Bushkeeper

by Odd_Sarge

31 - Stories

After two hours of solid work with his ponies, Andrew felt satisfied with their progress in learning English. Following a weak attempt at sending the ponies off via hand gestures, he bent down to see what the problem was.

“We promised to teach you of the lands,” the white pegasus mother neighed.

Andrew blinked. “Oh, that’s what this is about?”

The blue unicorn stallion stepped up next. “Please let us teach you, Bushkeeper.” He gave a gentle smile. “We have much knowledge of the world that may be brought to you.”

Shrugging, the teenager waved his hand. “Lead on.”

And so off they went.

As the herd left the all too literal pony pasture, they passed by the shelter that the earth ponies had been hard at work digging out. A couple of the earth ponies in the working herd stopped by to talk briefly with their departing brothers and sisters, and so Andrew took the time to inspect the ponies’ efforts. The dugout looked nearly identical to the one that he had seen near the beginning of the previous week, though this one seemed fairly larger. The hill they had chosen to carve into was actually quite well selected; it was located right at the top of the bumpy terrain, and had a smooth slope out front that led straight down to the river at an easy angle.

Soon enough, the ponies and Andrew were back to walking around the wide plains and forests.

The earth ponies talked a lot about the land around them. Every blade had an important role to play in the grand scheme of life, and every leaf on each tree was significant to the story of the soil. Andrew found that the words of the earth ponies came wise, storytelling, and fortified with the roles that everything had to play in the world around them. They told him stories of the yellow grass and how it sustained an entire valley at one point. They told him stories of each crack in the earth and how they wood grow to be wide caverns full of life. They told him stories about the worms, the crickets, the birds, the field mice, and the bees that lived off the land and nourished it in return. They told him stories for every oak, birch, and pine and how their branches would support the earth and air in harmony.

The pegasi told stories of their own. Andrew was brought into a world of bravery, friendship, and the harsh circumstances that every being was imparted with. They told him tales of the sky and how its blue would allow another day to pass in bliss. They told him tales of the clouds and how they roamed wild and required the cloudmasters to bring them to the earth. They told him tales of how the sun and moon wandered far beyond the sky, watching over each of the ponies and providing to them only the best of knowledge. They told tales of the tiny wisps of faint light that only the pegasi could see, and Andrew found that to be the most curious tale. Those tiny wisps of light, he was told, held the very fragments of the world together, and without their cooperation with the cloudmasters, the very seams of nature’s fwafwa would be nothing.

The unicorns shared with him their adventures amongst the land. They were the true travellers, as they had seen much of the world in its earliest times. They told of their true wish to share as much knowledge as they could amongst themselves, and now, the Bushkeeper. Their adventures told of how the fwafwa could be bent to the will of nature and support the life of every creature and thing in existence. Their adventures told of their long-imposing desire to find the high place to watch over the world for however long time moved and how close they were to reaching such a goal. Their adventures told of the magic pools that scattered the land and how the whispering natures of harmony itself would heal their wounds and bind their thoughts. Their adventures told of their struggle to get the sky gods’ attention so that they could bring all pegasi, earth ponies, and unicorns together into one supreme being, the pegacorn.

Andrew found himself enthralled by the ponies’ words, but he was smart enough to see each species’ interpretations of the world. Every story was not just about the land he stood in, but further more about the very fragments that formed their early societies of culture. From the pony tales Andrew saw that the earth ponies wanted to keep the land unified, and wanted to do everything in their power to keep the unicorns and pegasi from defiling the land with their own agendas. He saw that the pegasi wished to live alone with nature, but had yet to find a way to do so due to nature’s reliance upon the other pony species. From the unicorns came the knowledge that they wanted to be the only species left amongst the lands, watching, wandering, and ruling.

It was with their stories that Andrew saw the harsh truth of his existence in the magical land. It was far beyond Harmony’s agenda, the plan to keep the world stable in a time of chaos. He realized that he had been deceived, but not in the way he believed. The facts had been left out ever since his communication with one of the gods above, and now with those very facts in hand, Andrew realized the gravity of the situation.

The chaotic monsters of nature were not the true enemies to the ponies, the ponies were the enemies to themselves.

The Bushkeeper supposed that he should have seen this coming. Andrew prophesied what would come following his departure from the ponies; conflict. Though the ponies around him were simply the followers of their leaders, and subsequently, an early culture, he knew that fighting would begin within years following his leave from this land. The fire back to the south had only been a play of fate, thrown in to begin the journey towards the devastating pony conflicts. Andrew was the first step in this journey, because there was no unity amongst the ponies as of yet, but if a civilization were to arise under humanoid circumstance, there would most certainly be a reason to fight amongst themselves.

Sucking in a breath, the teenager nodded and thanked the blue unicorn for his story. Andrew needed time to reflect further over the unicorn’s words, for the solution to this abruptly known situation was nowhere in sight. Following this, however, he knew that one thing still needed to be done: if the ponies were to survive the cruel dice of fate, he would have to unify them. The consequences would come later, and in a brief stroke of pure intelligence, Andrew realized that he would never live long enough to see the ponies’ adventures through.

There was some bitter irony to all of this, but all Andrew could do was smile; he had better things to worry about than the future of ponykind.

So the teenager walked his ponies home.

Much work had to be done, still, and with their walk completed, Andrew gathered up all thirty-six of the ponies in his one, massive herd, and began to teach words again. It was like a field trip of sorts, where he went around and pointed every which way and named the world’s pawns. Over the span of eight hours, with breaks every so often, he felt that the ponies were well acquainted with their new words; trees, apples, water, grass, sky, sun, and most importantly, monster. Andrew was particularly proud with that development, his impression of the bear and the fear that it had caused in the foals was enough to tell the ponies what the word meant.

At around nine at night, the collective herd had managed to devour most of the apples in one part of the grove, dig out a shelter that snugly fit thirty-six ponies and a human, and learnt a little bit more about their biped leader’s language. With the help of Sparky and Andrew, some of the ponies even managed to learn how to strike fires of their own. Though they did not know the human’s true intentions in surrounding the camp with contained campfires, Andrew knew what he was doing; the light would keep the monsters away, he was sure of it. He also taught them that using flint and a rock was much less painful than using a hoof and flint to start a fire.

With that final revelation, Andrew settled down into the earthen alcove and drifted off, surrounding by the warm bodies of the ponies.

---

Dawn came almost too quickly for his liking, but the teenager had come to expect early wake-up calls due to his status of living with the ponies. They were quite the noisy sort, if the foals playing at six in the morning were anything to go by. So Andrew stood and set off to begin his day.

As he stepped out of the alcove, he realized that something had gone wrong in the night. The first sign was a trio consisting of each of the pony species staring at the dirt. The second sign were the tracks in said dirt. Something had come in the night and scrambled across the earth, but for what reason? The answer was bright as day; something bigger had come by. Andrew shivered and bent down, picking up the large patch of orange fur that sat beside the tracks. He didn’t know what kind of creature the fur belonged to, but he knew that it had to be dangerous.

So he put the earth ponies to work building a ditch.

With a few more games of charades, in which Andrew dug a pit in the earth and motioned repeatedly for the ponies to dig with him, the hornless were fast at work digging across the line that the human had drawn in the dirt. The remaining unicorns and pegasi were sent off to gather apples and a variety of vegetables for the ponies to fatten up on. Andrew knew how much they needed it; most of the ponies still showed bone through their fur. This left him with his small portion of ponies, as well as his thoughts on what to do with their time. He decided to do a bit of exploring and gathering.

The ponies set off north, where they found the land beside the river flatten out. Andrew noted that it would be a good place to farm, and then they moved on. Their journey evolved into a wide circle around the surrounding area, in which Andrew gathered a bountiful amount of vegetables, grain seeds, and a few interesting looking flowers into his hiking pack. They stopped by the large woods to the south for a time, if only to gather sticks for the Bushkeeper’s pack. The teenager feared that the spiders would still be around to attack them, but after discovering the location where he had first encountered the spiders during his brawl with the rogue pegasus, Andrew decided to push the herd deeper into the woods.

There, they found the crystal pool where the human had rested. After a quick check, Andrew downed the rest of the water in his thermos and filled it with the healing fluid; who knew when it could come in handy? The ponies all seemed wary as he pulled away with his thermos, and this anxiety became clear to Andrew when the cream colored earth pony spoke to him on their way out of the pit.

“Bushkeeper, know that when you take from the earth, the earth will desire something in return.”

Andrew listened intently and gave her a nod and a pat. “I understand.”

Satisfied, the mare allowed the journey to move on.

After completing their circle around the area, in which not much was really explored, Andrew returned the ponies to the camp. Settling in and organizing his supplies in a small ditch that he had dug with his own hands, he went to check on the progress of the earth ponies. Only two hours had passed since they had begun, but they were making quick progress on the wide and meter-deep gap; it was nearly halfway done.

The white unicorn foal crawled up to Andrew.

“Play?”

Smiling, the teenager looked to the ponies all around him, hard at work in gathering food for their meals that night, and even harder at digging their first defence. He looked back to the foal and hoisted him up.

And so passed another day in the early beginnings of ponykind.

Comments

[Adjier]

Good stuff mate. Cool worldbuilding.

It's good that Andrew figured out what Harmony wanted him to do. I know I'd be lost in his situation.

Keep it up, this shit is gravy.

[Rhombicosidodecahedron]

8192440 hecking

[Hein des Nisseroi]

there would most certainly be a reason to fight amongst themselves

on how best to ensure control’’ ?

[Nikita]

Slow days are nice too

[Fireeaters]

Well if he'll pass before he sees the end of the adventure, maybe he should get on solving that. Maybe if he takes too much from the earth that'll be solved for him. Maybe the the earth will make him into a permanent guardian of the land, spirit or otherwise. That'd be cool to see.

[Lancerlot]

I like the idea of a ditch, though it would need to be wide enough that a large predator couldn't cross it easily. The soil and stones from the ditch could make the start of a wall just inside the ditched area, too. Would it be out of character to have sharpened wood stakes on it, to surprise anything that threw itself at the wall to climb it?

[Fanliterature101]

Pretty adventurous if you ask me...play some of these songs for the next chapters....it really brings the theme
https://youtu.be/knrN8_OQJcM?list=PLWm4_V-a7n5EwChmTp2SuMRenoguK-p4J

[44burn]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe the ponies got what they wished in the show: the pegasi got Cloudsdale; a city always on the move, the unicorns got Canterlot; a city high in the mountains overlooking the land, and the Earth ponies got Apploosa; a nearly purely earth pony town free of the influences of pegasi and unicorns.