Twilight woke up the next morning, fresh and ready for her upcoming adventure. After getting herself ready, she trotted down the stairs into the main room of the library. “Good luck Twilight” Spike cooed from his small corner where he was cleaning the bookshelf of dust. Twilight nodded, and then made her way toward the door. She grabbed her coat and scarf, and slung her saddle-bag over her back before heading through the door and closing it behind her.
As she made her way to the fountain in the centre of town, she saw that most of the town had calmed since yesterday, which probably meant the tremors had subsided. As she passed, she could see many of the stalls selling new things to recuperate from the stock fall from the cold temperatures. She couldn’t help but think of Applejack, and how she was having a rough time with the orchard being decimated by the weather changes.
But her thoughts only drove her forward to solve the problems even faster. This grove could hold the secrets that could help her solve these problems, which was the main reason why she was now heading to meet Dash. She needed something to bring to Cloudsdale, and so Twilight decided that Dash would be the best companion to take with her. As the fountain began to come into her view, she could just see a cyan blur zoom towards it.
“Hey Twilight, you ready?” asked Dash as she approached the fountain. Twilight nodded excitedly, eager to begin their adventure. The grove sounded beautiful from what she had heard of it, and she desperately needed a bit of a vacation from her day-to-day chores. But this was also a mission to help get rid of the weather problems, so it was just as important as it was enjoyable. The two mares began heading toward the track that led to the grove.
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Forest Growth headed out the door after a delicious daisy sandwich for breakfast, ready to start the day. The sun had risen fairly high above the tree tops, but the cold weather would prevent Forest from gardening. He didn’t know why it was so cold, but then, Nature has a mind of its own. He decided today he would set up a firm perimeter around his home. With this, he signalled his hoof up, causing a dozen stag to appear from the trees, fence pieces strapped to their backs.
Forest swiped his hoof across the large field, causing large vines to erupt from the ground. They wormed around the fence pieces and began fitting them into the ground carefully. More of the stag appeared with fence pieces, and they left as soon as the vines took them from their backs. Soon, the vines disappeared after finishing the fence off with a gate at the opposite end of the field from the giant tree house.
Forest smiled at his work, nodding as he walked back and forth up the fence to make sure it was all strong and healthy. When he was back at the door of the tree house, he once again lifted his hoof, this time pointing at the ground and drawing lines in the air. He then lifted his hoof with force upwards, which caused dozens of flat rocks to burst from the ground, forming into perfect lined paths that stretched across the entire field. Forest sat himself in front of his house admiring his work.
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“Come on Twilight, it’s just over this hill!” shouted Rainbow Dash, hovering above the tree tops. She was looking down into a small valley, where there was a small grove of sorts. It was larger than most of the other groves that dotted Equestria, so it filled the valley almost entirely. Twilight was cantering along almost directly below her, nodding as she heard the news that they had almost made it. She had been cantering for 10 minutes, and was fairly exhausted.
The sight was magnificent, the trees filling the valley as if they had just sprung from the ground. As she approached, she could smell the scent of daisies and roses fill her nostrils. Her spine shivered with delight from this smell, and she quickly began trotting toward the small gap between the trees which lead into the grove. Rainbow was now hovering just behind her, her nose perked up so she could get more from the wonderful smells.
As they made their way through the trees, they noticed that their hooves were hitting something that wasn’t soft grass. Instead, they could feel cold, flat rocks beneath their hooves. What creature could not only make a grove appear out of nowhere, but also cause grass to become rock in a matter of weeks? They became cautious, unable to comprehend what could have made all of this happen. They walked slowly, their hooves heavy upon the rocky path.
Soon, they emerged in a large field, surrounded by trees on all sides. In front of them was a large fence that bordered the field, a small gate standing firm between them and the expanse of field. At the very far end of the field was a large tree that rose far higher than the others. It seemed to have vines wrapping around its trunk, and upon closer inspection, a door and windows could be seen. Sitting in front of the tree was an earth pony, who was looking straight at the two mares.
“Excuse me? Could you help us?” asked Twilight, throwing her voice to the stallion. He stood up, walking out from the trees shade and into the sunlight. The two mares saw that he had a green coat, his head topped with a slightly brighter green mane with yellow streaks. His tail was shaped much like a vine, and had the same bright green colour as his mane, minus the yellow streaks. His golden coloured eyes seemed to burn into theirs as he stared.
Twilight began approaching the gate to open it, but just before she had her hoof on it, the ground erupted around it, and it was engulfed with vines. When she tried to open it, the vines seemed to keep it closed. Rainbow Dash flew up, and began to hover over the fence, when suddenly a larger vine erupted from the ground on the other side of the fence and whipped Dash, sending her flying back over the fence. Twilight rushed back to help her friend as the vine disappeared, trying to the get rid of the idea that the strange earth pony was causing all this.