//------------------------------//
// Chapter Six: Yggdrasil 
// Story: The World Tree: World of the Frozen Moon 
// by Artaelian 
//------------------------------//

The trio didn’t see much of this unnamed ship once they were brought aboard. Indeed, they saw there were a lot of soldiers, presumably drafted in. Applebloom was even sure at one point she had seen her cousin Braeburn, but she had barely seen a stallion she had seen that passed a resemblance, than he was out of sight once more.
Time Twister, as Rumble later revealed his name to be, had ordered them to the brig, where they would be kept on the trip. None of them knew where they were headed, and the soldiers sure weren’t answering.
Scootaloo had become lethargic at seeing the waste of life that Time Twister had commanded. So many lives destroyed, and for what? So he could get her? What justified it? She sat in a corner of the cell, thinking over what she could have done, and despite coming up with no answer, she continued to think on it, and if she could have done more.
They were alone, with only a guard now and then bringing them food and water. For all they knew, days had passed, but there were no windows to tell the passage of time. They ate, they slept, but if this was just in the span of hours or weeks only the soldiers knew.
And the soldiers weren’t answering that either.

Some unknown time later, they were led away from the brig, eventually outside. The ship had weighed anchor above a forest, and with a unicorn powering a device on a platform, they were brought to the ground, where a camp had been set before the largest tree any of the foals had ever seen.
The size of the tree was such that the top could only be seen, barely, as they were above the forest canopy. Below, the top was not visible, but the trunk was, and here, Applebloom noted, something wasn’t right about it. Lines of glowing light ran up and down the tree, as if pulsing and powering it. The base of the trunk had an opening to the inside that was easily large enough to house Canterlot, and still have space for every airship, even the unnamed one above them.
In the camp, Time Twister stood next to Shining Armor, smiling as he saw the tree, and as they got closer, a city. He barely glanced at the trio as they arrived at last.
“Well now, I imagine you three must be glad to be outside again,” Shining Armor spoke up, “it has been four days after all.”
“Four days?” Applebloom and Rumble shouted together.
“Yes, calm down alright? I’m doing important work here.” Time Twister snapped, his horn glowing.
While it looked like he was standing still, he was in fact, levitating a stone from the city inside the tree, bringing it slowly closer. Scootaloo looked up as it finally got close enough.
“Amazing, isn’t it? We’ve not got close enough but we think this is an amber stone from the tree itself,” he held it up for them to see, as its own glow outshone his own magical glow surrounding it, “they say, in myths that you really have to look for, that the tree makes them for every time someone comes to the world it is in. And look how fresh it appears, it's hardly solidified, I think it's not even been a week yet.”
He was in awe, but Applebloom, who believed Scootaloo’s story, bit her lower lip. Scootaloo herself had hardly been in the world for a week yet. Time Twister glanced to the orange pegasus.
“Now, as for you. I know you can’t teleport around like a unicorn, but I saw you, that means somewhere here, your real home lies, and this,” he began to hover the amber closer, “being fresh, I figure it was formed when you got here. I have a theory that it records who you were when you arrive, so that you can collect it on heading home and return to your true form.”
Time Twister brought some string towards himself, and using his magic, he pushed it through the glowing amber. It resumed its course towards Scootaloo.
“Uh, Time? What are you doing?” Shining Armor asked.
“Relax, I’m not going to harm her. I’m just going to see if my theory is correct, that if she comes into contact with it, while here, she will appear as she was in her own world.”
Scootaloo didn’t resist as the string was put around her head and onto her neck. The amber, which glowed enough to look as though it should burn her, came into contact with her fur.
She begun to glow.

The glowing lasted what felt like hours, and perhaps it was, Scootaloo never thought to ask. But when it ended, she stood taller than Applebloom and Rumble, and just below chin height of Time Twister and Shining Armor. Time Twister was grinning again, but the others, and soldiers gathered, stared in awe.
“Scootaloo, ya look,” Applebloom couldn’t speak further.
She had indeed changed after coming into contact with the amber. Her legs were now far more slender, and her ears were longer and more pointed at the tip, even curved slightly. Though the only thing that hadn’t changed, much, were her wings. They still seemed small, at least to her, even though they were now the same size as the average adult's wings.
“You weren’t lying, you really are an elven pony.” Rumble muttered, as if he was expecting to wake from a dream at any second.
Time Twister turned to the tree. He fell silent for a while, as on the horizon, the sun begun to set.
“Tomorrow, we will be led by you, elven pony, to your world. And I expect, in return for taking you back safely, to be given the source of your magic. If not the whole thing then enough to improve Equestria.”
“No! I will not do that, the source froze our world, and our moon hangs forever over snowy fields, and the sun never will rise again.” she replied.
Time Twister used his magic, the various body parts of Rumble and Applebloom became enveloped in the glow.
“You will do it, or I will break any bone in their body that will still allow me to return them alive but injured. You have until dawn to think about it.”

Scootaloo found she couldn’t sleep that night, the threat levelled to her friends by Time Twister hadn’t sat well. As they hovered in and out of sleep, she looked towards the tree, having worked out that it was the Yggdrasil.
Time Twister probably thought it was unique to this world, but the truth was, this Yggdrasil was actually just sprouted from the tip of a root of the real one, which existed beyond all worlds. She had never seen it before of course, but her kind knew where it was, and had even explored the other worlds. Perhaps that was how this world had heard the Elven pony tales.
There were worlds where the Yggdrasil was small and in a cave, and some where it took other forms such as a stone tower, it changed to fit the world it was in.
If you remained quiet and listened you could hear faint voices of those who lived in the other worlds.
‘I don’t get why it has to be so hot, can’t she just lower the sun a little?’
‘No, you can’t do that, think of how bad things could be if you alter the past even slightly.’
Of course, without the context behind them, it was useless listening to the voices. But they were there, and gave even the slightest glimpse into the world the voice had come from.
Behind her, Applebloom and Rumble were barely sleeping themselves, the faint voices were disturbing to say the least to them. The soldiers otherwise were heading to the airship when they wanted to sleep, and they were fortunate to not be near the voices of the worlds.
Shining Armor slowly approached them, which Scootaloo found odd. He stood as if he needn’t speak about why he was there, as the dawn approached. Standing with a sigh, the trio followed him, but it quickly became apparent that he wasn’t leading them to Time Twister. Before they got near the tent, Shining Armor led them to one side, making them stand near to him, and then casting a teleport spell on all four of them.

The teleport took them to the city inside Yggdrasil itself. Scootaloo, Applebloom and Rumble stared in awe as they finally saw the sight, which should have been maddening, and yet it wasn’t. The inside of Yggdrasil were more branches, which reached towards the external ones, but disappeared in glowing discs. There were also ramps, naturally formed from Yggdrasil itself.
“What are you doing?” Applebloom asked.
“What’s right.” Shining Armor tapped his hoof down.
From around the city, the mercenaries appeared, including High Wind. They converged on the trio and Shining Armor.
“But how? We saw some of you lying dead!” Rumble questioned.
“Ah, very convincing ponyquinns right?” High Wind winked.
Scootaloo was beaming, but looked to Shining Armor.
“You better leave before you get into trouble.” she said.
“Oh don’t worry, I know exactly where I’m going, and it's not back to Time Twister or that ship.” he said, once more teleporting, though only himself this time.
“Now he’s gone to deal with that plan,” High Wind looked around, “we can save our reunion when we’re safer. C’mon lass, show us where we have to go.”
“Wait not even a question as to why she looks so different?” Rumble looked dumbstruck.
“When. We. Are. Safe.” High Wind growled.
Scootaloo held up the ankle brace with the stone in it. It glowed softly and moved her hoof in a direction of a high up branch. Trusting it, she wandered in its direction.

The walk in total took them an hour, each movement near the entrance was careful, so no one was seen by random soldiers, or worse, Time Twister. The branch indeed led to a different world, though like all others, what lay beyond was a mystery. The only hint was the sound of wind.
“What can we expect?” Applebloom was the one to ask now, as the mercenaries handed warm clothes and hoof wrappings around.
“When High Wind’s daughter said she saw us cold? She wasn’t lying.” Scootaloo replied.
“But what if Time Twister, oh who am I kidding? He told us his daughter was a traitor to the princess to try and break us.” Rumble shook his head.
“Wait, a traitor? Anyone can go see her grave, it's just outside Ponyville. She were only six.” High Wind replied.
“Regardless,” Scootaloo looked back, now she was in warm clothing, “picture the worst winter you’ve ever seen, then take away the sunshine.”
She held her breath and stepped through, followed quickly by Applebloom, Rumble and the Mercenaries.
On another branch, unseen by them the entire time, Time Twister grinned.
“Got it.”

The first thing Applebloom noticed was the snow. If it hadn’t been for some Mercenaries having a quick think and putting tennis rackets to her hooves, she would be buried under six foot of snow. It was difficult for anyone to keep their head above it, and the unicorns quickly worked a modified cloudwalking spell for anyone too heavy to use the tennis rackets, so they could walk above the snow.
“You weren’t kidding.” High Wind said, as he looked around.
In the distance was a city on a cliff, which they could only assume was this world’s Canterlot. In the snow, it was the only thing that looked as if it had remained above it. Closer, there were the tops of homes, long buried.
“This is sad, this was your home?” Applebloom asked.
“Was, we ran out of food, the water from the snow was too impure to drink, this is how my world died.” Scootaloo replied as she walked above the snow. The problems presented to the others was missing with her, as she stood atop the snow without tennis rackets or any spell.
“But what happened?” she was asked, as they walked towards the city.
Scootaloo sighed and took a deep breath, as she begun to explain.
“It began, we can’t tell when, just, the day we Asgellians call, the day of the final sunset. It was a normal day by all means, foals went to school, parents worked to earn their family meals, and then the sunset came, and with it, the scream of an angry goddess denied their vengeance. We call her the cold-night lurker. As soon as she arrived, she forced the sunset to happen an hour early, and brought the moon the middle of the sky, and chained it in place.”
Looking up, they saw the moon hung overhead, its surface was different to the one that rose and set in Equestria.
“Anyway, for months we were fine, we appealed to her to bring the sun back, but she wouldn’t have it. As our food and water begun to dwindle, and famine set in, she realized her mistake, and could not undo it to save us. She lamented and cried into the eternal night at what she had done to us, lives that had nothing to do with her anger that were now going to pay the ultimate price for it.”
“Just before I recall waking in your world, my parents told me they were sending me away. I was not dumb, I knew we were in trouble, and I felt happy, they were going to spare me the suffering so many were already. All I can remember is the crying of the goddess, at what she had done to us. Then, I woke in your world.”
The tale of how she had come to Equestria had kept the band together and focused, and they now stood near the cliffs of the city.
“Welcome to my home, Oriel.” Scootaloo looked sadly at the frozen city.