List #3851 : Big White Pony. Likes senile old Minotaurs. Owed a favor.
"Mommy... mommy it's looking at us..." The small minotaur calf attempts to alert the snoring full sized one sitting on the outside of their seating row, failing horribly to look subtly to the seat just behind, occupied by only one. Tugging once more on it's guardian's coat to no avail, the calf slowly lowers to just down past the height of the seats in order to conceal itself even more, only to continue poking and prodding.
The one setting just behind, having been giving her best attempt at a warm and welcoming smile, lowers it to half mast along with a small sigh. Rolling her shoulders and letting her wings give but the tiniest stretch thanks to such constricting seating for one such as her, she nestles back down for what would be the last stretch of her long journey. Using her magic, she unlatches her bag's belt in order to bring out a small letter, bringing to rest across her mid forelegs without even so much as opening it.
"What's that?" The voice belonging to to one almost as small as the one before, but from across the isle, and showing but the tiniest of nubs upon the top of it's head. Showing ever the more courage, even if unable to hide his slight hesitation, he hops off his seat to make his short journey to just before the pearl white pony stretch across both seats. "My brother said ponies get about as tall as I am. So what are you supposed to be?"
"Iason!"
"Hey it's not my fault your a liar!" Iason yells back to his now annoyed older brother, sporting a distinct forward curve of both horns. Taking notice to the movement from inner seat to the wide isle, Iason wedges himself in between the rows of seats in defense. "He's too fat to get in here..."
"Iason, come out of there." He lowers his voice but softens his tone. "The mare surely enjoys her personal space that you're currently hiding in."
"Oh, it's alright." The mare insists in a understanding tone. "He's just curious, and I do not believe many ponies venture this far into your country, at least these last few decades. But to answer his question," She cranes her neck towards Iason, "This is why I've come all this way, personally."
"But you haven't even opened it." Iason, like many his age, pushes aside manners for knowledge along with his wayward hand flipping the letter up and over to reveal the unbroken seal. Leaning closer for inspection, his eyes widen while lifting the letter to the air. "Hey, isn't that?"
"You know Elder Olavv?" The older brother, whose mere mention of such a name brings the attention of all near within the passenger car, asks with a surprising amount of surprise in his voice, staring into the wide eyes of an equally surprised pony. He almost finds his voice to ask what has caused her to be startled, but misses his chance against the sudden breaking of official seal of the once thought departed.
"Dear Celestia, I know you may not forgive me but I didn't know of any other way of getting you... here..." her voice hushed in whisper, "Oh you old coot! I thought you had died!"
"You know for someone as old as you shouldn't you of died or something already?" His voice echoing off the rounded boulders that surround him towards something a bit farther away. "If you get tired, I'm not carrying you back to the village this time!"
"What a horrible thing to say to an elder." The light grey minotaur mumbled to himself while continuing to walk forward in an ever slow stride, pounding the end of his walking stick into the rocky soil with a grin. "...when I'm too far away to wack you up along side the head."
Showing patience in idle action even if not in words, the heavy end of a well worn sledge head slams falls flat on it's top to the soil below as strands of energy lick outward along the ground. Letting his index finger tap just below the handle, patience turns to guilt when the elder suddenly sits down on one of the few smaller bounders but a few dozen feet away. Sliding his hand down the handle to sling it up and over his shoulder, he gets nary a full step before the elder gets upon his hooves once more, only to sit back down but only a few feet closer.
"Now you're just being childish." He grumbles under his breath, watching the elder stand back up only to once more sit but within a dozen feet. "It's getting late and you're in no shape to be coming out here on your own with what's running around after dark, old man."
"Bah, they wouldn't want this old thing. Too tough and stringy." The elderly minotaur rests both his hands on the top of his walking stick, whirling it around clockwise as if a nervous habit is forming. "So I've been hearing your coming in less and less these shortening days of ours."
"Been busy. Gotta keep it up or we'll run out of the right kind of stone for the order. Plus..." Pulling down on the handle so that half of the cold head of metal rests against the back of his neck, "Sometimes it's good to ease your way into a change, little bit at a time."
"Only if your too old to adapt!" The elder gives a hearty chuckle, too much so, as his breath escapes him to the incessant coughing to unclog that which no longer has the ability to remedy. Dropping his stick, he finds his fall made short to the light thud against something assumed softer, even if he grunts just a bit in discomfort. Wrapping his arm around the back of his living crutch's neck, he wobbles towards but another boulder.
"Why do you push yourself so damn hard?" He presses his hand, now caressed in light blue flames that neither burns him nor the chest it is laid against, while holding distinct worry in expression and tone of voice. "You've got nothing left to prove, especially to me."
"When the last anchor is raised the ship shall leave port once more." The elder lightly squeezes his hand upon the other one's shoulder both in support of gravity and face twisting expression, struggling nonetheless to find proper breath. "What are you going to go do when I'm dead and gone? Pack up and move out where none can find you? Perhaps go back to where this all began, when I was but the calf sized snack of a drakeling?"
"Who knows how long it's going to take to get to the top of the list." Bypassing the disapproving stare with an absentminded shrug, "I told you, where I come from you pay your dues, and I'm minding to make sure I remind that to quite a few."
"Even if you only find yourself with nowhere left to go?"
"There's always a place to go. It's going back that's impossible." Showing but just a bit of through the narrowing of his eyes. "Will you quit worrying so god damn much about what I'm going to do already? You got half the village badgering me with all this nonsense."
"Through all the years, you waited to make sure I was going to be okay. Is it so wrong, now, for me to do the same?" The elder comes off borderline emotional, much to the exasperated expression given in return. "And they do so because of the free alcohol I give."
"Not your job to make sure that I'm okay." He moves his hand up just a bit more towards where the heart beats to a lumbering pace. "And are you also the reason I had a couple heifers chasing me around town?"
"If not mine, then who else would do so? You push all away because you see yourself as just a dead end. How long were you the villain, the monster in the dark needing to be slain so that calves could sleep during the night?" The elder, having a softer tone while leaning but a bit more onto his support as the treatment grows in numbing intensity. "You're no longer able to use that excuse, even if you plan to forget why."
"Speaking of excuses, you might want to start coming up with one." He looks past the elder and back down towards where he had come, only to notice a large white pony being escorted towards them by several of the elder's personal guard. "Not my kind of thing."
"She's quite nice. Her name is Celestia, Princess of the Ponies of Equestria." The elder speaks while looking onto the approach of one of his dearest friends, taking in a deep sigh as the noise of footsteps slowly drift into silence. "And hopefully you will come to learn that, too."
Adopting a warm smile, Elder Olavv is brought back to younger days at the sight of Celestia, resting one hand upon his walking sit while still sitting upon his boulder. Raising his other hand to wave, his smile begins to diminish as the large pony begins to come closer, showing a rather upset expression across her face and stomping trot that long since left his guards behind. Flaring her wings, she finally takes to the air in order to land with a bit of debris kicked up from the downward force, staring intensely into the eyes of the still smiling elder.
"Why hello, dear old..."
"Do you know how upset I was when I received the letter with the official seal of your house?" Celestia clops forward with each word. "The only time you use that particular pigment is correspondence in regards to burial notification. I thought you had passed away."
"I know it was cruel, but I feared I wouldn't have lingered long enough otherwise to meet with you, one last time." His tone of voice and solemn expression serving only to rob the princess of her rightful anger, pushing it instead back to where it had come. "Guess I owe you, then."
"I..." She catches her tongue several times when trying to find but a proper way, "Why are you out here sitting alone? If you catch illness from the cold because your so stubborn..." only to do so but a few more times. "Perhaps it would be best if we were to return to your manor?"
"You're such a sweet young mare." The elder grunts as he attempts to stand, much to the sudden incursion of guards rushing to help him, to which he roughly waves his hand downward. "I, on the other hand, am neither sweet or young!"
"I will teleport us there." She nods her muzzle up and down swiftly before clopping even closer, to which he slowly shakes his long horned head in denial. "It is safe, I assure you. Starswirl the Bearded perfected it just in... He truly outdid himself, these recent years."
"When I join him, I will be sure to tell him just that." Stumbling, but slowly going into an ever slow stride alongside Celestia and his guards. "But no, my treatment just ended, and even a simple teleport might be just enough to make that seal truly authentic." Needn't even to look back to understand the sudden silence. "I will explain while I brew some of that minty tea that you enjoy so much, if you care to join me."
"I would like that." She lingers for a few more moments behind the departing guards walking just outside their elder's personal space. Sighing to the moments of tension that never needed be, she gives her head a good shake with the whip of her neck side to side. Opening her eyes just as she begins to turn to follow, she catches the slightly disfigured form of a minotaur sitting far away atop a large outcropping.
Unable to make out the face aside from the distinct lack of any kind of horns, she widens her eyes ever lightly as the minotaur stands up and begins to walk out of view, it's large sledge head reflecting the last few glimmers of a setting sun. Taking one last look, she finally turns about and heads in trot towards the tap of a well worn cane. "...always one no matter where I go."
"Always one what, my dear?" The elder catches just enough to continue forward. "Did you see something you didn't like?"
"Perhaps best to see it as one seeing somepony that they did not quite like." Slowing her clops down to a crawl to keep alongside in stride. "If it were just against myself, I could so easily bare. But it is never I, who is willing, but the ones who simply cannot understand."
"Not all wounds can so easily be forgotten, no matter how hard we may wish otherwise. You know this as well as anyone." Adopting a mild smile to the growing frown hung to his side. "He was just being protective, however. He's really quite compassionate, once you get to know him."
"Fruit come to bare from one of your many escapades perhaps?" Adopting a faint smile to the playfulness in her voice.
"What? Him? Oh, my dear, had I known you thought of me in such a repulsive light I would never of kept trying to court you in my younger years." Earning only the contorted look of an aghast Princess already on the verge of apology, "Would of just copped a feel."
"And you would have ended up just like you had when you touched my sister." Putting just a bit more lift between the clops while pulling ahead, muzzle raised up to the sky, careful only to graze but a few feathers with the whoosh of her wing before doing so. "Hurry up, you old coot."
Forced into a genuine smile for what was the first time the entire night, he taps his stick into the ground at a smoother pace, much to the shared look of surprise of his guards who seem to relax in kind. Lifting his head to gaze upon the darkened sky cast behind full moon light, he slows his pace just a bit in order to not lose balance while giving the lightest of reminiscent hums.
"I know it's been twenty long years, my dear friend, but we haven't forgotten about you." Raising his hand with his fingers spread as if you greet the very moon high in the sky, he pulls all his digits inwards a few times with a grin upon his lips. "Just don't forget about us."