The two of them proceeded into the strange pathway, walls of densely packed foliage unnaturally pressed into shape all around them. The magically sensitive ponies could feel an almost indescribable feeling of lightness and elation within them as they soldiered on, almost as if they had just confessed their love to someone for the first time.
"It's an odd feeling, isn't it? Almost makes you not want to leave..." giggled Twilight as she beheld the wonders of the magically-twisted environment.
"I don't like it." It appeared that when Trixie had calmed down and wasn't boasting, she didn't put much effort into keeping up her strange manner of speech. It was the first time Twilight had seen her in such a relatively casual mood. "Understanding its mechanisms only makes it that much more disturbing. I don't like to know that I'm being manipulated."
Despite her words, Trixie seemed to be in a relatively good mood, although it was unclear if this was the effect of the background Myr or not.
"I guess it is kind of like that, huh..." said Twilight, her mood a little dampened. "If you're not careful, you'll end up staying too long and suffering for it."
"Thankfully, Trixie's fantastic brain is above falling for some half-baked siren's call, so there is no need to worry. Should you succumb to its wiles, Trixie will take a moment to seriously consider rescuing you."
"Uh, thanks, I guess?"
"No need to thank me. A small donation will more than suffice."
"I'll keep that in mind..."
They fell silent again, and as Twilight was just beginning to appreciate the bizarre aesthetic of their environment, her hoof fell upon something sharp.
"Ouch!" she cried out, bringing the wounded hoof up to her eyes to inspect. A huge thorn had been lying on the ground right in her way, and she'd completely missed it.
"Darn! I can't believe I didn't see that! Argh, that's gonna hurt for a while..."
She painstakingly pulled the thorn out of her hoof with her magic, Trixie looking back at her half-interested and waiting for her to finish. While she was standing there, she idly looked at the path ahead of them, and raised an eyebrow, giving a little whistle as though impressed.
"You may need to watch your step from now on..."
Twilight raised her head to see what the magician was looking at, and blinked a few times. The path ahead of them was absolutely littered with spiky thorns, and the surrounding foliage was beginning to give way to menacing brambles and dangerous-looking flowers. The trees were growing progressively deader and more gnarled, like a witch's forest from a storybook. The air ahead of them felt thick and heavy, and carried a somewhat unpleasant, stagnant odor.
"Well I'll be..."
"Trixie's pretty certain she knows what this is, but she'll check her thaumometer anyway."
She again carefully lifted the clacking, shifting bronze artifact from its case in her saddlebag and brought it up to her critical eyes.
"Yes... the amount of negative Myr in this area is highly unsafe. We had best proceed quickly, Twilight Sparkle. We won't last long in this environment."
Twilight looked thoughtful for a moment, rubbing her sore hoof against her other foreleg.
"I'm pretty sure I know a spell to protect us from the degenerative effects of negative Myr, but it won't stop it from feeling pretty terrible. It's worth casting, though, just to be on the safe side. This place looks pretty bad..."
"A protective ward would be a good idea, yes. There's no need to be reckless, after all."
Twilight dragged a circle in the dirt around them with her hoof, reciting an incantation from memory (she'd neglected to bring her spellbook.) The circle flared up with purple light, which seemed to jump from its foundation and dance over the skin of the ponies. The effect left the ponies disoriented, blinking away the blurriness in their eyes as the shock of magic entered their bodies.
“I'm... not sure this is any better...” said Trixie, looking a little nauseous.
“It is a little uncomfortable, isn't it...”
“Like an aura of persistent cartsickness.”
“It's... better than the alternative?” said Twilight, half trying to convince herself.
“...Sally forth.” Trixie was less than enthusiastic, gritting her teeth at the awful feeling.
Still, both ponies knew that without proper shielding the effects on their health could be catastrophic. They soldiered on through the highly-charged woods, a feeling of mild pain, despair, and an indescribable fear pervading their being as the negative Myr assaulted their auras.
“Highly unpleasant.” Trixie was noticeably less wordy than usual.
“I can't help feeling that something is watching us...” said Twilight, not in much better spirits than her companion.
“Something most likely is. This is a forest, after all. There was wildlife here. Luna forbid we run into something that was dangerous BEFORE the change.”
“Like an Ursa Minor?” said Twilight, somewhat mockingly, as she helped sweep away the increasingly silly blanket of thorns.
“Shut up.” Trixie's voice was cold as she cleared her half; she appeared to be unamused. The negative Myr was taking quite a toll on their moods, though thankfully the nauseating wards kept it from actually hurting them. They continued to press forward, Twilight favoring her non-injured hoof, when they suddenly stumbled into the second ring of positive Myr. They had been staring at the ground moping for quite some time at this point, so they had hardly noticed at all. Now, with the worst of the harmful aura behind them, they looked up and goggled at what they saw.
The positive Myr in this area was even greater than in the last, and the trees now grew to fantastic proportions. The coloration and distance had distracted them from this ridiculous growth when they were observing from afar, but close-up it looked like something out of Jack and the Magic Beanstalk. Huge, towering spires of branches and leaves disappeared into the slightly misty air, with ludicrously-proportioned flowers and fruits hanging in every possible location. Birds and woodland creatures could faintly be seen in the upper reaches, and from what the ponies could see, they were absolutely colossal compared to their proper size.
“This must have happened recently... they've grown, but they haven't, well... popped yet.”
“Indeed they haven't. You can tell as much from the chirping, the moving around, the breathing, et cetera.”
“I hope we're able to reverse this... I wouldn't want the animals to suffer.” said Twilight. Her time with Fluttershy had given her a new respect for the lives of woodland creatures, even gigantic ones, and she was genuinely worried for their health. Trixie rolled her eyes.
“The animals are what you're worried about? Let's focus on PONIES for now, animals later.”
“Well, yeah...!” She was a bit embarrassed at being called out like this. She was stomping a hoof in anger when she suddenly realized that it no longer hurt. “Oh, my wound's been healed!”
“No doubt the positive Myr at work, dear. Don't get all excited on me now. You're just lucky we're warded, or a kiss on your boo-boo wouldn't be the only thing you'd get.”
“Right...” She was still finding Trixie a little too standoffish for her liking, but she had to admit that the boastful magician was pretty talented. She relented, letting Trixie assess the foliage ahead of them.
With a little more effort, Trixie forced open a path through the woods, and they proceeded, trying not to catch the attention of the oversized wildlife.
Their journey continued in much the same fashion, with the two spellcasters forging on through increasingly Myr-infested areas. They were bursting out in ten-minute giggling fits one second, sobbing and arguing the next. They had quite lost their heads, but were still in enough control of their faculties to continue onward. Strange and malevolent creatures leered at them from the woods, until at some point they stopped seeing any animal life at all, a foreboding sign.
They were in the middle of emphatically shouting about the greatness of Nightshade's Fifth Theorem when suddenly they crossed some ill-defined threshold and the effects were completely canceled. They stopped in their tracks, stunned at the sudden neutrality they felt. It was a feeling unlike any they had ever sensed before, almost an oppressive nothingness in the air that left them feeling somehow thirsty.
“It can't be...” Trixie muttered under her breath, apparently realizing something. Twilight caught on quickly, a perplexed look creeping onto her face.
“Is it really possible...?” Trixie was in astonishment.
“No magic in the air at all...” mused Twilight. “I can't say I've ever witnessed anything like this. It's unheard of in Equestria.”
“Feels kind of... dry?” Trixie was having trouble putting her hoof on it. “We probably shouldn't stay here for long... this gives me the creeps. I'm not entirely sure if I've ever seen fit to use that particular tacky phrase before, but if anything has ever given me 'the creeps,' this is definitely it.”
“Well, we must be almost there. Just a bit further.”
“Yes, yes, of course. Onward, then.”
As they advanced through the relatively normal section of forest, a faint humming became audible. They looked at each other, both a little perplexed.
“Whatever it is, it's coming from the very center... that must be whatever's causing this.”
“Quite an odd noise...” Trixie thought aloud.
The humming was getting louder as they neared the center of the forest. Whatever it was almost certainly lay beyond the treeline in front of them. They looked at each other one last time before biting the bullet and pushing forward through the foliage, only to come out in a circular clearing and confront...
...the biggest apple they'd ever seen.
Trixie's expression slowly contorted into bewildered anger.
“What the FLYING F-”