//------------------------------// // Everfree // Story: Interstella // by Rust //------------------------------// E V E R F R E E Once upon a time, a mighty, dark forest stretched across much of Equestria. Then it became a city. This didn't happen immediately, of course. Everfree was built at the site of the original Sister's Castle, a sprawling old ruin perched atop a thick spire of rock. To all sides, a mighty gorge plummets more than half a mile into wet, rushing darkness, an impressive natural defense that made it ideal for settlement. Once upon a time, it made the perfect place for two Goddesses to make their home. Much has changed since those days. Two-thousand, three-hundred and six years will tend to do that. About seven hundred of those years under the rule of Lady Sparkle will tend to do that even more. So was created Everfree. From afar, it appears as a great flower, six petals radiating out from the great Bastion at the center. A road lines the center of each petal, a spine wide enough for two star-beasts to stride abreast. Every road tapers off into the old forest, vanishing beneath the trees, before emerging again on the far side, slimmer and packed earth, before spearing off towards any and all points on the compass. Between these roads lies an intricate spread of waterways and canals, like the veins of a leaf, linking the many neighborhoods together by boat and barge and bridge. The city itself stretches across the entire horizon, so vast that it could take days to traverse it on foot. It was not uncommon for one side of the city to have different weather than the other, simply because it was so large no normal weather system could cover it all at once. Great, sweeping spires pierce the sky here and there, entrenched between hard, brutal angles and sweeping cloudscape frescoes. The entire city is a marvel of mixed engineering. There are few old buildings, save those near the Bastion itself. Diamond walls ring that old fort, nearly a hundred feet thick. Not even a dragon could smash through them*. The Bastion stands dominant on the central island in the city, an elegant yet practical castle grown by some of the best geomancers the Crystal Empire ever knew. This was the spot the Lady Sparkle claimed as her own the day she stepped out of Ponyville and onto the world stage. In the wake of the Golden Age, Equestria needed a fresh start. And so, a new seed was planned, from which ponykind might blossom forth into a new age, the Twilight Age. They never expected it to work quite as well as it did. In the span of a decade, the old Sister's Castle had been rebuilt, save for the original great hall, which the Church of Heaven converted into a proper cathedral. Once a mighty fortress designed to repel wild invaders of the wood, the settlement had exploded outwards against the confines of the gorge into a marvel of urban engineering. Designers from all three tribes came together, melding elegant unicorn design, pegasi architechture, and earth pony technical ingenuity. Combined with the Lady's renowned logistical talents, the only limits the founders met was the gorge itself. The next century overcame that issue, converting the fabled gash in the earth that had once tested the Element of Loyalty into the centerpiece for Everfree's waterways. The city exploded over the original barriers, rising as fast as it could be built. Such rampant urban expansion normally gave way to slums and broken ghettos, but the growth was strictly regulated by a particularly draconian secretary of the Crown. Five more centuries after that, and Everfree had become synonymous with the might of Equestrian, a place of culture, science, politics, education, and magic. The Everfree College produced some of the worlds finest doctors in all fields. Apple Industries kept their Research and Development site near the campus, eager students always welcome to present new ideas. The original forest, much of it still standing despite having lost its name and danger over the long struggle, became a refuge from the changing world. Oddly enough, the Zecora Nature Reserve became the last bastion of the world's exotic folk; changelings, goblins, sprites, and any wishing to connect with the old ways. The irony of the park existing side by side with the pinnacle of progress long faded as Everfree soon grew to learn respect for their odd neighbors. History recalls the other Equestrian cities receiving word of Everfree's success... poorly. Understandable. Build it, and they shall come. And take away the skilled masons, scientists, lawyers, doctors, and workers a city needs to survive. The Commonwealth of City-States appeared as if almost overnight. Fillydelphia and Manehatten were the instigating duo, rightfully worried that upstart Everfree would take their businesses and peoples. Los Pegasas joined soon after, and with Vanhoover next, it made a perfect ring around the fledgling settlement. Secession from the kingdom was unheard of, but drastic times called for drastic measures, they supposed. Text from those times dictate of a simple strategy; choke the life out of Everfree, and the Commonwealth would get it's stuff back. Schoolyard bully stuff. They symied trade with Everfree in the form of sanctions and strict import taxes, each city-state implementing even more draconian rates in an effort to simply snuff out Everfree'd goods. Of course, they hadn't counted on going up against Lady Sparkle. In the span of six months, the city of Everfree was entirely self-sufficient, and with the aid of Apple Industries, was producing its own goods for dirt cheap. Equestria hadn't seen civil war in millenia, but it came pretty close at that point. So the Elements of Harmony themselves called a summit at the abandoned palace of Canterlot to sue for peace. The Commonwealth of City-States sent a small army of leaders and ambassadors to once and for all stamp out the troublesome little thorn in their sides. Everfree sent only one delegate; a young dragon named Spike. The Commonwealth was dissolved the next day. As the seasons came and went, as Equestria shrank and grew, there was one constant, always had been for as long as anypony could remember. So it came to be that the alicorn formerly known as Princess Twilight Sparkle, the mare who reshaped the entire world, who lit the candle of knowledge for all to see, who oversaw the rise of the mightiest empire ever known, who gracefully stepped down from office at the height of her power, looks up from her paperwork one summer's evening. Because there was a knock at the door. A guard opens it. "Visitors for you, m'lady. The two you sent for." Lady Sparkle smiles. "Send them in, please."