The Only Tree in the Forest

by Hap

Chapter 20

I have doors now, and glass windows. An upstairs and a downstairs and a basement. Two balconies. Flower-boxes full of wildflowers that the tall pony spent hours collecting at the edge of that strange and shifting forest. She painted my insides with some kind of varnish that bore the tickle of magic. It burned as it seeped into my living wood, but the burn reduced to a tingle, which is now nothing more than a sense of dullness. My trunk feels asleep, like in the deepest part of winter, and is no longer raw to the touch. It feels like a thick layer of bark, the same as the outside of my trunk.

She arrives again, just like always, early in the morning. But this time, she is not alone. Half a dozen carts, pulled by pegasus stallions in polished armor, landed on the grass just outside my shadow.

The carts were made of wood, like every cart I’d ever seen. But these carts were also full of wood like I’d never seen. All sorts of trees, chopped and ground into pulp, and formed into blocks.

No, I had seen this, decades ago. Books. The apple-growing ponies who visited me would, after their feasting and frolicking, sit in my shade and pull out a single book. The eldest would open it, separate it into leaves, and speak aloud. Whatever the content of that book, it was meaningful to those ponies.

There were hundreds of books here, packed securely into the bottom of each cart. For what purpose, I have no clue. But every one of the ponies treats them reverentially.

The tall pony opens my door with her magic and strides into the echoing interior. The stallions outside unload the carts and trot inside one by one, each with a small pile of books.

I can’t see inside myself, but I feel their hooves lighten as the books are lifted from their backs. A moment later, the books settle on the shelves carved from my very living wood. This goes on for hours. Carts leave, and more arrive. Books and furniture and bookends and decorations. I am to be a house, a living place for some pony to live within.

The moment arrives that everything to be moved into me has been. The stallions hook up their carts and fly away, leaving the tall pony standing in front of my open door. Her long shadow only lengthens as the sun approaches the horizon. She takes a moment, as she always does, to appreciate the sunset, with her horn lit to no visible effect. The moon rises as a tear graces her cheek.

Her head droops low with a sigh before she steps inside. I feel her hooves make a complete circuit of my interior, from the basement to the upper reaches that stretch out onto a balcony where I can see her again. She nods and smiles, then spreads her wings and leaps, gliding around me in a lazy spiral toward the silvery moonlit grass.

She smiles up at me. Not a sad smile like I’d seen so many times as she was carving me out, but a kind of smile that I’d never witnessed. Gentle, warm like the sun, and full of grace.

Her horn lights, and a chunk of wood I’d not taken note of before floats out of my doorway. Not the blocks of pulp like books, but built from solid planks and straight timbers. It has a symbol carved on its face – an open book. She drives the timbers deep into the earth, so that the symbol is visible to all those who approach my door.

She steps forward, placing a hoof against my trunk. She feels everything I feel right now. I want her, more than anything. I try to drink her in like the sun, and she leans forward to nuzzle me with the soft fur of her cheek. Her magic closes my door and she takes a step backward. She closes her eyes and smiles one last time, spreading her wings, and coils to leap into the air.

She does so, and takes flight.

I am left standing, without her, in the cold light of the moon.

Comments

[Quinch]

What the hell, I ship it.

[Turquoise pony]

9937933

[Bad Horse]

9937933 Treelestia!
... or Celestree?