The Only Tree in the Forest

by Hap

Chapter 6

A dead heart rots slowly. There is no way for water or insects to get in. But I can feel the mold festering, expanding, clawing at my sapwood from within. So I keep growing outward.

And for the first time in my centuries, I have all the sun that I can stretch out to receive. Because the ponies have cut down every other tree.

Those root ponies were carrying terrible instruments, things which none of us had known before. The birds, the bears, the beasts; they could bore holes, rip away our bark, or break off entire limbs. But ponies? They can wipe out an entire forest.

It was my rotten heart that saved me from their axes. They could see what I was, and they knew that I was no good.

So they came, and they chopped. They brought axes and saws and chisels and fires. In the blink of only thirty years, I was left alone.

I’d never been able to see this far before. Only trees. But now there are no trees between myself and the horizon. I always wondered what the horizon was. The taller trees had talked about it. Talked about what The Ash had told them about her horizon.

I’ve decided that I do not like the horizon.

I watched it anyway. First a castle, then a whole town sprang up. I watched the ponies erect timber to brace the heavy stone of the castle. They used it to frame the homes and businesses in their little village. To build carts and tools. To warm their houses and cook their oats.

Each tree provides shelter for a family of ponies, just as my branches give home to squirrels and birds. I don’t know if the ponies care, but I suppose one could say that the forest lived on in their homes.

I am not sure how to feel about this. Should I be grateful to be still standing, still growing after every other tree has been felled and cut into lumber? Should I feel left out, after every other tree has found use at the hooves of industrious ponies?

I don’t know, and I have no one to talk to about it.

Comments

[Reese]

I'm still quite enjoying this. :)

[CharacterRoulette]

Is this supposed to be a story about twilight's tree house?

[silvadel]

9866703

I feel spoilered.. I hadn't thought of that.

[alamais]

9866703

[Mirvra]

9866703
Might want to put that theory of yours into spoiler tags... Especially if you're right, it's more fun for people to figure it out on their own.

[Corejo]

I watched it anyway. First a castle, then a whole town sprang up.

Goddamnit, this is Twiggles' tree, isn't it? Got me choking up the moment I read this line.