Lord of the Everfree

by TheInvisiblePony

Nightmares

When Discord had arrived, Everfree knew fear and rage. Now that the draconequus had left, Everfree was left with doubt and confusion. One thing was clear though: Discord made one heck of a spirit of chaos. But what he had said, just before leaving, was perhaps the strangest and most terrifying thing he had to offer.

“What does that even mean? How could I have made this forest? He had to have been lying. But if he wasn’t…”

Everfree didn’t really want to finish this thought. The forest really was getting to him. It seemed oddly familiar somehow, but the very idea that he had a hand in this was almost painful. Leaving the clearing was a bit of a mistake, really. The Pegasus sighed.

“It’s no use standing around here, that’s probably just what Discord wanted anyway. Besides if he was telling the truth he’ll be back. He said something about me having the last of his magic, didn’t he?”

Everfree still hadn’t talked himself in to feeling any better about the situation, but he knew he had to keep moving. The more trees put behind him, the better. And so he started walking. Slowly at first, as well as checking behind practically every bush, but he began to pick up his pace. Actually, he remarked, once you get past the creepy ambiance, it wasn’t half bad. Not like he’d want a summer home here or anything, but the trees had a very distinctive feel to them.

If anything, all he wanted was a way to tell the time. The trees blocked out the majority of the sun, leaving Everfree unsure if he had been walking for ten minutes or an hour or even any longer period of time. With nothing to go off of other than a guess, he reasoned he’d been walking for ohhhh… 30 minutes? At least, long enough to cover a good amount of ground. Still the forest went on.

“Just how big was this forest again? I had thought it massive before, but perhaps that was an understatement. Massive is the work of a few centuries. This looks more like the work of a dozen or so centuries.”

Everfree should know just how long a forest took to grow; after all, his father was the royal gardener. He spent many a year as a foal tending the plants with his old man.

“Wait… foal… why does that itch my brain the way it does?”

The realization hit Everfree like a ton of bricks. No, that may have been too light. More like the entire royal guard wearing full armor flying into them. While they were carrying carts full of bricks. Anyways, the forest just made sense to Everfree, and that was not a good thing. As a foal, Everfree had such horrible nightmares. Every night for weeks on end, he’d dream the same thing every single night barely giving him time to sleep. It passed over time, and Everfree spent years trying to forget the terror.

Walking through the forest brought back every single gut wrenchingly real moment of his childhood fear; because as a foal, every night when he went to sleep he would get lost in a forest. Just. Like. This. One. All of a sudden, every tree became instantly frightening, and the bushes seemed all too likely they’d be hiding something.

Everfree cowered. How was one supposed to deal with something this traumatic? By waiting for the trauma to go away of course! Well, ok, maybe that wasn’t a terribly good plan, but it doesn’t seem like a bad idea when you’re cowering underneath a tree. Minutes passed as the Pegasus shivered in fear. Hesitantly, he started to stand up. In a shaky voice, he began speaking, mainly just to reassure himself.

“O-Okay, I guess this isn’t really bad. I’m relieving the most terrifying parts of my foalhood as years of bad memories come flooding back. N-no problem!” Everfree gave a nervous chuckle, and began to take a few more steps. At this moment, a bush to the left of the Pegasus rustled a little.

“OH DEAR CELESTIA, PANIC!!!!!!!”

Without any second thoughts, Everfree bolted. He didn’t really care which direction he ran in, he just knew that he was going as fast as possible. In fact, he even started to fly a few inches off the ground to gain that extra speed. Behind him, a small squirrel hopped out of a bush, and stared at the strange tree that just ran off.

Everfree must have run straight on for miles. He was a royal guard years ago, and his stamina was really quite remarkable. However, stamina is no substitute for watching where you’re going, and the Pegasus carelessly rammed into a tree, knocking himself out cold.

Luckily, you can’t keep a good pegasus down. With a groan and a brief pat of his head, he got up. For some reason, he felt a lot better about the forest. It still terrified him to no end, but suffering a major head injury does actually help the psyche. Sometimes. Besides, he was hungry. He must have been out for a while, because he certainly was sure he couldn’t have been this hungry beforehand.

“Wait, if my skin is still wood, and my mane is still wood, do I really need to eat or do I just need to stand in some sunlight?”

Well, there was an easy way to find out, really. Find some sun, and if that didn’t work, find some food. Simple, really. Everfree looked around, only to see nothing but dark leaves of the canopy as far as the eye could see. He really didn’t want to move around the forest, but he didn’t see any other option.

“Okay, back to walking. I-I suppose I could deal with it. Only ‘till I find a clearing though. Then I’m sitting there until the forest makes me move!”

That sounded good. All he needed was some sun, and he could rethink this whole thing. Maybe he could even find a positive spin on it all! So, Everfree was back to walking. Only, being as acutely afraid of his surroundings, time was a lot harder to lose track of. Every second of every step he took just added on top of his paranoia. Well, until he finally found a clearing.

“Wait… is that the sound of… water?”

Everfree was elated. Fear melted away as some natural tree instincts kicked in. Water and sunlight? Absolutely perfect! Covering the last few hundred feet or so by sprinting, the pegasus burst into the clearing. The first thing he felt was how good the sun felt on his wooden skin. Then, he saw the pond in the middle of the clearing. For something in the middle of a nightmare forest, it looked extraordinarily pristine.

“Oh what good luck! Let’s see, I wonder how shallow the water is? Wait, I could probably float being the wooden pony that I am” Everfree chuckled before staring back at the water “It really does look amazing. Even that Manticore seems to enjoying it!”

Everfree blinked. “Wait, did I just say Manticore?” Indeed, there was one sitting at the edge of the pond, just lapping up water. Luckily it didn’t seem to see Everfree, and it’s not like the pegasus had made any noticeable sounds like a chuckle or a personal question? Okay… so maybe the manticore did notice him. As it finished drinking, it stood up giving Everfree got a chance to see how remarkably lion-like it was. Well, aside from the giant scorpion tail and equally oversized batwings. The bottom of its mane was a little wet from the pond, but that just made even scarier. Somehow.

Panicking, Everfree took the brief time it took for the beast to stand up and used it to think up a plan “Okay, okay this is still salvageable. What do I know about manticores that I can use to my advantage?" Unfortunately, all he could remember was how amazingly territorial they could be, and how much faster they were than most ponies on foot.

The manticore roared and charged forward, barely giving Everfree time to blink. One would think with such natural weapons like its tail or claws a manticore would opt for that, but this one just rammed into the pegasus, knocking him into a tree. Getting up, Everfree glared at the manticore. One would think that he’d be out of wits scared in a situation, and he certainly was. He had just come full circle with fear, so much so that a kick of adrenaline pushed him over the edge. Or maybe it was the head injury of being knocked into a second tree.

“Alright, fine. You want to play this game? I went through five years of training just to join the royal guard. So you know what I’m going to do? I’m going to wait. That’s right, you have the first move.”

The manticore did in fact charge again, but it made no sign of paying heed of Everfree’s taunt. Stopping just short, it raised a paw. The fact that it looked just like Discord’s did not improve the pegasus’s rage. The paw of a manticore, it should be noted, is quite capable of shattering solid rock. It is perhaps pointless to mention wood, while stronger than flesh, is softer than rock. That same boulder-smashing paw blurred as it slammed towards the pony with the force of the Friendship Express… only to miss completely.

Everfree chuckled as he sidestepped. “I don’t suppose you could work on your aim?” The manticore hissed and lashed out with its tail as if on cue. The pegasus jumped back, but was still scratched with the barb across his front right leg. Wincing, he took a step back. Normally, a pony stuck by a manticore’s tail would succumb to the poisons within seconds, and as such manticores learned that striking with a tail was a killing blow, and watching the poison work its magic was the better than actually finishing them with claws. And so the beast took a step back, and watched.

Everfree looked curiously at the manticore. “Are you expecting something?” Of course, the beast didn’t reply. In fact, the beast was thoroughly confused. Most of, well, anything would have collapsed to the ground in agony by now. Why had this one stayed upright? Instinctively, it took a step back in fear. Everfree followed the manticore’s gaze to his wound, which was dripping with venom.

“Oh, you’re probably wondering why your poison did nothing. Well, I have an answer, but you wouldn’t understand… oh what the hey? It didn’t work because of a little something I like to call ‘I’m a tree, so go to Tartarus!’” At this point, wings outstretched, Everfree flipped around and kicked the manticore in the face. Now, if Everfree had the hind strength of a, let’s say fashionista, a simple kick would have done next to nothing. Everfree was not a fashionista, and was in fact a trained professional with hind legs literally made of solid oak, so his kick did considerably more than nothing.

Staggering backwards, the manticore was now confused and in pain. When you’ve been kicked in the face by something that should be twitching in pain, it is usually a good time to back off. Whimpering ever so slightly, the manticore did something that would most manticores never did once: it fled. Most manticores, with all of their aforementioned natural weapons, never had to actually fight hard as they say, so at the sign of an equal match most manticores were apt to not risk it. A cowardly giant, of sorts.

“Wait, did I really just chase of a dangerous predator half my size?” Everfree couldn’t help but smile “Childhood nightmares - eat your heart out.”

Mustering as much pride as someone can once they debunked pretty much one of their greatest fears – which is to say a lot – Everfree trotted over to the pool and stood in it. Now, one might walk into the clearing and wonder just what in Equestria he was doing, but he was actually enjoying himself as one would enjoy a five star meal. The water, which was just as good as it looked, was neatly absorbed through his hooves like a tree absorbs it with roots, while his mane of leaves collected any stray bits of sunlight that hit him. All in all, he earned a victory feast, and he was gorging himself.

Hours passed by, and finally the sun passed behind the tree line, forcing Everfree to stop his enjoyment, which wasn’t really a bad thing. He was starting to get tired, so all worked well. Sadly, being a tree mixed with being alive, so he still needed to find asleep. The clearing actually looked fairly safe, and nothing barring some birds had dropped by, so Everfree curled up by the shore of the pool and fell asleep

---

Everfree awoke with a start as he heard a twig snap at the edge of the clearing. Of course, this made a little nervous, so he stood up to try to look at it. It never occurred to him that he was no longer made of wood, and his coat and mane were their natural colors.

With every step towards the edge of the clearing, he felt himself getting smaller and smaller. His legs felt stubbier, his mane shorter, and the bravery he had minutes ago was fading fast. Or was it hours ago? Everfree found he couldn’t even think straight.

The clearing before him seemed to stretch out. All he wanted to do was look at the edge, but the trees stretched and contorted, and the distance from him and the trees seemed massive. It didn’t occur to him to stop moving, so he continued walking.

Even the trees mocked him, and then he starting hearing the whispers. They were just quiet enough to understand, but they were definitely there. Unnerved, the pegasus began trotting faster. The whispers became louder and louder, preventing him from even slowing down for a second. All he could do is run, no longer to the forest, but from it. From those Celestia-awful whispers.

He ran for what seemed like hours, every second of it pure psyche shattering horror, until his hooves just gave up. Collapsing on the ground, ever free slammed his eyes shut and cowered on the harsh floor, but the whispers were still there. Louder and louder and louder the voices screamed at it until it just couldn’t take it anymore.

“Go away!” He sobbed “Please… just go away…”

They wouldn’t. They would only grow. His ears began to hurt, and he lost all ability to hear or even think about anything that wasn’t the screaming whispers. He felt the very dark of the forest creep up on him. As his very skin crawled at its icy touch, the darkness enveloped him…

---

Everfree awoke with a scream, panting in sheer fright as he hadn’t done since he was a foal. As the realization hit him, he tried to calm himself, a task that seemed impossible.

“It was just a dream. Thank Celestia! It was just a dream!”

At the edge of the clearing, Everfree heard a twig snap.

Comments

[TheInvisiblePony]

Quick note folks, I do plan on taking a few darker twists and turns with the story, like the nightmare, so I added the dark theme (It's the Everfree for Celestia's sake - it's supposed to be dark) and bumped it up to teen. If this bothers you, say something and I will change it back. Probably.

Also, speaking of the nightmare I must say I've never written anything like that. How good was it? (honest question)

[Reaper1oo]

This chapter as a whole had a few (4?) spelling mistakes. Nice/well done

The Nightmare bit: Not bad, I couldn't connect to it beyond the childhood fears part (Saml size/being powerless) but not badly done

[TheInvisiblePony]

i deeply apologize for any of the few who've been waiting on the next chapter.
I've been really busy juggling this between school and friends and other things, not to mention that I'm already out of material for the dark side of things. So I'm sticking with a good old adventure romp type thing. There may be more serious topics, but nothing to push it over into another genre.

Sorry again for the wait, but with any luck it should be out by [insert date here]!