Bushkeeper

by Odd_Sarge

32 - Neighbors

By the morning of the next day, Andrew had accomplished barely anything. He attributed it partially to his newfound addiction in playing with the pony foals, but most of the blame was on his own part. Many hours that could have been spent thinking up things to do were instead diverted to wandering around aimlessly with his herd and inspecting what was essentially just grass. On multiple occasions his ponies came up to the teenager and asked about what productivity they could be making. All Andrew could give them was a shrug, followed almost always by a motion to continue following him on his aimless journey.

When the human awoke at the dawn of the second day, he planned to make the best of his time.

With a stroke of unusual luck, Andrew woke far into the early hours of the day. At about four in the morning, he set out to make himself useful. A quick stop was made by the river for a drink, and by the apple orchard for some breakfast. He would have preferred spit-roasted fish, but that could wait until the night; the pegasi had unanimously agreed to bring the Bushkeeper fish every evening. There was a thick and decently lengthy branch that had fallen from one of the oaks, which Andrew eyed with a small grin. It reminded him of the first time he had met the herds.

Wandering up the river with his new walking stick in hand, the teenager began his journey to the north under the guise of the descending moon.

Andrew wasn’t too sure what he was looking for up north, but his gut instinct told him that something was up there that would prove to be far more beneficial to the ponies than anything he could offer. He had a few pieces of paraphernalia that were more eye-catching than useful to the ponies, and his negligence in learning survival skills left him at a disadvantage for teaching the ponies anything that could help support a sedentary lifestyle. He didn’t even know how to plant crops, but he supposed it couldn’t be too hard, could it?

After about an hour of walking, Andrew settled down for a break. The frozen mountains north didn’t seem any closer than before, and the sun had finally peeked over the horizon. The teenager was sure that the ponies would be awakening and wondering where their Bushkeeper had gone, leaving him just a tad guilty. It wasn’t as if he could have left a sign for them, but hopefully the absence of all his gear told them that he had simply gone travelling for a bit.

Just as he was finishing off an apple he had brought with him, there was a strange and sudden bray from close by. He stumbled forward and face planted right into the dirt, but recovered quickly and stood, stick held out at length. Staring at the creature as it gave off its weird snorting laughter, Andrew felt his cheeks flush in annoyance.

“Seriously?!” He threw his arms wide. “Even deer want me to suffer?!”

The pleasantly light brown deer let out a bark, causing Andrew to stumble backwards in surprise. It laughed again with its nasally snorts. It stood at about the same height as the teenager, and its antlers did not seem to be fully grown as of yet. Frowning, the human picked up his apple core and chucked it at the deer. The stag stopped laughing and went to dodge the core, but only ended up impaling it on one of its antlers. Eyes wide, it frantically bucked about in an attempt to pull the apple off.

Andrew bit hard on his lip, but he just couldn’t hold in his amusement.

“Hahahaha!” He pointed his stick at the deer and clutched his stomach. “Hahahahaha!”

The deer dropped to its rear and swiftly pried the apple off with its hooves. It stood again and glared at Andrew, causing the human to recover with a wheeze.

“Wow, okay.” He straightened out again. “You deserved that.”

The stag’s glare only hardened.

Before the two could do anything, a harsh cry cut through the area. The stag froze in place, eyes locked on the air behind Andrew, but the teenager chose the more savory option of focusing on the new deer that had just emerged from the same pocket of woods as the stag. The dotted doe trotted up slowly to the human and stared him down. Andrew went to speak, but there was something mesmerizing about the deer’s eyes, so he was instead confined to staring right back.

After a full solid minute of staring, with the occasional shudder by the buck further back, the doe blinked twice and let up on Andrew. The teenager took a deep breath and stepped back, suddenly aware of his surroundings again.

“What…what was that?” he asked warily as he patted himself down.

The doe simply walked past Andrew, leaving his question unanswered.

“Hey! Where are you going?!” The Bushkeeper hurried after the deer, followed closely by the stag behind him. After bounding over the river, the doe carried its momentum into a quick prance across the open fields to the east. Andrew’s eyes went wide; unlike the ponies, keeping up with deer was going to be quite the challenge.

The stag rushed past him in his own prance as the human clasped the buckles on his hiking pack. Taking a deep breath, Andrew began sprinting after the deer.

He caught up easily enough, but the hardest part was keeping pace. The deer took short strides as they ran, but the strides came rapidly as they travelled over the land. The teenager knew that he could keep running for a significant amount of time, but running constantly at a high speed would take its toll on his breath. Steeling himself, Andrew focused on his breathing and eased up in his steps. He fell behind the deer to begin a game of attrition.

The deers’ stamina, unfortunately for them, was about as formidable as Andrew had expected. For the ten minutes that they sped east across the land, they quickly grew tired. By the time they had slowed down enough that Andrew could easily catch up, though, it appeared that they had reached the doe's intended destination: the base of the eastern mountain chain. The human slid to a stop and walked between both the deer. The spotted doe looked to him as she walked, but did nothing but stare again. Andrew looked away to inspect the area that they were coming up on, but mostly just to avoid the mesmerizing gaze.

Before him was a wide, green gap that separated two of the mountains in the chain, leaving an open view to another valley ahead. A dense group of trees that seemed to tower into the sky were obviously of the redwood variety, and further on beyond them was a thick blanket of clouds that covered the land. As the group pulled closer, it became clear that there was much more to the trees than Andrew had expected. Deer flooded out from behind trees, causing the teenager to pause midstep. He watched with awe as what had to have been at least two dozen deer emerged from the tall trees. They had a wide variety of colors and mixes, but none of them were more unique than a rather imposing stag that stood at least three heads taller than Andrew. Some sort of natural crown caped around the base of his two horns, and the teenager was so mesmerized with them that he did not notice the other cervines drop low in a bow.

The deer stared long and hard at Andrew, then gave a bow of his own.

Absolutely awestruck, the Bushkeeper felt compelled to bow, and so he did.

As the buck came back up, it let out a snort and gestured his antlers to the area behind him. The deer surrounding the two stood as Andrew and the stag made their leave.

“So, uh, what’s all this about?”

The deer kept silent, amber eyes focused on the woods ahead.

Andrew shrugged. “Okay then, so you can’t talk. Hrm." Sighing, he hiked after the stag with his stick.

To occupy his time of peace and quiet, the human looked about the redwoods in awe. He had no idea how old the area around him was, but the height of the trees and their wide trunks made him believe that they had to have been at least a few centuries old. By some piece of fate, the answers of the land’s age came to him with the duo’s arrival at Andrew’s newest destination; the edge of a cliff.

The teenager, thanks to the help of the stag, was saved from the troubles of falling off the cliff. With a motion from the deer towards the land ahead of him, Andrew peered out across the landscape. There was a vast ocean of hot springs, and the strong smell of sulfur confirmed this. The barrenness of the tan earth surprised him, for he had never seen an area as large and plain as it in all of the time he had spent on the continent.

The stag prodded him once, shaking from his inspection of the surroundings. After another quick gesture, Andrew spotted a group of earth ponies scurrying between a few of the more active geysers. They were clearly having some enjoyment in the activity, but the teenager was more keen on the fact that there were more ponies out there that he could assist.

Andrew looked to the stag, curiosity ablaze in his eyes. “Why are you showing me all of this?”

The creature looked at him and said nothing.

All that the human garnered from the gaze was something… proud? He couldn’t quite tell himself; reading the faces of the stag was much harder than that of the ponies. Sure, he could see the deers’ brows move in accordance with their emotions, but with this stag? Clueless.

In the midst of his thoughts, the stag gave Andrew a bow and left him. Still cast adrift in attempting to understand why he had been shown the area before him, he looked back over the galloping earth ponies. The herd was not that much bigger than the one he had with him, but it was still quite a sizeable amount.

Rolling his shoulders, Andrew decided that a break would do him so good. He unclasped his bag and let it fall to the ground beside him, then dangled his legs over the precarious ledge.

Over the course of the next few minutes, the homesick human thought of his family.

---

As Andrew sank back into the woods, bag secured once again, he could see the deer playing all about the woods. There was something cheerful to their movements, and those that spotted him were absolutely brimming with joy. He gave a few of them a wave, but remained intent on finding the imposing stag again, still confused as to why he had been brought to the deer in the first place. Unfortunately, he was not able to find the creature again, but he was able to find the doe and buck that had originally led him to the redwoods.

“Hey guys.” He approached the two curious deer, then pulled a bit of the southern teal grass from his bag. Andrew offered a handful to them. “Deer eat grass, right?”

With surprising speed, the buck tore off a chunk of the grass tufts and settled down to eat them, nigh moaning with joy. Blinking, the teenager looked to the wary doe as she plucked rest of the grass from his hand. She set the grass aside and gave Andrew a smile.

He smiled back warmly. “Thanks, for leading me here. I… I really needed some time to think.”

Nodding, the doe bowed to him, then bent down to begin her snack.

Andrew chanced a pet of the deer’s neck, and was pleasantly surprised to find himself allowed the touch. Smiling even more brightly than before, the Bushkeeper plucked his stick back out from the ground and began the long walk home. While he certainly hadn’t done much in terms of civil production, he had learned a bit more about the neighbors.

Author's Note:

You learn a lot about the tiniest details of the show and comics when you start doing research... like the fact that the word "horses" exists in Equestria. Or the fact that the deer live in the Everfree and do some magic potion stuff. Neat.

Comments

[dinoding]

adorable pic, and somehow I didn't notice the page was unedited until you pointed it out, usually I pick up that. Good chapter too, like to see where you are going with the new ponies an the deer.

[Adjier]

Cool beans, I love me some world building. The Deer seem nice, I hope they stay friends with Andrew. I wonder why they bowed to him...

I can't wait for more. This is great.

[Alondro]

*Alondro munches on a deer, then pauses, staring out at the audience with a bloody hunk of Bambi dangling from his teeth* What?

[XerainTheBountyHunter]

8199390 Not going to share any?
Then again...
I feel like I need to go 'play' with some deer. Tasty tasty deer.

[Alondro]

8200609 MINE!! Go catch your own! It's not like there's a shortage... *looks at drivers weaving across the roads in NJ trying to avoid the vast swarms of deer*

[Gravity012]

8200423
Lol to bad, geuss I miss spooke.

[Gravity012]

Z

[Hein des Nisseroi]

it appeared that they had reached the doe had reached its intended destination

Said ‘‘had reached’’ twice.

Also, the deer in the picture does not seem too amused by having a picture taken.

[Odd_Sarge]

8203134
Where would I be without you?
Fixed.

[Zenigata]

Particularly with building a camp infastructure; that'll be interesting, I hope.

Camp infrastructure you say...

primitivetechnology.files.wordpress.com/2015/07/cropped-primitive-tech-logo_web.png

[Zwei]

8204520
I was thinking the exact same thing. As i was reading the story I've been thinking of primitive technology and how the ponies should be using his techniques.

[HIEfan]

One by one he is meeting more and more species, makes me wonder what is next.