Tree House Chapter 3

Chapter 3

 

>”Twilight, darling but where have you been all this time? We were dead worried about you! I mean going into that forest, all alone! And without any means to defend yourself! You could have been eaten by the timberwolves or even worse!”

>Yeah, Rarity, I imagine messing up your hair is way worse than being eaten alive.

“You see, I went to zecoras..”

>”That’s like the first place I checked!  She told me you left like hours ago before the rain fell!”

“Yes, Rainbow, I left and…”

>”Oh my, don’t tell me you’ve been all this time in the everfree… It must have been so horrifying for you.”

>And there Fluttershy appears. How she is able to always sneak up you can't really tell — but she always approaches just outside of your vision.

“Yes it was not plesent, but girls I’m back now, everything is OK and…”

>”TWILIGHT!!!! I was so SO worried for you when you went to that forest and then I suddenly stopped being worried for some reason and told the girls that everything is going to be juuuust fine but then Dash did not believe me and was flying and flying in circles over the everfree like that one fly over my dough yesterday for the WELCOME BACK TO PONYVILLE party that is today by the way and I’m SOOOO happy you managed to attend because what would be a party without the main guest and…

>At this point you just zone Pinkie out as you did time and time again and start your trek back home alongside the girls.

>Surprisingly enough Applejack is silent. Probably still sore after your grumpy attitude lately.

>Have to make up to her.

>Have to make it up to all of them.

>You approach the treebrary, while mostly ignoring the idle chatter along the way and not going into detail about your adventure.

>Too tired to think about explanations.

>You announce as much to the girls who accept it reluctantly.

>Not too tired to hug Spike though.

>Just a simple hug, while his excited rant goes through your head, about him being worried.

>Words don’t matter.

>They do hurt others though.

>You turn around to see all the girls smiling. Clearly happy to see you healthy and observe the scene in front of them.

“Girls. Over last few weeks I was a horrible friend. I’ve never felt so alone. But I forgot that feelings can be misleading.”

“And I don’t want to feel that way anymore. So I’m sorry for my behavior.”

>”Oh shucks twi that’s nothing.”

>”Yeah we are your friends, silly.”

>Grouphug? Sure, why not?

 

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Dear Princess Celestia

Today I learned that when a pony feels miserable it’s easy to take real hearty care as a mock or an attempt to offend you.

But one should never forget that real friends always mean good, and you should know better than accuse them of things your blurry vision dictates.

You should not push the friends away. All they want is for you to let them ease your pain. They can’t do that forcefully, (well – maybe only Pinkie can) and thus it is your responsibility as a friend to step over your fears and feelings and open up to your friends.

I am also happy to report that I have made a new friend, who helped me immensely.

I can’t wait to know more about him.

Your Faithful Student

Twilight Sparkle.

 

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>Humans, humans, humans.

>How come there is absolutely no information on a whole race of creatures?

>Nothing. Absolutely nothing in any history books.

>Even the heavy 11-tome series of Memorable Mythical Creatures can’t help you there with all it’s detailed descriptions of every attention-worthy creature. Most of them you've never even heard of — and yet, no humans there.

>You’ve even referenced The Mighty Minotaur Empire: Stories of Strife and Victory and a few griffon tales – still nothing.

>Certainly your library is not the biggest one out there. It’s not canterlot archives, that’s for sure. But there should be at least something!

>By the way an official inquiry to canterlot archives is on the way there.

>You have even used the yellow stamp – which means “Very important, classified, same day delivery”.

>A little benefit of being Celestia’s personal student. There are not a lot of ponies in Ponyville authorized to do it and you are one of them.

>It’s not a matter of national security (that’s a red stamp – meaning “A matter of life and death, deliver to specified address this instant”) but something a little more important than just a priority delivery with a green stamp.

>Being a pony of many titles you can abuse some of your privileges to satisfy your burning interest.

>Even though Princess Celestia officially relieved you from any studies for 3 months to have some rest you prefer to ignore her proposal.

>Just resting and staring into the pond became ridiculous and boring 5 minutes into.

>Your analytic mind is not touched by the burnout and keeping it occupied helps to ignore the temporary disability.

>Oh how it would help to cast the text-search spell right now.

>A valuable spell for any librarian or archivist, that allows to find exactly the book you need with a word you think of.

>Not happening though.

>A sudden discovery came from the least expected book, you used to releave your mind from 6 hours of franctic studying.

>One of star-gazing almanachs.

>...depiction of a Centaur – a creature that originates from a mixup of humans and ancient horses...

>Franctic dash to a new research topic was halted by a sudden appearance of Rarity.

>By the way when Rarity sets a goal for herself - there's little to nothing you can do about it.

>And she certainly had a goal in mind...

 

 

 

>"Now come, come! I’m not letting you drown in your books again! The spa will take only a couple hours anyway and you positively need to treat that awful bags under your eyes."

>It's doubtful that anypony but Rarity with her eyes to detail can notice such a thing. Thanks, natural hide color.

>But there is no way out of this.

>Not when you are being helplessly dragged along the street to the spa.

“Rarity, can I at least take some books with me? Like… Two? Only two books? A single little book about centaurs?”

>”Why do you even need to study something like that in the first place? And don’t tell me it’s Celestia’s task – she was dead serious when she told us that you have no study materials sent from her.”

“Uhhh… Just curious?”

>”You will have enough time to fulfill your curiosity after you are relaxed, massaged and look at least as fabulous as myself. “

>Yeah like this is ever going to happen. Biggest “real” compliment from a colt you’ve ever got was “cute”. And that’s from your own brother.

>Can’t really count the whole speeches that were practically sung to you standing alongside the princess on a certain Gala.

>It was a nice change of pace to internally laugh at the fancy words obviously meant to secure their high position.

>Casually listening to Rarity's tales about a new line of perfume you arrive to the spa.

>Aloe (yes you can tell it's Aloe — you've dedicated some extra time to study the twins just to safely differentiate them from one another) wholeheartedly greets you, Lotus probably taking care of the clients.

>"What we can do for you today mizz Rarity?"

>"The usual for me… And full treatment for my dearest friend Twilight."

>You can’t help but gulp, observing a devious grin on Rarity’s face.

>It can’t be that bad, right? Ponies won’t pay for something horrible, right?

 

3 hours later

 

>If you can describe what your body feels right now in two words it would be “fluffy jelly”

>You basically roll through ponyville, every muscle in your body feeling loose and relaxed.

>What was done to your fur you will never know - but is more of an annoyance.

>Looks like it’s even reflecting light and radiating a purple hue around you.

>You are also tired as hell and bored to bones.

>The “full treatment” is not for you, that’s for certain. It’s easy to enjoy some small talk and good treatment, but three hours of this stuff? Excruciating massage of every muscle and you can’t even talk your way out of it – as it’s all paid for by miss Generosity herself.

>At least you aren’t in debt to her any more.

>Speaking about debt.  

>You are still in a greatest debt to a certain creature in the Everfree.

>He said you can visit any time, didn’t he?

>Well it would be a good idea to visit him like tomorrow.

>And take a compass with you this time.

>Maybe ask Pinkie to bake some cupcakes?

>Does he even eat cupcakes?

>”Well of course! Everypony loves cupcakes! I mean – how could anypony not like a super splendid sugary sunny sweet sasparilla syrupy snack?  That’s a new flavor. I called it sssssssss…

"You… called the cupcake… ass? Also Pinkie did I just say that out loud?"

>"I don’t know, did you? Anyway who do you want these cupcakes for? Huh? Huh? Somepony I know? Well cettainly it is somepony I know because I know EVERYPONY."

“That’s for a… friend of mine. And that’s a surprise. So I won’t tell.”

>”Ooooooh, a surprise cupcake party? Twilight, you are rubbing of me the more you live in ponyville. I’m so proud of you. Also rubbing ponies together is FUN! Can I rub you?”

“Pinkie, don’t. I’ve just been rubbed for 3 hours straight. I won’t take any more rubbing.”

>”Well then, a box of super-secret cupcakes for you. When do you want them?”

“Can you get them ready by tomorrow morning?”

>”Surrree! But you have to tell me who is that secret friend of yours. OH MY GOSH do you have a special somepony? Who is it? How long have you been together? Are you planning kids? Can I help name them? Should I..."

“PINKIE! NO! I don’t have a special somepony! This is just my secret friend, whom you will certainly meet when the time comes!”

>”Is the time now?”

>You just continue walking, sighing to herself and ignoring Pinkie’s suspecting stare.

>On a side note when she stares AND smiles at the same time it looks way too creepy.

 

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Dearest Twilight,

I regret to inform you that your request have uncovered a serious situation in the archives.

I myself was very happy to help with your research, however upon checking the catalog and casting a variety of search spells it appeared that several books, that according to the spell contained valuable information on the topic are missing from the archives.

Royal investigation is in place and the committee, created for such an urgent matter is currently performing a full check on the archive to discover what other books have disappeared – but we have no other results of the moment.

It looks like whoever has deviously stolen the books was after the same topic as you were.

Some of the books are irreplaceable, existing in only one copy, like one of the ancient tomes of “Mysterious Monsters” almanac.

Couple books available, that are containing such information, unfortunately, cannot be sent to you while the investigation is at place. However you might consider two new research topics – Centaurs and Mermaids (The second one was in an ancient transcription of a book of what seemed to be fairy-tale stories, this particular story was called in short catalog description – “Miniature Mermaid”.)

I hope it was at least of some help – I’m sorry that I can’t do anything else for you – we are in a state of shock about how somepony can bypass our security system that prevents any of the books from being stolen.

The Royal Investigator is planning to issue a wide search, but as these books were not in restricted access I doubt that any serious steps will be made to find them.

Only clue we have is the topic of your research – Humans. If you know of anypony interested in this topic aside you I’m sure Royal Investigation Team will be interested in this information.

Truly yours,

Dusty Papers

Grand Organizer at Canterlot Archives

 

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>You are now Anonymous.

>And you are having a rough time licking your wounds.

>The book on basic medicine is a very helpful thing to have, but it can't really describe what it FEELS to actually get hurt.

>You decided to call this thing a Deathhog

>Too edgy, maybe. But it’s certainly not a regular hedgehog.

>Hedgehogs don’t shoot their spikes at high velocities. And certainly don’t aim them right at you.

>At least they are reasonably receptive to steel.

>An axe is still an axe and no amount of spikes can stop a sharp and heavy blade from impailing you.

>Though while you were franctically chopping the bastart it managed to shoot a needle right through your fucking armpit.

>To say it hurts like hell is to say nothing.

>At least it’s not poisonous, or the poison is not really affecting you.

>Funny thing is that just yesterday you were able to pass near one of those things without it even spotting you. You thought they're peaceful.

>Maybe this one was already hurt. Or depressed. Or protecting it's territory.

>Well too bad - it's your territory now, and you won't tolerate shuch nonsence.

>Hope his meat is at least edible.

>Damn these spikes are sharp. If only you had a way to shoot them yourself. Probably it's the best time to make a bow.

>You grab the hilt of your hatchet with a dead hellhog impaled on the other end of it and drag it to your lair like a real caveman you are.

>Good thing - the deathhog is reasonably tasty, or it's just you being a good cook.

>Bad thing - you're almost out of hydrogen peroxide and would probably need to start brewing alcohol soon as an antiseptic.

 

 

>Being a Princess is no small feat. Every little girl wants to be one.

>Good thing that you are already a princess.

>Princess Celestia that is.

>And you are currently standing on a ceiling disregarding all laws of gravity.

>Not that you mind very much – it currently is a reasonably comfortable position, considering the options.

>Most of said options you can’t or don't want to even imagine – but you still assume they will be way worse.

>The room surprisingly is not a complete mess.

>A perfectly clean and organized office table, a neat cozy armchair

>And in that armchair…

"For the last time Discord we had a deal!"

>"There you go again"

"You can not open an “ambassy of chaos” or a “chaotic court”…"

>"Can it be “chaos academy”"

"OR a chaos academy right now without having any employees."

>"But Celly!"

"NO, a dozen copies of yourself do not count as employees. Dozen coackroaches turned into ponies do not count too."

>Somewhat sad smile on Discord's face was definitely an act. You prefered to think that anyway.

>"Aww"

"Don’t “aww” me, they have eaten half of the stuff on royal kitchen when you let them out!"

>Discord’s cheeks look inflated. They are also colored like little watermelons for some reason.

"Look, discord, we already talked about this. You even had a couple applications after I finally made you put an advertisement in the newspaper."

>"Yeah and most of them thought it was just a prank. How do ponies never uunderstand when it is a prank, and what it isn’t? I mean it's pranking 101 - don't you have this course in scools any more?"

"There never was one."

>"Oh! Than that's one more proposal I'll try to push on the next session!"

"Please... actually that's not the worst of your ideas. But that's not our current topic. The question is why didn’t you employ the rest of the ponies who answered the ad?"

>"I already told you. It’s simple – they are not chaotic enough. I can’t let my first and most important attempt to offiticlly get a place in this place be completely ruined by something not up to my standards. I have a reputation to maintain you know. It already suffered a severe blow from all the redemption thing."

"Well than I’m afraid you are almost out of luck around my little ponies. Harmony is our national idea after all."

>"Well there is one I can consider inviting to the position…"

"Oh Really? Do tell."

>"Yes, really. But she already has a full-time job. And you won’t allow her to work here anyway."

"Oh THAT one. Yes, I’m afraid letting miss Pie work here will not put a good image for the elements of harmony and would be a subject to a lot of rumors and conspiracies."

>"Well we have already dealt with a lot of rumors after my redemption, did we not?"

"True, but only when I caught a certain someone who was behind most of the rumors and explicidly forbade to spread any more of them."

>You thought  you had seen everything in your life , but some of the articles surprised you. And gave you weird thoughts.

>Princess Molestia? Really now? I mean there was a time when you were young but such details… ugh. Just ugh.

"So?"

>"So what?" Discord mimicked, while sawing a little pink alicorn statuette in half with a handkerchief

"So I repeat for the last time. Find a real employee. Who will, not by a trick or a threat join your "ministry", "academy" - whatever it is.  

>"And if I won’t?"

>"Then you’ll have to wait till you can, dear. Please understand, that I'm not doing this of spite or to mistreat you in some way. Things in this country are done in a certain way - and I want to do all I can to integrate you into it. But you also have to learn to play along. Now I’m afraid I have regal matters to attend. There is a letter from my dearest Twilight waiting to be read.

>You knew that Discord's flapping arm, producing "Blahdi-blah-blah" sounds in tact with your words was just an act. He was way cleverer than that. And probably this time he will finally deal with the fact that you won't just let it slide. Discord has to start playing along. Sooner or later.

 

>"This is ridiculous. Completely and utterly crazy!"

>You heard about an attempted bank heist couple month ago.

>You also read about a crazy robber on canterlot streets who robbed precisely one pony before getting caught in today's news.

>Crime was not a common - but occasionally happening thing in Equestria.

>But robbing a temple of knowledge?

>Can anything even compare to this atrocious act?

>And the perfect time as well! Right when you need to do research – you are left without any tools to perform it.

>No magic, no books.

>But you refuse to acknowledge you are useless.

>It's the next day, you are once again Twilight Sparkle and you are ready to go.

>Guess you have to do the research on the field.

>Compass? Check.

>Standard equestrian special force field ration. Check.

>Multipurpose knife. Check.

>Ought of sturdy rope. Check.

>After running through a dozen more items on the checklist you are ready to venture into the unknown.

>There is last thing left to pick up.

>A “Thank you” package. Hope pinkie did not mess anything up.

>You head to Sugarcake Corner and find exactly no pinkies inbound.

>Well good on her for leaving the actual package for you.

>It is neatly wrapped and even has a “thank you!” written in big letters on it - even though you never mentioned anything like that.

>You grab the package, thank Mister Cake and move on, carefully examining your surroundings to avoid your friends.

>It is best that they won’t notice you leaving the town AGAIN or else they’ll definitely try to follow you or stop you.

>It was hard enough to persuade Spike that it’s fine. And he even forced you to run a checklist another time, which almost put a tear in your eye.

>Step one – reach Zecora

>Step two – Ask her for directions and find the tree-house again.

>Step Three – say “Hi”, present cupcakes and commence the QA session getting as much information as you can.

>You also consider keeping the session discreet under disguise of casual conversation.

>That should certainly work.

 

------------

 

>It's a little earlier and you are once again Anon

>You just marvel over yourself right now.

>It is pretty weird - you have never been physical, never liked running much and never even lifted.

>But now, just a couple weeks in the forest and you become stronger every day.

>The progress is much quicklier than you thought possible.

>You doubt you are a physical prodigy - but your muscles definitely get stronger every day. Especially your arms.

>Trees were always a friend and you loved climbing - but this is getting silly.

>You easily swing the vines and climbing trees take seconds.

>No longer the second rope for your house is needed - you easily ascend with your hands only with a single rope...

>Maybe there's something in the air, never polluted with technological civilization.

>Maybe it's the healthy food, not genetically modified fruits (Thanks Zee for giving you all the necessary hints about what you can and cannot eat), and fresh prey.

>But you can't really complain.

>The circle around your house where you move never descending from the tree branches is rapidly increasing as you remember the favourite routes and perfectly located branches.

>You can even reach Zecora's without descending already.

>Hopping the branches like a monkey, swinging the wines like a true tarzan.

>And like a true tarzan you opt to no longer wear anything but underwear covered with a grass skirt. Outside of home that is - the scratches on your skin heal rapidly as if you are a fucking wolverine - but ripping your favourite T-shirt is what you truly fear.

>The amount of clothes is limited after all, and stitching was never your prefered way of spending what limited free-time you have.

>Oh and also sneakers. Running barefoot in the everfree can and will result in a nasty spike that will down you for two days.

>Don't want to repeat that.

>Thus - you are quickly jumping from branch to branch, still questioning your perfect balance.

>You even went out of your way to reinforce couple critical vines so that they won't snap in an unexpected moment.

>And it's safe! You've never met anything dangerous in the trees and birds nests are a perfect income of protein.

>You never steal all the eggs though - need to mind your territory.

>But now... now you see a new target. Your goal.

>Tobacco. You can certainly define the tobacco leaves when you see them. And this particular bush though far from your nest is what you desire.

>Almost a month without a smoke - after you spent the only pack you had in a day. The bush was not leaving your head while you got back home to get a bag for it.

>Tobacco is all you can think of while coming back as quickly as you could.

>Reaching it you drop the bag, marvell the smell and even delicately caress a leaf quickly detaching it afterwards.

>The leaves are bigger than you've expected - but the smell is certainly right.

>Now to dry them and once again enjoy your habit, now with 100% less chemicals.

>It's all natural after all.

>You start quickly picking the leaves from the bush only to be suddenly stopped in a pooping position by a loud scream.

>"NO!"

 

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>You are no longer Anon

>And the poor dear in front of you is going to break your heart.

>Hungry look on it's eyes, bare skin with all the fur missing.

>Some weeds stuck on it, multiple scratches and barely visible scars covering its body.

>And it's so desperate for food it's going to poison itself now!

>What animal in its right mind would eat tobacco?

>You must prevent this. At least scare it off for now!

>You step from behind the tree onto a little opening and scream on top of your lungs:

"NO! NO! Bad monkey! Don't you know you are going to poison yourself? Leave this bush this instant!"

>It quickly turns around with fear in it's eyes, then replaced with an intelligent spark of what looks like recognition.

"Now if you come with me I will give you aaaall the tastiest fruits an berries and flowers. Just leave this bush behind - don't you see what it have done to your fur?

>It seemed the creature considered her offer for a second, then hissed loudly and turned to run away

"No! Don't go I am not going to hurt you! Don't run!"

>But it probably was to scared and quickly disappeared inside the forest, clutching couple leaves in its hands.

>Now you knew that tobacco was addictive and thankfully there were not a lot of bushes on this particular part of the forest.

>It needed a lot of sunlight so it was able to grow on rare open areas of the everfree, on the very edge, where the forest was not as thick.

>You spent the rest of the day cutting all tobacco bushes and bringing a huge stack to your house.

>You can always try and sell them to ponies later, but the animals should not suffer.

>They don't know better after all.

>And you just HAVE to take care of this monkey.

>You are not completely sure it's a monkey though - it's nothing you have ever seen before.

>By the looks of it it is not from around here - maybe that's why it tried to eat the poisonous leaves?

>Should try to get it some decent food, maybe it's losing it's fur because of that...

>Carrots? Fruit?

>Possibly the best idea would be to lure it with some delicious Applejack's apples.

>You feed Angel with a look of determination on you

>A newfound goal taking over your thoughts

>An animal is in danger.

>And you have to save it.

 

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>Once again you are Anon

>You can handle a lot of things.

>But looking from the treetops as your newfound hope gets destroyed makes you almost cry.

>You clutch the 2 leaves you saved in your hands.

>Doesn't matter. You will find more. If it grows here she wouldn't be able to destroy every last bush all around the forest.

>You are not desperate enough to confront her yet.

>Come to worst you'll just do something stupid - but you can handle the addiction right now. It should also pass with time. Hopefully.

>At least you were clever enough not to show the signs of real intelligence.

>Fucking Fluttershy