Seeking: Fountain of Youth

by mushroompone

Chapter 1

SEEKING: FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH

Stallion, 53, buckball player turned coach, looking for a way to turn back the clock. Open to anything - PTs, yogis, homeopathic remedies, support groups, etc. Serious inquiries only. Offering season tickets for a season's worth of help.

Contact Braeburn, 6 Appleloosa Ct, AL

Braeburn -

Heard you were looking for a personal trainer to get BACK in the GAME! Ponyville's BULK gym is looking for new members - just 40 bits/month, and you can get your first month FREE*!

There's only one thing you can say to a deal this good: YEAH!!

-Bulk Biceps, owner and head PT of BULK

*for a limited time only, minimum purchase six months membership

Namaste, Braeburn -

Feeling a little low lately? Or super zonked out? Are your vibes off? Is your energy totally wack?

It's a sign that your chi is all out of alignment. The quickest way to realign your chi - and to find total inner peace - is to sign up for Manehattan Spiritual Center deluxe care package. It includes:

For just 70 bits/month*, you can realign your chi and find inner peace.

Don't let your spirit down! Revitalize yourself, and revitalize your life.

Hope to see you soon, friend

-Treehugger

*Limitations apply, check listings for a detailed price breakdown of available packages

Hello.

I'll cut to the chase - I know you were being clever with your want ad, but I can offer you what you're looking for. Eternal youth, that is. Or, rather, eternal life at whatever age you are now.

That may not sound like the same thing, but I think you'll find that eternal life gives you plenty of time to get in shape. 

Only thing is I don't know you. I'm not too sure it's the solution you want. 

Let me know what you think. I'm good to go with the flow.

Braeburn furrowed his brows and read the hastily-written note over again.

It was true, he'd been a little coy with the phrasing of his ad. He expected, at most, a coy-but-serious response in return. Mostly he just figured that ponies would see it for what it was (an attention-grabbing title in a sea of similar ads) and get on with their offers.

And here he was. A stack dozens-deep of formula letters for expensive treatments, poorly-written self-help books, doctors promising a renewal after liposuction-- and this. An anonymous letter politely offering immortality.

He turned the letter over. Apparently this mystical being had never heard of a return address.

Breaburn scoffed. "Let me know…" he muttered. "How in the hay am I s'posed to do that?"

He dropped the letter, and it fell with an unceremonious tap on the top of his tiny wood desk. 

This was quickly followed by three more taps, and a soft "coach Braeburn?"

Braeburn looked up.

There, hovering in the doorway to his office, was a stallion he almost recognized. 

He had an interesting face, dominated by a mustache that distracted brilliantly from his unusually small eyes. As he peered around the door, Braeburn could only make out the brim of his straw hat and the sleeve of his floral button-up, but it was more than enough to paint a picture.

As the early-morning sunshine fell onto his face, the name rolled to the front of his mind. Half a name. Something… 

"Uh… Hondo!" The name suddenly leapt into Braeburn's mind as the stallion in his door smiled awkwardly. "Hondo Flanks, good to see you. Come on in."

As he spoke, Braeburn very discreetly swept the letter off the edge of his desk and into an open drawer.

Or perhaps not discreetly at all.

Hondo, being the good-natured fellow he is, said nothing about it and shuffled quietly into the room. "Hiya, coach."

He wasn't the most graceful of stallions. He looked a bit like the funhouse mirror image of an athlete; not exactly out of shape, but rather shrinking as you scanned from his gigantic hooves up to his tiny head. He certainly walked like it, too.

Braeburn noticed he was staring and looked down. "If you ain't on my team, you ain't gotta call me coach," he said, pushing his desk drawer shut. "Braeburn is just fine."

Hondo pushed the door closed with his rear hoof. "Okey-dokey, then, Braeburn."

Braeburn nodded kindly. "Why don't you have a seat?" he suggested, motioning to the chair across from his desk.

Hondo made a funny little scoff-laugh sound. "Now there's an idea, eh?"

He looked down at the chair and did something of a double-take. After a moment's consideration, he lowered himself down into it, and it creaked slightly under him.

Hondo grimaced, then shifted his weight to the other side. The chair creaked again.

"What can I do for ya?" Braeburn asked quickly.

Hondo looked up, the chair forgotten-- and seemingly everything else. His eyes were wide and almost utterly blank.

After a moment, though, it all came back to him. He heaved a deep sigh. The sort of sigh that precedes a long-winded and unnecessary explanation. "Well, y'know I'm a personal trainer over in Ponyville," he said. "Have been for a few years, now."

"I know it."

"Do ya?" Hondo smiled at this recognition. "Though-- well, 'course you knew that. That's probably how you know me."

Braeburn gave his visitor a small nod and an understanding smile.

"Well, anyways. That's just why I came here to talk to you-- wouldn'cha know it, I think I work with darn near every member of your team!" Hondo laughed. "That's includin' the reserves!"

"Well, sure," Braeburn said, reaching for his thermos of coffee. "They better be. I'm the one sendin' 'em all your way, after all."

If he was a little flustered before, Hondo was now completely confused. Not to mention more than a little red in the face. "Y'don't say? I guess I oughta… guessed that, eh?" 

He trailed off.

Braeburn tried to give him the space to continue. He folded his hooves politely on the table and watched as Hondo tried to find his train of thought. After a moment or two, though, he noticed the way Hondo was scanning the papers on his desk.

Just as Hondo was leaning over to observe the stack of letters, Braeburn cleared his throat. "Any way we could cut to the chase, here?” he said, slowly pulling the stack of letters in towards his chest. “Sorry, but I’ve got a practice to oversee.”

“A’course, a’course…” Hondo removed his ridiculous straw hat and mopped his brow with the back of his hoof. “Sorry about the, uh… I mean, it’s just so darn hot out there!”

“A desert’ll do that to ya,” Braeburn said, a wry smile tugging at his lips.

Hondo swallowed dryly. “Sure will, eh?” he mumbled, setting his hat back on his head. “Anywho, I… well, I was figurin’ I could set up shop here in Appleloosa. I could drop by a few days a week and work with your team. Cut out the middle mare, so they say.”

Braeburn furrowed his brows. “Uh… I mean, I ain’t got nothin’ against it.” He cocked his head. “What’s got you so keen on the extra effort? My players were already comin’ to you by, what, train? It’s not like you gotta come to them.”

The question seemed to catch Hondo off guard. For a moment, that same dumbfounded look came over him, and he couldn’t seem to get a word to form at all.

“Hondo?”

He blinked rapidly. “Well, gosh, I just figured-- I mean, I’ve been a fan of your team a while now,” he explained. “I thought we could both get a heckuva lot more done if we worked together. Doncha think?”

Braeburn frowned.

It’s not that he didn’t like the idea. Quite the contrary, in fact: his players had been flagging lately, and an extra team member could only help. He wasn’t as good with training as he was with strategy, after all…

But something seemed off to him.

He couldn’t quite put his hoof on it. Perhaps it was the way Hondo seemed blinded by what little light shone on him from between the blinds, or maybe it was the way he seemed to be pulling down on his mustache with a feverishness that bordered on the painful.

Or maybe it was just his whole… frantic, northern dad thing.

With a heavy heart, Braeburn realized that he was likely the same age as this fatherly stallion. He sighed, softly and wearily, and glanced up at the clock. A good five minutes past when he’d meant to start practice.

And, as uncomfortable as the stallion made him, he couldn’t think of a good reason to dismiss him.

Braeburn sighed. “I’m headed over to the stadium now, actually,” he said, getting to his hooves and circling his desk. “You wanna come with? Feel it out?”

“Oh, could I?” Hondo stood up, and the suddenness of the motion caused the chair to squeal across the tile floor before tumbling onto its side. “Ope. Sorry about that.”

Braeburn grimaced as he watched Hondo struggle to return the chair to its upright position. Even with magic, it seemed to present a challenge to the klutzy unicorn.

Braeburn was having trouble remembering why he’d recommended this stallion in the first place.

“Sure,” Braeburn said. “No harm in it.”

“Well, gee, that’s just fantastic!” Hondo exclaimed. 

In his excitement, he kicked the chair over again.

“Leave it,” Braeburn requested, polite but firm. “Come on, now. We’d better head out.”

Braeburn didn’t wait for Hondo to reply, just pulled the door open and started down the hall at a brisk trot. After yet another moment of stunned confusion, Hondo scuttled after him, pulling the office door shut behind him.

“I’m just tickled pink to work with buckball players,” Hondo continued, though nopony had asked. “I mean, what an honor, right? We’re really makin’ history with this whole thing.”

“Pardon?” Braeburn gave his newfound companion a quizzical look.

“Oh, y’know. The sport bein’ so new and all.” As Hondo spoke, he rooted around in the saddlebag he had strapped around his midsection, searching for something which seemed to elude his grasp. “Now, I’ve always been more of a watcher myself. But gettin’ up close and personal with the sport is a terrific opportunity, doncha think? Ah-ha!”

Before Braeburn could reply, Hondo had pulled a tube of sunscreen from his saddlebag. He squeezed a liberal amount of the stuff out onto his rear end and began to massage it in with a swirl of blue magic.

“Uh…” Braeburn tried to put his thoughts together, but could only stare as Hondo applied what others may have called an abusive amount of sunscreen to his flanks. “If by ‘new’ you mean… relatively. Buckball’s been popular for near 25 years, now.”

This put a miniscule hitch in Hondo’s step, though he disguised it expertly. “Well, sure. Relatively speaking.”

Braeburn nodded.

With nearly half a bottle of sunscreen massaged into his fur, Hondo seemed satisfied. He capped the tube and stuffed it back into his saddlebags. 

“I s’pose I know what you mean, though,” Braeburn replied. “I have to admit, it feels good havin’ my picture up in the museum. Nice to leave a legacy like that.”

Hondo nodded enthusiastically. “You betcha.”

“Especially since I’m… y’know, gettin’ up there,” Braeburn said, as casually as he could muster. “Not like I’ll be doin’ anything all that special with joints like these, will I?” 

He gave Hondo a playful nudge.

Hondo gave Braeburn a pained grin. The sort you flash somepony when they’ve said something more than a little concerning, but you’ve decided to blow past that for their peace of mind. “Oh, yeah. Got, uh… got some bad joints myself, doncha know?”

As if to prove it, Hondo stretched one foreleg out in front of him. The joint made a horrible pop-click sound as it did.

“Nifty fifties my flank,” Braeburn muttered. “Shifty fifties, more like.”

Hondo laughed at that. It was a chirping thing, like a squirrel.

The hallway ended in a set of red-and-yellow double doors, painted with the Appleloosa team's logo. Through the tiny windows, Braeburn could catch glimpses of his players as they darted back and forth, tossing balls to one another and swooping in for interceptions.

He spared no time, not even slowing down as he shoved open both doors and stepped out onto the field.

"Alright, team! Let's line up!" he bellowed.

His players seemed almost to snap to attention, all nine of them gathering from disparate areas across the field. As they organized themselves, chatting easily and exchanging playful shoves and noogies, Hondo remained at the threshold.

Braeburn watched as Hondo eyed the dirt carefully. He reached out one tentative hoof, then almost immediately drew it back in towards his chest. His eyes then turned to the sky, as if he were searching for signs of a gigantic bird which might swoop down to carry him off.

"Hondo! Get a move on!" Braeburn called to him.

The team looked down the line at the misshapen stallion stuck on the threshold.

"A-alrighty!" Hondo replied, his voice barely audible. "Let me just…"

The team watched in relative silence as Hondo reached out again, only to wince and pull his hoof back into the shadows. Only the sharp chirping of a few early-morning crickets could be heard as all ten ponies waited for this stranger to come outside.

Hondo tried again, with similar results.

“Is he okay?” somepony murmured.

“That’s the guy from Ponyville Gym, ain’t it?” another asked.

Hondo thought carefully, tapping his chin with his hoof as he observed the hard edge of sunlight ahead of him. "Y'know, I think I'll stay here for now!" he said at last.

Braeburn blinked. "Why's that?"

Hondo was still for a moment. 

A team member took a swig from his water bottle.

"Awful sunny out today!" was Hondo's only reply.

Braeburn closed his eyes and set his jaw, all in an effort not to sigh-- an effort which was quite obvious to his team. 

"I think you'll find that Appleloosa is sunny more often than not!" he called back.

The team snickered at that.

"Shush!" Braeburn scolded them.

"All the same!" Hondo called. "I'll just stay here today!"

Braeburn squinted at his involuntary companion. "Can you even see what's goin' on from there?"

"Sure can! I got twenty-twenty vision, doncha know?"

This, for some reason, also elicited a bout of giggling from the team.

Braeburn did his best not to roll his eyes as he returned his attention to the team. "Anyway. I'm sure y'all know that stallion over there," he said, nodding in Hondo's direction. "Hondo Flanks is considerin' a new location here in Appleloosa, where he could sign on as a personal trainer for the whole team."

The team was silent.

"I'll work on him comin' outside," Braeburn added in a low growl.

This earned another brief wave of suppressed laughter.

Braeburn sighed. "Alright. Let's start today with some laps to warm up. Then we'll move into a few playbook revisions. Pegasi, I wanna see an alternating canter-fly, alright?"

The pegasi moaned in disappointment, while the remainder of the team seemed more than a little pleased to be sharing in their misery.

"Hop to it!" Braeburn ordered. "Go on, now!"

The team did their best to linger, getting in a last few stretches and game-faces before taking off at a trot around the outer edge of the buckball field. Braeburn watched like a hawk for all of them to pick up to a gallop before he shuffled back towards Hondo.

Hondo did his best to hide under the brim of his hat as he saw Braeburn approach. Shockingly, this had no effect on Braeburn, and he still managed to spot the burly unicorn from behind his clever disguise.

“You alright?” Braeburn asked carefully. He wasn’t sure what else to ask, really.

“Oh, pft,” Hondo scoffed, waving a dismissive moof in Braeburn’s direction. “I just got a… y’know, a bit of a condition. Skin condition. Makes me pretty sensitive to all this beautiful sunshine.”

Still, Hondo did not come out from under the brim of his hat.

Braeburn said nothing. He looked at that bit of straw, willing Hondo to break and sneak a glance in his direction, but had no such luck.

Hondo cleared his throat.

“Listen, Hondo,” Braeburn began, running one hoof along the back of his already-aching neck. “Not that this wasn’t a good idea ‘n’ all…”

Hondo stiffened slightly.

“I just mean, I…” Braeburn stopped himself, trying to think of the right thing to say. “We might need to put some thought into how this is gonna work.”

Hondo didn’t really try to argue that point.

Braeburn opened his mouth, intending to argue the point further, but a sudden thought stopped him. He glanced down the hallway back into the building, then over his shoulder at the team running laps.

“Do me a favor?” Braeburn asked, giving Hondo a small clap on the shoulder.

Hondo, at long last, looked up at him. 

To say it was a sweet look may have oversold it. As usual, Hondo’s eyes had an almost glassy quality, as if he were intentionally holding back whatever it was he really felt. Deep down, though, Braeburn thought he could make out something halfway between embarrassment and gratitude.

Braeburn nodded to the team. “Make sure these slackers don’t quit before I get back.”

He didn’t wait for an answer--only a blink--and trotted back into the building. Even as he did so, he shook his head, muttering rhetorical questions to himself along the lines of “what am I doing?” or “just a monumental waste of time, huh?” or “is he really a PT?”

Braeburn pushed the door to his office open once more. Just inside, leaning up against the wall, was a lovely little parasol patterned all over with the team logo. It was one of many pieces of buckball paraphernalia that littered his workspace, most of it holdovers from his time as a player.

He snatched it out of the room, giving it a bit of a toss before catching it under his foreleg.

Here he paused, watching as the door to the office began to swing shut. His eyes scanned over his desk, past the pile of letters and down to the empty envelope which had held the strangest of the bunch.

For a moment, he wondered if there might be some truth to it.

“Nope,” he said aloud, shaking his head. “Just somepony pulling my leg. Somepony without much else to do.”

The sound echoed down the hall.

Hondo looked back over his shoulder. “Pardon?”

Braeburn cleared his throat. “Nothin’!”

The door to his office clicked shut.

Wasting no time, Braeburn broke into a light canter and skidded to a halt beside Hondo.

“Here y’are,” Braeburn said, passing his companion the parasol. “Should help with the sun.”

Hondo carefully popped the parasol open, and took a hesitant step into the sunshine. His mustache curled with his smile.

“Now, get a move on!” Braeburn ordered. “We’ve got a practice to run!”