A New Dawn

Samson watched the two Mistresses walk away, hands rubbing the insides of his pockets to try and warm them up, breath crystallizing as the door was left open. He waited a respectable ten seconds before shutting the door after them, so as to keep what little warmth there was to be in the cabin. As soon as he closed it he turned around to the elder sitting on one of the beds who was busy glaring at Heiro. “Patrick why’d you leave the door open? It feels like one of the coldest days of the year out there.”

The old man inclined his head to their guest. “Some fresh air does wonders for one’s soul and from our new brother’s seemingly miracle recovery, it helped. The size of his head wound, along with how he looked when they found him in the fields I would have expected at least a week before he woke up if at all.” Patrick shook his head in disbelief and stood up, grabbing the bed post as support, walking over to him while their guest sat on the bed, his walking consisting of stumbling one step with his right leg and then managing two steps with his left and repeating the same pattern each time he he stepped. Their guest paid no mind and instead counting something off with his fingers and tracing unseen symbols.

“So how’s his condition?” He asked as Patrick came up next to him and past him, out through the door to rest on the outside wall, out of earshot of their guest. He followed after Patrick and looked out at the fields where everyone was working.

Patrick dusted his hands off, eliciting a slight clapping noise. “Not much of a worker hands are too soft, has a good set of teeth and not much dirt on him so he’s either somepony’s pet or a noble’s servant. A lot of scarring from somepony cutting into him a lot of times, hundreds of the scars being some kind of symbols. Even has some fat on him, albeit it’s only a little.”

“But it’s still some fat, which on an average person wouldn’t be there.”

Patrick nodded and ran a shaky, frail hand through his sparse hair. “He’s not going to be good work for the fields, at least not for a while. I’m saying that not just because of his lack of muscle, but his head injury is going to keep him from doing anything hard for a while, lest the wound start bleeding again and the fact that he seems dead tired.” Patrick rubbed his hands together, enjoying the feeling of his wrinkly skin, something that most people didn’t get to experience. “Has a smart mouth on him too, annoying little bugger, seems to be smart too so he might have been a butler that knew when to shut up, which he seems to have forgotten to on account of his head injury.”

Samson chuckled at his joke. “No bad vibes from him then?” He asked in a lower voice, so that their guest wouldn’t hear.

“Not bad exactly, just slightly off-kilter. Can’t make heads or tails of it.” Patrick replied, biting his thumb in concentration. To strangers and those who didn’t know, asking a human of all things about vibes sounded stupid, after all they couldn’t sense magic or anything of the like. But when Patrick said that the Master was in a bad mood, even though he hadn’t seen him all day or heard anything from him, he was always right. If Patrick said that an ice storm was coming and they needed more wood to burn for the fires, they grabbed the wood and stayed warm in their huts. So when Patrick said that he couldn’t get a vibe off of their guest, that was something different.

“What do you mean by off-kilter?” He asked left eyebrow cocking as he wondered about what that could mean.

Patrick shook his head with a sad frown. “Just feels I don’t know… artificial?” He half-asked, trying to find the right words to express what he felt coming off their guest. “Don’t know what to call it but something is off about that boy.”

“I’ll keep an eye on him then.” He re-assured the elder, who simply smiled at him and turned around to stumble back inside. Trailing after him he shut the door behind them once more and stood beside it, knowing that he was about to leave again with Heiro. Heiro was busy wrapping a blanket around himself, cloak style with a knot at the neck, two new leather boots secured to his feet already.

Patrick waved at Samson before sitting down on one of the beds and looking at him. “I know you will son, just make sure this boy doesn’t insult the Mistresses or Master when he gets back home. Now you,” He turned around to Heiro who just quietly stared back. “I don’t want to hear about you insulting your betters, or I’ll beat you, hear me?”

Heiro nodded at the old man, eyes rolling ever so slightly as he fully wrapped the blanket around himself. “No need to worry but me, I’m in no particular rush to have myself drawn and quartered. Shall we be getting this over with then my good man?” He asked Samson with a nod to the door.

Samson nodded back and waved him on as he leaned back off the wall and re-opened the door, letting the injured teenager go before him. Closing it behind him, with a final smile to Patrick, he looked at his new charge and with a playful tone he asked, “Before we go anywhere do I need to worry about you collapsing on me?”

He laughed, air crystallizing on his breath. “If this takes too long I might be a popsicle, freezing out here.” One hand coming out from his blanket cloak to rub at his rapidly reddening cheeks, rubbing at it to restore some warmth.

“Well I hope you get used to it, because unless we figure out who you are, you’re going to be up here for a long time. No need to worry about working for a while, we have a no gashes in the head policy.” He joked, before continuing on in the snow, it crunching lightly under each step.

“Hardy har har.” Heiro mumbled under his breath before following him, shivering slightly in the northern’s fall air. They only walked a few yards before Samson pointed at something, that something being one of the several shacks.

“See the shack with just a pink curtain on it?” Heiro looked over to where he was pointing to see a slightly more spruced up shack that was the second largest one, made entirely out of wood minus the stone chimney that jutted out of the top of the roof, added as if it was last minute. It had one window that was currently covered by one of the only two pieces of color of all the shacks, the curtain being pink like Samson pointed out. The other colored shack was one with blue, slightly larger but not was well done. “The pink curtain was a gift from the Master a few years ago along with the blue one on the other shack, which I’m sure you can figure out for yourself.”

“The men’s I’d guess, so what’s up with all the other shacks if you only have two for people to live in? Like what was the one I was in?” Heiro asked with a shrug of his shoulders, hopping from leg to leg instead of standing still like Samson.

“That was the infirmary you were in, and over there is the tool shack, one beside it is our food storehouse and so on and so forth.” He said whilst pointing at various shacks, the two most intact ones being the ‘houses’. “Now come on, not much to see around our branch of the estate.”

Samson walked on down the same path as the Mistress’ did, waving hi and saying good morning to people as they passed by. Heiro flashed each person a smile as they walked by, but otherwise keeping his lips sealed, instead eyes focusing on the trembling hands of the workers that weren’t wearing gloves, who wore heavier coats than those who did were gloves, seeming as if they traded one bit of warmth for the other. Lips slightly blue on the three young children who ran back and forth between those gathering fruits and giving them some type of items he didn’t recognize. Crystalline fruits weren’t something he was used to but he wasn’t going to question it, didn’t remember his own name after all. Once they passed by the majority of the workers and started approaching the house that presumably belonged to the ponies he decided to make a comment. “You all look like you’ve been here for a long time.”

“We’ve been here since before the the Dawn family knew the Royal Diarchs.” Samson said with pride in his voice, head tilting upwards a little to the sky as if he could see them now.

Heiro rolled his eys behind Samson’s back. “Just for the record I want to remind you that I have no memories, but I digress that sounds like a while so why do the houses look so bad?”

Samson paused and laughed, rubbing the back of his head in embarrassment. “How could I forget that you don’t remember anything, but you’d be correct in assuming that’s a long time. The reason why the homes don’t look too good is because a dozen or so years ago two of our brothers decided it was a good idea to rebel against the Master and Mistress. One of our more loyal brother’s decided to protect them, and it resulted in most of the shacks burning down.” He finished with a frown.

Heiro frowned too, not because of the story but because that wasn’t the answer he was expecting. Which would be along the lines of the ponies not caring or the like. Rubbing his hands together underneath the cloak, the finger losing sensation in the cold. “Shame to hear that then, so what’s up next for the tour?”

As if eager to switch subject Samson immediately picked up his pace and resumed his walk to the mansion like house. “Well off over there,” He pointed in a seemingly random direction. “Is the nearest town, more or less a whole day’s walk away. The Master is away negotiating something with the train conductor. I think.”

Heiro grunted an affirmative. Samson then pointed to the mansion, ahead only a couple of minutes. “The final place that is of much importance would be the Master and Mistress’ house.” His companion grunted another affirmative, but remained silent otherwise, so he decided to see what he could figure out about him in the little time he had before they arrived at the Mansion. “Since you don’t remember much I’m going to assume you don’t have an opinion on the rebellions going on?”

“What you mean against the ponies?” Samson nodded and Hiero actually slowed down to think about it. “Well I guess whoever’s in charge is in charge for a reason, be it strength or knowledge they’re up top until somebody else gets up.”

“Not against the idea of it though?” Samson asked, eyes narrowing slightly while Hiero wasn’t looking.

“Depends on what they’re doing I suppose, so I can’t say. Why you ask?” He asked looking back at Samson with a slight smirk. “Afraid I’m crazy or something buddy?”

“I can’t be a servant to the Dawn Household if they’re dead.” Quick to the point Samson was with his answer, the disdain in his voice openly present.

“Good for you then, know how to do your job.” Smiling Hiero looked at the mansion, sun sparkling off the windows and snow on the roof, blinding most of the house’s actual features. “Take it that they’re a good family to you guys, since somebody apparently stopped a revolt and your attitude to me?”

“We have a day each week to ourselves, we’re fed well, not punished very often, get good tools and the like. Heck we could fix the shacks up to look better if we wanted but we left them like they are to remind ourselves of what happens when you try to be stupid.” Samson said without breaking his stride, venom inking into his voice.

“Should have said that about the shacks, was thinking bad about them earlier. Regardless good for you all for the good relations. So what’re we doing walking to the mini castle?” His hands exited the cloak again to rub against his face, not used to the cold air at all, his lack of clothes not helping at all.

“Well the young Mistress wanted me to show you around our small estate and since we’re done with that I figured it’d be a good idea to ask her if she had any plans for you.” Reaching the bottom of the steps he reached over to the snow that dusted the railing and ran his hand against it to clean it off, the slight burning sensation not bothering him in the least.

Hiero bobbed his head back and forth, picking at the frozenish bandage and blood that had come out. “I suppose, truth be told I probably would have kicked myself out if I were in their shoes. Hooves… whatever it is.”

“I would have too.”