The Flames of the Phoenix- The Heart of the Forest
When Big Mac had finally returned back to Sweet Apple Acres shortly after helping Aunt Ember and two strangers fend off an attack from that of the Cryophoenix named Anivia, he thought that he would be able to finally get some much deserved rest. But when he opened his eyes again, he did not find himself in the comforts of his own room, but rather in the middle of the Everfree Forest. But… it was rather calm and no creatures seemed to be running around. Something that made him feel rather uncomfortable.
However, what really did not settle right with him was that as he was looking around and moved his head to the left… that was when he laid eyes on something that caught him off guard. “Granny, tell us a story!”
“W-what?” He asked himself. Because when he fully turned himself in the direction of the voice, that was when he found himself looking at what seemed like a memory. A time when he and his sister were a lot younger. Before Applebloom was even born. It was when his parents were out of town meeting some of their friends and they were being watched over by Granny Smith, who was sitting in her rocking chair with a book on her lap.
“Oh, come on now you two. It’s too late to for that.” He heard Granny Smith tell both of them. But it didn’t stop his sister from being persistent.
“Come on, Granny. Can we listen to one story? Please?” Applejack asked her. At first, the elderly mare was rather insistent on not doing it… but after a while, she let out a deep sigh and gave in.
“Alright… But I’ll be the one to pick the story… You always choose the ones that you like, so you two young’uns are going to be listening to something new tonight,” He heard her say as he felt a small breeze flow past him as Big Mac looked all around him. It was as he heard Granny Smith speak though that the forest around him began to change. “You two both know that it’s dangerous to go into the Everfree… but to know the true reason for why it is a dangerous place, you must know how it came to be.”
Immediately, everything around Big Mac suddenly began to change. As he moved through the forest, he began to see that many of the most dangerous hazards that were in this place… were not even there. The Froggy Bottom Bog was not there either and instead… when he got to the edge of the forest, all that Mac saw was… pure green. An endless meadow of grass, flowers and the spare trees. It looked like it would reach to the badlands.
Wait…… The… badlands? “Once, the Everfree was a much more beautiful place. An endless plain of green and life. One where many of the inhabitants loves to have called it their home…” At this point, Mac froze. The air suddenly became dry and the earth around him began to disintegrate right before his very eyes. “Then… came the burning. A vast wave of heat and fire began to rapidly spread throughout the Everfree. Scorching everything that stood in its path.”
“A-aunt Embah…” Mac gasped, just as he was finding himself immediately turned around and facing what looked to be the center of the Everfree.
“It was as the flames approached the center of this vast green… that the heart of the forest awoke… and the Everfree raged,” All around him, Big Mac heard what sounded like the clashing of weapons and the burning sounds of crackling fire as he still heard Granny Smith speak. “It fought back against Fire… and it fought back against those who dared tried to invade the forest. But this heart grew cancerous.” Now, he was seeing the trees decay and the ground below him change. Becoming more of the kind of forest that many would think of when they hear the Everfree.
“It tried to dwell into territory that it was not allowed to go into… but, it was pushed back. Many think that it is gone. Some ponies assume that the Timberwolves first originated from this single heart, but there are many things that we do not know… It is the reason why most ponies stay away from the forest and everything that’s inside.”
Though, it was around then though that Big Mac… heard his younger self speak. “But Granny, didn’t you go in there when you were younger?”
“Ah only was there when I came across Zap Apples for the first time… but that is a story to be told another night,” Granny told both of them, before closing the book as Big Mac heard the sounds of them trotting upstairs. “It’s time to get some sleep you two…”
“But Granny… what about the heart? What happened to it?” The moment that he heard that question, a chilling wind blew over Big Mac as the stallion noticed several barbed vines circling around the trees and in the ground. Some even passing over his hooves, which immediately made him flinch as he turned to see where they were coming from.
Only for him to be met with a pair of dark red eyes that stared directly back at him. The sound of growling in the distance. “Well now, sugarcube… according to the stories… you can still hear the winds say it’s name to this very day.”
Then, Big Mac felt not just something move from under his hooves… but over them. He looked down to see that the grass he was standing on was now coming over his hooves. Almost as if it was dragging him into the ground like quicksand as he looked up at what was in front of him. Only for him to come face to face with the figure he was looking at.
It was a timberwolf… but one with a black head, almost as if it was burned. It had a mane of grass similar to that of a lion and the timber that was on the front of its body looked to have been old and worn. But what was most noticeable was that there were three flower buds on this timberwolf. One on the end of the tail and two were on the peaks of it’s shoulders. But as the end of the tail was faced towards Big Mac, the flower opened up and turned into the jaws of a ferocious beast.
But the most chilling part of all was something that he was never prepared for. This timberwolf… spoke to him. “Who DARES invade the domain of Sylvanos!!?!”
“Gah!!” Big Mac immediately shot up and started to look around him, only to realize that he was immediately back in his room. For a moment, he didn’t know if this place was truly real. But hearing some of his family members downstairs soon lead him to realize that he wasn’t in a dream at all.
However… what he experienced just now… That definitely felt real to him. “Mac, ya okay in there?”
Hearing the voice of his sister had the stallion stumble out of there before looking towards the door. “Y-yeah, ah am. Why?”
“Aunt Ember asked me to check on ya. Ya missed breakfast this morning,” Hearing that from AJ had Mac shudder for a moment, before he looked at the clock that was on the wall and realized that it had been almost two hours before the sun came up. “Are ya sure your okay? Ya sound sick.”
“Nah, nah, ah’m fine…” Mac told her in response. Even though it wasn’t a lie, part of him was telling himself that it was. “Just overslept. That’s all.”
“Uh huh…… If ya say so,” Applejack replied back to her. “Mac, if ya like, ah can be able to help Aunt Ember on the farm today. She told me about what occurred last night and ah think ya just need some rest.”
“Nah, ah’m fine AJ… Really, ah am.” Big Mac insisted, going as far as getting up and going to open the door to his room in order to see her face to face. “Besides, it’s mah responsibility to take care of the orchard no matter how ah’m feeling.”
His sister began to think it over for a moment, before an idea came to her mind as she looked back at him. “Well, if ya insist… Ah need some apples delivered to Twilight’s castle today. Ya think you can do that?”
With that thought in mind, all Big Mac did was nod to his sister. “Sure thing.”
“You… want to know about Timberwolves?” A confused Twilight asked. Big Macintosh had just arrived a few moments ago, delivering the apples from the orchard that she had asked for. But instead of taking his leave so soon, the stallion had asked her a question that seemed… rather bizarre. “Zap Apple Season’s already passed though.”
“Ah know and we didn’t have any Timberwolves come by the orchard thankfully…” He let out a sigh of relief. “However… last night, ah had some trouble sleeping and-”
“Wait… are you sure that this isn’t something from the Tantabus incident?”
“The Tanta-what now?” Mac asked, sounding confused for a moment before Twilight shook her head and insisted for him to keep going. “Well, last night ah had a… weird dream and ah was wondering if you had some kind of book that talked about the ecosystem of the Everfree.” Almost as instantly as he said that, the princess teleported out of the room… before coming back a few seconds later with a rather large book that she cracked open and laid out on the crystalline table.
“You said it was Timberwolves right?” A single nod from the Earth Pony had Twilight’s horn light up as it immediately had her turn to somewhere in the back of the book before stopping. “Alright… What was it that you wanted to ask about them?”
“Well… Ah’m not sure if this was because of what ah saw in mah dream or something else,” The stallion stated as he looked at the book for a brief moment, before saying something that Twilight did not anticipate. “But the one ah saw was a lot different and… it actually spoke.”
“…… Come again?”
“Ah’m being serious,” The earth pony was telling her, trying to not sound like he was insane. “At first, ah was remembering a story that Granny Smith told AJ and I when we were young and the next thing ah know, ah see this Timberwolf covered in thorned bramble and had a leaf like mane similar to a chimera glare at me. He even seemed to have a name.”
Now that had Twilight raise an eyebrow for a moment. “A… name?”
Man nodded his head and took a deep breath as he looked back at her first before telling her his answer. “Yes. This… timberwolf called himself Sylvanos.”
Now though was when both of them heard a completely different voice enter the room as the spirit of chaos, Discord, emerged from hiding as a chair that was behind the two of them. “Oh… now this has just gotten a lot more interesting.”
“Discord!!” Twilight gasped. “What was that for?! You almost gave me a heart attack!”
“I just thought I would listen in for a little bit to see how things were going,” Discord replied, before looking back at Big Mac now. “But the moment that I heard him mention that name, I thought that it would be the perfect time to come in. Besides, I think I can be able to help answer both of your questions.”
Both ponies now looked at one another in complete and utter confusion, before they said one simultaneous response. “How?”
“Well… the initial question that I’ll answer for you is not a what… but who. Because on the surface, Sylvanos may just seem like a timberwolf with an interest in carnivorous plants… but it’s a lot more important than that,” He replied back to them. “In fact, Sylvanos, in many ways, has some similarities to both myself and the phoenix girl, Ember.” That just confused Big Mac even more. Mostly because he had no idea as to what could he exactly mean by ‘similarities’. If anything, it seemed like there were more differences than that.
“What exactly do you mean by that, Discord?” Twilight then asked him.
“Well, think of it like this…” Discord said as he looked at both ponies and with a snap of his talon, he had a golden coin appear in his hands. “Myself, Ember and Sylvanos are all beings that have on for a rather long time, and in our own way, we reflect the thoughts and emotions that creatures all across the world feel on a daily basis. Both good,” On one side of the coin, it showed the faces of a calm Discord, Ember and Sylvanos. But upon immediately flipping the coin, it was the exact opposite. It was… “bad and downright ugly. For example, you may not fully believe me on this, but I would almost be seen as a force of change.”
“Excuse you?” Twilight asked, blinking in response to the draconequus’ statement. “How exactly can you… You… be a force of change? That’s like asking Pinkie Pie to get into politics…”
“Ah yes… but perhaps it would be best explained through an example,” Discord said, creating something that would replicate what looked like a puppet theater as he had different drawings of ponies emerge on stage. All while they were taped onto what looked like wooden popsicle sticks. “For starters, I might be seen as a devious trickster by some ponies, but I can also be a sign of progress and a beacon of hope. Like how I gave you the last key in order to unlock the Rainbow Power needed to defeat Lord Tirek. The whole thing with this is that it wraps around change. True, without change there would be nopony to plot evil schemes, but it would also mean that there would be nopony smart enough in order to outsmart those schemes.”
“... B-but that would mean… Nothing would ever get done. Society would just be in a standstill.”
“Exactly,” Discord replied back. “We would be stuck in a state of Static karma… and speaking of which,” At that moment was when Discord threw away the stage puppet of himself as it blew up in pink smoke. “That leads directly to what Sylvanos represents. What happens when there’s a complete lack of change. Cycles of Decay and Renewal that are inevitable. It’s the reason why the Everfree Forest is the way that it is because unlike Equestria and the places where Ponies now reside, the Everfree Forest has not changed at all.”
That… left Mac with a question though. “Wait a second… if what ya say is true…”
“Which it is…” Discord added on.
“And ya say that they’re a representation of all emotions… what good thing does he actually represent?” The farmer asked. To which, the spirit of chaos picked up right where he left off.
“The good traits that Sylvanos represents is that he represents the resolve and will in order to face such inevitabilities. Meaning that without him, there would not be any consistency or safety in living and dying… in fact, there would be no consistency at all,” But the next thing that the spirit of chaos told them definitely threw both of them off guard. “Sylvanos is technically nature incarnate.”
Twilight, at this point, didn’t even realize that one of her eyes was twitching as she looked back at Discord. “Is… all of this true?”
Mac himself wanted to know the answer to the same exact question as well… despite the fact that he was confused as to how this really applies to everything. After all, he just wanted to find out more about Sylvanos after what he had seen in his dreams.
“To be honest… even though this sounds as crazy as a pair of sisters being able to move celestial objects around the planet, what I’m telling you is actually correct…” Discord told them before letting out a deep breath. “Sylvanos is still a pain in the ass though. Gets completely defensive over who enters ‘his domain’.”
“Um… can ah ask a question?” Mac spoke up, before Discord nodded his head. “Ah know this sounds a bit crazy to understand, but if you’re change and Sylvanos is nature, then what is my aunt supposed to represent?”
“Well, for Ember, she may be seen as someone who’s rage and anger needs to be kept in check because of what she did in the past, but she could also pass for another trait that a lot of us represent. That being Survival of the Fittest,” Discord told both of them, throwing away his old props and having them explode as he solely focused on Ember now. “Strength and Skill can be represented through her actions, but she is also one that wouldn’t try to trick you and stab you in the back for it. Making her seem like a representation of traits like justice, vengeance, honour, honesty, loyalty and the strength to stand up to and fight against injustice. Like how the villagers in that one town of equality stood up to the towns mayor even though she had the upper hoof and you & your friends hostage.”
“What-?” Big Mac asked, looking towards the Princess of Friendship.
“It’s a long story…” Twilight hastily replied to him for a moment. “Though… that was rather… informative. You happen to know a lot of information on this subject Discord.”
By the time he was finished, Discord had his entire prop set dissipate into pink smoke as he looked back at Twilight. “That I do… however, the one this I don’t know is why I’m hearing all this stuff about Sylvanos now…”
“Perhaps all this conflict going on right now with Anivia has gotten his attention?” Twilight hypothesized.
“Maybe… but Sylvanos normally doesn’t get himself involved unless it directly involves him. Like if you happen to walk into his territory…” Discord then replied back. “I don’t know what might be the cause of something like this unfortunately… but one thing I do know for a fact is that whatever you do… do NOT tell Ember about this.”
“What? Why?” Both Mac and Twilight simultaneously asked, while also being caught off guard by saying that statement at the same time.
“Let me put it to you simply then…” The next thing he said though was what caused some chills go down both of their spines. “Her rage… was the reason why Sylvanos woke all those years ago.”
Meanwhile
In Ponyville’s marketplace, many tradesponies and merchants were making the rounds as they were all trying to sell their wares, whether they were specialty goods or just household items. The one common thing though was that right now, most of the carts that those merchants had used to carry their goods were all in the same place.
And for the thief that hitched a ride on one of these carts from Horseshoe Bay… she saw this as open season. Especially after being in the back of a cramped car carrying tropical fruits and produce for the last few hours. But for Maeve, despite the fact that she was able to pickpocket as much as her cloak can hold… there was one thing that she wasn’t a fan of. “Wow… I honestly did not think that my search would have me end up in the middle of the sticks…”
Normally, she would prefer to try and keep herself hidden from view in a dark alley or under the cover of night. However, she also learned that most ponies don’t normally stay in town and close up their shops after sundown. And since it was only a couple of hours away, Maeve saw that it would be a better time to do that now instead of wait for too long and miss her window of opportunity.
After sneaking out of the cart she was hiding and pickpocketing some food and bits from the two carts right next to it though, that was when she happened to overhear something not far from where she was at as she proceeded to a nearby alley and hid close to the wall. From her position, she peaked around the corner and happened to notice what appeared to be a red stallion emerging from a crystalline tree while he was talking to a… pony with a horn and wings? “That’s… a new one.”
“Thanks for coming over Mac,” She heard that winged pony say to the stallion. “And thank you for the apples. Tell Ember I said hello.” That immediately had the hairs on the back of Maeve’s neck stand up as she looked back at both of them. She did not know about who this… Ember was, but the name… sounded rather close to the name of someone else she was looking for. And it was the only lead that she had at this point.
“Well, let’s see what this big kitten can lead me too.” She grinned, before beginning to run up the side of the alleyway and follow the stallion from the rooftops. When they left town, Maeve proceeded to follow him by hiding along the side of the road and also in the trees. Staying out of sight to not catch the stallions attention and have him think somepony was following him.
The more that she continued to follow him though, the more that she was personally tempted to try and steal from him. Causing Maeve to stop moving for a moment and try to get her to snap out of it. “Come on, stop thinking that. You’ll give your position away to the big kitten if you try to rob him now!”
Yet, it was as she was thinking this, Maeve realized that the pony she was pursuing was now really close to what looked like an orchard. And with it, there was somepony else waiting for him. An orange pony with a blond mane & tail who was wearing what looked like an old stetson hat. She tried to listen in on them, but it was when she got closer and decided to hide in one of the trees that she happened to notice an apple right in front of her. And that the tree she was hiding in was an apple tree.
“Well, I haven’t really had the chance to eat anything since I got out… Guess it’s fine for me to have a bite. Five finger discount after all,” She said, grabbing an apple and yanking it off of the branch before beginning to eat it. It was as she was eating it though that she noticed that the orange pony was… walking over to the tree with what looked like some kind of basket. Before setting it down at the base of the tree. “Now why would she do that-?”
Then, she felt the tree shake. And with it, all the apples immediately fell out of the tree. And Maeve lost her grip on the apple she had just finished eating. “Alright, ah’m all done here-” And just as the earth pony was speaking up, that apple core that Maeve had accidentally let go of hit the pony in the head… and landed right in the basket.
“Now, what in the hay-?” Was the only thing that the mare could say… before she immediately lifted her head up and spotted the thief in the trees.
To which, Maeve only had one thing to say. “Um… Hi-?”
“Mac, get out here!! We got a thieving varmint-!!” On instinct, Maeve immediately dashed out of the trees, knocking the mare to the ground as she began to run. Racing through the trees and thinking that there was a new place she could hide.
Unfortunately though, just as she thought she was about to get away, a giant stone wall emerged in front of the burglar. Causing her to stop in her tracks. “What the-?!” Just as she backed up though and turned around, she felt a lasso wrap around her as she found herself looking directly back at both the mare and stallion she had seen just moments ago, letting out a deep sigh. “… Okay, this sucks!”
“Sis, is this… really the thief? She looks… rather small.” She heard the stallion speak up.
“Darn right! Ah found her in the trees and she dropped an apple core on my head!” The mare snapped, before turning her gaze to Maeve. “Now, what do you got to say for yourself?!”
“Well…” She grinned, remembering something as she had one of her knives appear in her hands very close to where the lasso was holding her. “It’s not really easy to catch me, kitten. Now if you excuse me… I need to cut loose.” Just before they could ask, Maeve cut through her restraints and made a break for it. Startling both of them as they were now chasing her through the back of the orchard.
“Haha!! You can’t catch me!” Maeve taunted, gaining the upper hand. But just like before, something had the chase reach a dramatic hault. But instead of a stone wall this time… it was a fireball to the face. “Ow! Ow! OW!!”
“Okay, just what in the world is going on out here?” That voice, had Maeve immediately lift her head up. Only to see the last thing that she was expecting. What she saw was a human, grey shirt, blue jeans, sandals, crimson scarf and brown hair tied back in a ponytail with dark red eyes.
“Aunt Ember!”
The human, now addressed by her name, looked back towards Maeve… who was personally caught off guard by everything that was transpiring. Which only had her say one word.
“E-emmy?”
Ember herself though, raised an eyebrow. “I…… have not heard that since I had originally come here… And only one person ever called me that-” Now, things were clicking inside her head… just as the two ponies from before were attempting to restrain Maeve in her current state.
“Agh! Hey, what gives?!” The thief shouted, before the farm pony glared at her.
“You were the one who ate one of the apples on the orchard and try to get away with it! You think you can just swipe something that isn’t yours and-”
“Applejack, let her go…” Both of them turned towards Ember, surprised by what she had to say. Personally, Applejack didn’t want to let her go, but after a little bit, she shook her head and let her free.
“Why are you telling me to let her go, aunt Ember?” Applejack asked.
“Because I want to ask her a question…” The pyromancer told her. “Back home, there was only one person in my family that ever called me by that name… So let me ask her something,” Then, she turned to Maeve, who was finally able to get up on her own as she looked back at Ember with a shocked face. “Is that you… Mom?”
That… caused tears to run down the burglar’s face as she walked up to where her daughter was and embraced her in a hug. Trying to hold back her joyful tears as she said something that answered Ember’s question. “I finally found you…”
End Chapter 14