Chapter 2: From Forest  to Desert

             Or: A true display of magic

It didn't take me long to reach and enter the forest known as the Everfree. However, I didn't recognize it being so….much forest. Last time I walked across the Everfree Kingdom of Equestria, it wasn't as huge as this forest. So…the forest must have taken part of the rest of Equestria at that time.

Well, it was quite easy to travel through the forest as every single predator like Cockatrice and Manticores knew that I was certainly no prey. One time I came across a little manticore pup and his mother. The mother looked quite terrified, fearing what I could do to her little one. I just picked him up and nuzzled him. He nuzzled me back…it was somewhat cute.

After that I finally reached my destination, the Old Castle of the Pony Sisters, or otherwise known as the Everfree Castle. And…I was quite shocked. I built that castle with my very own hooves, it was meant to stay for an eternity. But now all I see are ruins of a former glory…

I just stood there and looked at it….I don’t know how much time has passed but it was nighttime when I finally came back to my senses. I knew I had to do something, I had to renew this place, to make it fit to my needs and my imagination right now.

But first you have to know something. I guess you are all away of the multiverse theory, right? Good, so every universe has it’s own kind of magic. Back in my real home world, there was no magic at all. In Runeterra, there existed several different forms of magic, mostly based on mana, a source of spiritual energy. Here…I don’t know exactly how it works but every living being carries an essence besides it’s very own soul. That essence determines if and what kind of magical capabilities said being possesses.

Now, upon my arrival here, my own magic properties have…not really changed. You could rather say they ‚grew‘. Here, I am capable of doing more than in Runeterra.

So I did what I thought would be best. I used my inherent ability of absorbing the life of surrounding wildlife, flora, pretty much anything around. While doing that, I accidentally started a sandstorm around me…that has happened before. I was more worried about being spotted with that storm surrounding myself.

So…all plants, even the grass simply died and withered away. The earth lost all of it’s water and turned to sand. Now, it wouldn't be a problem if it were just the area around me but upon second look it seems like I turned like half of the forest to desert.

Since it was my  land now, I had to give it a proper name. I wanted it to be like my ‚home‘ in Runeterra so I called it „Shurima Desert“. Now all left was the castle ruins which crumbled in the process of turning forest to desert. I called upon the magic of the sands and turned the ruins into a library which would put some castles to shame. It was at least half the size of Canterlot Castle and was made out of sandstone.

As I entered my new home, I was quite satisfied. Thousands of Thousands of books rested inside the Grand Shurima Library, all created with the magic of the sands. They contained all knowledge I had, leading to me knowing a lot. Inside were torches giving off a mild red light with their flames, a perfect place to study.

But before I would start anything wasting probably weeks, I needed to know where my desert actually ended. So I left the library, locked it with a favorite spell of mine and went on looking for the borders of that wasteland. It probably took several hours since the sun was already rising again and I found the border of the desert and the forest. Fortunately, it was still quite some way to Ponyville. Unfortunately, it was close to Zecora’s hut. So she would find it out soon and could go into the desert looking for an explanation to all this.

Venturing to the south, I quickly saw that I took the entire forest there, leading to the desert ending in the wastelands around Appleloosa and Dodge Junction. With that knowledge, I walked back to my library and entered it once again to finally start reading something.

You have to know that, since I am immortal in the way of not aging, like the celestial sisters, I quickly thought of everything getting boring after some time, which I had plenty, and all left for me to do was to gather knowledge. And since I lived a long time in Runeterra and I believe even longer in Equestria, I had plenty of knowledge to collect.

It even surprised me at that point that I stored my entire knowledge inside that library but it was interesting nonetheless to actually see one’s experience and memories shown to others in the shape of books.

Anyway…before I waste days of telling you how much I love books and before I actually start retelling all of my life up to this point to you, it would be probably better to continue, not that there is much to continue right now.

I walked up to the third of probably five floors of this library and found an isolated spot where I could enjoy reading some entertaining fantasy novels. Quite the irony, actually, reading what is classified as ‚fantasy‘ while most of the things described in those are actually quite possible in this world.

Well, I was reading several books, leading to my little reading session actually taking around two to three days, I can’t remember right now. But because of me absorbing the energy of the flora as I created the desert, which was highly potent in the way of magical properties, I didn't have to actually leaving and consuming some of the wildlife roaming around in the Everfree.

So, I closed another of the books I finished, almost dome with the entire ‚fantasy‘ section, I suddenly heard the doors of my humble place of knowledge opening, followed my hoofsteps echoing on the stone ground. I knew it was just one pony because of the additional hoofsteps and the wing beats missing. And because of the spell I locked my library with, I could probably even guess who this pony in particular was. But after hearing her voice echoing in those halls, I was sure that she finally made it to my place.

„Hello, is anypony inside?“ Next Chapter: While Changes are made... Estimated time remaining: 19 Minutes