Author's Note

This is the first fanfic I've written that I actually feel good about, it's heavily inspired by Secret of The Everfree, I really liked the idea and decided to write my own take on its premise, it should be noted that this does not take place in the same cannon as its inspiration. Like the base material, this happens right after "A Heath of Information". Shoutout to my wonderful boyfriend, Affel, for beta reading and editing for me.

Village

Finally healthy enough to get out of her cottage after recovering from swamp fever, Fluttershy was packing a saddlebag early one morning: a few sandwiches, water, a torch to help ward off timber wolves, and finally, the most important item, a vial of flash bee honey. Ever since the return of Nightmare Moon, she thought those trees in the Everfree Forest seemed off, a bit too much like actual aghast faces. Up until now she had chalked it up to Nightmare Moon’s magic, but now that she’d heard of the horrifying disease known as swamp fever, a disease she’d only recently recovered from, she could no longer deny the dreadful gut feeling she had about that part of the forest.

“Don’t worry Angel, I’ll be back by sundown”, she said, placing a bowl of green veggies in front of the white bunny. “I’m sure you’ll be okay on your own until then”. Angel was already eating, but there was a falter in Fluttershy’s voice, one that Angel may have picked up on had he been paying attention to anything besides food and the day of having the cottage to himself that lay before him. The yellow equine breathed out a sigh; there was a time where she was nervous about leaving that little bunny home alone, one that was behind her now, a time when she lacked courage.

It was an odd thing really, Fluttershy thought to herself as she walked, making her way through the more familiar parts of the Everfree Forest. You wouldn’t expect bearing the element of kindness to require much courage, but it did. In all honesty, it could be argued that kindness took the most courage, courage to make the bitter decision for the sake of another, to do what’s best for them, even if they don’t realize it themselves. Not that Fluttershy would ever brag about being the bravest or anything like that, that was Rainbow Dash’s job, it’s just that she was willing to do the kindest thing she could, even if it hurt.

She was snapped out of her thoughts by the sound of birds. Birds rarely nested in the Everfree, but they did fly overhead, and the little pony enjoyed their song regardless, the sounds of nature putting her at ease. And such a pleasant song set a lovely scene for a brief lunch break, one where the pony took note of how far she’d ventured, which direction she’d come from, and where she was going, all to avoid getting lost in these vast woods. Celestia’s sun was high in the sky, noon, she’d been hiking out here for a few hours. West, yea, that was the way back home, and a slight southwest detour would lead to Zecora’s. As she stowed her leftover half of a daffodil and daisy sandwich, she prepared herself for the remainder of her journey. The first ghastly tree was ahead, so she was almost there.

She hiked through the path she and the other Elements of Harmony had taken through that patch of trees, but instead of heading straight through it to get to the Castle of the Two Sisters, she took another path, one that split off and led deeper into the dark and dreary forest. Finding a particularly sharp rock, the winged pony began leaving marks on trees as she passed, avoiding the ones with faces, though this got harder the further she went down this path. And as trees became more and more plentiful, she was soon surrounded. Not only that, but she soon noticed a few that were more pony-shaped. A pit of anxiety crept up in her stomach, her suspicions all but confirmed: the trees further out had seemed to capture a base emotion, a scream of terror, or a death mewl as the disease, swamp fever, took the victim, but these few were much more obvious. Furthermore, she soon found an old, destroyed village, trees sprouting from nearly every ruined house.

Anxiety built up and peaked in a pit of dread that only got deeper in her stomach as she ventured into this ruined village at the heart of the Everfree. Eventually she found the center of the village, a giant, dead oak tree, one that must have been ancient while it still lived. The base of the tree had been hollowed out, and an archway made of the massive roots seemed to be the intended entrance. A sign hung overhead, and Fluttershy knew enough Old Ponish from studying Mage Meadowbrook's texts to piece together what it read: “The Forever Free Village, Central Hall”. Walking past the looming natural archway, Fluttershy made her way into the large central hall of a tree, taking note of the dry crunch of twigs and leaves beneath her hooves. The wood of this tree was dry, drier than the rest of the forest. She considered building a campfire in here if she ended up having to spend the night. The hollow trunk offered plenty of ventilation for the smoke, and it would provide ample shelter. But noting how dry the ancient oak’s wood was, she decided against it in case the fire began to spread out of control.

Within the village center were many, many more trees, some of them far too small to be from an adult pony. Fluttershy ran a hoof over the trunk of the small plant. Unlike the foal it had once been, it would grow no larger; it had probably reached its full size a millennia ago. Were they a filly or a colt, before this horrifying illness took them? Did they suffer? There was no way of knowing, and all she could do was continue her investigation with a vague, gnawing sadness in her gut.

Fluttershy continued investigating the long dead village and caught a passing glimpse of a partially-open book sticking out of a tree, bound in faux leather. This one was large, certainly an adult, and it seemed to bulge out around the center of the trunk. She worked the book free of the wood it was embedded in; a hoof full of the pages caught on three’s branches, and she winced at the damage. The journal was still mostly intact, clearly magically preserved from decay.

"Ginger Faelyn", the journal was signed on the cover. The pegasus stowed the journal in her saddle bag. A quick skim of its contents revealed she would need an old ponish dictionary to properly translate this, once she was home, and not surrounded by the most dangerous forest in Equestria. For now she would continue to investigate her surroundings. There were few clues to who the ponies of this village were on the other trees, mostly the occasional remains of a foal’s toy, or metal tools that resisted the test of time, but she persisted until a peculiar shape caught her attention: a nearly perfect preservation of an earth pony that appeared to be frozen in the trunk of one of the trees. As she examined the wooden pony, she noticed something that chilled her to the core. In the lignified face of the equine was an eyeball, not made of wood, but of flesh, embedded in the wood as if it were a bone socket. Unease spread through the little pony’s body as she examined the eye. Were they... dead? And if not, could the pony that it once was be cured? Be returned to their former state prior to infection? Fluttershy turned her gaze to her saddlebag for a moment, shakily trying to retrieve the vial of flash bee honey, but as she looked back up, an icy dagger of fear stabbed her through the heart. She dropped the vial of honey and it shattered against the roots beneath, spreading the sticky golden cure over the twisting network of wood that dug into the ground, and without another thought, Fluttershy turned and ran, she ran back the way she came, never had she been so horrified to be proven, beyond the shadow of a doubt, to be correct.

When she had looked back up, the eyeball had moved to look right back at her.