//------------------------------//
// FFAF #5-Winning A Bet 
// Story: Ponywatching 
// by ThunderTempest 
//------------------------------//

Three young ponies walked at a steady pace along a sun-dappled path, the trees looming overhead just shy of ominously.

“Come on, Sun Shade! We’re almost there!”

“I don’t know, Apple Blossom. Ponies say that the Old Witch lives in here. What if she catches us? She’ll eat us up for being naughty ponies.”

“I still can’t believe you actually believe in that stuff. The Old Witch is just a myth, Sun. Someone probably just got into the cider a bit too hard.”

“Yeah,” said the third member of the group, a colt, “She’s like all those stories about the Elementals or whatever. They’re just stories.”

“But my mama always says that the best stories are true!” exclaimed Sun Shade, “and it’s Elements, Rock Slide. El-e-ments.”

“I heard,” said Apple Blossom, turning to face her two companions, “That the old witch can fly. And that she can do magic. ‘s why they call her a witch.” Sun Shade started to shiver as a cloud drifted overhead. “They say that if you meet here in these forests, you will never be seen again!”

Sun Shade had started to back up, and jumped in fight when her rear hit a tree.

“Eeek!” she screamed, while Rock Slide and Apple Blossom laughed at her.

“Guys, that’s not funny.”

“Sorry, Sun,” gasped out Rock Slide, “but you are kinda easy to scare. Come on, we still need to get a photo of us in the Everfree town if we’re going to win the bet.” The three ponies started off down the path once more, ignorant that behind them, a shadow shifted and vanished.

****

“Whoa,” said all three ponies simultaneously, as they stared at the expanse of the town in the forest laid out before and below them. Vines had long since overtaken many of the houses, in many cases completely covering the walls, and the ground was soft and grassy. As the three entered the town, they looked from one house to the next; each imagining what kind of ponies must have lived in this town, so deep inside the forest. In the distance, rising over the trees, they could also see two spires, the tips of towers.

And while the vegetation had long since overtaken the houses and buildings, there were almost no trees. The trees had simply stopped, as if somepony was cutting them down.

“Here should be good,” said Apple Blossom, stopping in front of an exceptionally large building, “Make sure we get a shot down the street. I don’t want those two who put us up to this to think we didn’t go all the way in here.”

Sun Shade nodded, and pulled the camera out of her saddle bag with her mouth, setting it up on a tripod and hitting a timer. The three posed, and the camera flash went off.

“Can we get out of here now? This place is weird,” muttered Sun Shade as she packed the camera and tripod back into her bags, “I don’t think we should be here, guys.”

“Come on, Sun, don’t be such a scaredy pony. There’s no one here!” said Apple Blossom, rearing up on her hind legs, and spreading her forelegs wide. That was when the air behind her sparkled and burst, revealing a pony wrapped in a cloak. Frozen with equal parts horror and fascination, the three young ponies watched as a the cloak began to glow purple, and lifted off the pony.

Underneath, there was a pony who looked like she was just a normal adult, save for the long thing sticking out of her head, and the two wings on her sides. As the pony folded up her cloak, the three young earth ponies screamed.

“It’s the Old Witch of the Woods! Run for your lives!” and just like that, Sun Shade, Apple Blossom and Rock Slide bolted back the way they had come, heading for the safety of their homes outside of the forest.

Back in front of the building that had once been the Town Hall of Ponyville, Twilight Sparkle, Princess of a town of one, and the only living being with a horn or wings, sighed to herself, and started walking back to the twisted and gnarled tree at the other end of the street.