Bushkeeper

by Odd_Sarge


11 - Interests

As the pegasi landed, Andrew could immediately feel the tension rise up from his stomach and into his throat. Swallowing in an attempt to clear the unwelcome feeling, he tugged at his hoodie’s collar. Despite the sun beaming down on the plains, it still felt chilly outside. Andrew shook his head and refocused on the now trotting pegasi.

The grey pegasus mare approached, and Mint greeted her with a neutral neigh. "Herd leader." Andrew had to resist dropping his mouth open as he continued to understand Mint. "How is the flock?"

"Hungry," the herd leader snorted, looking back at her uneasily pacing herd. "The Greenland has done well for us…" The herd leader turned back, stomping a hoof. "But not well enough."

This time Mint snorted a strong gust of hot breath, right into pegasus’ muzzle. "You know well that we will not leave."

"I know." the herd leader sighed, scuffing a hoof against the earth. "Those wingless are another problem; more food to be wasted."

"It is not a waste." Mint growled, taking a step forward. "Every life is valuable." The warm amethyst orb began to burn into Andrew’s leg, and with a hiss, he yanked it out of his pocket. Mint looked worriedly at the human staring into the hot, tempering orb.

“Bushkeeper?” she asked.

Andrew kept his eyes on the orb. “I’m fine.” Still worried, Mint turned back to the nearby pegasus. Andrew could see wisps of light beneath the surface of the orb, and though it did not burn as much for the time, when the ponies began to talk he felt the searing heat begin to pick up again. He focused harder on the conversation, eyes still trained on the artifact in his hand.

"This…"

"Bushkeeper."

"Bushkeeper… It could help us. We know it helps you."

"No." The orb shook at that.

Andrew looked up and watched Mint carefully.

"Then it is us or you… there is no compromise." With each word Andrew understood out of the pony language, his view of the pegasus herd leader dropped further and further.

'So much for being nice.' He slipped the tingling orb back into his pocket. Thankfully, it stopped emitting a scalding level of heat, but it remained warm.

Mint shook her head. "Go east."

"The marshlands are unsuitable."

"Go west."

"They are nothing but rocky plains."

"Then you will live in the Greenland, and you will learn to live alongside the herds."

"We will do no such thing." the mare huffed. Mint’s gaze softened.

"What happened, herd leader? Peace used to shroud these lands."

The grey pegasus looked away. "The long cold comes closer, and I fear we will not have the food to last."

That was worrying to Andrew; winter was coming.

"May we not share?"

The pegasus took a preparatory breath. "We carry too much pride to allow that." When Mint faced the pegasus again, she did not even look angry, she was simply disappointed.

"We will be able to gather more food with your help." Her ears perked up. "You winged can see the earth from the Above… Surely that could help us all?"

The pegasus seemed willing to agree with the statement, but after a moment, she shook her head.

"No."

Mint lowered her head and sighed.

"That is a shame."

The pegasus straightened herself. "We will fly north to graze… and on the eve of the Snow Moon, we will return."

"And then?"

"You will have food prepared for us, or we shall force you from these lands." Andrew held his breath as Mint silently fumed.

"Perhaps," she relented. "Goodbye, winged one."

"Goodbye." With nary a glance back, the herd leader took off, the pegasi following, save for one. Andrew bent down to one knee as the black colt approached him.

“You’re going for a while, it sounds like.” The colt ignored the comment and held his hoof out. Curious, Andrew slowly extended his hand. Grinning, the colt curled Andrew’s fingers into a fist and bumped it. Andrew’s eyes widened at the pseudo-fist bump, but smiled as the colt snorted and flew off.

“Bushkeeper?” Andrew reluctantly stopped waving to the disappearing form of the colt.

“Yes?”

“Home?” Mint pointed at the forest. Andrew thought about it for a moment, but shook his head.

“No.” Mint tilted her head at that. Andrew looked back out towards the north, where the pegasi were already nearing the waterfall. He clutched his walking stick a little closer to him. “I’m going to do so some scouting.”


Mint and Greeny had returned to the clearing, but Andrew had taken himself southeast of the central plain. He figured that if the northern part of the plain was occupied by dangerous spiders, that the southeast plain couldn’t fare any worse than that. There had been a small forest of trees, a little over a mile wide, and as Andrew pushed through the last of them, he found himself standing on the edge of a deep gorge. Andrew kicked a nearby stone over the edge. It fell for a solid seven seconds before hitting the bottom.

He let loose a whistle. “Yeesh.” Looking to the south, he saw that his view at the end of the ravine was blocked by yet another set mountains. As Andrew turned back to the north to walk along the edges of the berry thicket forest, a strange feature carved into the rocks caught his attention; a ramp leading down into the gorge. There was a flash of light from the bottom of the gorge, brief, but traceable to the mouth of a cave. Curiosity got the best of Andrew, and so he walked over to the ramp. It took a solid five minutes of walking to reach the top of the ramp, but he was soon descending down into the depths.


As Andrew stood before the cave entrance, he realized that the same mushrooms from the cave he had awoken in before lit the cavern. What the walls lacked, however, were the ribbons of color. With a single sliver of hesitation, Andrew entered the cave.

Something was familiar about the grey walls around him. He couldn’t quite place his finger on why he thought that way, but he knew that he had been there before. Black bats hung from the ceiling, their bodies wrapped up in their wings as the nocturnal creatures slept the day away. A fist-sized spider dangled from the ceiling, too occupied in knitting it's web to notice Andrew. As he came to the end of the path, he entered a new, much more open area.

The room was occupied mostly by a large mass of stone in the center. Andrew was able to discern that the form was a tree, despite the lack of leaves and the strange, jagged stone branches. Circular stone stalagmites stood beside the cave walls, topped mostly mushrooms, but also a few wildflowers. Andrew looked up to observe a small crack of light that was streaming into the cavern. How the sunlight was able to reach that far into the ravine was a mystery to Andrew, but there was a bigger mystery to investigate just ahead of him.

As he approached the stone sculpture, he took in the indented form of a sun and a moon. Recognition suddenly flooded his mind; this was the place where the orb had come from. The question; how did he know that this place had given him the orb? Andrew growled in annoyance when he was unable to come up with a reason for his knowledge of the place. He recalled that the tree had sprouted the orb, but something was strange about the tree, something that was different…

“It’s stone!” he blurted. A couple of bats behind him were startled, but went back to sleep despite the disturbance. He lowered his voice. “This wasn’t stone before… but when was before? Last night?” Andrew looked the tree up and down again. “The orb came from… a flower… but the tree is stone…”

Before he could further ponder the strangeness of the tree, a flash of light came from the behind it. Stepping forward, Andrew cautiously peered into the mushroomless darkness ahead. The light appeared again, but it was too bright to discern anything around it. Andrew looked around and plucked a big blue mushroom from nearby. Much to his disappointment, the mushroom immediately faded out. Sighing, Andrew eyed the darkness, thinking of something to light his way.

'The orb!' Scrambling for his pocket, Andrew took the amethyst orb in one hand. It didn’t glow immediately, but as frustration began to rise up once more inside him, a bright purple glow erupted from the orb. Lowering the orb a little so that he could see, Andrew began walking further into the cavern.

There was a mess of twisting turns in the strange tunnels, and on every turn, Andrew could see the light make its appearance known again and again. Impatience began to set in, the curiosity quickly fading. Andrew’s legs were getting tired by the fifteenth corner, but it seemed that his time was finally being rewarded when he stepped out into a field of grass.

As the orb’s light grew dim, Andrew slipped it back into his pocket. The field was quite small, as a wall of trees came up to form a border, not too far from him. In the middle of the field was a hunk of stone, and laying atop it was a brown, haggard mass, covered in mud. As Andrew approached it, he realized exactly what it was.

“My pack!” Andrew dropped the stick and stumbled the rest of the way forward in excitement. He slapped off the majority of the mud covering the object, and there was no doubt that what was laying in front of him was his backpack. Andrew zipped through the pockets of the large brown backpack, but he was unable to find anything that he had placed inside. It seemed that all he had left were his clothes, his watch, and now, his backpack. Despite the inconvenience, Andrew was pleased; the backpack would certainly help with exploring.

'How did it get here?' Andrew frowned, carefully checking the perimeter of the field. He had dropped the heavy pack to outrun the giant hydra that had been chasing him. Yet, there seemed to be no sign of a marshland anywhere nearby. Looking back at the stone that the bag had been sitting on, Andrew noticed that a set of muddy hoofprints lay on one side of the rock. Following the trail, Andrew expected that it would lead to a dead end, but he was surprised to find that it led straight back into the cave.

Turning back to the bag, Andrew cleaned it off the best he could, took one last glance around the strange clearing and then slung the bag on. He turned towards the cave and froze; the entrance was gone. Looking around, Andrew could see that the muddy hoofprints still led up to where the cave had once been, entrance replaced by a wall of stone. He looked upwards, neck straining to see the top of the cliff face. As the teenager realized that he now had no clue where he was, panic began to seep in, but he calmed himself.

'All I have to do is go north.' He found the sun and nodded. 'Then I just gotta go through the forest and back to the plains, or get lucky and find the thicket on the first go around.' Smiling, Andrew nodded his head; it was a plan, and that was a start. Full of optimism, the hiker picked his stick back up and made his way over to the northern trees of the field. He pushed aside the first branches in his way, but froze at a loud thumping.

Quite nearby, the roar of a hydra sent birds fluttering from their homes and into the sky above.