//------------------------------//
// Before I Believe in You 
// Story: And I Will Love You... 
// by Scootareader 
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I feel a rush of anticipation as waiting grips me once more. I have been looking forward to this wait for what seems like centuries, but it has probably only been several hours at the most.

With the rush of anticipation comes the shrugging off of whatever lethargy I was feeling. Suddenly, I am fully aware of everything again.

I need to wait. I need to see what I saw before. I can’t go anywhere when I’m aware of the world around me. I’m destined only to be alone.

I feel myself drifting away again. This time, I don’t feel a rush of excitement, thankfully. I find myself lost inside the world of dreams.





I am looking over Equestria, in a land of semi-desert and blasted landscape. There are many stones out here, their still forms littering the barren ground, interspersed by the occasional scrubby bush or prickly cactus. From time to time, there is a living thing spotted scurrying from one bit of cover from the radiant sun to another.

I am not looking for these things. I am searching everywhere for that which I came for. Where did he go?

I am gliding over this landscape, my gaze sweeping to and fro in the desperate hope that I may find the creature which has driven me to near-insanity over the past day. I see nothing to direct me, no landmarks or hints, which will bring me to him.

Then, I spot a town of ponies, and beside them, an orchard.

I know that he’s there.





My mind is jarred back to reality. I am once again staring at the same unremarkable hills in the same uninspiring forest.

It could be said that I am unremarkable and uninspiring; after all, I am only a stone guardian. Carved from the stone in Canterlot Garden itself and destined to be something special, I have always wished that another may look upon me as a pony once did.

Visions of a bland, grey caretaker are all that I have of her. She was like me—unremarkable, uninspiring. Then her world changed, and she ousted me. She no longer wanted the negative influence on her. The most beautiful coat of pearly white, the most magnificent styled purple mane, the most entrancing blue eyes—

She abandoned me. It’s time to stop wishing for a life I will never have.

What do I call my dreams, then? Are they any less of a lie than the love I thought a pony once felt for me?

They probably are a lie. They’re also something that gets me through each moment of this existence without aching for an end to it all.

So, for lack of a better direction in which to take my life, I hold out hope for a tree.








Does he exist? Or is it only my imagination?

Here I am, surrounded by so many, yet all I can think about is a rock that  appeared in my dreams. I could give in to the temptations of the wood and entwine my branches with so many, yet I refuse.

Because of a rock.

The most interesting rock I know, granted. Yet, how interesting can a rock really be?

I have to be imagining him. The likes of what I saw in my dream are impossible to see in this world. I’ve only been around a short while compared to the other trees, but I do know that, if they had ever seen such a magnificent thing as what I saw, they would forsake their disgusting habits and devote themselves to that which they love.

So, who am I to believe I saw any different than what they have seen with a lifespan ten times what I have known?

I believe I may have felt love of a sort before... in an orange pony who raised me from a tiny seed.

Yet, what I saw in that rock defies any logic I can possibly comprehend. I have given nothing, and I have gotten nothing. What the orange pony gave me was a large portion of her life so that I may have one. If she had branches, I may have even considered entwining with her.

The love I feel for this rock is unprecedented. A brief glimpse is all I needed to cause my leaves to shake and my bark to flake.  I never imagined I may feel this for, of all things, an impassive stone.

My mind chases itself in circles about the unlikeliness of this situation, yet I can’t shake one feeling above all.

I hope for his existence.

Eventually, my thoughts drift away from me, pulling me into a world I can only imagine.





I am at my old home. There is familiarity all around me. I see old Rosy, who only produces red apples, and I see Oakington, whose trunk has survived more applebuck seasons than I have leaves. The wave of regret I feel at having left them all behind drags at my flagging spirit. My dream is torturing me.

Thankfully, I feel the dream pulling me away. I am traveling away from the familiarity and the pain to advance to a dark, foreboding forest nearby.

I do not like the look of the forest... it does, however, look familiar. I often gazed toward this place and wondered what it may be like in here.

I have a feeling I’m traveling toward the rock that I so strongly anticipate seeing. Even a second sighting of him would feel like a miracle to me.

Is it worth seeing the nightmare again? Even if I had a choice, I know it would be. He will always be worth it.

Much as I like to think I’ve steeled myself to what I’m about to see, it is still a massive shock to me. I see trees mercilessly competing to survive, their most primal of urges having surfaced and causing them to go insane. I can almost hear their frenzied cries as they rip and tear at each other’s roots in the ground, their branches spiraling higher and higher in attempts to cast the other trees in a shadow and give them an edge.

It is an atrocity.

I did not come for them, though. I came for the one thing that matters in this forest. My vision lurches past these perversions and brings me to a clearing, then I dive into a thicket of thorny vines, which eventually thin out to reveal—





I slip back into awareness. It’s just not fair.

I know he was right there. I could feel it. I know where he is.

Wait... do I?

I know the way to home. I know the way to that forest. I saw where he is.

I do know.

An idea formulates in my mind. I know what I must do.

I start favoring the growth of a single one of my roots, my deepest and most sturdy. I will need to go down to where other roots dare not tread.

Then, I have a journey to make.