“Wow,” Andrew muttered, awestruck.
“It’s beautiful out here!” Mint agreed with a wholehearted whinny.
Greeny promptly faceplanted into a thick patch of white.
It was snowing.
The gentle flakes drifted slowly through the air, scattering the landscape in a thin layer of white. To the west, the sun shimmered across the ocean with vibrant orange and yellow, its light blending easily with the blue sky above. From their den, the herds of the three tribes emerged to meet the winter's final gift.
Andrew was happy to see such a beautiful sight. It warmed his heart well and true. The snow christened this as their new home, his new home.
As he peered down at Mint, he felt a powerful emotion well-up within him. He loved this mare, and she loved him. They were inseparable, and no matter the circumstances that had nearly divided them, it was just a fact of life that they would never be apart. For the first time in a long while, he recognized the fact that he had been gifted the opportunity to emerge from that forest and into a herd of unicorns. Together, the ponies had grown as a community, and now Andrew felt himself sure of the fact that he had brought this to reality. Feeling himself in the moment, he wrapped his arms around Mint and lifted her into the air. The azure unicorn’s fear quickly gave way to happiness, and as the human danced around the snowy playground, the ponies throughout the village began to join in. Glowing in cheer, Andrew placed his neck against Mint’s and slowed to a stop.
As his first year among ponies drew to a close, he was glad there would be dozens more winters to witness.
This was a nice story tho I half expected the story to end with celestia telling the story to a young twilight
Thanks for finishing this LOVELY story!
9378346
Fun fact, the original ending written in February of 17 was almost exactly that! Twilight would have made her report on the history of the Bushkeeper and Celestia would have reminisced about her history as one of the Keepers. Even though the story has evolved beyond what it was meant to be, I felt it fitting to leave part of that epilogue in here with their first snow. Thank you for reading!
9378361
Thank you for reading!
9378434
Thank you for writing
Pfft. God dammit Greeny.
i kinda imagined it end with twilight or some modern day pony discovering his mausoleum, and discovering his history and the history of the original homeland of the pony's before they moved into the lands of equstria
Nice. I would have liked a little more depth on some parts of the last few chapters but hey, an ending is better than nothing. I'm not saying I'm unhappy with this ending at all, I just wanted it to last a little longer. I'm happy it's completed, it's always good to see a story wrapped up and end on a happy note. Now for the SEQUEL! Where Twilight travels back in time and messes everything up so Andrew has to fix everything all over again!
9378692
He's a silly pony!
9378911
The writers of the show can't be outdone, and I didn't plan on trying to outdo history with them around! After writing the ending in a similar manner to what you said, I decided to revamp the whole ending and opt for something a little more focused on Andrew and his ponies; this is his story, after all!
9379007
I would cheese you with the 'all good things come to an end,' but I already did that earlier, so I'll give you the truth; I planned on writing a lot more for these final chapters before the mass rewrite on New Year's Eve, but ultimately decided that it felt more like a slog than a winding conclusion; it certainly felt like it while trying to read through it. So I trimmed down the conflict and redoubled my efforts on bringing attention to the lives of the ponies as they developed, rather than just the development of them at singular points in time. This story could have been limitless if I had wrote in-depth on all the experiences of Andrew's village, but in this final 4000+ sprint, the story had to end, and I didn't want to spend a great amount of time building up an ending when the foundation had already been formed in the previous 80,000 words.
Thank you all for reading, and Happy New Year!
I really enjoyed this. As some others said I was to expecting Twilight or Celestia to be recounting his history. But this ending is still just as good.
Damn, it's done. That was a good read. Thanks for writing it. As everyone said, yeah, I expected this to be a retelling by somepony, not nessesarily Twilight, but the way you set it up was a perfect ending. Bravo, and best of luck with your next story!
Great read, thanks!
9379054
Yeah, that makes sense. I suppose you've already been asked but I have to make sure, any chance of a sequel or some sort of history like epilogue?
9380113
I have no plans for a sequel, and I feel as if an additional epilogue would not only be unnecessary, but also ill-fitting. Bushkeeper, as it stands now, is done.
I'm going to dearly miss writing about a man and his mare, but I'd like to flex my creative mind in the other unfinished works in desperate need of some attention; Bushkeeper has taken up quite a bit of their time.
I do have a habit of revisiting my stories, so for a taste of hope, the furthest I may go in additional anecdotes may be a blog post or two.
Thank you for your question, for I hope this answer will help bring some closure to other readers looking for more.
It was a good read. It fell flat at the end, after he went on his soul journey. I understand why and all that, so yeah, I liked this, overall.
An enjoyable story, thanks for completing it!
This was one of those stories that when I noticed the notification in my email ( which I didn't get for the last 4 chapters...*grumble grumble* ) I would stop whatever else I was doing to read.
Mainly because I was interested to see what Andrew and the ponies got up to but also because the chapters were just the right size. I could sit down and finish a chapter in probably in 10mins or so. And with a story like bushkeeper those are the perfect length. Most if not all of the chapters ( Its been awhile since I started reading this might have had pacing issues further back. I'm not too sure) were told at a good pace. I didn't have to slog through a over extended narrative or chunks of exposition.
It was simply fun to read and highly entertaining.
You kept Andrew at a specific standard of ability and skill that made his decisions and choices mean more because it was so difficult for him to choose or make certain decisions. You could have granted him powers or given him abilities but instead you gave him challenges and adversities to overcome to grow as a character. And for me that feels like it makes a better character. He's more fleshed out because of this. I can know him as a character understand his choices because you gave us the ability to understand him.
So inclusion, because I'm starting to ramble, thank you for the effort and dedication you put into your craft to make such a unique and intriguing story for us to enjoy.
9397256
I'm really glad to hear you enjoyed the story, and trust me, for the longest time—and these last few moments with Andrew and his ponies—I myself had a lot of enjoyment. Thank you so much for the kind words and comments, and you're most welcome for the ride.
Is that really the end? It was so beautiful
9378434
Yeah, that was kind of what I envisioned too. Or hoped rather, I've seen enough of these stories both dovetail with the series and completely ignore it.
Fun story though, lot of nice mythos and worldbuilding. Glad I could read it
9741547
Thanks for your comments and kind words! It's always awesome to see people enjoy Bushkeeper long after it's ended, so thanks for reading!
9741551
Thanks for writing!
I liked it. There were plenty of parts which were difficult to understand, but that is to be expected in a story like this. Overall, very well done. Liked and Faved