Lupine Tree

by wille179


Spice Wolf

On the evening before my trial with Celestia, I walked my wolf into the wooden house that Muzen pointed out. Compared to all the other homes here, it was rather unremarkable, bearing the same one-story design. Inside, it bore the same earthy scent that the deer and everything else bore. The deer that was leading me about said that this was his grandfather’s home.

For some reason, it didn’t smell like what I expected a grandfather’s home to smell like. Sure, that was a remnant of the Other’s memories, but I unconsciously expected it to stay true. And while unimportant in the long run, it was something that surprised me anyway.

“Sit.” Muzen motioned to a spot on the dirt floor. If I’d had a tongue, I’d have stuck it out at him; I am not some common dog.

The deer walked through a curtained doorway, leaving me alone for a minute, though I could hear him address someone in his own language, something that vaguely reminded me of a Scandinavian language, though I couldn’t be sure. The Other was an English native with a smidgen of French, and not even enough to be considered fluent; even if I could identify the language, I wouldn’t be able to tell what they were saying.

Looking around, I got the impression that I was in a very primitive place. Everything, and I do mean everything, looked hand-crafted and made on a budget. There were no luxuries, only a few furniture pieces and a set of cooking tools and plates. But, when you considered the fact that they lived inside a magical barrier, likely with no contact with the outside world, such a scarcity of luxury items made sense.

I grinned. If everyone around here was like this, I knew how to make money here. I could penetrate the barrier; I could facilitate trade between the two towns. If the town of Ponyville had a library, I’d look up some books on trade. I’d also need to speak with government officials about securing trade deals, find merchants and craftsmen willing to trade with me, establish a navigable path between the two towns, and figure out how to transport those goods.

The rustle of the patchwork curtain interrupted my musings. Muzen stepped out, followed by a shorter, portlier, and much more transparent deer. His antlers drooped, wrapping around his head instead of protruding up from it. “Greetings, my name is Juzu. I am the chief’s personal scribe and the village’s historian. My grandson seemed very excited to meet someone from beyond the great barrier, and I must say that I share that enthusiasm.”

His accent was incredibly thick, almost unintelligible, but he spoke at an easy pace that suggested he was far more familiar with the language than Muzen was.

“And I am Lumber Jack. My companion and I sought out this barrier so that we could map its location. We had to retreat when her health started failing, but Muzen here captured my curiosity here enough that I left a puppet behind so that I might continue investigating.”

Both Muzen and Juzu cocked their heads to the side. “Pardon,” Juzu asked, “but a puppet a child's toy manipulated with strings, is it not? I do not understand the context here.”

“Have you never seen a timberwolf before?” I countered. They shook their heads. “It is a puppet, controlled with strings of magic, and used as a tool and a weapon, not as a toy.” I proceeded to disassemble and reassemble my wolf to show them.

“Whhheeerrreee isss the puuuppeteeer?” Muzen drawled.

“Far away from here,” I replied. They didn't need to know more than that. “Do you not have timberwolves here?”

“No, we do not, though I vaguely recall stories of beasts similar to you, but they were just that: beasts,” Juzu answered. He sat down on the floor, and then motioned with his hoof. “Anyway, please sit. Make yourself comfortable. As unexpected as your company is, it is not at all unwelcome. Would you like something to eat? To drink?”

“No, thank you. My puppet doesn't eat, and I have food aplenty where I am. The evening sun shines warmly on my branches, and a cool breeze wafts across my grove. I am quite comfortable where I am, and comfort matters little to my wolf,” I replied.

“Branches? You are a tree?” Juzu asked. I replied affirmatively. “Fascinating. Tell me, what is the outside world like? We have often wondered what the world is like outside the great barrier.”

“I am not the best person to ask,” I replied. “I am a tree, the forest is my home. My puppets cannot go much beyond the forest’s edge. There is a village nearby, filled with colorful ponies that are a little smaller than this wolf in size.” Which also made them a tad shorter than these flowing stone deer as well. I could look Muzen right in the... well, eyes if he currently had them. How did they see, anyway? “What about you? What are flowing stone deer? I’ve never seen anything like you.”

Juzu tapped his hoof against his chin. His leg bent and twisted in order to get his hoof there, but the motion seemed to cause him no pain. “Hmm... Well over a thousand years ago, we were not one, but two races: The whitetail deer, and the geluv.”

“Geluv? Aren’t those the blobs I saw outside?”

“No,” Juzu corrected, “those are the gelal, a species related to the geluv. They are smaller and dumber than the geluv, mere animals. The geluv, in contrast, were smarter. Though they could not speak, they could understand the tone and intent of those around them, and could respond in kind. There were not many of them, less than a dozen at most, and they lived where we are now. Once, long before the barrier existed, and some time before the deer arrived, a strange phenomenon overtook the geluv. All but one of them found themselves drawn to a single location. There, their cores fused together into a massive, singular entity, far stronger and far smarter than any of the geluv that he was made of, and fully capable of speech. That was the birth of Hiram, our chief.

“Hiram, and the sole remaining original geluv, Smooze, lived together for a time before Smooze eventually vanished. Depressed, Hiram fell into a deep sleep. Many years later, a group of deer tried to make their home here in the forest, where they encountered Hiram. Thinking him to be a lake, a small group of does dove in, and awoke him. But, instead of devouring them, Hiram befriended the does. No one, not even Hiram himself, is sure of how it happened, but the does eventually bore his children. At first, they looked like deer, but they grew more and more like their father as they aged. They were the first flowing stone deer.

“Now, any doe that bathes in Hiram, or any doe born of Hiram’s bloodline, will give birth to a flowing stone deer.”

Fascinating, I thought. Hiram sounded like a living lake of slime, and yet he was their chief? Their alpha? “You’re hybrids,” I noted. Juzu nodded. “Wow. And is alpha Hiram still here? Can I meet him?”

“Not now,” the elder deer replied. “Juzu is with the exploring party. They are venturing deeper into the infinite interior to gather resources for the village. He should be back within the week.”

“Ah,” I replied, having little else to say.

A sudden wave of fatigue crashed over me, for the shadows around us had jumped as the sun began its nightly descent. With the shadows of my allies now spreading across my lower branches, my nightly drowsiness was upon me. I could stay active if I wished, but I had no real motivation. “The night’s come. I am feeling quite tired; do you mind if I place my puppet near the walls of your home, or should I take it elsewhere for the night?”

Muzen motioned with his hoof to one of the corners of the room. “Yooouuu cooould plaaace it theeere; weee dooo nooot mmmiiinnnd.”

“Thank you.” I made my wolf nod and then trotted it over to the corner. As I disassembled it for sleep, I said. “When the sun goes down, I lose my motivation to do anything besides conserve my strength.”

“I see,” Juzu said.

Now only a head sitting on a pile of lumber, I said through my wolf, “Thank you for inviting me into your home. Your hospitality is quite nice.”

“You are welcome.”


For the duration of my trial, I kept the puppet at Muzen and Juzu’s house almost completely inert. I’d made it climb up to their roof, where it perched, gazing lazily down at the comings and goings of the village.

Muzen had climbed up there too, and had brought his breakfast with him. I used the term “breakfast” lightly, as it was a weird mixture of leaves and shiny rocks that he was eating, not exactly what either I or the Other would consider a good breakfast.

As for conversation, I said hello, and then later asked for the village’s name, but other than that, I did not speak for the whole time that my trial with alpha-alpha Celestia was occurring.

Finally, though, my trial was over. But that came with the revelation that I was a demon in the eyes of the ponies. I wasn’t sure what to think about that, but the fact that Discord’s declaration had set Celestia on edge was in and of itself enough to make me wary in turn.

But I could always ponder that later. The danger of Celestia uprooting me had passed, and I felt good. I was here in a village that hadn’t had contact with the outside world in ages, one that had been unknown to the outside world as well. I could navigate between the two with ease. My thoughts from the previous night about becoming a merchant returned full force.

Now seriously considering making a career out of trading, I pulled my wolf puppet up and leapt off the short building’s roof. Turning its head, I looked back up at Muzen. “Sorry about that. I had other things to take care of. If it’s alright with you, I’m going to go exploring around town.”

Muzen stood up and then leapt down as well. He hissed when his hooves touched the ground, and then rubbed his side.

“You alright?” I asked.

He explained to me that he’d been injured on guard duty a few days ago, and was on leave until it healed. And while the wound had been mostly healed by the time he’d met me, it was still causing him a little pain.

“I hope you feel better,” I replied.

“I aamm nooot sooo innjuured thaaat grraaanndfaatheer and I caannot guuide yoouu,” Muzen replied. It might have been my imagination, but Muzen sounded like he was struggling less with his words than he was yesterday. Perhaps he just had to get back in the groove?

“You sure? I wouldn’t want to impose. You and your grandfather have been kind enough to me already,” I replied.

He nodded, saying that it wouldn’t be a problem for him or his grandfather at all; he was off duty, and with alpha Hiram gone, Juzu had no obligations to attend to.

A two or three minutes later, and with Juzu now joining us, I found myself walking along the gently curving road that surrounded the entire village. It occurred to me that for a road that went around an isolated village instead through it, the road was incredibly busy. I asked why.

“Eezdraug means ‘Ring Village’ in the common tongue,” Juzu explained. “Space grows as one moves to the center. While it is only a half day’s walk to the other side of the village by the outer road, one could walk forever in a straight line towards the center and not even make it half way. There are many towns deeper inside, and it is often faster to come to Eezdraug and then elsewhere than it is to go directly.”

Juzu later showed me a map of the known areas of the Exclusion Zone; the map was shaped like a cone. Eezdraug was wrapped around the cone near the point, while other towns that should have been logically closer to the “center” were actually much further apart; that made Eezdraug the literal center of their world.

I would hate to study geometry or topology here; that would be a nightmare. But, for someone aspiring to be a merchant — namely me — I couldn’t have asked for a better location to start my business. It was in the literal middle of everywhere, the perfect trade city. All of the carts being pulled on this road suddenly made much more sense. They were merchants and long-distance travelers.

“Juzu, you seem like a smart deer. Would you happen to know what sort of resources this village lacks? What it has in excess? There’s a village nearby that could be a potential trade partner, and I happen to be able to get across the barrier separating the two towns.”


Within two hours, I’d met a deer willing to loan me one of his older carts with the potential to buy, provided that I could secure some base monetary capital. There was the added benefit that the cart in question, despite its age, was made of wood; by placing my wolf’s transmission seed on the cart, I could puppet it as if it was one of my wolves, or, with a wolf nearby, I could levitate it.

I filed the sudden idea for a flying puppet away for later.

Over the next few hours, I met several other merchants, and got the same reaction from each. First came the shock of seeing a talking, wooden wolf; then came curiosity as I told them my proposition; and then came the response, which was invariably the same basic idea: I’ll trade with you only when you have money, goods, or a secure trade route.

The only money I had access to right now was Zecora through ingredient sales and Princess Twilight Sparkle, when I collected on what I’d earned so far escorting Compass Rose (and what I’d earn by the time we finished making the map); neither of those were tokens — the flat, carved disks of stone that the deer used. And the only route I had was an almost non-existent forest trail that couldn’t possibly be wide or flat enough to put a cart on.

Long story short, without that path, and without some tangible goods, I was dead in the water for Eezdraug.


The evening was drawing close as my Lycan approached Zecora’s hut. The satchel it carried bulged with the herbs and flowers I’d gathered for her.

I knocked on her door. “Come in, come in!” the voice of my zebra friend called out.

Pushing open the door, I smiled and waved at her in greeting. “Ah, Jack,” she replied. “How have you been?”

“Today went better than expected. I found something quite interesting deeper in the woods — a whole village, hidden away behind a magic barrier.” I set the satchel down on her workbench. “Here are your herbs for the week. I added a few extra of my flowers, too.”

“Thank you, Lumber Jack. For finding the freshest herbs, you have the knack.” Zecora smiled and peaked inside the bag. “Everything is here, I see. Here, let me jot down your fee.”

Zecora moved to write down how much she owed me for her finances. Normally, I let her manage my money since, with the exception of Taur, I could not send a puppet into Ponyville proper. However, tomorrow I was going to send Taur into Ponyville, and I wanted to have bits on hand. “About that. Could I have the bits myself?”

She asked me why, and I told her. She ended up liking my idea, and even gave me an advance on my payment. It meant not getting paid for the next month of herb gathering, but I ended up walking out of her home with nearly a thousand bits in cash right then. I balked a little at the amount she had sitting around — I had no idea that potion making was lucrative enough for her to have that much coin on hand.

I had capital now. That was the first step done.


On the morning after my trial with Celestia, Taur and Lycan strolled up to Applejack's orchard. Both of them were dressed in tanned manticore furs. Taur, unlike Lycan, also had sculpted logs serving as its body parts. They were crudely crafted, but still gave Taur a more animal-like appearance than the rough collection of branches it had been before. On its face, I’d placed a smooth wooden mask with only two eye holes, not for any practical purpose, but because I thought it would look cool.

I stopped them suddenly, barely three rows into the orchard. An unfamiliar pony’s scent, mixed with metal, polish, and burnt toast, drifted from up wind. It was strong; the pony was likely nearby, hidden behind the recovering ally trees. My Taur’s tail flicked, drawing attention to the manticore tail barb attached to it. Sure, it was the hollow shell sans the poison sacs, but the pony — whose gaze I could feel on me — didn’t know that it was harmless.

From a slightly different angle, Applejack’s scent approached. The thuds of her hooves on the packed dirt were completely graceless and carelessly loud, and yet so distinct to her that even without her scent, I was sure that I would recognize her by sound alone.

“Applejack!” I bellowed.

The hoofsteps accelerated as orange mare emerged from the trees, a smile on her face. “Howdy, Lumber Jack. Is that a new puppet?”

Shaking my head, I responded through said puppet. “Nope, I still have just twelve” I lied, “It’s a new design for an old wolf. This is Taur. I was planning on sending it into town to apologize to Princess Twilight Sparkle and... Spike.”

She whistled. “Twelve puppets. How do ya control that many limbs at one time? Ah’ve played with a puppet once, and Ah could barely keep it straight.”

My Lycan’s ears perked up, as did my branches. “I don’t. Each puppet can control itself to some degree. I think ‘do this’ and it does; I don’t have to consciously micromanage every piece of wood.” Turning their heads, my Lycan and Taur both looked towards the source of the other pony’s scent. There was “nothing” there. Well, nothing visible at least. Those four patches of grass near the base of the apple tree were obviously being pressed down by something. “So, who’s the invisible pony?”

There was a slight gasp from where the hidden pony stood. The grass beneath their hooves rustled.

“Oh come on!” I yelled. I moved my puppets to the side, putting them between the invisible pony and Applejack. “You’re worse at hiding than a jumping chameleon tarantula! And I eat those things for breakfast!”

The invisible pony grumbled; their voice was deeper than any pony I’d encountered so far. Swiftly, they faded back into visibility, revealing a lightly armored, blue light blue, male unicorn. “How did you find me?”

“Who are you and why are you here? Answers for answers,” I snapped, still not moving my puppets from their defensive position. Taur’s fingers twitched, anxious to draw the crudely made short bow and arrows that were currently serving as part of its forearms.

“Sir Clear Glass, Paladin third class of the White Order, here on the orders or Princess Celestia to observe you,” he answered stiffly. “Now, how did you find me?”

Both puppets tapped their noses, grinning as well as their wooden faces would allow. “Equines: a plains-dwelling genus with side-mounted eyes for spotting predators. Your primary defense: flight and magic. Your primary food: plants, especially grasses and grains. Your minds and bodies are built to flee from danger, not hide, and not fight. And you are definitely not built to hunt. Leave that to a predator. And definitely don’t try to fight your nature and hide up wind and in windblown grass from a natural tracker.”

Clear Glass growled at me — actually growled. “Do not growl at me, pup!” Taur aimed the short bow and nocked an arrow faster than the paladin could react. Sure, I’d probably miss and/or break my bow if I actually used it, but again, he didn’t know that.

“Whoa nelly! Jack, Clear Glass, calm down!” Applejack shouted.

I glanced at her with my Lycan’s eyes; Taur never averted his gaze from the unicorn, but he did lower the bow somewhat. Through Taur, I said, “Prey should learn not to growl at predators, unless they want to get bitten.”

“I am nopony’s prey!” Clear Glass shouted.

I snorted. “Applejack, I owe you a little extra time to pay for this.” And then, before she had time to respond, I phytokinetically ripped some of her apple crop off the tree above Glass and hurled them at his head. The impact against his metal helmet dazed him, but didn’t knock him out. My branches shook with laughter, as I’d managed to impale an apple on his horn. “Now you smell like the orchard. Stand on packed dirt next time, and maybe you’ll be able to hide from me.”

Turning back to my orange friend, I said, “Could you tell me where Princess Twilight lives? I need to get that out of the way.”

“Jack! Ah think you need to apologize to Clear Glass here first,” she demanded.

Oh, how I wish I had eyes to roll. Lycan spoke, “Lycan is staying here. Rant to it instead. I need to send Taur to Princess Twilight’s home.”

Applejack’s eyes narrowed, not that I cared what she was feeling at that moment. “Look for the large oak tree in the middle of town. She lives in the Golden Oaks Library.”

My centaur puppet’s head nodded. I sent it trotting off towards town. With my lycanthropic puppet, I called out teasingly to the fuming Clear Glass. “Oops. I’m splitting up. Which one of me do you follow, little predator? Which one do you leave alone to do nefarious, naughty things? Why, I might just convince Applejack to let me pollinate her orchard.”

The farmer grit her teeth. “Go. Ah’ll deal with this idiot here.”

The paladin nodded and chased after Taur. Applejack glared at Lycan.

“In my defense, A: I was joking; B: I don’t have any interest in mammalian sex, period; and C: I don’t have any ‘nads for you to buck me in, or for me to buck you with.”

Sadly enough, a buck to my Lycan’s groin does, in fact, hurt like hell.


As my second time entering a populated settlement, a glaring similarity to Eezdraug surprised me; namely, one of my senses regarding the population was missing. This time, I could smell them, but I couldn’t see them. This mystery was a little more easily solved, however, as a door slam nearby told me everything I needed to know.

That seemed odd, however. Every pony and zebra I had met so far wasn’t that terribly skittish. Had I really just met the bravest 1% of the population? Or was herd mentality here so much stronger than even mob mentality with the humans, or pack mentality with the wolves?

Whatever. Princess Twilight Sparkle apparently lived in a library near a large oak tree. If she was there, I’d find her. If she wasn’t there, she’d come home eventually and I’d see her then.

After few minutes of being stalked by Clear Glass as I wandered the strangely barren streets of Ponyville, I finally found the oak tree and the library. To clarify, the oak wasn’t near the library, it was the library.

All thirteen of my puppets and my real body shuddered in unison. I shed several leaves.

The oak was an insane, gibbering, howling wreck. Having your insides hollowed out to have a pony and a firebreather live inside of you would drive any tree mad with agony and fear.

At least Zecora had had the decency to kill her tree before living in its hollowed out remains. That didn’t bother me in the slightest, and I’d be a hypocrite if it did. This, though, this was inhumane... not that I was going to call her out on it directly. I’d probably want to put the tree down, though. How to get enough herbicide to kill it without alerting its inhabitants, though?

My ideas unvoiced, I knocked on the short door. Eyeing it, I realized that if I wanted to get into that horrid library, I’d have to duck so low that Taur’s hands would drag on the ground.

The door opened, revealing the wretched firebreather with bandages around his abdomen and rib cage. Any respect for him that I’d felt for agreeing to stay out of my forest was now gone. But, as much as I wanted to growl at him, to devour him and rid myself of the injured beast once and for all, I held my tongue and stayed my body. “Spike.” I hoped that my venomous emotions weren’t bleeding into my voice. “I have come to apologize.”

His eyes took me in from the bottom up. My wolf-pony hybrid lower half was larger than any pony save for Celestia, and my burly, lycanthropic upper half only added to my massive presence. The manticore fur cloak, the mane-turned-collar, and the teeth suspended on a dried entrail necklace only added to effect. The glowing eyes and featureless mask underneath the hood of my cloak sealed the deal. He gulped. “L-l-lumb-ber J-jack?

Good, the whelp should be terrified.

I nodded. My voice, likely magical in nature, rumbled more than it should have given my size and its volume. “Is Princess Twilight Sparkle here as well?”

“Y-yeah. C-come in.”

I bowed my head and stepped inside the mad tree. I wish I hadn’t; the tree’s screaming was louder inside, bordering on painful. Why oh why can’t the animals hear the trees?

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Clear Glass take a seat near the door, having not been invited in. Not that I cared what he was up to. So long as he didn’t follow me back into the forest, I didn’t really care what he did.

The firebreather called out, and the princess responded from the loft above. Meanwhile, I looked about. Books, thousands of them, lined the shelves carved into the very walls. A table sat in the center, atop which sat a carving of a horse’s head; both of which were carved out of the tree’s wood. Above me, the ceiling was painted with the sun mark of Celestia. Several candles dotted the room, and I could see a stove in a back room. The whole scene felt horribly morbid, like a shrine dedicated to the torment of an enemy, made out of said enemy’s still living body. The Other wouldn’t have been bothered in the slightest, but I found it all rather disturbing.

Twilight Sparkle trotted down the stairs, though her cadence was momentarily broken when she saw my unfamiliar form. “Lumber Jack? I didn’t expect you to come by this soon.” Her voice was flat and measured. I supposed that she was still mad at me for attacking the firebreather.

A scraping sound filled my ear, and it took me a second to realize that my puppet’s wood was grinding together. I unclenched my grip.

“I came to apologize.” Even with as much control as I could muster, my voice refused to come without the venom in my heart.

When I spoke no further, Twilight cleared her throat, as if prompting me.

“I came to apologize,” I repeated. “But I came in vain. There is no possible way for me to utter those words in this horrid place. This tree’s screams of pain are too loud for me to even think straight.”

And with that, I could stand it no further. The swish of my leather cloak and the tap of wooden claws on a wooden floor announced my departure better than any words could have.

I’d barely stomped a half dozen meters out of that mad house before a violet flash in front of me made me pause. That pony and her firebreather stood before me, having teleported directly onto my path. Glass, having obviously seen us, started trotting towards us.

“Lumber Jack, wait. What do you mean, ‘screams of pain?’”

I snorted. As if she didn’t know. Forcefully, I shoved her aside and continued walking.

She flashed her horn and appeared before me again. “Lumber Jack!”

“Out of my way, you fucking bitch.” I shoved her again, this time with enough force to send her slightly airborne.

For a third and final time, the alicorn princess teleported into my path. This time, however, she restrained me with her magic. “LUMBER JACK, STOP!”

Though my puppet’s jaw was restrained, I’d found that I didn’t really need it to speak. My magic alone was enough. “If you do not let me go this instant, I will burn my real self to the ground. Anything is better than that! I will not be gutted alive and be forced to house a fucking dragon and a fire loving pony!”

With a heave, I broke out of her spell like one would shatter glass manacles. In full gallop, my Taur stormed back to the Everfree Forest. How I wished that that name would hold true.

With a furious command, I ordered every last one of my puppets to retreat to my grove. I never looked back, so sure that I would see a face that I was growing to hate.