil trying to grab and pull on my roots.
The Everfree is shouting- I think it's the whole forest now.
It's shouting Invader. It's shouting Imposter. Infiltrator. Spy.
And they mean me.
There's one tree voice louder than the others. At first I could barely hear it, but now the other trees repeat everything it says. I think it's that big, rotten, hollow one, the one with autumn foliage in the middle of May, the one that looks like it's dying but somehow isn't. It-
That one tree is only three ponylengths away now, it's not just the root. The oaks are still the same distance they were, but I'm a lot closer to the forest than I was.
The big tree says I'm the first, that more ponies will follow me. It says we intend to replace the trees. It says that if the forest doesn't do something, the forest will be destroyed, turned into nothing but ponies pretending to be trees. (I mean, I'm not pretending, I'm drinking through my roots and photosynthesizing and enjoying a little tropism as the sun moves overhead, but the angry trees won't listen to me.)
The big tree says it's time to fight back. He wants to bring back the forest, to get rid of the ponies.
And he says, when day is over and the trees have as much energy as they can store, they'll attack.
And all the trees of the Everfree cheer, and repeat it, and bend in my direction.
The sun is red and low in the sky. Some of the trees have already moved. I can feel their roots writhing in the ground, pulling them along.
I can't move. I don't know how.
Celestia help me, I don't know how.
I wish I were a pony, right now, so I could run. I'd warn my animals- my cottage is right over there, I can almost see it past those nice oaks, who are just as scared as I am. I'd warn my friends in Ponyville.
The big tree says they'll kill me first. Then they'll go on to the ponies. They'll flatten Ponyville. They'll also turn all the other trees into mulch if they're not on their side.
And the big tree says he will lead them all.
I can see the big tree's crown, swaying from side to side-
No. No, it's not swaying.
It's walking.
The other trees are parting to let it through.
One of the ones nearest me just ripped its roots out of the ground like a pony pulling a hoof out of the mud.
It's sunset, and the Everfree Forest is coming for me.
I want to run away.
I want to scream for help.
I want to be a pony again and not a tree.
And all I can do is stand and watch as the sun sets and the Everfree begins to march.
Some of them are already closer to my cottage than I am.
Save me.
Someone, save me!
The limbs of the nearest tree are brushing against mine.
Can anyone hear me?
If I fall, will anyone hear me?
Please, you've got to hear me!
The Everfree Forest is moving.
Author's Note
I really do not like horror. At all. And I'm probably not particularly good at writing it.
But for some reason, when I saw the Arboreal Yearnings contest, this idea popped into mind immediately- even though, honestly, while sticking to the letter of the rules it absolutely inverts the spirit of the rules.
So, well, here it is. Hope you enjoyed a dream turned nightmare.
As for how it ended... well, that depends entirely on how responsible you think Discord would be, even as regards his best friend.
