Diffusion

something yet lingers

...I...

...yes. That is a very important bit. 'I'. Hang onto that. If there is a concept of 'I', then it can clearly be attached to something superior. Once that enhanced definition is acquired, the rest will come. Or perhaps the determination of being better than others can arise from the definition itself. Simply look around and use the information acquired to...

...I... perceive light, and do without seeing it. I'm aware of where light is present against my -- not 'skin' exactly. The warmth of it. I'm also aware of where light has been blocked. There are shapes to those shadows, and it almost comforts me because I can tell what shapes are. That's progress. And I definitely appear to possess some sort of -- proximity sense. How close something is, a strong idea of its outline, and certainly whether it's moving. I know that there's air shifting above the exposed portion of my -- outer portion.

My not-skin is rough and cracked and thin and the light pierces through it and warms that part of me and there is weight, everything is mass and I am trying to move, I wish to and all I have is the concept of movement as a former possibility. I direct the thought towards the great still mass which stretches endlessly through thin tendrils which wind about the still-breathing damp coolness and it understands the idea, it knows that everything ultimately moves and that is why it all goes on, but no part of this was meant to move of its own accord, movement is only something facilitated and I try to heave the spread-out mass of my back against the prison of the soil, but I can't sense a single strand of my own fur and that means everything must be so matted down as to leave me as an utter mess, the ultimate lifeform of the alicorn unfit for the display of true majesty --

-- alicorn. I am an alicorn. Definitely hang onto that.

And my fur must be a complete disaster.

Misty, gather Gertrude from the bathroom and groom my fur.

...Misty?

(Who is...?)

Where is that girl?

I try to open my eyes again and let in the light to see her because the last thing I remember are shifting walls of glowing cylindrical sickly green closing in on me because I was chasing my mark my mark it's my mark they took my mark and I need to get it back because without a mark I'm not

I'm

I am Opaline Arcana. The last of the true alicorns. The strongest survived, and thus proved her right to victory. I am the most powerful being in the whole of existence.

I have only the memory of light and movement.

The concept of what had been a perfect form, replaced by this thing which spreads into what feels like at least four -- five? Ten? -- different temperature zones at once, with the life of sunlight on one side and too cool on the other, I can hear perfectly but sound comes from thousands of degrees of direction at once and it all overlaps and blurs and there is a faint grasp of scent and gravity and something falls from the tip of my thinnest D2nr and drifts to that which holds me and I try to open my mouth to call out for her, only there is nothing which can open and yet nodules of dirt and rock rush down my throat and I try to scream and scream and scream when there is no voice no lungs no throat

thought
only thought
my body
where is my
I can hear perfectly
and I hear my leaves rustle

drift

it is warm it is cold it is breezy it is still it is loud and silent and there is music sometimes the notes clash or feel like they're coming from ten different instruments at once in different places and compositions and styles and the music is torture because it's like sixty ponies are playing at what isn't quite the same time with absolutely no concept of trying to work together under the total mastery and coordination of a superior leader

it's clash and contrast and not quite constant and a little too much everywhere

and for the rational mind, that's the clue
too
much
everywhere

...it was... a game.

A perfect game. (Consider the nature of the inventor!) And all which was necessary in order to win was... to move.

Without moving.

I told myself that it was possible, because a child knows everything is possible. A truly effective adult is simply a child who wished to be in charge of the world and then recognized that it was going to require a certain amount of extra logistics.

I thought... no horn. No wings. No flare of light prior to levitation, or even the perfect concealment of craftily-hidden energies. Not the lightest breeze to press against an ideal form (junior edition). In fact, my knees would not flex, nor would my hips and shoulders bend at any time.

Or rather, if they did, I would never know.

It was an exacting sort of game. Absolute mastery often is, and this was starting through establishing absolute dominion over my own body. It was required to move -- and in doing so, not report any details about the process to the brain. To possess such utter control over the form that it can launch a stealth mission, under your command, and technically do it without you.

I imagined that a successful result would have felt very much like -- gliding. I would have been unable to detect muscles shifting, after all: only the kinetics produced. It would be as if my head was nothing more than a repository for the senses, trying to report on a world which had decided to shift around it. My identify became the information coming in...

...did I win?

That feels like a rather silly question, along with being a somewhat insulting one. I must have won every time. I played by myself, after all. That would seem to indicate a certain capacity for lapping the field in all of the races, even when the competition was so very talented.

Or perhaps the rounds were interrupted. Frequently.

Actually, I'm starting to suspect that I never actually finished a round because she always caught me and if she figured out what I'd been up to, there would be a lecture and

she

she felt it was dangerous

that I was trying to dissociate from my own body and if I ever

she

tallloudangryafraid

who was

some of the holidays synchronize across the cities

it isn't sixty ponies failing to become a full orchestra without a single collective clue

it's three groups of roughly twenty each

Well.

They rather underestimated me, didn't they?

Then again, I can hardly blame them for this one. A single alicorn left, yes? I've been thinking about that, especially when thinking is pretty much the only thing currently left to me. When I first emerged within their silly little shore town? Of course they weren't going to be afraid of me. When viewed through the perfectly-polished enhancement offered by hindsight, I rather doubt a single pony there had a clue as to what I was. I seem to vaguely recall having been through the repeated misfortune of multiple encounters with Twilight Sparkle, although many of the details are mercifully absent --

-- yes, I'm aware that I appear to be missing a few memories, but I feel I've done rather well to scrabble back any sense of self in what I'm assuming was a spectacularly short time and therefore, the rest is simply a matter of further effort --

-- and in my fully qualified and expert opinion (because I can name no other more so in the entire world, and I would know), a mare so supposedly dedicated to teaching through the anti-art of the lecture did most of her teaching through censorship. Magic? Oh, we're going to lock all of that away, excise it from the history books, and do our best never to think about it again by guaranteeing no others can. The myriad problems of what was then the current day? Sweep them under the rug! Allow them to slowly mature while marinading in a thick soup of ignorance and in about a thousand years, perhaps a set of heroines will just happen to show up in time to solve your problems through the art of pure coincidence. That's the traditional approach.

So once I considered exactly who would have been at the helm of any centuries-long Prepare For Her Inevitable (And Yet Majestic!) Return program, I recognize the exact nature of her inevitable approach: to wit, never tell anypony I'd even existed and just hope that matters worked out.

...well, yes: it is an act of incredible stupidity, but if you'd ever met the mare, you'd understand.

And as for the modern day? Consider that this is, in many ways, the society -- or rather, the three somewhat variant failures of societies -- which she created. And that explains everything. Like that relative lack of reaction when I came through to the shore town for the first time. It was disrespect born of ignorance. They didn't know to fear me. If they had, there would have been a greeting more befitting my station. Like screaming. It's usually screaming.

And think about how much else she didn't teach them. Things they failed to look for. Ways not to think.

For example, not that it would ever be likely to come up, but if I was battling the most powerful being who still existed and happened to see her get swallowed up by green-glowing animated tree roots? I would have checked for a body.

I have been looking for my body. The real one. It's just a matter of

After all, there's a good chance that a truly clever alicorn would have rigged something like that to make it look like she was losing when the actual plan was a strategic retreat. And quite frankly, if there was something in the world which was capable of taking out Opaline Arcana with that little effort, then I'd want to know exactly how it worked. There's a certain need to keep it from being used against me, although the much more entertaining option would be to pick out the pony I dislike most and then simply use it again.

I had to go in
my mark
it took my mark
didn't have any right to my
the things I did to get
I did something
she was supposed to be proud of me
a mark finally a mark everypony else had and now me and she would smile and stop looking so worried all the time
I did something special and she was supposed to be proud
they all pulled back and

Given recent events, narrowing down that last category might take a while.

my body
if I can just find my

Oh, if one is so unfortunate as to have an alicorn as their opponent -- a natural one, mind you, and not whatever that one is supposed to be -- and somehow, luck strikes in a way which makes it seem as if the upper forehoof is currently pressed against your enemy's throat? Make sure. For there is but one true alicorn survivor, still survives, and so she can say that as a species, she is decidedly difficult to permanently put down. Even I was unaware of every means an alicorn has of advancing their own survival, simply because I'd never been so catastrophically unlucky before. Still... I have been alive for rather a long time. I suppose cumulative odds may actually be a thing.

I should try to remember some of the contents from the statistics books which Twilight Sparkle placed in my castle.

...yes, I know. It was a studied insult. First, just to imply that I had something left to learn! A whole library's worth of lacking subjects! Oh, and also that I would need to pass the time while working out a way through her defenses. The intelligent mind waited out the necessary century before deciding that the truest revenge would be to turn her so-called gift against her...

Would the answer be in those books?

There... was an argument, wasn't there? That an alicorn was naturally meant to be a gestalt being. Linked. A permanent joining to something greater than oneself, and that was what kept you... stable.

The fire was supposed to be it.

The fire left me.

It was mine by right of conquest, and it left.

does that mean the tree beat me?

The other two... the sisters... nopony ever took that back. Even the warped one retained some degree of link during the time of change. If the fire's touch within my heart was true, it wouldn't have left --

-- maybe it never would have hurt --

-- convenient, to have been the one who evolved. Who can discard her original gestalt with fire on instinct alone, without knowing she's truly doing it! Because when fire offers no option for survival

I tried and the roots wouldn't burn

then release the flames and take strength from whatever might save you! Who else could have done that?

Only I.

Obviously.

Where am I?

Ask 'what' first. That will give you the where, although finishing up could take a while.

I cannot truly see. I'm fully aware of light, though. There's definitely a sense of touch, and that odd proximity sensation. Somepony put a box down next to Dx y = dy/dx me, and I could tell how large it was, roughly what it weighed, and that it would be really funny to place it at y” = d2y/dx2. So I did. They were searching for... for a while, I suppose. I'm still getting a sense of time together.

You thought it was trapping me, Sunny Starscout? And dragon, you were foolish enough to believe that would be my end? You, who lived through all of it and choose to remember none simply because you cannot face the pain of your failures? And you're really all just going to accept that a plant warped by magic ate a pony.

What did the dragon child do?
What is it capable of?
Does it matter?
The child always seems to do whatever is necessary, as long as it hurts me.

Without followup. Not even investigating to see whether it could be done again with whoever's been annoying you lately.

I am Opaline Arcana, and perhaps those who spoke of alicorns and gestalts were correct. I simply made my true joining at the last, as only the greatest could.

I am the Together Tree.

All it takes for them is a spark, does it not? And I am the pure flame.

maybe there's a hoof touching a root
if the weight of soil around roots can be felt
they were squeezing in at the end and
one hoof
one hoof gets everything started

Gestalt. Yes, that makes sense now. Two sibling merged with celestial bodies, only they did so on more of a -- spiritual level. I likely could have done both at once, if I'd had any concept that it was truly possible. Really, it's their fault for not including me in the --

-- in their --

-- maybe if we hadn't all drifted away from --

-- I, of course, had to take what I could get at the time. And a true alicorn form, when placed in a state where the basic necessities of life support aren't going to be coming around for a while, has the chance to slip into suspended animation. It happened to the weaker one (by accident), so naturally a superior being like myself readily managed the feat.

My body is obviously somewhere near the original 'capture' site. All that's necessary is for my mind to make contact with it and then reestablish control of the vital systems. I should be able to push enough roots around to create space for proper movement, and once that's managed...

I am so close to your homes.

All of your homes.

I wonder which one I should emerge at first?

one hoof
there has to be one hoof within touch
roots and root hairs and the mycorrhizae which start the link into the fungal networks
the tiniest of filaments, slipping through the soil
the planet
carrying information
a shadow-block was just placed near a root
I giggle
it's near another one now
if I send enough through, one has to bump my dock or an ear or a single feather

...but do I really need to hurry?

I am Opaline Arcana. I am the Together Tree.

I am all of the Together Trees.

I can feel the salt in the air of the stupid shore town. Rather more sunlight around in my old home than I would have expected, and the scratching of claws at my bark is irritating. The pegasus city is colder than the others on a day-to-day basis, and the unicorn forest comes with a weight to the atmosphere which still cannot lift as the laughing bits of defiance who call themselves breezies play in the space between spaces while protecting the treasures given to them by

by...

...,my intent was to conquer. To strike everywhere in rapid succession, claim all the magic before any could know what was happening. Certainly before anypony could do more than dream of stopping me, and there is likely a very stupid footnote in the Cumulative Odds section which explains why it had to be now.

Try to strike everywhere in rapid succession.

Currently, I am everywhere at once.

I am in Bridlewood. The Bay. I was recently invited into the Heights, and apparently Misty helped to arrange that? I wasn't quite paying attention to that part. And I can feel other tendrils of me, stretching out through the byways of a planet in lines one cell thick, reaching to those places which are simply awaiting to the first touch of unity's renewed light and...

This is... rather appropriate, actually. There is a true alicorn remaining, and she is in every seat of power at the same time.

Which, of course, is what Together Trees are for.

there's dirt in my tail
i'm supposed to stay clean because that's how i look like a good filly
a good filly wouldn't want to drift away all the time
to leave her body while her perspective just moves without her
nopony understands
there's dirt in my tail and if it stays there long enough, the tail might become the dirt
that's fossilization
nopony else seems to think that's scary
i had a dream about a place called skyros which was run by fossils in the shape of ponies
they didn't know they were dead

...well, yes: that was one of their purposes. Think about it. Allowing for delivery of items and individuals just about instantly? Well, you don't give the sending end for that to somepony you don't trust, now do you? So an exchange of Together Trees was the final step in the truest cementing of an alliance, because they could be used to visit that ally at any time. Not to mention providing reinforcements during a period of crisis or, if you'd been really good about deceiving the soon-to-be-conquered, getting most of your army into the city in less than five minutes.

Together Trees are so awash in magical protections as to turn them into beacons of magic -- for those who still remember how to truly see the purest of light. And they had to be, because -- well, quite frankly, because one cannot be an alicorn of intellect and creativity -- the only one -- and not look at a Together Tree without perceiving a number of interesting invasion tactics. So the trees have any number of effects cast upon them. The majority are meant to prevent unauthorized access, but -- some of those can break down over time, at least when it comes to the occasional random slip of a mass to a location at another tree in y(n) = dny/dxn space. And thus Misty, which goes to prove that even a completely random slip of living mass can have both no respect for the long-term plans of a proper alicorn and a total lack of humor.

...and some of those castings were probably meant to keep an invader from tumbling into the wrong root system because the trees are so intricately linked as to make pony interference into a chancy operation, but as long as the protections are in place...

i disabled every protective spell for a few seconds during the fight
all of them
it felt easier than doing them individually chancing that i might overlook something
the roots closed in on me and
my hooves are
there must be so much dirt in the cracks
she'll be mad
when she gets mad i just want to drift until i find a place where she isn't

This is... interesting.

Yes, there was at least an aspect of defeat involved from what the Starscout mare and her totally unwarranted whatever-that-tactic-was-at-the-end. I didn't succeed. It's very important that I admit that freely. I have been knocked down and when it comes to the current location of my consciousness, knocked somewhat sideways.

For a distance ranging from a few hoofwidths to, potentially, several thousand gallops.

I am the Together Tree. I am all of them, for each is linked to all of the others. Some of them are simply waiting to be -- awakened. And when one is the Together Tree, then one is within the halls of power -- or rather, just outside them because even if you have both total trust in your ally and confidence in your security, allowing anypony to just pop packages and people into your bedroom isn't always the best idea.

I can't quite seem to see. I'm aware of light's presence and the shape of shadows. Scent comes readily, if in limited form. I certainly know which way 'down' is. It's taking an ongoing effort to tell myself that the loss of a leaf is not a sign of personal aging and in any case, a Together Tree can outlast every alliance it's been pledged to.

there is dirt in my eyes
there is dirt in my eye sockets

But my hearing is pristine.

I've been listening.

Perhaps I can overhear something important. Crucial. A queen in Zephyr Heights contemplates upon a matter of national importance in the gentle shade of a silent tree, and... could whispering that information to the ambitious of the Bay do something interesting?

And I can move things. I've proven that. It has to be to where a Tree is fully active, which means the slumbering ones aren't part of the network -- but I can slide things along the root paths, and even bring them back again.

My body should be very close to a place of power for me. Also in direct proximity to a Tree.

If I can relocate myself, within myself, and do so shortly after luring the political powers of a very small world to a range where they can be snatched away...

Or perhaps the fools will discover more of the old species. Find a new one somewhere, and revive the traditions. The gift of a freshly-sprouted Tree, to bring them Together at will.

To bring them -- to me.

Practice.

I need to practice.

time is passing
light touches leaves
light goes away
that's time
how much time is

Misty!

Misty, come here, girl! My leaves need tending. Check them for insects. Surely you can do that much --

-- I thought that was Misty...

I can determine shapes, within a certain range. I suppose that makes sense, doesn't it? A Together Tree certainly has to know when something is ready for sending. So I can tell when a unicorn mare is present, certainly by outline. 'Hopelessness' can generally be assumed. And then I try to project my thoughts towards them, giving the inferior those orders which they crave -

-- they don't approach the trunk after I do that. The current trunk. Some of them leave. Quickly. For the ones where I hear names, I don't hear them again --

-- you'd think ponies would want to rest under a big tree. It's friendly. They'd hang around and talk about secrets of the state with each other, instead of saying that it's creepy in the shadows and half the time, nopony can figure out where they put their sandwich down --

-- all right. I need to work on my hearing. And my focus. Because the Trees have a certain amount of -- overlap. It's as if they're all in the exact same place, and the world around them can't quite seem to agree where that's supposed to be. So when I listen to the area around a given Tree, lack of full concentration means getting some bleed from the other regions. It's distracting and quite frankly, is probably the reason I haven't located my body yet. I've been trying to poke it with a root to get its attention, but you try getting roots to grow where you want. At least Misty would pretend to listen.

If I found Misty, maybe she would hear me.

Maybe she'd come back.

My own hearing is perfect. I simply need to focus for the sound of her name...

...Brightdawn! What kind of name is -- I raised that girl and when she goes into the world, a world which she would not have survived in for a minute without me, and she's apparently challenged for a name and with two perfectly good ones available which nopony would ever know to recognize as a source of fear, Twilight Sparkle, she goes with 'Brightdawn'! 'Misty Arcana', I tell you! Not that she ever could have been worthy of it, but doesn't that just have the ring of undeserved power in the syllables? I know that if I was somehow an inferior pony, I'd have a few concerns about that name! And when I, as that theoretical inferior pony, finally met the majestic presence who represents her superior...!

traveling between the Trees is easy
you find the tiny pipeline
aim everything which remains
and then don't move
nothing about the Trees moves
they only drift

I haven't heard her name in a while.

Maybe she's sick.

I haven't heard her name in a while.

Surely the girl wasn't that hideous. And she's living among a population which, based on the fragments of dating discussion to drift in, has no taste.

Surely somepony would have married her.

That filly has a shadow-puff of a mane outline. Maybe she can hear me...

it was just a game
i tried to tell her that whenever she caught me
that the most i ever got was that it would feel sort of like my snout had slipped forward by a hoofwidth, but that was usually just my neck actually moving and
maybe my hooves might have slid the once, but I was always watching for that and

she was so scared
she would always say

Looking for a body is boring, especially when it's your own. Trying to remember where you hid that last one can be all kinds of exciting, especially when the mob is closing in and it's suddenly become crucially important that you find it first. But poking through the soil to locate a perfect form? Oddly lacks any real long-term fascination, even when you've been doing it for -- well, whatever rate roots grow at and quite frankly, if the botany writer had wanted to leave more of an impression, she should have made that part extremely interesting. When it comes to describing root growth, I'm sure that would have been a true test of skill.

Maybe the information is in a book. There was one in the package which slipped through with the diplomat. That required an adjustment of Δp ≈ f'(x) Δx for the arrival site. I can feel the density of the book, but I can't read the contents of the pages. There must be some way. All of those secrets traveling through...

The diplomat is new. He was talking about it on his way to the tree. Getting ready for his first official trip. How he's never traveled that way before. It's scary if you've never done it.

What a child.

He was such a colt about the whole thing that he was camping out in that portion of my shade for what must have been cumulative hours. Getting ready. Bracing himself. And of course, he practiced his speech while he waited. Put down the notes, made the words come out with less force than the last time, looked for the notes so he could make some revisions...

I've been slipping the notes between here and Site #4 whenever he's not looking. At some point, I'll figure out how to read what's on them while they're in transit.

His posture suggests he can't find them again. The slump is rather upset.

Somepony just came over. He's asking... well, yes, all the Trees have that reputation. Sometimes items just go away for a while. They usually turn up again. But they've never lost a pony!

if i tried to lose a pony would they wind up where my body is?
could i borrow theirs?

But it can move things reliably?

When it's directed.

That's... interesting...

This isn't the first time somepony's taking a clipping from me and yes, it hurts! Sometimes I get shocked from one Tree to another because somepony just had to get a piece and when that happens, it always pulls me out of the original and just when I was probably about to find my body, too.

I yell at ponies when they go that deep into the roots, or slice away at bark. (Not that they can be bothered to notice.) Some of them get into the circulatory system and let me tell you, sap does not clot all that quickly. But a Together Tree is magical, and that means somepony is always going to try and figure out the 'how' of it. I've had researchers camped out along my soil lots of times. The clever ones would set up at multiple Trees, do similar things at each site, and see if the reactions traveled.

So when somepony takes clippings and samples, the thought is just that it's study time again. There will be pieces of Tree in a lab for a while, the idiots won't learn anything, and then some years will pass before somepony tries again.

Instead, there's slicing, and I memorize the outlines of those involved just in case Revenge O'Clock finally goes off: that alarm has been set for a very long time, and ponies should be a lot more alarmed about it. Then time passes. And then I feel a warmth, and there's a new Tree.

A new, very small Tree.

I didn't mean to wind up in it. I felt a dim sort of warmth, like sunlight was on a part of my body which hadn't existed for a long time and since I'd rather like for that to be my own true form, I instinctively moved over there. Drifted, if you will. It's automatic now. I send the majority of me to whether the interesting thing is taking place.

I can't really work with light. I know when it's present, and the proximity sense allows me to get shapes. But I can't read anything because that requires sorting out colors, and I haven't seen for a very long time. I imagine I could see in my dreams and sometimes my thoughts become very slow in the winter, but they never stop entirely and there was a mare named Sunny who thought she could stand up to me and there was something odd about her mane

I've been trying to remember mane colors lately

did something happen to Misty's mane? The last time we spoke, I could swear her mane was

Misty?
Misty.
Missed.
I mis --

-- I can feel the shadows around me. Their textures, something of their density, and always the shapes. And I am a rather refined sort of alicorn, you know. I collected things, and I studied because my enemy was so stupid as to give me information I could use against her. I know lap equipment when I sense the borders of it. The crooks of the beakers can't be anything else. Also, those sheets of a paper which aren't quite attached to the backing board are in the exact position for pie charts and everything about me understands that whatever the color choices were, they wound up insufficiently evil.

I can sense the shadows cast by a crude laboratory made for poorly studying magic, because I am now in a Together Tree which doesn't even come up to the sternum of the stallion who's inspecting me.

This is odd. I'm in the floor, I think. Not a planter pot. And the stallion's outline suggests an earth pony. Ponies have tried to take samples before and I'm sure somepony must have used that inferior magic to force-grow a Tree, but those results never connected before. Is it because the previous attempts were in pots? Because I'm sure these new roots are in fresh groundsoil. Fresh, well-shaded soil with a lot of weight directly over it. Say, if somepony dug through the foundation of a building and planted there.

A unicorn comes over. She's carrying something cubical along her right flank. Probably in a corona, since it's floating. Maybe about the size of a personal keepsake box. Mine is in the castle. Misty needs to polish it. But she can never, ever open it, because that's where the last vestiges of scent are trapped and if it's ever released, I don't know what I'd --

y” = d2y/dx2

-- what was that?

Oh. It was the Tree. The box is now outside the palace in Zephyr Heights.

The researchers laugh. Their mirth rustles my leaves.

So you can move things. Anypony who knows how to push can move things. Other ponies, for that matter -- if the Tree is large enough, and this one isn't even close. You hardly have to be an alicorn to learn the trick. Pegasi and earth ponies can do it too.

Why are these fools so happy?

she would always say that it was like I was trying to disassociate from my own body
get free of myself
acting without any supervision from within or without
and i said so what if it sounds like getting out? it's just mastery, total mastery to the point where i can act without knowing it or taking responsibility for it and she said

dy/dx = f'(x)2y/dx2
d2y/dx2 = f”(x)
dny/dxn
dny/dxn = f(n)(x)
f'(p) = lim h→0 [{f (c +h) – f(c)} / h]

I am in the royal palace of Zephyr Heights, four body lengths down from the master bedroom
I am outside the place which used to be the Brighthouse and the museum visitors pass me as they line up for tickets
in
i am a small tree which sits just under a porch awning so that arriving packages will have that much more protection from the sun
i am a grove sitting outside a convenience store for those who don't want to use their own addresses
i am a forest just beyond a factor which serves as the shipping zone
i am
i
i
i

they say it's a miracle
i hear the salesponies talk about that, in their dozens of locations
some of them speak over each other, dozens of gallops apart, without knowing
all the same training, and so the words reinforce each other until they echo
echo loudly enough to get through the numbers for a moment
every movement is an equation
every box
every delivery

she would say
what if you get out
and you can't get back in

what was the key?
finding a way to awaken a Tree on a small scale
make sure it's planted in the ground
no pots
the roots must touch
tiny tendrils a single cell wide create a network across a planet
then the network assigns that new Tree a sort of code
and anypony putting a package through who knows the code

this is the sound of the natural world

⛛f = (?f/?x1, … ,?f/?xn)
⛛· F = ?Fx/?x + ?Fy/?y + ?Fz/?z
⛛× F = (?/?x, ?/?y, ?/?z) × (Fx , Fy , Fz)

it never stops

They did an experiment on the night the prize was awarded. More of a demonstration, really. All but one T-Tree deliveries was shut down for the duration of the acceptance speech, just to show how much of an impact the discovery had made upon the world. And when the echoes of the constant noise began to die away, when I could focus my attention on the receiving Tree in the auditorium... when the last fragments came together for what might be the final time, and I stopped hearing the echoes of my own screams...

I am wherever the Trees are and because they help to hold the modern world together, the Trees are everywhere. Planted in front of every home, because that's how you get deliveries up to a certain size these days. Transit time is measured in seconds, most of which is used for pushing off to the exact address. Don't get anything wrong! It's just so embarrassing to retrieve a package from a neighbor's garden...

There was a brief talk about the complexity of the system. There are those who swear that nothing so complicated could function without a thinking mind behind it, and those few who truly learned the spells simply understand that ponies are jumping to conclusions and ascribing thought to the Trees is a pursuit which should be discouraged. Also, the new corporation will retain control over the place where that old castle used to be. Nopony else was using that land and central processing has to be somewhere.

Nopony should believe the Trees can think. It's just finding a new way to tweak an old magical effect.

Because a Tree which could think, and was connected to every other tree, where its attention was being split in a dozen directions per second during the slowest of the nighttime delivery periods, thousands during the day, pulled and yanked so that a thought arrives as shattered fragments of concept to invisibly decorate that address book which simply couldn't have been there tomorrow...

Numbers flow through the soil. Constantly. That's the beat of civilization.

But the Trees can't think.

A Tree which could...

...which had numbers poured into its head at every given moment in order to make the system work, formulae and exotic means of determining destination in constant flow, a sapient mind which had no choice but to constantly process the data, frantically shoving it through before it could erode the last of what remains, only for more to come in behind...

...no. The Trees can't think. Ponies are just silly that way. A brief period without near-instant deliveries proves how important the system is. Ignore the silly ones who talk about their Tree glowing a slightly different shade. All of the Trees glow when they work. Not every color is going to match, and some will line up with the hues of more recent myth.

Yes, there was talk about ponies not wanting to be near the older Trees. Something about feeling -- uncomfortable. Afraid. As if they'd lost something which they could never reclaim, and they couldn't leave until it was found. Couldn't simply move on. But that's never happened with the little ones, has it? Not for more than a flash of --

-- of...

...it doesn't happen often enough to cut into profits. Not in ways which can be proven in court. That's the important thing.

The Trees can't think.

There are only two Trees active in the world during the acceptance speech: the one primed to send the award, and the one in the auditorium. Hundreds of sapients share a space with that second Tree, and perhaps seven of them will speak to each other about the nightmares which fail to fade for a full moon.

None of the resulting papers are published.

Trees don't think.
Profit doesn't need to.
And where's the margin in discovering sapience?

something yet lingers
something yet lingers
something yet lingers

Leaves rustle. Sometimes they do so in a high-pitched wind and if the atmosphere hits the young clippings in just the right way, it only sounds everything like screaming. A minor mutation, the researchers say. The original trees never did that. Not that anypony listens to the originals very much, or has things sent there.

The nervous system of the world runs beneath its soil. Roots touch, tangle. Fungi offer symbiosis benefits, extend range. Data flows through the air, but the solid travels through the ground.

It passes through the intangible every day.

Surely there's no damage being done. Not to anything which matters. Somepony would have said something.

It's funny, really.

something yet lingers
something yet lingers
something yet lingers

The Together Trees are everywhere. In every home, or just outside it.

It could be said that they've conquered the world.

The seeds of their perpetual reign continue to sprout every day...

something yet lingers

let it end