The forest appeared ahead of her along the road, waiting for her.
Applejack had to admit though that it was a pretty dang odd looking forest. Fog covered the ground and shrouded the insides of the forest, it didn’t disperse like it naturally should have, especially in normal weather like this. The fog was dense and rose up fairly high as well, leaving wisps of it just below the tips of the valiant redwood trees that made up the forest. To the north and south, miles away, were a pair of large mountains that bordered the forest and cut it off from the rest of the world. Two gigantic and insurmountable walls of rock—if any pony wanted to travel west they would have to fly or walk through the White Forest to Elysium’s View.
And flight wasn’t exactly an option for Applejack.
The good news was she hadn’t heard anything bad about this forest. It was just a little unusual—but there was nothing actually malevolent about it. She didn’t get a weird feeling from it like she did the Everfree Forest. Even if there was something bad about it it wouldn’t matter to Applejack, because something far greater and happier was inside her head.
Her final destination was right beyond the end of this forest. Whatever friendship problem she needed to solve, at least she would be there.
Applejack took a deep breath and walked down the road to the forest’s entrance. Her body was still a little bruised, a little achy, but not enough to slow her down or get her to stop for the day. It was today, today for sure, that she’d get through the forest and make it to Elysium’s View. The road she was walking on was mere dirt and not anything special, she could see it splitting the trees in half just a short ways ahead now. Although she wasn’t sure if this was the only road going through the forest she couldn’t see any others from where she was. It looked wide enough to accommodate a carriage or two and that was probably all that mattered out here. She kind of hoped she’d run into another pony out here or traveling down it just so she could see a friendly face and know how close she was.
When she got closer to where the road went into the forest she noticed that there was a large sign up on the northern side of the road, right in front of the trees. It had been partially obscured by the fog earlier.
Applejack almost rolled her eyes and groaned—still having a bad knee-jerk reaction to signs. She just had to tell herself that most of the signs she had seen lately had actually been good ones. What’s to say this one wouldn’t be a perfectly normal sign too? Applejack rubbed her temples and walked over it to see what it said. The sign was actually really clean and seamless, clearly taken care of and well made to begin with. Obviously whoever had put it up really cared about it. The background of the sign was painted a nice sky blue and in big yellow letters in three rows it read:
ENJOY YOUR TIME AT
ELYSIUM’S VIEW AND SEE THE
EDGE OF THE WORLD!
While underneath the message was a bunch of puffy white clouds making up the bottom border.
“Alright, sounds good to me,” Applejack shrugged.
There was something else that caught her eye beneath the sign before she moved on though. A bed of roses had been planted and their blooming flowers and thorny stems had started to crawl up the legs of the sign. The vibrant red flowers were odd in a peculiar way though and it’s what really grabbed Applejack’s attention. Every last flower was tilted and facing northeast ever so slightly. Applejack had absolutely no idea why. Sunflowers would move with the sun but roses didn’t do that, did they? And that’s not even the direction the sun would be shining from.
Still, they were just roses, Applejack shrugged once more and started her walk through the White Forest.
By now it was close to noon and the weather was neither too hot nor too cold. It would probably be a little nicer if the fog wasn’t partially blocking out the sun from above. Instead Applejack never really felt the sun on her back as she strode through the forest, which was a strange sensation for this time of day. How in the hay could this fog never lift? When she was walking outside the forest the sky was mostly clear and the sun was coming down like normal. And yet this fog stayed and covered nearly the entirety of the forest.
Applejack was just going to chalk it up as another thing that just plum made no sense in the world. There were plenty of things that didn’t make sense in Equestria and plenty more outside of Equestria. At this point, Applejack decided not to get bothered by all of it. Life was too short.
The fog though did still make her traveling through the forest a little slow as she could barely see what was coming or if the road had any twists or turns. A few feet of visibility at best. She didn’t want to get run over by a carriage coming out right in front of her or accidentally walk into the trees, so she focused on the ground and took her trip through the White Forest slowly so she never lost track of the road. It was easier to be a little slower and not so anxious when she knew the goal was finally coming up at the end.
She didn’t see many animals out, but there were probably plenty just hidden by the fog. There had to be all sorts of squirrels, rabbits, and birds in a forest like this. In general though everything was so quiet. Maybe the ponies of Elysium’s View had run into Karza within the last week and hadn’t been using this road either. Or Applejack was just here during a time when travel was low. She wouldn’t really be surprised if the ponies of Elysium’s View were more or less oblivious to the going ons of the rest of the world. After all it seemed like they were fairly secluded, being at the edge of the world and all, and with the already closed off and insular Equinestan right next to them they probably didn’t get much news about what happened east of their town. What that went on in the rest of the world could really affect or have much to do with what went on here?
Nope, if Applejack lived in a place like Elysium’s View she’d probably keep to herself too. Just be a simple apple farmer living a simple life. Which is what she thought she had been doing in Ponyville until one day…
But with the friends she had gained on that day she didn’t regret it one bit.
Though things hadn’t gone as planned, boy oh boy did Applejack have a lot of stories to tell. She hadn’t entirely let Pinkie Pie down either when it came to making friends. And she had done some awesome stuff like Rainbow Dash wanted her to. She had seen plenty of fancy clothes that she could tell Rarity about. She had helped ponies in need just like Fluttershy would’ve wanted. And of course Twilight would be ecstatic to hear about every little thing that she didn’t already know because that’s just the type of pony Twilight was. Applejack would be so happy just to see them again that she wouldn’t mind indulging all of them—course so long as she got to say hi to her family first and check on the farm.
“Big Mac and Sugar Belle probably got everything under control...” Applejack muttered. “Granny Smith wouldn’t let him do anything silly. Apple Bloom… she’s probably out with the other Crusaders doing who even knows what.”
Applejack chuckled and shook her head. She could picture all that clear as day.
It was certainly a nice thing to think about and pass the time with—imagining what it would be like when she got back. The foggy forest didn’t provide her with much else to do at all. Even when Applejack had been walking through it for hours the forest had stayed the same with fog crawling through the trees and making the road vanish only a few feet in front of her. Whatever time of day it was the fog clearly had no intention of ever leaving its forest behind. She even looked up at the trees and simply couldn’t see higher than halfway up them thanks to how the fog clung to their trunks and branches.
“How’s anything even supposed to grow here without no sunlight?” Applejack raised an eyebrow.
Best not to think too hard about it in the end. So she didn’t. She took the forest just as she took her life, one step at a time.
Applejack rested up against a redwood for a moment, it sat practically on the road so she didn’t worry about getting lost off it, just taking a moment to relax and check her scrapes and bruises. She might want to find a place she could get new bandages when she made it to Elysium’s View, just for appearances if nothing else. She wasn’t exactly tired right now but all the action had left her body a little sore. By how long she had been walking in the forest she was expecting to get to Elysium’s View just as the sun was going down. Maybe a little earlier if she was lucky.
The money in her bag would hopefully be enough to get her by while she was there. She didn’t really end up spending any in Maple Town so she had a bit more than she expected. At least she wasn’t flat broke and had to rely on the kindness of strangers.
Applejack exhaled and left the redwood behind, walking through the foggy forest again. She saw a single animal this time—a bird perched on a branch of the redwood, watching her go. Might’ve been silly taking the bird as any kind of sign but Applejack was going to take it as a good one.
Her hooves made a steady crunch as she traveled over the road, walking over pine needles and the occasional small pinecones that had fallen down. Lucky her hooves in particular were as tough and solid as they were. Even if her legs got a little tired, Applejack could always count on her hooves to be like iron. In another hour of walking on them she ended up seeing her second animal—a squirrel that quickly ran up one of the redwoods and out of sight. Applejack kept trotting ahead with a smile on her face, staying positive with the thoughts of her friends in her head and the expectation of finally reaching the destination the Cutie Map had sent her to.
How many weeks had she been out here?
And she couldn’t even really get angry at Discord not just zapping her here anymore with everything she had accomplished on the way.
If Elysium’s View really was such a special place, as quite a few ponies had suggested, maybe Applejack would just take an extra day once the problem was solved to enjoy it. As much as she wanted to get back home she kind of figured she deserved some kind of vacation after all of this was done. The feelings of obligation she had, along with her homesickness, would likely win out in that situation though and Applejack would probably return right on schedule. Just the kind of mare she was.
Along the road she started to notice that she could see deeper into the forest, and the fog above her head started to list slightly too. More and more fog was lifting to give her a better view of the White Forest and all the trees within it. Applejack smirked and doubled her pace, knowing that meant she had to be close to getting out of here.
A minute later and her thoughts were proven correct as the fog started to thin ahead and Applejack saw a small wooden picket fence start up on either side of the road and continue west. The first sign of civilization since the sign at the start of the forest. The fence worked to lead you on in to the right spot and soon beams of sunlight were coming towards Applejack’s face, the fog no longer blocking them and the sun now going down enough where it was almost directly ahead of her. Applejack lifted a hoof to block it as she fully stepped out of the fog and then squinted to see if she could see Elysium’s View ahead.
What she saw was not the edge of the world just yet but it almost still took her breath away.
On white marble pillars a magnificent archway with a sculpted welcoming sign stood standing for any pony who just came out of the forest to see. Fifty feet in the air, sculpted smooth and to perfection, were the words “WELCOME TO ELYSIUM’S VIEW”, each stone letter itself five feet tall and the whole welcome stretching across the road from pillar to pillar.
But it was the town beyond that truly looked special. More buildings in the style of white marble, with pillars, arches, large steps, golden paint that reminded her of Canterlot, were standing in grassy hills and among luscious trees and vegetation. The sound of water reached her ears and Applejack looked to the north to see a cascading waterfall coming down from a small mountain covered in grass and plants. It pooled twice on the mountain before finally coming down and turning into a river that flowed west. Buildings as well dotted that mountain and the ground around it and the banks of the river. To the south she could hear music—loud orchestral music—coming from beyond the trees and even some much taller buildings of a contemporary style, wood and metal, showing themselves. Beyond the welcoming arch the road turned to white tile and a friendly looking town sprouted up along and down it, just waiting for her.
Applejack sighed in relief and smiled. “Finally.”