The Village

“My husband Leif and I seek to uncover the treasures this marsh holds, rare herbs and fungi for crafting new salves and potions. As the only healers in this humble place, perhaps we may even earn renown as the shire thrives. Though we are not wealthy in coin, even weighed against other earth ponies, it seems our dream may dawn into truth. I can but hope that weal remains with us, that one day we might have a colt or filly whom we may give the life I have long wished for. Fatherhood is also Leif's dearest wish, and though the work of parenting may be trying, I believe his gentle spirit and steady kindness will make him as good a father as this village may ever see.”

from Ginger Faelyn’s Apothecary log, day one of the founding of The Forever Free Village

Fluttershy woke with a start to the sound of impatient, rapid thumping. She groaned and yawned, as she looked down at the source of the noise. Angel sat on the desk in front of her, looking rather peeved while holding a bowl. It wasn’t until dawn broke that Fluttershy had actually ended up falling asleep at her desk. Since the moment she burst through the front door of her cottage in the dead of night, she was working feverishly to translate the journal she found. “Ah, I’m sorry Angel”, Fluttershy said as she stretched her wings and forelegs. What time was it? She looked out the window, and saw the sun was already well on its way through the afternoon sky. “Oh my...”, Fluttershy hopped up, splashing her face with water and promptly filling Angel’s bowl with rabbit food. Angel could tell something was up with his owner, or else he might’ve been a bit more annoyed with her for giving him his breakfast at three in the afternoon.

After a brief walk around the garden to feed the rest of her animals, Fluttershy sat back down in front of the old journal and Old Ponish dictionary. Breathing a small sigh, she read over what she had managed to translate before passing out. She was almost half done. It wouldn’t take much longer to finish with a rested mind.

The sun was nearly setting once she was finished—not just with translation, but with preparing vials of flash bee honey for what she intended to do. She peered out at the forest. The sky was a pleasant orange, a stark contrast to the blanket of darkness that was starting to cover the Everfree, a blanket that would only get heavier as night approached. She didn’t want to risk going out, knowing full well that she probably wouldn’t make it back until well after nightfall. But every time she tried to convince herself to wait until the next day, she thought about the eye, peering back at her, as if she was the first pony it had seen in millennia. She, the element of kindness, had abandoned them, all because she lacked courage. And now every moment she waited was another moment of torment for those poor ponies of the village.

So, she gathered her things, packing another set of saddlebags. This time she also packed a lantern and oil instead of a torch. With that, she was ready, and with only a brief moment of hesitation, she headed back out into the forest.

"The past two weeks have proven more bountiful than we could have hoped, for we have already begun to craft many varied formulas for alchemical solutions and remedies. The natural resources here have surpassed all expectations. However, we have encountered some hostile aspects of the environment, many of which are magical in nature. One such example is a small blue-leafed plant that grows in large patches. I believe this to be the chaotic herb spoken of in the western lands where zebras roam, known for producing unpredictable effects. We also had a peculiar patient visit us on Monday; he bore red spots upon his body and suffered from a fever. Diseases that cause fever are common, especially in marshlands like the one we chose to settle in, so any apothecary of worth should possess a remedy for such fevers. A basic mixture of honey, garlic, and a blend of mugwort and balsam brewed into tea is what we prescribed for him. We instructed him to return should his fever persist, and, fortunately, he has not."

from Ginger Faelyn’s Apothecary log, week two of the founding of The Forever Free Village.

Fluttershy overestimated her ability to navigate the forest, and it was dark before she managed to get back to the ruined village. She lit her lantern as she crept back through the settlement consumed by the woods around it. The stillness was unnerving, the only hint of life was the crunching of leaves and twigs beneath her hooves. Shadows dancing in the corners of her vision as the small flame of her lantern flickered. She stopped as she reached the large oak that was once the Village Center. The towering corpse of the arbor titan was a fitting heart for the village, one that stopped beating long ago. Fluttershy entered the tree, her lantern doing much less to illuminate the interior than the setting sun had the day prior.

She decided to start by finding the pony with the intact eyeball. She had to reassure them everything was going to be all right. Minutes passed as she looked, it had to be here somewhere. The darkness made it difficult to pick out small details… maybe she was misremembering how distinctly pony-shaped it was? Eventually she relented. She had a job to do here, and running around in circles in the dark was doing her no good.

She stumbled across the tree that she got the journal from, easily recognizable by the large bulge in the trunk and torn pages that still clung to the branches. Flipping through a small Old Ponish phrasebook she'd made, she said,"Ic wille þē helpan", in as gentle and reassuring a voice as she could. As she spoke, she began to lather the honey over the rough bark of the tree, making sure to make a small cut in the rigid tree flesh and slip a bit of the cure inside, just in case.

Fluttershy repeated the process on as many of the trees that she could find, lathering a thin coating of the amber goo over the once infected ponies. Her fear began to fade into the background as she worked her way to every wooden once-pony. It wasn't so much that she was fearless, more that her fear took a back seat to her goal. She needed to do this, and she wouldn’t let herself be afraid, not of the eerie silence, nor the flickering flame and dancing shadows that set her imagination into overdrive. Not even the shadow lumbering around just outside the mouth of the Village Center would be enough to–

She snapped her head up without even completing the thought, squinting at the darkness outside. The little yellow mare quickly finished administering the honeyed cure to the tree she was working on. Picking up her lantern with her wing, she slowly crept back outside.

“Hello?”, she called out meekly, “is... is somepony there?”. There was no response.

She started to make her way back through the village. Maybe it was a timber wolf? That was the only wildlife that frequented the Everfree forest, and the figure had almost resembled one, though with the brief look she got at it, it could have just as easily been the shadows combined with her imagination, twisting the view of the forest into something diabolical. The more she thought about it, the more silly it made her feel, especially considering if it were a timber wolf, she certainly would’ve been able to smell its stench coming.

Breathing a small sigh of relief, she decided to continue spreading the cure to the ponies in the devastated houses. The houses were just as decayed and still inside as the dead oak at the center, each house filled with nothing but dead leaves and the lignified remains of its occupant. Reaching the end of the first row of houses, she found a large hut with a prominent sign out front that read "Wyrtwyrhta". Given Fluttershy’s research the night prior, the translation was obvious: “Apothecary”. The door was broken down, as were most of the doors in the village, and the little pony slowly stepped inside.

"I woke on Sunday morning feeling sick, and I threw up soon after. Though it passed, I have been unwell ever since, oddly weary, needing a rest at least once each day this week. Perhaps I am working too much. There is so much to do, and Leif cannot help me, for he is busy guarding for wood wolves with the other stallions most days. A few more patients came in with red spots and a fever, and two of them were also coughing up bubbles—not frothy sputum, but large, free-floating things, such as might be made by mixing water with pure soap. I have never seen the like. I regret that the pressing need of the situation left me with no time to follow up with the first patient, because it is now clear that this new sickness is a highly catching one. I brought word of this spreading rot to the village seat, where I bid that we set the unwell villagers apart from the rest until I could find a way to treat the illness. But they did not heed my word."

from Ginger Faelyn’s Apothecary log, week two of the founding of The Forever Free Village.

The floor was dirt, just like all the others in the village, but this place had much more going on. Tables remained intact—no doubt the wood was treated with magic—and the light of the lantern gleamed in reflection on glass beakers and test tubes that littered the tables. The equipment was professional; it didn’t take an archeology cutie mark to make that clear. Whoever lived here wasn’t some snake oil salespony. There were tomes on healing magic, and tomes showcasing formulas to extract the natural healing essence of herbs and bolster them through druidic alchemy. One page in particular caught her attention.There wasn't any clear recipe there, but the page was labeled “Fenn-Adl Læcedom", which her mind quickly translated to “Swamp Fever Remedy”. Her eyes scanned over the words more carefully.

Unfortunately, it was a mess. A hodgepodge of ingredients covered the page, some scribbled out, some with arrows connecting them to others, and some marked with shorthand symbols that Fluttershy couldn't even recognize. But with her limited potion-making knowledge, she could identify the basic elements of a modern magical curative potion—a modern potion, something that should have been well beyond the knowledge of a pony who had lived so long ago. The alchemical balance of the ingredients was also uncannily similar to the composition of flash bee honey. She would have to show this page to Zecora to be sure, but it seemed possible that the research on this page could have been turned into a working cure, given just a little more time.

A rustle of leaves behind Fluttershy caused her to jolt up and peer around behind her. She squinted at an unilluminated hallway behind her, picking up her lantern. “H... Hello?” She cautiously headed into the hall, her lantern’s light dispelling the darkness as she ventured into the unknown. A sudden shift in the shadows just beyond her lantern’s range in front of her caused her to jump, “Is some creature there? I’m a friend, no need to be afrai-”. “Giiii...” Fluttershy froze as she got a verbal response, a low and breathy voice that echoed a single syllable down the hall. A pit formed in her stomach, but scraping together the courage she needed, she stepped forward with her lantern.