Witches of the Everfree - Prologue

The Old Ways and the Forest

Before the world started to turn it was the time of Gods and Demons.

They created the world as a hunting ground, for the Carnvorae to prey and the rest to survive.

Very few remembers their names, fewer care honoring them, almost none believe they still exist. Their memory is mocked in childish, materialistic festivities whose real origins became lost.

Before civilization there was the Wild, the Unpredictable, conflict and misticism.

The Spirits of old spoke and it was law, the God King created the Ley Lines to shelter his people.

But the slayer of the God King infected the Ley, the deers disrupted nature, the land was tamed, the beasts cast away. Mortal logic dictated new laws, rituals were replaced by trade and politics, technology is slowly replacing magic itself. The Spirits were silenced.

Before Ponyville there was only the Forest, Everfree.

Ask the common citizen of Ponyville and he will tell you the Everfree is unnatural. As the pegasi of Equestra create the weather, for it to drift to the nearby lands, The Everfree creates its own weather. Its trees still grow wild and infused with strange magic, they hide wondrous and terrible beasts. Ancient spirits whisper in its shadows.

It was the old home of Luna and Celestia and the birthplace of Nightmare Moon. The sun regent was forced to cast away her own sister, is the wind imbued with her regret? The Forest is old as the very Ley Lines, is that magic lingering in the soil?

The Everfree the last remnant of the true nature of the Wild in the heart of a tamed land, a memory of the mysteries and dangers of the Old World. The ponies of Equestria shuns it and fear it, but they are mesmerized by its magical energies and the gifts it offers.

It will persist for eons more, they will try to contain it and yet they will spread its fruits. It will persist even as progress and greed will make ponies blind and turning them against their neighbours. The world may turn into a wasteland but the Forest will persist, and grow unchallenged.

The Forest is alive, hostile to the ignorant, the deaf and the blind. But to those who remember the Old Spirits, who can speak the lost language of the wind and the earth, the Forest is welcoming. They can call it home, befriend its dangers, share its power. To those who can still remember the old prayers, who respect the old evils and horrors, it will come to their aid.

These people are branded as witches, vampires and freaks, seen as evil and depraved. They are accused of meddling with dark powers, to chant to fiends like Discord and the Wolves, to spill and drink the blood of other creatures, to dance with ghosts and corpses and copulating with savage beasts.

All of this is true of course, because these were the old rituals of the world.