Chapter 27: Beyond Everfree Forest
The world is charted well beyond territories to the north, east, and west. However, the southern extremes of Everfree Forest have never been successfully charted. Since ancient times, Nopony ever returned from a southern venture of approximately one thousand kilometers.
All alternate routes were exhausted throughout time without success. The general thought later became that the world was flat, and south of Equestria was the final southern extreme, which agreed with the thoughts of most religions at the time. Everypony who had supported the theory of a spherical world was targeted, socially rejected, and in some lands, executed. Sir Isaac Hoovton, known for his contributions to Non-Magical Classical Physics, was not allowed extradition to Equestria, and was executed in the recently independent United States of Amanica in 534 A.S.[anno solaris]
Hoovton's theories concerning normal gravity required the world to be sphere-shaped, although he never explicitly believed nor emphasized it.
Pegasi later developed the ability to fly to higher skies. A special flyer group soared upwards and towards the south and sent down their messenger with written descriptions of what the group had seen. The whole group then mysteriously fell down to Everfree forest. Their bodies were never found.
As for what they had seen: Beyond the mountains and forests was a harsh, red desert.
Scientists could not accept that such a blunt climate transition from forest to desert was possible, and dismissed the account as a result of the lack of oxygen the group suffered in such heights.
"… That's it?"
Twilight Sparkle was slightly annoyed. For a few days she had been trying to investigate further mysteries on Everfree Forest, and was disappointed at the lack of information and history for what was actually beyond. The unicorn was reading on her bed and had a small stack of books next to her on the floor. She used her horn to close the book she was reading.
Twilight looked outside the window next to her. She realized it was getting late and recalled the sunset at this time of year was a definite marker of lights-out time.
After having her attention focused to reading for a long period of time, she finally started observing her room. It was large, but it wasn't extravagant. Her bed was at a raised floor along with many shelves of her favorite books. The rest of the room at the normal elevation was also filled with books that she tended to read often.
After relaxing for a few minutes, Twilight suddenly felt her stomach grumble. She realized she had not eaten anything the whole time she was reading and chuckled for a bit at the fact.
"I guess it's time for… late night brunch," she snickered to herself.
Twilight got off from her bed and made her way down a set of stairs calmly as if her hunger was of little priority. After exiting her room, it was only another set of stairs to the first floor. To her right was the main area of her home and library. The walls towered over two stories high, only decorated with bookshelves and books. Books, a lot of books, and too many books were everyday for Twilight. Fiction books, Physics books, and History books accented the tremendous amounts of Magic books that flooded most of the walls.
But instead of her right, she headed to her left. It was a simple path to her dining area. She first saw her table, a simple wooden table that was raised at merely her neck level. Her table was accompanied by four soft, small haystacks for sitting. To the opposite side of the room was a kitchen area. It simply contained a small sink, a stove and oven, and a small refrigerator as well as a storage area for utensils and pottery, and a larger storage for food.
Twilight went on ahead to her food storage closet. She heard a sudden bump in front of her.
"HEY TWILIGHT!"
"AAGH!? What the?!"
Twilight was startled by the closet being abruptly opened and the fact a small, sky blue, pegasus-like pony with an undone mane of multiple radiant colors was lying on the floor in front of Twilight.
"R-rr-rainbow Dash?!" stuttered Twilight.
"That's my name, at your service!" replied Rainbow Dash.
"What in the world are you doing in my food closet!?" she asked, very annoyed.
"Well…" started Rainbow Dash, as she got up from the floor, "I got here this afternoon and I knocked on your door, but nobody answered. I remembered Spike was on his vacation and then I assumed you were away or something. Then I got hungry and I was didn't think you'd mind if I grab some of your grub, so I went in and into your kitchen."
"Which does not answer why you are inside my food closet at this hour," protested Twilight. Rainbow Dash started snickering.
"I started laughing kinda hard after I heard some funny moaning upstairs! What were you doing moaning? Did I bark in at the wrong time? So who--"
"Hold 'em horses, Rainbow Dash!" interrupted Twilight, "I was just sleeping all afternoon! And your mentions of such moaning do NOT carry the implication of whatever that it appears you are giving me. And what in the world are my pans doing scattered all over the floor?"
Rainbow Dash turned to look and paused for a second. "Oh, so that's what hit me hard in the head and knocked me out!"
"Rainbow Dash, you're unbelievable," said Twilight, face-hoofing.
"Right, but seriously! Why couldn't we find you all day and what was that moaning about!? Huh?"
Twilight appeared hesitant. "I just had a pretty strong nightmare… twice. Last night and during my nap," explained Twilight.
"So you didn't go out all day because of a silly nightmare? You got us lonely out there!" replied Rainbow Dash.
"I'm very sorry for that," said Twilight, "it was just creepy and it somehow got me very tired and stressed out. I don't want to bother you with it."
"Oh, come on Twilight, I've got plenty of time to kill! Let's talk this over some tomato soup and tea!"
** ** **
The smell of fresh tomato soup filled the air of Twilight Sparkle's dining room. Twilight got to warming up the soup over a gas stove after Rainbow Dash boiled some water for the tea. Twilight, using her snout, turned off her stove by turning a knob in a small, specialized control panel next to the stove. Rainbow Dash was simply standing by the tea on the table, waiting for the tea bags to finish releasing their flavor.
"Alright, looks like the soup is done," said Twilight. She used a dipper to pour some soup into two white bowls. Rainbow Dash eagerly approached one bowl and got it balanced on her wing. Twilight was able to balance her bowl with the top of her hoof and managed to walk to the table on three legs. Twilight saw that Rainbow Dash had already poured tea for each of them.
"You know, I'm having quite a bit of difficulty wanting to forgive for just breaking in like that," proclaimed Twilight.
"Yeah yeah, sorry about that," replied Rainbow Dash, "But seriously, start spilling. What have you been having freakish nightmares of?"
It took a moment for Twilight to generate her starting words.
"What actually got me extremely frightened," started Twilight, "was that I felt like the dreams lasted forever. When I woke up, I had such a difficult time orientating myself with how much time had really passed. I never felt something like this in a dream before. Maybe it felt like it was just a couple of months? I don't remember it all, but there were plenty of scary moments.
"It began by me being in a net and carried around by… humans. They were of course weirdly dressed unlike in the old Pony's-tales books. They just had me imprisoned in a few large cases. It was horrible! All living conditions were unacceptable. This was only for a while until they finally forced me out and took me to some sort of room with doctor people all over."
Twilight realized that she was leaving Rainbow Dash somewhat astounded. Rainbow Dash had also taken a few drinks from her soup by using her hooves to bring her bowl to her mouth to drink.
"Wow… that's quite freaky," said Rainbow Dash, "Have some of your soup now or it'll get cold."
"Oh, right!" replied Twilight. Twilight reached her neck down to allow her to sip her bowl of soup and her tea.
"And you say you had the exact same dream twice?" asked Rainbow Dash.
"Yes! The exact same thing," replied Twilight.
"Oooh, so what happened next?"
"They held me down on this table and they did some weird stuff," said Twilight, "They put some weird suit on my stomach. That part feels very blurry, I just remember the people walking everywhere. But when they let me go and I found myself back in a cage." Twilight started to shutter. "Then… this weird, tall, fat guy stood in front of my cage. Oooh, was he creepy! Creepy round eyes, creepy red glasses, creepy, pale pink, balding hair… Pinkie's pony's-tale about her cupcakes felt girly compared to the shivers I felt from this guy!" Rainbow Dash started to shake, slightly intimidated. "Do you know what he said to me?"
"Ngghh… what did he say?" whispered Rainbow Dash.
Twilight let out a little forced coughing in preparation of imitating a low, squeaky voice.
"'Yeee, Pruhty pony, I hope you arrr ready da give buiwrth to my ingeeeenious result of meh j'netic ennjahnieeerin'! MWUAHAHAHA!!!'"
"UUAAGH!!" Rainbow Dash screamed, flinched, and fell from her haystack seat. "G-g-give birth to WHAT?!"
"I know, freaky right!?" replied Twilight, "After that, I was left all alone… it felt like months passed by. I could also just… tell it didn't feel normal because usually one gives birth at ten months, but I just felt and knew it was… two months. It was two months of jail, horrible food, sickness, smell—"
"And no books?" interrupted Rainbow Dash, semi-jokingly.
"I would think the lack of books would be the least of my worries in that situation," replied Twilight, not impressed at Rainbow Dash's sudden attempted comedic act.
"Oh, well… continue then. Two months of what?" said Rainbow Dash.
"Well, two months of also…" continued Twilight, "…well… just horrible conflicting feelings about supposedly my own foal or filly, you know? It was, of course, a product of these alien humans, but still, it was mine."
Twilight noticed Rainbow Dash had finished her soup and tea.
"Twilight, did you…"
"Yes, I eventually gave birth," said Twilight, "It felt more like tormenting pain all over my body, or at least that's how I remember it. Next thing I know… she was on the floor. That's when feelings of joy... and fear struck me at the same time."
"Wait, why fear? You had a daughter!" proclaimed Rainbow Dash.
"First thing," stated Twilight, "Was that she already had a cutie mark: A white, glowing halo. Second thing was that I noticed she had a large set of wings. But they felt more powerful than normal Pegasus wings."
"…Now that's just full freak," commented Rainbow Dash.
"And that was it. I suddenly felt a few seconds of… bliss. Then I just woke up, gasping from the fear."
"Woooaaah…" said Rainbow Dash, completely astounded, "And all this time I thought you dreamt about books and math all the time."
"Well no," replied Twilight, "What I usually dream of depends on what I read that day, but I don't have dreams that often anyways."
"Twilight, you know what I think?" said Rainbow Dash, "I think you just read too many of them fiction books and started making up scary shizz in your sub-consciousness. Stop reading so much! Relax. Go to more of Pinkie Pie's parties! I'm no psychiatrist, but I think your mind is officially out of steam and screaming for help."
"Hmm… maybe you're right," replied Twilight, somewhat uncomfortable at the idea that books might have actually started to become a problem for her. "I think… I'll have to go see the town psychiatrist, just to be sure, but what you say makes a lot of sense."
"Well, I'll also tell you to not let this scare you, y'know?" continued Rainbow Dash, "I mean, poor thing, I got scared mostly at the fact of birth given at your age! That's also full freak, man!"
"I know, even that subject with three-year-olds like me is sort of a gray area," replied Twilight.
Twilight consumed a little more of her soup and tea while Rainbow Dash continued to rant about her astonishment to Twilight's dream. Twilight was slightly comforted by Rainbow Dash's support as they conversed.
**
"Alrrriighty!" said Rainbow Dash, "Well, Pinkie Pie is holding this big welcome party in 2 days for this new physicist Pegasus at the university. So are you coming?"
"Oh I'll be there alright," replied Twilight, "I'm actually starting to study physics, you know, to try learning something new. I'll be needing somepony who's an expert on the subject."
"Great! You just have fun at the party," said Rainbow Dash. She suddenly realized how long it had been since the sun had set. "Woah, it's already late for sure! I'm gonna have to fly away in a hurry."
"Oh, you're right," replied Twilight, "Well, I'll see you—"
Next thing she noticed was that Rainbow Dash had zoomed out of the dining room.
"Bye Twilight!!!" she shouted. Twilight then heard her doors forced open. Rainbow Dash was out.
"Agh, the nerve of her!" said Twilight. She turned to see a dirty opposite side of her table. She then exited the dining room to notice a few books by her front door knocked down.
