Apples: Immortal Tree

by Julia

Chapter 5. Dead Tree Line

There was never again a feeling of sight, until she woke up with Nurse Redheart performing a blood extraction on her. Applejack sat up quickly,startling the nurse pony and making the syringe fall out of her leg, and she tried to get out of bed, but found she was bound to it. Trying to speak, she also discovered a muzzle on her face preventing her from speaking. Wondering what was going on, she saw Nurse Redheart take a different syringe and stab Applejack with it, injecting her with whatever substance was in it, and it soon put her to sleep.

---

Luna approached the earth pony within the Skyline, along with Celestia and Twilight Sparkle. Applejack backed away, and fell down onto her behind. She covered her face with her hooves and began screaming and sobbing. Twilight tried to comfort her, but Applejack pushed her wings away and pushed her back. Trying to restrain Applejack with magic was useless, as the earth pony used her mastery of the manipulation of space-time within the Skyline to counter it.

"I've seen it, Applejack," Twilight said with a painfully obvious tone of fear in her voice. "What you are... what you've done..."

"Everything? You've seen everything, haven't ya?" Applejack replied, turning away with her head down. "I really regret what I've done to them other ponies... but, I just couldn't take it no more. And with your mother and with Megan... I don't even know what came over me!"

Twilight came to Applejack's side and put a wing over her. "Applejack, I know you still harbour hatred within your heart... I know you still hold sadness over losing all of your friends over the years and I know for sure you've been running from the truth for so long. You're a lot older than anypony that ever existed, here or there... I've seen into your memories and all of that. But even if you are in despair, you have no need to be so dark and down, wallowing in the endless pain of yours! We can help you, Applejack. All you have to do is come with us, back to the real world. Back to our days. Back to our lives."

Applejack broke down, turning to Twilight and embracing her tightly, crying on her chest. "I'm sorry... I..."

Twilight put a hoof to her lips, getting her to silence herself. "There's nothing else you can say, Applejack. Everything is going to be okay. Hush..."

"But what will we tell our friends? About this? About what they used to be? About what they will become, because of me? What if they become aware of these existences and end up like me, or your mother?"

Twilight giggled, "We'll just come to the road naturally, be sure of that. But we surely still must tell them... You're not going to run away anymore."

Celestia and Luna looked onto them and smiled, touching horns and covering everypony with their magic, teleporting out of the Skyline and back to the hospital grounds, within their original physical bodies.

---

Soon came the point where everpony in the Mane Six knew about Applejack's travels, and due to reasons which Applejack labeled as "Truth", soon the entirety of Equinopolis knew. Not as much, but still mostly everypony knew.

Discord himself even approached the Apple earth pony to have even deeper conversations on the subject, simply wanting to know more about Applejack's past. Applejack soon began to not mind, especially after Discord and Twilight found a way to halt Applejack's (and later Twilight Velvet's) pains using Chaos magick and Harmony magic to extract the negativity and turn it into a pure, soothing euphoric feeling which took all of the struggles from Applejack's soul.

Velvet soon revealed herself to be still an alicorn, and explained how she became as such.

"Well," she began as she sat in Twilight's throne room with the other alicorn Princesses and the Mane Six along with Discord, the Equinopolis Knights, and Spike, "surely I knew once I came here that I would have to reinforce my immortality through magic and everything like that..."

---

Velvet awoke in the current generation, which was being formed still as it was the newest and youngest. It was still connected to the Skyline, and had a crazy amount of suns shining in the sky. This made the environment hot as hell, and unbearable to withstand, but Velvet feared she would be stuck here forever, so she figured that she ought to harness the abilities she gained from having been blessed with her immortality.

She could not even get the magic out of her horn at first, and noticed that time was running out. If she could not save this dimension from destruction as it was connected with the Skyline, then the Skyline may be destroyed as well, along with the other dimensions. She had seen them, and she had been studying them closely, just like Applejack had done after her.

She knew that the horn was an instrument of magic, but nopony figured that out yet besides her and a group of Elders she had spoken to in a rogue dimension which disappeared after she left it. No doubt it was just a leafline. Not at all was she confused, just scared and trembling at the thought of being burned by the approaching stars which was frying this dimension like a fish on a grill.

She managed to grab the ends of the stars and push them back with a newfound power that had awakened within her soul. She sensed it coming from the Skyline, as if the realm were alive, giving her the power to defend it from destruction. At that moment she knew that she would become the protecter of the Skyline, and magic would be her most valuable asset. She was sucked into the Skyline along with the great host of stars, and the Skyline closed, turning the stars out from her presence and scattering them all throughout the eternal belt of the Skyline. She was engulfed by a field of her purple magic and was turned into an alicorn. She immediately was famished, almost at wish by the realm which she was in, and it called out to her to sleep. Closing her eyes, she looked down to the dimension which she had saved as Megan came up to her and picked her up to hold her close in an embrace. Velvet laughed, and so did Megan.

"Nice to see you again, huh?" Megan said as she sensed Velvet drifting off to sleep since her eyes were closed. "No worries, Twilight. Soon, we'll find a way to set everything straight. I'm sure of it..."

---

The story was confusing as it was entertaining, and nopony could wrap their minds around it, not even Applejack. She was the first to question Velvet.

"Twilight...um...I mean, Velvet? How can this dimension be fused with the Skyline directly? The Skyline is a spiritual realm, and it can't be bound by the physical realm we live in."

"That's what I began to think as well," Velvet said, creating in midair a hologram of the Tree of Life which they all lived in. She pointed to the lower trunk of the tree, which seemed to be cut in half near to the top, and became two trunks in one.

The bottom half had its own branches, while the upper trunk only had three with no extra branches or leaflines at all.

"That means that the white realm, or Skyline, as you call it I see, is the progenitor of all the other timelines which we know, and I was born into the newest timeline as it was still being born. The other branches could not handle another main dimension, like the one we used to live in with Megan, so they all became tangled with it and tried to self-destruct it before it even started. I saved it and therefore aided in its completion."

"So, what does that make of our timeline? And what does the white realm have in store for us in the future?" Cadance asked Velvet.

"Well, as it looks from my map of the Universe, the white realm is slowly but surely being halted in progress of creating branches, and it may even stop completely," Velvet explained with a sad tone in her voice.

"Mom, what's wrong?" Twilight asked her mother. "Is that bad?"

Velvet looked to her daughter with worry in her eyes. "Yes... especially with the existence of Tartarus and Disharmony."

"So, you're saying that the existence of Tartarus is because of the white realm?" Celestia questioned her.

Velvet nodded. "That is correct. In fact, during Applejack's first rebirth, I found that she was not reborn within the white realm like I was, she was transported to a black void due to the negativity within her heart. The white realm could not handle such negativity being formed within it, which was also why Applejack could enter it later on. She had concentrated that same badness and turned it into love, though it was short lived and became the merciless slaughtering of life it was, which was when Megan and I were alerted by the white realm to go see what was going on. Heck, I can admit Applejack had more of a close connection to the white realm than I did, as she actually managed to influence it with her negative magic."

"But, where does Tartarus fit in with all of this?" Luna asked.

Velvet continued, "Oh yes! I must say, that after Megan and I defeated Applejack when she became the Demiurge, all of her darkness went into that same void which she was born in, and it became the harbinger of all of Applejack's fears and evil thoughts along with many more disharmonies which were born due to her destruction of the other timelines. Currently, over a billion ponies suffer in its depths, and massive graves ruled by Tirek and many others all sing in a dark chorus waiting until the day they can be free again."

Applejack covered her mouth, trembling and stuttering in disbelief. "So... that land of pain and suffering is... mine?"

"Yes, I'm afraid so," Velvet replied, then trying to sound chipper again, "But don't worry! I'm sure now that you have been stabilized, Tartarus will stay in a completely different realm and stay out of ours. We should have nothing to worry about as long as we keep Harmony alive and Disharmony tamed."

The staff of the meeting all agreed, and so did Applejack, who tried her best to stay happy in this whole situation. Now that she knew more about her role in the entire existence of the Mother Dimension and anything else which happened within it, along with that strange fact of her creating Tartarus, Applejack could not shake the feeling that she was digging not only a grave for herself, but for everypony and everything to ever exist. She had stopped running and come to terms with everything in her way, telling the truth about everything, but still, there was this deep feeling of uncertainty and fear for the future. She, with the others, merely went home after the meeting was over. She enjoyed another night of no cider and no taking painkillers by the pound... but she found it was hard to break some habits, so she just took one.

It did nothing.