As the years progressed the earth pony would start a nursery somewhere and when it had been established he would move on and begin anew, building another stone house and changing what trees he planted each time. It occurred to me the earth pony himself was a sort of seed. Where he went life would spring up around him. But unlike a seed, this was not a natural consequence of being him, but from his continued generosity and the unceasing effort he put forth.
I flew over to the mountain where he had originally started those many years ago and I was awestruck at the change. The small patch of forest had grown to cover the entire base of the mountain and crept a considerable distance into the wasteland following the wind. Without any further intervention, this small forest had evolved on its own into a wondrous place. Grasses, weeds and flowers grew beneath my hooves as I touched down. The soil was rich and soft and an enchanting fragrance of life filled the very air. The sounds of birds and insects completed the opus. As I toured the masterpiece, I noticed streams and ponds where I had remembered there were none. The dense vegetation had retained moisture from the mountain and it now flowed like liquid happiness. I knelt down to taste the stream and felt I had touched the essence of creation.
With each passing year the disconnected patches of forest grew outward and eventually joined, forming a continuous mat of green spanning from one end of the horizon to the other. The trees from the seeds I had obtained from all regions of Equestria somehow seamlessly blended together. Had I not seen the progression with my own eyes, I would have doubted the wasteland ever existed at all. Still the earth pony worked at the outer edges to grow it even more.
During one of my visits he asked me to follow him on another journey to another nursery he was planting. As we approached I noticed a familiar smell in the air. It touched a forgotten memory that began to push its way into my mind. We came upon his new nursery at the base of another barren mountain and immediately I recognized the saplings as the same species of trees growing around my foalhood home of Mt. Windie. He had planted those edible nuts I had first given him those years ago and created this marvelous recreation of my early life. All of my memories came flooding back, not of the war-torn Mt. Windie I had left, but the wondrous and bountiful foalhood home I was born into. The sweet smell that I had grown up with returned me to the most happiest times of my life, a time just before I was drafted into the war. As I stepped amongst the saplings I closed my eyes and took in the fragrance. I saw my parents, my friends and neighbors. I saw the clouds I had played in and the tree tops I constantly fell through when I was learning to fly. I believe, for a brief moment, I saw heaven itself. When I turned to the earth pony that brought me here I realized a tear had come to my eye. He patted me on the shoulder and smiled, he had given me the greatest gift I had ever received.
I returned one year with a unicorn who specialized in agriculture. It took us many days to traverse the endless forests. Especially on hoof for the obvious reason my unicorn friend could not fly. She would often stop and marvel at each new species of tree she encountered. Eventually we found the tree planter hard at work planting trees on the side of yet another mountain. My unicorn friend was filled with respect and admiration and immediately began asking many questions about the rainfall and how much was needed to sustain a particular species. I was right about her, she could believe and appreciate the work and beauty of the forest. We had lunch together and my unicorn friend shared a bottle of fine wine she saved for special occasions. We looked out from our mountain side view toward the endless forest that stretched to the horizon and beyond. If anypony had told me during the war a pegasus, an earth pony and a unicorn from three different tribes and factions would be sharing lunch to admire trees, I would have told them it was an impossibility and yet here we were. Many years ago I thought we kept our pasts hidden so as to maintain the illusion of our current friendship. Today, I realized it was just the opposite. Our friendship was what was real and the invisible divisions between our factions were the petty illusion. Like the different species of seeds that had been seamlessly brought together to form the forest, we had been brought together by our love for it.
When we left, my unicorn friend made a small suggestion as to the type of trees that would grow best in an unfilled region to the northeast. She did not press the point, for the simple reason she told me later that he knew more about it than she did. The thought must have been turning in her mind for some time, because a day out in our exit she said he must know more about it than anypony in the world.
That year, a railway was being laid across equestria. It was the most grand gesture of peace and unity since the war. Finally, the petty squabbles of the various factions were being put aside so everypony and every creature could benefit from the economic boost such a railway would bring. The undertaking was massive and a line of trees had to be cut through the forests of the tree planter. My unicorn friend had some political influence and was able to route the line to disturb the forests as little as possible. Thanks to my friend, the tree planter was safe to continue his work.
Many years later I flew over magnificent forests as far as the eye could see. What was hard rocky wasteland had been turned into lush green countryside once again. In the regions where trees could not be planted, the moisture retained by the surrounding forest had allowed meadows and vast grasslands to flourish. I found it more and more difficult to find any sign of the previous war.
Something caught my eye as I flew overhead. The directional guides the earth pony had made for me were now drawn with piles of black obsidian and many of the signs had been repaired. There were even a few new signs pointing to other regions. There was no reason for the earth pony to maintain them so I sought to find the cause for this occurrence. Obsidian was not a stone native to this region, so it was clear somepony or some creature had made a great effort to move it there. I followed the guides and toured much of the older forest before I finally came upon an artificial clearing close to one of the railroad stations. A small town had been established and pegasi were using the guides to navigate in and out of the region. They were the ones that had reconstructed them and continued their maintenance.
I touched down in the town to find a great many different earth ponies, unicorns and pegasi. They were working together to construct farms and a trading depot. Newly built homes, stores, shops and schools greeted me as I trotted through the town. At first I thought it was a terrible waste to destroy the forest to build this town, but I realized this perhaps was exactly what the tree planter wanted: to restore life. Many young ponies with optimism in their eyes, a pioneering spirit in their souls and romance in their hearts went about their daily lives. Foals played amongst the trees and joyous laughter filled the air.
As I watched the foals I was brought back to my memories of my own foalhood playing amongst the clouds and trees. The vision of the past the earth pony gave me turned out actually to be the future and here I was, witnessing it unfolding. I knew these foals would obtain the cutie marks I had been denied, ones they could take pride in.
As I continued my tour I happened to notice a filly with a rusty oversized helmet on her head. I immediately recognized it as mine from when I had discarded it over thirty years prior. She had found it and it was now being used as a toy in an imaginary game she was playing with her friends. I should have felt angry that she was disrespecting it, but instead I felt relief. In some ways I wanted the war to be imaginary, something that she would never see or experience except through history lessons or stories. I made no attempt to retrieve my possession.
I came across a clothing store that was giving out free t-shirts commemorating the fifth anniversary of the town’s founding. It was a simple design, featuring a clock, an apple and a railway going through the forest. I picked one up and found it to be the most cheap, gaudy and tacky thing I had seen in my entire life. I put it on and wore it with great pride.
The very atmosphere around me was full of hope and optimism. The special events calendar posted on the town hall had planned for things many years into the future. There was weather planning schedules, sun celebrations and Hearts and Hooves day events. A notice board had job postings to found new towns and villages along key points of the railway. I even saw a pegasus cloud city in the very early stages of planning and requesting assistance from all able bodied pegasi to join the effort. None of these ponies were old enough to be veterans of the war but they carried with them all my generation’s hopes and none of our sins. These were ponies who dared to dream.
The dozen or so stone houses the earth pony built and abandoned over the years became nucleation sites of new towns. First the home would be found and occupied by travellers and surveyors as they moved through the magnificent forest. Eventually loggers would lodge there as they cut down the nearby trees for their income. Being at the center of the forest that spawned from it the trees that were closest to the stone house were the tallest, oldest and most valuable. Later, the first farmers would take up residence and use the cleared forest around the home to plant their first crops. Finally, around these farms new homes sprung up as families moved in to be close to a source of food and a source of income. With that firm base, new jobs and new opportunities soon followed, civilization was reborn. Where decades before the great cities of the previous era were obliterated into smoking craters, now they arose anew. This was a place and time where one would want to live.
One fine summer day, where the clouds were fluffy but rare, I visited the earth pony in a hot air balloon my unicorn friend and I had procured. He was working one final patch of wasteland far away from any town, new or old. I had no new seeds to bring him but he did not mind. He never did. I invited him aboard and despite initial reservations leaving the solid earth, he eventually complied. We silently ascended into the sky and drifted over the forest. Our manes were grey, we were slow and jittery, we were old now. But the earth pony never lost that glimmer of hope in his eyes, for he was as pure of spirit now as he always had been. We saw the first mountain he had started on, now teeming with life and surrounded by farms. We saw the second nursery, where he and I first met, now home to a small city of ponies. We visited the lake that I had filled in, now heavily modified by subsequent pegasi into a very large lake with boats and fisheries along its shore. We saw the mountain where he planted my first seeds, above it floated a majestic pegasus cloud city. All such cities had been destroyed during the war before either of us could remember. Now, for the first time, we both saw one. As we drifted I pointed out a river that flowed across almost the entirety of the forest. Finding water was so difficult when he started, it was now impossible not to find it. Sparsely scattered throughout the forest were tracks, roads and the occasional railway line. Every so often we would see travelers moving about and we were flying low enough that they waved at us. In their eyes was joy, optimism and purpose, far different from the hopelessness and despair I saw in the eyes of the rock famers I had come across decades before. The earth pony waved back at every traveller and seemed a bit taken aback after every one. I think he had seen more ponies in that one day than he had ever seen during his entire stay in the wasteland. We could not view the whole forest in the little time we had the balloon, but he was extremely grateful nonetheless. We shared a bottle of wine my unicorn friend had given me and ascended to the clouds as the sun set over treetops. We watched the golden rays dance over the landscape and witnessed the world as it once was, as it could have been. A gust of wind rustled the idyllic painting like a wave across the leaves and made it painfully clear this was not a dream, that it was the world of the present, that it was the world he had restored. He turned to me with a tear in his eye. I patted him on the shoulder and smiled.
Ten years later, it was the coronation of Princess Celestia. As one of the only surviving members of original Pegasus Knights, I was to escort her on a sky tour. I flew alongside the young princess as I showed her the lands she would technically be governing. I recounted the story of the simple earth pony that I had met decades before and how his constant and unending generosity had created this forest. She giggled and laughed and told me to tell her another fairytale. I was dumbfounded. She did not believe me. An alicorn with the power to raise the sun could not believe the endless passion, determined care and unfailing generosity it took to produce such a splendor. It fills me with great admiration that this simple earth pony could surpass the alicorns who walk among the stars. This simple earth pony had performed a feat of magic far greater than even them: He undid a war.
I flew in awe over the wonder before me. This pony had completely erased the barren wasteland of unimaginable destruction and restored life in all its forms, including that of ponies. He had vowed to do so, but when I ask why, I recall the first words he ever spoke to me: “It’s my work”.
It occurred to me I never asked for his name.
The pony who planted trees passed away 56 years after I met him.