Bushkeeper

by Odd_Sarge

42 - With Their Knowledge

“Andrew!”

The man looked up from his shirt and needle. “Mint?” he called back.

“Come here!” the mare squealed. Her head popped into the view of the house’s doorway. “Come look at what Alabaster did!”

“Alright, calm down. I’ll be there in a moment.” Setting his work aside, Andrew peeled out of the house and into the sunny day outside. “Good morning to you too, Mint.”

“He said his first sentence, Andrew!”

“He did?”

“Yes! Come on!”

They quickly departed from the large tiled-hut and made their way across the village to the familiar green hill where the school stood; a small wooden hut for storage. Splayed across the ground, each of the foals’ clay tablets and chisels lay discarded. The foals had gathered around Greeny and Alabaster, and each one was chattering rapidly to the white unicorn. As Andrew and Mint approached, Alabaster sounded off.

“Can we play? Can we play? Can we play?” He bounced with each sentence.

It was clear and fluent English, something very few foals in the village could attest to.

And it was certainly worthy of some playtime.

“We can play,” the Keeper affirmed. “Just for a—” He was cut short by the tackling pile of foals.

Greeny laughed. “Do you need any help, Andrew?”

“I’m good,” he groaned out from beneath the foals. “Totally meant for this to happen.”

“Yeah, right.”

“Greeny, I didn’t ask for your—mpmh!”

“What was that Andrew? I couldn’t hear you.”

“Leave him alone, Greeny.”

The stallion rolled his eyes playfully. “Yes, Minty.”

“Alright alright, we can finish this later.” Delivering a final noogie to one of the scattering foals, Andrew rolled over with Alabaster in his arms and stood. “What else have you learned, Alabaster?”

Looking to Greeny, the foal muttered something in the pony language. Greeny responded with a nod and a tiny little wave of encouragement. “Hu… hungry?”

“Hungry. You had it!” Andrew paused. “Are you hungry, Alabaster?”

The foal wiggled his head excitedly.

“How about we eat some of Storm’s new bread?”

“Br… bre…” Groaning, the foal flopped over.

Mint smiled. “That ‘bread’ is really good, Andrew. Did you teach her how to make it?”

“She did it on her own. She’s a natural-born chef.”

“Chef?”

“Ah, like a cook.”

“Oh!”

Fiddling with Alabaster’s ears, Andrew grinned at the released giggles. “Let’s go get some breakfast.”

“I’ll be here cleaning up,” Greeny piped up. “And I already ate, so don’t worry about me.”

“We weren’t!” Mint prodded Andrew hard with a hoof. “Ow! I mean… we totally were!”

Over the years, the ponies had carved themselves quite the village. For the buildings, each one was more experimental in design and material than the last, designs incredibly familiar yet alien to the human. There was one building, however, that stuck out the most; the home of Storm and her pegasi was by far one of the most unusual creations Andrew had ever encountered. Built of cloud, the floating fortress of a dormitory was the home of the many pegasi that lived in the village. Like most of the other houses, it too was supported by rectangular walls and a flat ceiling, but its cloudlike construction made it a curiosity that no other pony could experience; all but the pegasi were unable to enter the building.

The grey pegasus was set up as per usual in the large cooking area. Nearby, the bonfire sat stoked for the night’s festivities. Storm, even after relegating her position as the herd leader to Blackie, still retained a great deal of authority in the village; she was the true mediator between each in-town conflict. Supported by her soft-spoken mannerisms, her sage-like wisdom, and her position as the pony in charge of bringing you your next meal, her authority sometimes swept over even Andrew’s decisions.

Their approach went unnoticed by the village’s elder; she was far too busy tending to the brick oven. The man and his mare slipped by Storm and away with a loaf, made their way over to a patch of grass shared by other ponies, and sat down to eat.

After a few minutes of idle chit-chat, Andrew decided it was the time. “Mint?”

She swallowed her piece of bread. “Yes?”

“I’ve thought about working on the school more.”

“Ah.” She nodded her head. “I was going to ask you about that.”

“You were?”

“Yes, of course! You always talk about how much you want the foals to learn. When we first built that little building, you said that ‘The youngest minds will be the brightest.’ We have so many foals now, and so little space for their tools.” Mint was trying her hardest to hold back. “So what were you thinking? We make the school bigger?”

He was blunt. “I want paper.”

“Paper?” The unicorn tasted the word.

“For writing. We already use the clay tablets for writing, but you already know how difficult those are for the foals to write with; they can’t work very easily with their chisels. There is one thing that the stones do that paper would do as well, and that’s preserve our work.”

“Our work? But aren’t they the ones working?”

“Mint, we’ve been teaching them to write for a reason. You’ve seen what Sparky’s done with his tablets in that shed, haven’t you?”

“His stories are wonderful, Andrew.”

He clasped his hands together. “Yes! That’s exactly it!”

“Stories?”

“Yes! But I want to do more than create stories, I want to record our stories.”

This caused Mint to severely cock her head. “What do you mean by that?”

“History, Mint. History is here and how, then and there. I want us to write down things about the place we live, what we did to get here, how we do things now. I want to write everything, Mint.” His eyes fluttered to the foals captivated by Storm’s work. “For them.”

The two sat there for a long-time against one another, watching their thriving world with prideful eyes.

“Mint… I think I’ve said this before but… you’re the best pony a kid like me could’ve asked for.”

“You are no foal, Andrew.”

He peered down with a cocked eyebrow. “What do you mean by that?”

Pressing her head against his chin, Mint tittered. “You are a grown stallion, now. You have done so much for us these past moons. You have more than proven to us that you are not the foal you came here as. You are our… family.”

“Mint… I…”

“You do not need to prove yourself anymore, Andrew. I… We cannot thank you enough for what you have given us.”

Silence gripped him for several minutes.

“Mint?”

“Yes?”

“I won’t stop until I see this village covering the entire Greenland.”

“I will be here.”

“I know.”

“We all will.”

Comments

[mustangdrew4]

It's nice to see Andrew so determined to record their history and provide a better future for the foals. I am curious on how he's going to make paper.

Also as a side note, mint has become really fluent in English. She must be getting better from teaching the foals so often.