The man wrapped his makeshift cloak and muffler around himself tighter, hoping to shutout a bit more of the persistent wind that kept trying to rob him of precious body heat. Glancing around while rubbing his arms and stamping his feet, he took in the sight of the day’s work area prior to leaving before dark; making sure that he wasn’t forgetting any tools or leaving overtly obvious signs of his passing. Once finished with his quick examination, he let out a deep sigh and began the trek back to the cabin he had fashioned from the local lumber. He hadn’t been here long, but he’d accomplished an impressive amount of labor; funny what surviving can drive a man to do. Dragging a large pine branch behind him to help disguise his tracks, his mind wandered to days past; days when he was warm, and safe, but mostly when he was sheltered and naïve.
Lost in his memories, he almost didn’t hear the persistent banging on wood that preceded a female voice begging for help. Stopping dead in his tracks, he strained his ears to listen and picked up the words that drifted between the trees.
“Please! We need help, somepony, anypony! Snowy is b-b-bleeding here, and I c-can’t drag her any farther! Please…” the woman begged, her voice cracking at the end in despair.
The man moved up behind a tree to see that yes, it was the front door of his cabin that was being pounded on but that no, it wasn’t a woman at all. It was some kind of colorful, teal-furred, green maned, winged, horse…pony...thing. Another such creature was lying on a crude sled next to her, seemingly unconscious, although this one was white coated with blue hair; its wound bleeding sullenly.
“Pegasus?” he whispered. “Or, I guess pegasuses…pegasi? Whatever, either way… I suppose letting them die out here would bother me for the rest of my days… Damn.” Releasing another deep sigh, the man trudged forward in resigned defeat, hoping that tiny horses didn’t trample him to death for not being a tiny horse himself.
Emerald Breeze had always thought of herself as a tough pony. By Tartarus, she was an elite member of the Mobile Weather Squad! Trusted to fly out to remote areas and deal with the harshest conditions a pegasus could expect; making weather, without fancy factory assistance or unicorn magic. ‘Old school’ as her instructor would say, just a pony manipulating the atmosphere with guts and pegasi know-how. She and Snowy Skies had just finished helping out a drought-riddled Appleloosa (in record time if anyone was counting) and they were returning to Canterlot when they got cocky and decided to take a shortcut over the Everfree rather than skirt around it. You know, like smart ponies would do?
Sure as the sun rises in the morning, they found trouble. A flock of four harpies spotted the pair and the resulting aerial combat left Snowy with a serious laceration along her barrel, Emerald with missing primaries, and four lightning-blasted harpies. Emerald didn’t know if the beasts lived or not, and right now she had bigger problems. Unable to fly and her partner bleeding out, she managed to throw together a rough sled of twigs and branches and started marching to what she hoped was the edge of the damnable forest.
Although she didn’t find the forest’s edge after a hour and was beginning to lose hope (she wasn’t crying, Celestia-dammit!) she stumbled across a log cabin, built out here in the middle of the woods, the newly-cut ends obvious even to a city pony like her. Feeling as if hope hadn’t abandoned her just yet, she banged on the door and screamed for help, but after a few minutes of activity she figured that the occupant was either out, gone, or had no intention of helping her. She plopped down on her haunches ready to finally break down and cry like a filly, when she heard footsteps behind her in the crunchy snow. Whirling around with her wings spread in a threatening manner, she was prepared to make whatever it was work for its meal when the sight before her left her stunned.
Standing on two legs and covered from head to hoof, the beast was huge; at least twice as tall as a pony. Its head was covered by a dark hood, its muzzle wrapped up in a white scarf, and its eyes shielded by dark lenses. Its face was completely a mystery. A bundle of wood was carried on one shoulder by a mitten covered hoof…no, hand. That’s what they were called. Its other mitten was casually gripping a wood axe as it hung at its side.
The only thing her mind could produce was that this was a minotaur, albeit an oddly dressed and strangely hornless minotaur but there was nothing else it could be as far as Emerald knew. She’d been all over Equestria in her line of work and no other race made any sense. She didn’t relax her stance however, as minotaurs ranged from friendly simpletons to warmongering brutes and she was hoping this one wanted to talk rather than ‘smash the pony’. The expressionless black goggles that covered its eyes looked her over in silence and she began to feel herself tense up as if facing off against a deadly predator when it broke the silence in a far more eloquent (for a minotaur) speech than she was expecting.
“Move away from the door and I’ll open it. Maybe we can still save your friend if we hurry,” the great biped said calmly.
Emerald couldn’t help but flinch at the reasonable request that came from the cloth covered muzzle of the brute…no, not a brute after all.
A gentlebull minotaur?
Now she really had seen everything.
She nodded dumbly and stepped aside, gingerly folding her damaged wings and watched the minotaur to see what it would do. The bull walked up to the door, set the axe down against the cabin wall, and used his free hand to move a couple hidden bolts, then swung the door open before stepping into the house.
After listening to him stomp around the place for a bit, Emerald grabbed the fibrous tether she’d fashioned for the sled and pulled her friend’s unconscious form into the huge cabin, hoping against hope that she hadn’t doomed both of them by trusting the strange minotaur.