Ponies All Day-Writing Challenge

by ThunderTempest

02:00-02:30 "Introduction"

The Everfree Forest is the oldest forest in Equestria, eclipsing everything around it by several thousand years. It almost predates the Canterhorn itself. It was there at the beginning of time, before even the ponies of Equestria, and it will likely be there at the end of time, long after the ponies have been and gone. The innate magic of Equestria, mixed with the Chaos magic of Discord and a pinch of Tartaric magic ensures that the Everfree puts off a constant aura of despair and hopelessness to all who enter its borders.

And yet, there is a strange beauty to the Everfree. It’s a self-contained ecosystem, completely independant of the rest of Equestria. The twisted and warped trees, which grow much faster and to much older ages than anywhere else in Equestria, have long been sourced for magical implements. The creatures that choose to make their home in the Everfree live longer natural lives, have more potent venom, and in the case of the few packs of Timberwolves that make their home in there, can reform almost an infinite number of times. Everything in the forest is oversaturated with magic to a degree that most ponies would find ridiculous.

These phenomena are not contained solely within the Everfree, either. Ponyville, situated as it is on the edge of the magically saturated forest, is not immune to the effects of the forest’s all-permeating natural magic. Ponies who live here have a higher average lifespan than everywhere else but Canterlot, and that’s only because Canterlot is set upon the Canterhorn, the most magical mountain in all of Equestria, and the centre of a frankly terrifying number of leylines. Ponies who choose to make their home in Ponyville also experience a disturbingly high rate of mental instability, though whether they’re insane because they live next to the forest, or they live next to the forest because they’re insane is still up for debate.

For the past century and a half, using careful measurements and records, it can be shown that the Everfree Forest is not shrinking. Indeed, the magic that sustains the forest should have run out long before now, but with each passing year, it is only growing stronger. Whether this is because something is fuelling it, or it’s the simple nature of the Chaos Magic mixed in to the Forest itself is as yet unknown, but it is clear that the Everfree is slowly expanding. Estimations show that within the next thousand years, the Everfree will have quadrupled in size, and that the magic at it’s centre will be so intense that it will be quite literally impossible for anypony to enter it without risking severe magical oversaturation. Culling the forest back is not an option, as the trees simply grow back too fast for it to make a difference. Warding the forest could potentially hold back its growth, but it is likely that any wards placed will be compensated for by the innate magic of the forest within 50 to 100 years, and are thus a transient solution at best.

Thus, Equestria will not die by apocalypse. The Everfree will consume us first.
An Extract from the introduction to ‘Everfree Apocalypse’, by Princess T. Sparkle.

Author's Note:

Written for Prompt #135: “The Beginning and the End”
It all started with the Everfree Forest.

Comments

[TheDerpyOutcast]

Grab a drink with caffeine and something sugary, this gets a low ponies.

5/15