“Huh, what’s this?”
Discord looked about himself in confusion, as a few glimmers of multicolored light whizzed past him. It took him but a moment to realize what was happening, as he looked backed towards the six ponies he had sworn were more interested in burning the bridges between them minutes ago.
“No…”
Before he could even say anything else, or even react, Discord watched as a large rainbow arced across the sky and hit him full force. In a last act of desperation, as he squabbled to avoid returning to a petrified prison, he screamed out.
“NOOOOOOOOOOO!!!”
As the draconequus was finally defeated, the rainbow collapsed downwards, creating a bubble that expanded without a moment’s notice, undoing all the chaotic acts dreamed up by Discord. Within seconds, Ponyville was back to normal – but the magic didn’t stop there. As it rushed past everything nearby, it grew and grew until it began to encompass the Everfree, and still it didn’t stop. Continuing along its path, it only showed signs of slowing when it was miles within the forest, at which point it began to fade. As it began to vanish in light it barely managed to tap an oddly large tree in the middle of a clearing.
The reaction was as slow as the bubble at this point. The magical powers of harmony were meant to undo powerful magic, and as such the tree began to glow. Slowly, the glimmer encompassed the entire tree as it turned as bright white as the fading bubble, giving life back to where there was only eternal imprisonment.
“Ohhh... what in Equestria happ- wait. Am I, free? I’m thinking! I must be free from this endless suffering! Oh the possibilities are endless! So much to do, and so much to see! Maybe I could even… Something’s still wrong.”
Pausing for a minute, the odd figure realized his situation.
“Am I… a tree?”
Indeed, the bubble was too faded to fully undo the curse, and such it only regained his mind. Despite his first thoughts, he was still trapped in his leafy hell. He had no way of seeing, hearing, or otherwise sensing anything beyond his own roots and twigs. The tree sighed. Or it would have, if trees could sigh.
“So close. So very, VERY close. Well, I might be here a while longer. Might as well try to remember how I got here in the first place.”
Without access to any of his senses, the tree’s memory, he remembered two things instantaneously before it all came back from there. First off, he remembered he was a Pegasus. Besides that, the only thing he could remember was Celestia’s voice, all those years ago…
More specifically, he recalled a specific order that was given to him. Under royal decree, he was to investigate the alleged disappearance of an entire village that had simply lost contact with everything else. The village in question was a small little place in the middle of the desert, so it wasn’t surprising any invading force or natural disaster wiped them out before they could send word. And yet, before vanishing, the town had sent a single letter.
DISCORD HAS COME
The Pegasus reasoned, as the best weather pony and guard the princess had available, he would be able to handle whatever this ‘discord’ was and return quickly to give his report to the Celestia. In present time, the tree chuckled (or at least, would have chuckled). Oh how wrong he was.
The Pegasus had arrived there fairly quickly, only to bear witness to the oddest sight he had ever seen. What should have been desert sands beneath him were instead vivid, polka dotted underbrush next to plaid trees. The skies were absolutely full of clouds that appeared to be made out of the sand that should have been on the ground, and the buildings of the village seemed torn apart as the bricks and walls that made them up were suspended in air in random positions. In the center of all of this madpony’s dream sat the one the Pegasus reasoned was behind all of these strange occurrences.
The Pegasus landed directly in front of the serpent… lion… dragon… thing sitting on its throne and promptly stated his business.
“In the name of Celestia, I demand you state your name, intent, and species. After doing so, you will return this… whatever it is” As he said this, the Pegasus, gestured to the landscape around him before continuing “back to its normal state. From there you may either face your crimes or leave Equestria.”
The thing raised an eyebrow, before snapping his fingers. Taking no great time, he conjured a slice of pizza which he proceeded to eat. With every bite, the surrounding area shuddered as though simply chewing was enough to cause quakes. After licking its claws on the eagle hand, the thing spoke.
“Oh very well, I’ll humor you. I am Discord, Spirit of Chaos and Disharmony. My intent, as you put it, is to spread my work across this, Equestria, you called it? As for species, I am a masterpiece of maelstroms, and the sum of every idle mind that ever thought up something that never made sense.” Discord chuckled, before continuing.
“As for leaving, why would I do that? There is such wonderful chaos to spread here, and you ponies are just too much FUN. Fun to mess with, fun to ruin, and fun to change. In fact…” Discord paused in mock thought as he stroked his goatee “I think you’d make an excellent bout of fun. Perhaps you’d like to be a pile of sand?” The Pegasus, who was already having trouble taking this in, had no reply. This practically invited Discord to continue his monologue.
“No, no. This was a desert. A pile of sand would be too boring... I’VE GOT IT! Say good bye to yourself and hello to the new you!” Discord snapped his fingers, and the Pegasus’s hooves began to take root in the ground. Panicking, he tried to fly off, but his feet were firmly planted in the ground. In horror, he watched as his flesh began to turn to bark from the legs up. Of course, the process was slow enough to give Discord some last words.
“Well now, this really has been fun. We have to do it again sometime! Oh wait, we couldn’t… I can’t very well turn you into a tree twice! That would be crazy, even by my standards! Oh well, I have chaos to spread. Arrivederci!”
That was the tree’s last memory. Or at least, he supposed it was his last memory. Seemed a little rushed for an epic confrontation with insanity. Perhaps being a tree for who knows how long might screw with the head a little. Regardless, he remembered his last moments as he shuddered hard enough to feel a few leaves shake off the ends of his branches, to which he wondered if losing leaves was supposed to hurt him.
“Oh great Celestia, am I really stuck with my memories and my musings as a tree for all eternity? I was better off when I wasn’t able to even think! Speaking of which, how long was that? I seem to have grown substantially since I blacked out, and assuming I really am a tree, that is a loooong time. Oh dear.”
And so the weeks went by, the tree tried to think of things, or do things, or find something to alleviate his boredom. Within the first 42 hours, he had mastered the art of photosynthesis to the point where he was at least glad he wouldn’t starve. Then he started counting his own leaves. It took days, but he finally learned he had somewhere around 190,973 leaves. That left him and his branchy appendages wondering where to go from there.
Between relieving memories, and considering about the metaphysical pros and cons of being a magic tree, the weeks went by and his forced patience paid off; for as he sat and did nothing, miles away changelings were invading Canterlot. Of course, they had failed and a second magic bubble sent them flying faster and further than any Pegasus could dream of. It just so happened that one the changelings, Drone Omega, was tying up some guards that the force field hit it dead on. Unfortunately, it was closer to the mountain than the cliffs on the sides of Canterlot, and so it was launched smack dab in the middle of a stone cliff, where it was rather rudely introduced to the fact that when Changelings are flung against rock by magical love, they bounce. Far.
Oddly enough, he had enough sense about him to notice that he was actually travelling further into the forest than the rest of the swarm. In fact, he was even able to guess what part of the forest he would hit. And so, Drone Omega found itself relatively unsurprised when he landed in a clearing and collided with full force into a certain massive tree, before blacking out.
The tree, however, was much more surprised than the changeling. Here he was, considering if the small creature on the third branch up was a bird or a squirrel, when a thing crashed into him. At this point in his existence, the tree did not like things. The magical force that gave him a half-life came from a thing he didn’t even know about, Discord was a thing when he met him, and now this thing crashed into his side hard enough to make a tree hurt. He didn’t even know trees could hurt, and on top of that he lost 24 of his leaves.
Pausing for a minute, the tree realized that this time, he had received more of a blessing rather than a curse. Because the spell Discord had placed on him was so chaotic, the tree was in tune with the very chaotic nature of magic. How did it know this? Lucky guess.
Stemming from this lucky guess, the tree figured he might as well try and see if he couldn’t leech a little magic for himself. Coincidentally, he could. He felt a little tingly as he drew it, and paused only to wonder if unicorns felt like this all the time. Anyways, being so in tune with magic, and transformation spells in particular (what with being turned into a tree and everything) he was especially surprised to know he had taken a little shapeshifting magic. Practically screaming with joy, or at least as much screaming as a tree could accomplish, he began to figure out how to use the magic.
Slowly, the large tree began to shrink to the size of an average pony. The roots began pulling themselves up, and wrapped around each other until they merged into four hooves. The trunk itself began contorting itself, until it was a remarkably accurate wooden version of a pony. As for the leaves, those stayed on as a mane and a tail. Finally, the tree blinked open a new pair of eyes.
“YES! FINALLY! FREE AT LAST! And not kind of free, either! Legitimately free! Oh – I’ve even got a voice now!”
The pony hopped about excitably. Oh he could touch the skies again! He jumped up, tying to hover a little before crashing and face planting into the ground. Looking at his sides, the Pegasus realized he had forgotten the wings. Oh. Well, easy fix. The pony concentrated as the wood on his side shaped and grew into lightweight wings. Maybe they wouldn’t fly as well as he remembered, but they would work. Now, he could finally look around at the area he’s been trapped in. It was… a forest. Huh.
This was noticeably different from a desert or even the chaotic storm that Discord had whipped up. Looking around, he could see trees and more trees and yup, even more trees. So, out of a personal leafy prison and into the giant leafy forest, it would seem.
“Well, it beats the former option I guess. At least now I have more things to worry about then identifying various animals.”
Pausing as he looked at his Celestia given savior (of a sort), the Pegasus thought he looked kind of funny. All black, with blue wings and not to mention the holes.
“Let’s see. What do I know that looks more like a bug than a pony, it can change shape, and it doesn’t belong in a forest? At least I haven’t noticed any in this forest.”
With this knowledge he hand, he vaguely remembered it was a changeling. A changeling once tried to pose as his best friend, until the original walked in the room. Good times. But something still seemed off. He had no idea what it was doing in the forest. Oh, it seemed to be waking up, perhaps he could ask it.
Omega, in contrast to the Pegasus, was not overjoyed in the slightest to wake up. Indeed, it was bitterly disappointed by the failure at Canterlot, and it was still sporting a massive headache, from both the mountain, and the… tree that was no longer there. Wait, what? Looking around, it was still in the clearing, but there was no tree in sight. Instead, there was some pony shaped hunk of wood. How long had the changeling been knocked out, it wondered. Buzzing up to the strange plant, the changeling examined it for a minute. Then it moved, and started talking to the drone.
“Erm, hello there! That is still how you greet somepony, isn’t it? Course, you aren’t a pony are you? Kind of odd really, I hadn’t expected to find a changeling in a forest. I hadn’t really planned on being in the forest though… Heck, I hadn’t even known there was a forest! Oh, wait. I seem to be rambling. I hope I don’t fall in too much love with the sound of my own voice.”
The changeling panicked and jumped back into the air at first, hanging there as it buzzed its wings. After the initial fright, Omega was really just curious. As far as it could tell, the pony was made of wood. How hard had it hit its head again? It gave the pony a long, strange look before it decided it was hallucinating. Of course, they were tales of stranger things in the world. Omega realized he had paused for a bit too long when he noticed the… pony (Omega still hesitated to call the strange wood that. Mainly because it seemed weird, but after the Canterlot incident a mere hour or so ago, the drone really hated ponies) continued talking.
“Not very talkative, are you? I suppose I understand. You seem to be just a drone after all; you just have to be good at following orders. No matter really. I’ll just have to skip the questions and find a way to thank you. Let’s see… OH! When I was a foal, I had an imaginary friend. You can feast off some of my love for him!” The Pegasus paused, quizzically putting a hoof to his chin “Assuming changelings still eat love, that is.”
Now Omega knew he had a concussion. A pony willingly offering love? Unheard of. Not to mention the fact that the pony wasn’t even certain changelings still ate love. What did that even mean? Who didn’t know that? It was what changelings did for the Queen’s sake! The changeling let out a rather buzzy sigh. He was kind of hungry. Why turn down a free meal, even if it was a strange one. He landed as his horn began to glow. Within a minute the offered love was gone, and the changeling was satisfied for the moment.
The Pegasus, on the other hand, was much more overjoyed. Changelings, as he remembered, weren’t exactly the most ‘social’ or ‘trusting’ of species. The fact that this one hadn’t yet run away to alert the hive seemed relatively promising. He even figured some sort of greeting was in order. Extending a hoof, the Pegasus introduced himself.
“For future reference, my name is Everfree.”