Even though it had only been the better half of a week since Cozy Glow was thwarted, life at Twilight Sparkle's School of Friendship went on as normal (aside from the increased number of cases Starlight had to take on due to the many students trying to cope with Cozy's betrayal). Homework to grade, tests to create and distribute, and even a plan for what to do when classes ended for the Summer and all the students would have to be sent home.
Most of them would just go back to whatever city or town they had come from but Twilight was concerned about what would happen to the six students who had stopped Cozy Glow. Only Sandbar had a home in Equestria, and he had made friends with such different creatures as an orphaned griffon, a formerly love starved changeling, and even a hippogriff who had grown up sheltered under the sea as a seapony. Would they all go their separate ways until school started again? And if so would they take the lessons they had learned back to their respective nations to share?
Well, those were thoughts for another time and place. School wouldn't be out for at least another month and a half, which gave the headmare plenty of time to think about what to do when that deadline inevitably came around. For now, she was simply content to get back into the usual humdrum of academic life and keep the school that had been her dream running smoothly.
The young alicorn kept on working past the bell that signaled the end of classes for the day. Just because the students weren't learning didn't mean the lessons had to stop. There were lots of things to consider for the next day, including who was going to be nominated for Teacher of the Month this time (Fluttershy insisted on not being nominated yet again when that meant victory was all but certain).
Twilight was just finishing up grading Ocellus' well crafted but lengthy report on the magic of friendship and how it affected her, when the princess felt the ever so familiar tingling sensation on her flanks. She curiously looked down and saw that her cutie mark was glowing. It didn't take a genius to figure out what that meant, the map was calling her.
"At least this time it waited until after class to do it," Twilight thought. "Hope it's not a false alarm again." She rose from her desk, leaving the papers to be graded at a later date. A friendship assignment couldn't be put on hold for headmare work, no matter how important it might seem.
The princess dashed out of her office and quick as a flash she teleported to the throne room of her nearby castle. Nopony else seemed to be there, and Spike was too engrossed in his comic to have taken any notice of the map. Twilight found that most odd. Aside from two occasions the map had never called one creature alone to solve a friendship problem, and both of them had not been tied to the castle in any way (aside from living there). But maybe whoever else was being sent with her hadn't arrived yet?
Curiously, the bookworm pony examined the map. To her surprise only a symbol of her cutie mark was depicted on the map, no other marks or symbols appeared. What was even more puzzling was the location her cutie mark was hovering over. It wasn't some far away place on the edge of Equestria, or even one of the many kingdoms that lay beyond Equestria's borders. It didn't even cover familiar places like Canterlot or Ponyville where friendship problems had cropped up on multiple occasions. No, the map was clearly directing her to the Everfree Forest, more specifically to the Tree of Harmony.
The alicorn was quite perplexed by this. "The Tree of Harmony? Why would the map call me there?" She wondered aloud.
Spike looked up from his comic. "Search me, maybe it's in trouble again?"
Twilight gasped and put her hooves to her face! "You might be right, Spike! The Tree of Harmony is Equestria's only line of defense against the Everfree Forest, and the resting place of the Elements of Harmony! If anything happens to it, Equestria is doomed! The map must be calling me to save it!" She teleported out of the throne room but a second later. Time might be running out for her to act!
Despite her magical abilities and skills, Twilight lacked the means to teleport all the way from her castle to the Tree of Harmony. It took all she had just to teleport to the entrance to the Everfree Forest. Without a second's hesitation she rushed in and made a beeline for the Tree of Harmony's location, near the ruined remnants of the Castle of the Two Sisters. Whatever force or entity was threatening the Tree of Harmony's existence was about to be sorry!
However, as the princess approached her destination she could not see any signs of distress. All seemed quiet. But that couldn't be right, the Tree of Harmony had to be in danger somehow. Or else that meant this was another false alarm, no doubt engineered by Discord to make her leave the school. How he'd managed to pull off such a thing a second time, she had no idea. But she was going to see to it that she found out when she got back.
Yet before the alicorn could think of lighting up her horn and going back, a faint breeze whistled past her mane. Suddenly, there came an almost blinding flash. And when it had faded, there stood an exact replica of the princess. The only difference was that this new Twilight was glowing all over. The normal Twilight let out a gasp!
The glowing Twilight appeared to take notice of the princess' shock, for it soon opened its mouth and began to speak, sounding just like Twilight but with a slight echo to its tone. "Greetings, Twilight Sparkle. I am pleased to meet you."
"Who are you? What are you?" Twilight inquired of the glowing projection that stood before her. "And why do you look like me?"
The glowing Twilight simply answered. "You should know the answer to that. I am the Tree of Harmony, more specifically an avatar that I took on so that I might be able to speak to others and they in turn could speak to me."
The princess stumbled back slightly. She blinked and rubbed her eyes but the projection of her was still there. "You're the Tree of Harmony? I thought my students were exaggerating when they mentioned seeing you down in the catacombs beneath my school."
The projected Twilight simply laughed. "As you can plainly see, I am as real as can be. But you still do not believe me, do you?"
Twilight gulped. "It's all a lot to take in. Trees don't just come to life like this."
"I shall give you the same reply I gave your students. Like all living things, I change as I grow. As I have grown, so have my abilities," The Tree of Harmony's avatar spoke up. "Yet it was not until recently that I grew enough to take on a physical form. It was only fitting that I take on the form of the one who has worked her hardest to spread the magic of friendship across not only Equestria, but across the world."
Twilight was speechless for a moment, before a realization struck her. "Wait a minute! My glowing mark... you made my mark glow so that I would come here!" The Tree of Harmony nodded and Twilight couldn't help but blush. "Well, I'm flattered, really. But was all of this really necessary? Couldn't you have simply talked to me through the map in my castle?"
The Tree of Harmony's avatar flashed a wink at Twilight. "If I did that, where would the fun be? I very well can not give you all the answers whenever you want them, can I?"
Twilight chuckled. "You sound a lot like Princess Celestia when I was still her student. She always had a hooves off approach, and a strange sense of humor to boot. Are you sure you're not secretly her in disguise?"
The Tree of Harmony calmly answered. "I am not an extension of any princess, it is merely coincidence that yours is the form I have taken upon gaining sentience. And I have already told my reasons for doing so."
"You know, if we're going to be talking like this I think we need to come up with a name. Some way to distinguish you from your usual tree self," Twilight suggested. She then pondered, putting a hoof to her chin. "What about if I called you... Harmony Twilight?"
The tree nodded. "I like the sound of that, princess. Harmony Twilight it shall be."
The princess smiled. "Great. So, Harmony Twilight, mind if I ask you some questions? There's so much I wanna know."
Harmony Twilight nodded again. "Please do so. That is why I called you out here today, so that you could not only see for yourself that I have changed, but also so that you may learn what I wish to share with you."
Twilight wanted to speak up right away, but she found herself at a loss for words. What could she say? What should she ask? This sort of thing was unprecedented. Oh, of all the times for her to be without paper and a quill. She could've written an entire paper on this.
It was Harmony Twilight who broke the silence. "I suppose I should start from the beginning. Even before I took this form I was aware of all that happened around me, though I was not always capable of acting on it," She appeared to sigh. "My earliest memories stem from when I was planted by Starswirl and the pillars. From their crystal seeds, I bore the Elements of Harmony that Princess Celestia and Princess Luna wielded to combat evil far and wide. I even remember them moving to the castle nearby that they constructed upon discovering me, entrusting me to protect Ponyville and all of Equestria from the dangers of the Everfree Forest."
"And when Discord was defeated, he tried to use his plunder seeds to drain your power," Twilight commented. "I saw the memories from Zecora's potion. You held the seeds at bay for over a thousand years," Her face morphed into one of sorrow and regret as she told Harmony Twilight. "I'm sorry my friends and I failed to protect you while that was happening, it wasn't right for you to suffer."
Harmony Twilight shook her head. "You could not have known of my existence or of my struggle, even Celestia herself was not aware of Discord's true plan," Then she smiled. "You should be proud that I held out for as long as I did. For a tree so young, I had powers that would make other trees jealous. Yet in silence I suffered, a burden I do not regret. I held out for as long as I could, but the seeds grew into vines that were too much for me."
The princess looked across at Harmony Twilight. "Well it's a good thing my friends and I discovered you when we did. I assume returning the Elements of Harmony to your branches not only healed you, but also made you stronger?"
Harmony Twilight nodded her head in agreement. "With the Elements once again powering me, I could expand my power and jurisdiction beyond my roots to cover the entire Everfree Forest. That chest was my way of giving back to you, to thank you for saving me."
"And the castle and map?" Twilight inquired in the hopes of learning more.
Harmony Twilight happily explained with a smile. "You lost your home standing up to Tirek to protect the realm. You would not be satisfied with an old castle that had been unoccupied since Luna's banishment. With your new castle, I decided that you were ready for the next step of your journey. I could call upon you and your friends whenever it was necessary, to ensure peace for the realm and strengthen bonds of friendship that had gone astray."
"Why?" The young alicorn questioned.
The projection answered with a plain voice. "Friendship is Equestria's bread and butter. The stronger it is the stronger the realm becomes, and the more everyone benefits," It paused for a moment before it added. "But as time went on you and your friends no longer needed me to tell you where to go or what to do, you became good at finding and solving friendship problems before I could detect them and warn you of them. That is when I began to reach out to others, those close to you who had benefited from friendship and could in turn extend it to others. It helps that Spike went to the dragon lands at great personal risk, that Starlight led the mission to rescue her friends and stop Chrysalis, and that the Cutie Mark Crusaders were willing to help their greatest enemy become the pony she was always meant to be. Even Sunburst had once shut himself off from friendship unintentionally, only to rekindle it later upon discovering what a lack of it can do to a pony."
"And you expanded because the Storm King's invasion made us all realize that friendship isn't exclusive to ponies." Twilight realized.
"That is true, but it is also true that even before the Storm King came along you and your friends had already forged bonds of friendship with many nations and kingdoms. Even those you did not know existed," The tree responded. "I did not foresee that you would establish a school in response to my decision, but as you saw with Applejack and Fluttershy's mission to the kirin's homeland there are still parts of Equestria and parts beyond it that have yet to be reached by friendship or are still struggling with their own friendship problems."
It was then that Twilight decided to ask the question that had been lingering in her mind since meeting Harmony Twilight. "My students saw you in the catacombs that Cozy later imprisoned Starlight in. They became the new bearers of Harmony, and you had to take sentient form to encourage them to look beyond Cozy's discouraging remarks. But when did you gain the ability to become a glowing version of me? Was it really in that moment, or did you have the power before somehow?"
Harmony Twilight paused for a moment, as though hesitant to answer. "I am... not sure if you would be comfortable with the answer, it is still something I do not think lightly of to this day," She paused for but a second before she asked the princess. "Do you remember that camping trip with your friends you took a while back, just after a visit from the photographer for the Canterlot Historical Society?"
The princess nodded. "I remember that one. It was the one where everypony was acting so weird, and we all started getting mad with each other. I'm still not sure who or what was really responsible for all of that, by the time we arrived at the campsite it had already been ruined."
Harmony Twilight then responded. "That is because it had been trashed by Queen Chrysalis, the very same former queen of the changelings that had already twice prior interfered in the lives of you and your friends."
Twilight almost gasped upon hearing the name!
"I figured you would reply that way," Harmony Twilight admitted. "If you must know, Chrysalis attempted to seize the Elements of Harmony and use them against you and your friends. She assumed that by sending clones of you that she had made, I would not know the difference and the elements would be theirs to take. But when they displayed their true nature as the exact opposite of the virtues they were supposed to represent, I had to take action. So I... reluctantly took the magic that brought them to life and absorbed it, reducing them to colored piles of wood. The magic I absorbed from the six granted me enough power to take sentient form, but even then it was limited. I could not control it for long, which is why I created the catacombs. They were an extension of my roots."
"And Cozy found out, because I failed to notice her true nature," Twilight glumly replied and hung her head in shame. "She was hiding under my nose the whole time. But I was so focused on the school, Cozy was able to put her plan into action. And she nearly succeeded."
The Twilight projection reached out a glowing hoof to the regular Twilight. "You cannot blame yourself for one bad example. Cozy Glow hid her true intentions well, to the point where even I did not realize what she was doing until it was too late and she had rendered me powerless. Only through the actions of your students, those six who risked everything for a nation not even their home, did I gain the power necessary to act," And she added with a smile. "Now, Cozy has been stopped, your students' bond of friendship is stronger than before, and you have emerged from your encounter wiser. And whatever threats may next surface, I firmly believe you and your friends will not be caught unaware."
The princess wiped a lone tear from her eye, she'd been struggling to hold it back. "Thank you, Harmony Twilight. I needed to hear that. I already believed in my heart that everything was still under control, but a part of me wasn't too sure after what happened with Cozy Glow," She sighed a bit. "I just hope that, maybe someday, we'll know the truth about why a filly like her would do such terrible things. Maybe she was serving on behalf of a greater threat?"
"It is not my place to say, I cannot predict the future. That is a power that is still beyond me and I suspect always will be," Harmony Twilight declared. "I am a living being. And although the Elements of Harmony and the magic of the pillars have prolonged my life span by thousands of years, I am still but a tree. There may come a day when I too will wither and die. But I know this. Regardless of how long you or I are around, the realm has survived before our existence and it shall continue to do so afterward, so long as there are those who value friendship and harmony and will do whatever is necessary to defend it."
Twilight stood up and gave the projection a hug. "Well, it was nice to be able to talk to you, Tree of Harmony," Then she inquired. "Does this mean that from now on, whenever the map calls upon my friends or myself, you'll be there to tell us what we need to do?"
But Harmony Twilight shook her head and said with a grin. "The friendship problems are for you to discover and solve, not me. I can only point you in the right direction."
"Can't blare a mare for trying." Twilight defended. And then she lit up her horn and disappeared, though not before taking one last look at the projection of her that the Tree of Harmony had conjured up. She had learned so much about it that she had never considered before. It wasn't just a random tree in the middle of nowhere, it was a living, breathing creature with a mind all its own.