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// Trees Howl. Trees Whisper. Trees Burn. 
// Story: Ashen Forest 
// by Lily Lain 
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There’sh places in space ‘n time it’s better not to go into, y’know. Mysteries bett’r left unsolved, questions bett’r left unanswered. She takes a sip and stares into the empty glass. Then her horn flashes briefly and almost immediately she looks sober.

I don’t think it’d be of any use if I slur about it through my drunken accent. I see you must’ve heard of it. I think one or two ponies have been there. One didn’t come back. No wonder you’d want to know what’s in there. I’ll tell you.

The surroundings are quiet. There are no chirps of birds, no wolf howls, no sounds of civilisation, just the occasional rustling of leaves. Once or twice you’ll hear the chilling wind blow through a crack somewhere with a pony-like whine. At least, you’ll think it’s wind.

Perhaps, if you listen in, you’ll hear something akin to a word: “Everfree”. It’ll be there, be it in the howls, the cracks, or other noise. It remembers its name, even now. Even if others wouldn’t, or perhaps because of that.

There are no signs of civilisation in the area, not even distant smoke trails from houses. The ground is green at first, then scorched - black and peppered with ashes. Here and there the ash is denser, forcing you to wade through it like winter snow. The trees have ashen leaves hanging off of their charred branches. It all looks surreal, as though the whole forest was recreated with ash and charred remains. As though it was burnt all at once, in a heartbeat. The briefest disturbance makes the trees shed their ashen leaves and become barren black stumps.

Deeper in you’ll see everything has been charred, from grass, through bushes, to trees and ferns. Wind is weak here, very weak. Dozens of small ashen particles drift lazily through the air, getting into your lungs and making you cough. If you cough next to a tree, it’ll cover you with its “leaves” immediately. Whether you wish it or not, you’ll soon be all grey, from hooves to mane. The forest will make you its own if you proceed.

The colours eventually seem to fade, as the edge of the forest grows farther. There’s only the greyscale, from the black char of the trees to the whitest motes of ash. The air is ever so warmer and dryer with every step, forcing you to drink from your canteen and cough even more. Eventually, you’ll see a new colour introduced into the landscape: red-ish orange of little sparks flying through the air. They’re signs of what lies farther.

The forest grows much warmer from the dry, but chilly outside. There’s even more ash in the air, even more sparks. Some of the trees glow slightly in the near indiscernible breeze, like embers of fires to come. You inhale the ash, some of it still glowing. It dries and burns your lungs. It singes your coat and leaves burn marks on your body. If you persist, it’s directly against your better judgement, through sheer determination.

You’ll know you’re getting closer to the centre when you notice the first fires up ahead. Trees burning, grass, bushes. At first they’ll be singular. There’ll be things in the ash, things that couldn’t be burnt - metal shields, helmets, swords, staff crystals amongst them, all covered in a thick grey layer. You’ll wonder where all that ash, all those possessions came from.

You find them quick enough: ashen statues, if they could be called that. Statues of ponies, to be exact, held barely together in such a way that a mere breeze makes them crumble into dust. You realise what you’ve been wading through all this time, well.

But, see, that’s not what disturbed me the most. I’ve found an amulet on one of them. One of your hourglass amulets. I could even recognize the face, and the more I thought about it, the more it terrified me. It was the mare that got lost a few years ago. I tried to lift it, carefully, but she crumbled right underneath my hooves, leaving just the amulet in them, covered by a layer of ash. She falls silent for a moment, staring off into the distance. Eventually she catches herself. 

The amulet? I gave it to your Mother. I think she’ll show it to you if you ask.

Ah, yes, the forest. That is the last chance you have to turn back. If you don’t, you’ll venture into hell. All is aflame farther in, with small paths in-between. The roaring of the flames grows ever louder. Trees fall, their branches burnt off, yet the fire keeps going, as though fuelled by malignant spellcraft. Your skin feels like it’s melting off. Your coat is singed and your lungs burn. And yet, you do not catch fire. You don’t die, not unless you’re careless and step into the flames.

Eventually, if you’re lucky, you reach the centre. It’s like the eye of the storm, eerie, calm.  The sounds of the fire don’t reach here, neither does the ash. It’s simply a glade, entirely clear and serene, for all that transpires around it. You’ll know you reach it when everything quiets down, and you hear a strange sound. The kind of sound you’d never expect to hear in such a place, until it becomes loud enough that it couldn’t be anything else. It’s a quiet sobbing.

If you follow the sound, you’ll see an alicorn, white, regal, crouched over the body of another. Yet there’s a degree of savagery and fury to her. She holds so much power, and yet, she is the one weeping. Perhaps you might catch a glimpse of the sun mark on her flank. It used to be a symbol, you know. It looks perverse there, amidst the fire.

Her tears fall on the body underneath, also an alicorn, but of a darker coat, and a mane like a starry sky. She is different. Beautiful, in a gentle, almost dreamlike way. Her body frail, vulnerable, as if she’d blow away with a strong gust of wind, or that she’d crumble, like the ashen statues.

The longer you look, the more wrong the scene seems. You notice, when the weeping alicorn briefly opens her eyes, that the she has catlike slits for pupils. Her mane is a mirror image of the blaze consuming the rest of the forest. When she winces, you see her teeth are sharp. Canine or feline, almost. Made to rend flesh.

The sense of wrongness to her pervades. Perhaps you might think she’s a beast. A predator shedding crocodile tears before her fresh prey.

Then you back away. Frightened by the gruesome image, distracted by some sudden movement out of the corner of your eye, or perhaps fleeing from a falling tree or rushing flames. You’ll never see the centre again, don’t try to look for it.

She falls silent, refills the glass. Takes a swig, then another.

I wonder what’s going through her mind at that moment, besides the sense of loss. Does she wonder if she could ever return to normal life? Does she dread what she became? Or have the last embers of her equinity already burned out?

There are some questions best left unanswered.