• Published 19th Feb 2017
  • 10,374 Views, 621 Comments

Bushkeeper - Odd_Sarge



A hiker strays a little too far from the trail. Consequently, he's just discovered the hike of a lifetime.

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26 - Fantasies

Blackie dodged an additional bolt of lightning, prompting another response from Andrew.

Andrew yelled to Blackie mid-bounce, “Pegasi can do that?!”

"Stay down!" Blackie shot back.

Andrew stumbled backwards as a bolt landed right at his feet.

“You don’t have to tell me that!”

Blackie kicked up a hoofful of dirt and lobbed it upwards hard. Somehow, the dirt remained in a large clump. It landed spot on with one of the pegasi holding onto a black cloud, shaking them slightly. Andrew was both impressed and confused: how had Blackie managed such a throw, and why did he not go up to fight the pegasi? Nonetheless, the two were both at the will of the pegasi above.

Well, not for very long.

"Stay here!" Blackie took flight and soared low across the lands in the direction that he and Andrew had come. Two pegasi followed after the stallion, leaving Andrew alone with four of his own to deal with.

“Really?! I hope there’s more to your plan than just flying away!?” The crescendoing cackle of electricity caused Andrew to dodge another bolt of lightning. Andrew gave an exasperated mental sigh. 'Great, now what am I gonna do?'

Steeling himself, Andrew bit hard on his lip and jumped the river. His boots landed partway in the water, and with a surge of epinephrine, Andrew left a splash in his wake. The pegasi behind him were momentarily surprised, but quickly took off after him. Unfortunately for them, Andrew was much faster on his feet than they were in the air.

Except for one bulky black pegasus that was nigh invisible in the night.

Andrew’s eyes flicked around the darkness, searching for a way to evade the pegasi. The nearby forest caught his eye, and with only a slight moment of hesitation, he turned and began running straight for it. His leg throbbed under the weight of each step, but as he quickly came up on the forest, the pain disappeared entirely. Andrew was not sure what gland had released a new hormone into his system, but he was definitely sure that he would not be pleased with his next wakeup call.

Andrew was only mere meters away from the forest when the black pegasus caught up with him. The two of them rolled into the woods, fighting hoof and hand for leverage over each other. Andrew threw a hard punch into the stallion’s side, knocking the wind out of him, but a hoof to Andrew’s groin caught him by surprise as well. Nature apparently had a vendetta for the two, as they both rolled over a rocky edge and onto a lower elevation. Andrew managed to flip himself in time to land on the pegasus. No crack filled the air, but a loud crunch certainly did. Andrew did not register the sound, even after the bundle up duo had rolled to a complete stop. Throwing one last punch at the stallion’s chest, Andrew stood shakily.

Another crunch filled the air, and this time, Andrew recognized the sound. Whipping towards the sound on the balls of his feet, Andrew raised his fists upward.

“Who’s there?!”

Another crunch. The sound came from back towards the stallion, and as Andrew turned back again, his heart came to a painful, lurching halt.

A giant spider was watching the two creatures carefully.

The stallion whickered weakly as he began to stand. "What are you?"

Andrew rushed over to the stallion and kicked him in the gut.

“Shut up.” Andrew slung the stallion over his shoulder. “Fatty.”

The stallion pawed weakly at Andrew’s back, but gave up when he saw that another spider was behind Andrew.

"Away, away!" he whimpered. "Monster! Away, away!"

“Shut up!” Andrew spotted another set of eyes from his left. “Just shut up you idiot! You’re gonna get us killed!”

The stallion waved his hooves wildly. "Away away! Monster monster! Away monster aw—!"

Crunch!

Andrew dropped the walking stick that he had just used to knock out the stallion. It fell to the cold grey stone with a loud thump, drawing a hiss from all of the spiders around him. The sound of their crunching, Andrew realized, came from their teeth. The spiders around him were not like the spiders that he had previously encountered, for their keratin teeth were all much more larger.

And they dripped of a green venom.

“Oh no, I am not getting paralyzed today!” Andrew was half-tempted to throw the stallion to the spiders and make a break for it, but he wasn’t about to let a pony die, not on his hands. The spiders slowly began to encroach on Andrew and the unconscious stallion.

He had to figure out a plan, and fast.

"Leg’s injured, adrenaline’s fading, it’s too dark beneath the canopy to see a clear path out." Andrew’s mind was thrown into full throttle as the spiders began feinting him, their lunges only making the full distance halfway. A flash to an old memory took its place in Andrew’s mind, and though the idea felt incredibly stupid, he felt that it was his best option here. He’d only seen his friends that had interests in American football doing it, and while he had no protective gear on, there wasn’t much else for him left to do.

Bracing his shoulder, Andrew let out a roar and bum-rushed the spiders with his shoulder held out forward.

The spiders were thoroughly surprised at Andrew’s willingness to charge them. Most of them jumped out of the way, but one of them stayed behind to try and gnash at Andrew’s shoulder: it immediately took the brunt of Andrew’s weight. Apparently, everything in this world weighed much less than Andrew, for the giant spider went flying upon contact with Andrew’s shoulder. As soon as Andrew was clear of the spiders, he went deeper into the forest: the pegasi were waiting outside in the sky, and he would be stupid to believe that they weren’t.

As Andrew ran further into the woods, he made sure to keep his eyes peeled for anymore spiders. He could hear them crunching their teeth together and skittering behind him. Fortunately, Andrew also seemed able to outpace the spiders. It finally made sense to him why the chaotic side of nature had injured his leg; it was Andrew’s greatest weapon against the world. Pain peeled back into Andrew’s mind at a rather inopportune time. He brought the stallion to his chest and rolled down yet another cliff, this time making sure to keep what limbs he could close to his body. He rolled for a good while, and by the end of the roll, Andrew’s adrenaline had finally left him.

The first thing that Andrew did upon his halt was let the stallion drop from his hands and onto the stone ground. The second thing that Andrew did was crawl over to the side, hold himself up, and vomit over a smaller ledge below him. Wiping the barf that remained around his mouth with the back of his hand, Andrew slipped his pack off and checked it over quickly: a metallic plink had been going on and off during his roll. Thankfully, the thermos seemed to only be scratched and battered, nothing new to its already worn condition. His also pack remained free of holes. Realizing that the chittering spiders had stopped making noise, Andrew looked up and held his burning leg.

The spiders stared down at Andrew in silence. It was unnerving, to say the least. They quickly receded back over the edge, causing Andrew to heave both a painful and relieved sigh. Looking over to the pegasus lying near him, Andrew shook his head.

“Idiot.”

Nearby, a faint glint of light blue light caught Andrew’s eye. The two had fallen before the mouth of a cave. It was not a full cavern, however, as only a small portion of the rock had weather away. In its wake, however, Andrew spotted an eerily familiar sight.

A bright blue, shimmering, clear pool of water.

Groaning, Andrew stood and limped over to the pegasus. There was no clear injury to the pegasus, but Andrew suspected there to be bruising all over the pegasus’ sides. He pulled him up carefully: the two may have been enemies, but Andrew wasn’t going to let a pony be mortally wounded on his part. With a grunt in each aching step, Andrew dragged the pegasus and himself over to the pool.

Andrew only held faint visions of the pool’s purpose, but trial and error would serve him well enough. He set the pegasus down by the pool, then lifted one of his black hooves to the pool slowly. On contact with the pool, a small trail of crimson began to leak from the hoof. Andrew pulled the hoof away, causing the trail to be severed. After an inspection of the stallion’s hoof, Andrew noted that there wasn’t any actual blood on the stallion. He put the hoof back in the strange water, causing the trail to begin anew.

After an agonizing minute of watching the stallion twitch and shiver, Andrew gave in to an unseen pressure and dipped a hand in. The water was cool, and amazingly, refreshing to the touch. He felt reinvigorated, albeit slightly, just by touching the water. A stupid grin came to Andrew’s face.

He had an idea.

Andrew went to take off the steel toe boot on his right leg, but got a better idea instead. Andrew could care less for the circumstances; the water was great, and he was tired. So very tired. Andrew began to strip his clothes off.

When he was left wearing nothing but his boxers, Andrew lifted the black pegasus up and lowered them both into the pool cautiously. Immediately, Andrew felt the multiple bruises and cuts that adorned his body soothed by the water. His skin seemed to drink in the liquid, and as Andrew lifted a hand out of the water to inspect it, he saw a rather large cut doing just that. He let the absorbing hand drip down back into the water and felt his right leg’s calf. The strained muscles would have already been healed within the next few days, but Andrew could feel days worth of healing passing by, just like that.

Things were still running at full speed through Andrew’s mind. Everything happened so quickly in this land. Everything was so simply solved, no peace ever held for too long, no calm ever without a storm. Everything was just… just…

Magical.

After over a week of being trapped in a magical land of ponies, hydras, dragons, spiders, snake chickens, buffalo, intelligent squirrels, and even more creatures, it finally clicked into Andrew’s mind what exactly he had gotten himself involved in.

Somehow, somewhere, Andrew had managed to slip himself into a magical land of fantasy.

He sank deeper into the water and laid his head back, a slow chuckle rising from the back of his throat. The answer to everything was just so plain and simple. Nothing had been complicated at all about the world, for all Andrew had to say to reach his answer was simply, ‘magic.’

Understanding was all Andrew had wanted to reach. Now? He had it. He really had it all. The meaning would have come slower to him, but the new revelation had immediate effects. He knew that he was not on Earth anymore, he knew what the land wanted from him, he knew that he had a larger role to play in even further lands, and he knew what he was dealing with.

'So,' Andrew asked himself, 'what do I do now?'

The pegasus in his arms let out a grumble and pawed at Andrew’s chest adorably.

“You know what?” Andrew ran a hand through the pegasus’ mane. “I want to find more ponies like you.” He sighed and leant his head back again. “Despite your horrible attitude towards me, it’s your fault that this whole new realm of knowledge has been revealed to me. But you know what?”

The pegasus chose that moment to yawn and awaken. He bristled at the sudden contact and stared wide-eyed up at Andrew, but was surprised to find Andrew smiling down at him with what felt like an incredibly misplaced smile of kindness, but Andrew wasn’t dishonest, he was truly happy.

“Ponies like you could use a little bit of friendship.” He pat the thoroughly confused stallion on the back and shut his eyes. “I would say the world knows that it needs more love, but here…”

Andrew sat up, a twinkle in his eyes.

“I’m the only one who really knows that, aren’t I?”