//------------------------------//
// Chapter 11 
// Story: The Only Tree in the Forest 
// by Hap 
//------------------------------//

For half a year I have been watching a group of ponies in the distance. They are the first I have seen since the tall one disappeared centuries ago. I watched them settle near the edge of the unnatural forest and chop down many trees to build their homes. But then they planted trees of their own.

I had never seen this before. Ponies do not plant trees; they chop them down. So I decided to watch them more closely.

Apple trees, it looks like. I remember there used to be a few over by the little creek. Just far enough away that I couldn’t see them during the summer. But in the late autumn I would watch the deer sniffing around in the fallen leaves for apples. Apples seemed to be their favorite, even more than the tender grass that sprouted in the spring.

It will be a few years before these little trees produce any fruit. The ponies spend their days tending the vulnerable saplings, and have little time left for their vegetable gardens and maize. They are very dedicated to their trees, but they must be very hungry.

Even as the sun sets, I watch them carefully picking bugs off the leaves or tying the tiny stems onto sticks to keep the apple trees growing straight. This is no chore for them; it is their passion. They care for the trees as if they were family.

I wonder if the trees feel the same way about them.

So I continue to watch.

And if I had not been watching, I would not have believed what I saw. Apple trees sprouted instantly from the ground. Back when the old castle still stood, I watched generations of root ponies plant oats and carrots and beans outside of the castle town. They tended their crops, and grew them well. Faster, perhaps, than wild plants. Bigger. More fruitful.

But never had I seen them arise instantly.

These new trees bore fruit very quickly. Spectacularly. I could see the unnatural colors from here. Lightning in their branches and rainbows in the sky. None of these ponies are the kind with a horn, but what they do seems utterly magical.

The world is changing, I suppose. The old world has died, and a new world full of magic and ponies has come to take its place.