Chapter 8 - Decision
I walked outside, unaware at the time of the nature of my parole, only the fact that Lyra, again proving herself the smarter of the two of us, had achieved it. I bottled up any anger I had about being turned to stone without a chance to defend myself, as if I was to get out of the pickle we were in, I couldn’t afford to bear a grudge.
Turning to face Celestia and summoning all my courage, I bowed deeply, saying, “Hail, Celestia, princess and graceful ruler of Equestria and protector of ponies everywhere, from the land of humans I greet you.” It occurred to me that, although I’d seen ponies bowing their heads, perhaps leaning backwards might be the proper genuflection, offering the heart to be gored rather than lowering the head to be chopped. But I was completely improvising anyway.
“Stay back and do not touch us,” said Celestia. “I have restored you out of mercy, but you are dangerous and should leave our land as soon as possible, never to return!”
“Pray tell, your highness, how am I dangerous? I mean no harm to you, or to any of your ponies, or to your land. To come to Equestria has been a dream of mine.”
“Nevertheless you are dangerous.” She turned to the crowd of ponies. “Hear me, Ponyvillians! If humans are allowed to enter our lands, they will invade and take over! They will place bits in your mouths and reins on your necks. They will make the pegasi, who fly free, yield them the sky for machines that send out clouds of smoke. They will steal the crops of the Earth ponies for themselves and force your great strength into service on their wheels. Unicorns will be made into servants, if indeed they allow you to live for fear of the magic they do not understand and cannot imitate. Shun them! They do not know friendship and harmony as we do, only greed, war, and selfishness.”
It was a powerful indictment of my people. I could see that most of the ponies, used to trusting Princess Celestia, were beginning to stamp and paw at the ground in anger at me. I could not sway the crowd by defying her, yet I needed desperately to have them listen. As quick as I could think, I decided on a verbal judo approach—use the princess’s momentum in my favor.
“Fillies and gentlecolts,” I began. Why wasn’t it, ‘mares and gentlestallions’? Not now, you fool! Focus, or you’re banished and then thrown into a dungeon in the place she banishes you to. “Princess Celestia is right to be afraid of a human invasion, though not for the reasons she has said. My world is a place of ills and troubles, many of our own making. But Equestria has its troubles too. You have dragons and manticores, you must ward off spirits of chaos and threats of eternal night, and you must struggle each year to grow enough food to feed yourselves. Humans would come here offering to eliminate these threats, and we could! We have weapons that could tame the Everfree Forest in a week, and technology that could feed all the ponies forever. And we would offer them in a fair exchange for your help in weather control”—here I gestured toward a group of pegasi that had crowded together—“and for beneficial spells.”—pointing toward a gathering of unicorns.
“And that is why humans are dangerous, not because they will harm you, but because they will tempt you! You must resist, because it would not rid Equestria of its problems, it would only weaken and soften you. Nopony would go hungry, but you would grow fat and founder with laminitis. You would not be attacked by dangerous creatures, but you would lose many of the valuable herbs like those Zecora collects. And though you would believe you had made your lives better, your great-grandfoals would curse your names for not giving them the same beautiful world you live in.”
Celestia had a satisfied look on her face. It seemed like I was making her case for her. I paused to give her a chance to respond, but she seemed like she was quite willing to have me continue. And even though I was never much for debate, I felt I had what might be a trump card.
“No, our worlds must never commingle.” I walked over to Lyra and put her hoof in my hand. Her eyes were beginning to well with tears, as what could she think but that I was saying good-bye? “But I am not my world, and each pony is not Equestria. Both of our worlds have their own troubles, and we can’t make them go away. All we can do is to bear them.
“And the only way that any of it can be bearable is with friendship and love. This dear, sweet mare brought me here, not out of greed or selfishness, but because she had love to give, even though not to a pony. And I want to stay with her among you, neither to hurt nor to tempt you, but because I want to be your friend. . . and because I love her.
“Perhaps none of you feel as she does. You may not be curious about another race or fascinated by my different limbs. But would any of you refuse a friend? There are thousands of humans back from where I come who would give all they had to soar with a pegasus among the clouds, or to come to a party with ponies, or to tend the flowers and small animals with you, or to study the lore of your world at your side.
“I’m not asking for free congress between ponies and humans. But won’t you please consider making friends with one?”
By this time, around Celestia had gathered her best-known advisers in Ponyville, whom we call the Mane Six, and she turned to them.
“Well, if I remember right, one of Miss Heartstrings’s request was that I consult with other ponies. What do you think?”
Twilight Sparkle spoke first. “You sent me to this town to find friends. You never said to limit myself to ponies.”
Applejack said, “Shoot, ah don’t see that humans can really be so bad! Never yet met a critter’ll turn on you if yer nice to it.”
Fluttershy came next. “I guess all that stuff’s pretty scary. . . but it would break Lyra’s heart if we said no.”
Rarity looked down at her hooves. “Well, I don’t know that it’s proper to associate with such boors, but I suppose there’s nothing wrong with being a social climber, and if I were cursed with being a human, I’d certainly want ponies to be friends with me.”
Pinkie Pie said, “Humans have funny-looking faces!” Twilight stepped in front of her and said to Princess Celestia, “She means yes.”
Rainbow Dash turned her head away. “Heck, no! They’re strange and scary and Lyra’s just a freak for her weird obsession!”
Fluttershy flew over to her. “You mean you’re scared of the humans too, Rainbow?”
Her multicolored mane flew behind her as she turned back. “I’m not scared of anything! You just bring those humans on, I’ll fly rings around them!”
Twilight stepped closer to the princess. “Well, I think we’re unanimous.”
Murmurs from the crowd started to take on a more positive tone. The six ponies were respected in Ponyville for all they’d done, and the others seemed amenable to listening to them. A few of them actually inched closer as if to see if I smelled right.
Princess Celestia looked at Lyra and me. “It seems that the ponies of this town are willing to give you a chance. I won’t force you to leave now.” My heart rose, and if Lyra was still crying, it was with joy. The princess continued, “But I will be keeping an eye on you and I want everypony here to do the same. If there’s any trouble with you, I’ll transport you myself and I might not be too careful about giving you a soft landing.”
“Thank you, your majesty! It’s all I can ask, but it’s all I ever wanted.”
Lyra cantered over to the princess. “Your highness, I’m sorry I blew up at you before. I. . . I really don’t mind if you call me your little pony.”
For the first time that night, Celestia smiled. “I forgive you, dear. Maybe the next time you break the barriers between worlds though, you’ll give us a heads-up.”
She gestured to her guards and they all flew off into the night. From all around me I could hear the crowd starting to break up, though I wasn’t watching. I only had eyes for Lyra.
Stats
Page generated in 0.041 seconds
Total duration
941 users online
1,234,566 hits today, 2,004,447 yesterday
FIMFiction
My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic Fanfiction
Designed and coded by knighty & Xaquseg - © 2011-2024
Follow & Support Us
Support us
SubStar
Chat!
Discord
Follow us
Twitter
MLP: Friendship is Magic® - © 2024 Hasbro Inc.®
Fimfiction is in no way affiliated with or endorsed by Hasbro Inc.®
I don't recall the Princess ever being this... cruel and xenophobic, but then again... any land tends to encounter that with new people..
Oh really?
I got to admit, this chapter (and the end of the last chapter) seriously hurt my enjoyment of the story.
Honestly, Celestia was completely and utterly out of character. I think I cringed throughout the entire chapter. It's basically like Yukigo said; why is she acting like that? She resorts to violence the moment she gets there, and sends a dangerous monster into an innocent civilians home knowing Lyra was in there, when she knows what a cockatrice(?) can do. I mean, to not even try to talk?
Their little debate was even worse. I lost count at the number of times I facepalmed with how idiotic the princess was being. What made it even worse for me was that I can't figure out any kind of way where she would actually act like that.
I hope you change how she acts soon, or her terrible characterization will make me end up dropping it. And that would suck, since I've loved the story up to this point.
Ever have that little feeling nibbling at the back of your head when you think there's something amiss. That's how I am with this story. Now that I've thought about it, this part of the story is actually the weakest one and overall has the worst theme. It casts Celestia as a typical anti-human straw pony and the main protagonist comes across as incredibly self-serving. He continues to cast humanity in a bad light just as Celestia did, but at a different angle. In the end the message isn't that Celestia should reconsider her position towards humans, but should allow this one human to stay to satisfy his own needs. That's bad enough, but to claim that interactions with humans would weaken and soften ponies through temptation and guile is sickeningly misanthropic.
The Awesome! It is getting mored! Vanguard Awesome levels critical. Partial Awesome dump in 3... Cancelled.
wow she defended humans passionately. its almost seems cannon in stories that involve humans that celestia is kind of a bigot. I did enjoy seeing celestia being called out alot though. :3
i do have to admit i agree that celestia was waay out of character but i still liked it and i can see that realisticly the ruler over the world would be like that, especially if they knew what most humans where like. but never the less...The Story Continues!
Ws Celestia OOC, or was it a 'test'? If the latter, then I'm okay with it.
201663
You've never heard of Tyrant Celestia (Tyrestia)?
I loathe Tyrant Celestia stories. Especially when they're done in this fashion, where it feels like everything about the character was changed for the sole purpose of being an antagonist the main character can soapbox at.
i was hoping for the dude to pimp slap celestia for being a bitch and telling her to fuck off i hate when people act nice with ponies even when the ponies are massive assholes with then specially when the pony in question is a noble(although i think thats because i am a socialist so the first thing that comes to my mind when i see a noble is killing him
)
To be without innovation and technology is to be less than human. What strawmannish misanthrope nonsense. Humans are fucking epic as hell.
OOoookayy. I really dislike the way Celly is written. Make her look/act really stupid. That sort of speech/debate is wayyyyyy below what i expect from an immortal god-empress of ponies.
Since the intent was obviously to banish/kill him.. (stoned without provocation, flaring up an angry mob with fear/hate speech.. what's gonna happen? Cake and tea?) why she even bother to come there and justify herself is beyond me. She could just grab him with magic and send him into low orbit. Problem solved.
I feel Celly's role would have been better if it was another character that took her place, like an opinionated guard captain or something. Would make more sense.
I mean, why did Celly show up for a "maybe its a human in my house, officer. Yes my roomate sort of like the mythical humans that no one else really knows about. Not im suure it wasnt a diamond dog. Yes i want our god-empress to come here on a unconfirmed "maybe" that i saw in a few seconds, what do you mean she wont bother to show up?"
Oh wow, Celestia the tyrannical xenophobe...and here I thought I WASN'T reading a TCB fic... Seriously, if I wasn't two chapters from the end, I'd be tempted to ragequit right here. The concept of Celestia like this seems just completely out of character from everything we know about her. Admittedly, humans have their problems, but ponies aren't exactly all saints either. In fact, if it wasn't for a pair of essentially gods looking over their shoulders (and the threat of disharmony induced ice ages) Equestria wouldn't be too much different from us (heck, given the story of Heartswarming eve, that's actually pretty much a given, considering the three races were on the verge of war without the windingos anyway).
Also, I should point out that ponies share a planet with sentient griffons, a species known mythologically as being a predator to horses, and yet they apparently get along well enough with equestrian ponies that the two we've seen are allowed free will to come and go among them as they please.
I guess what I (and a lot of other people judging by the comments) am saying is there were better ways to ramp up the drama in the story without pulling the 'Celestia has a hate on for humans' card. (Also...weaponized cockatrices? ...Interesting concept, but that seems like a bit of overkill, especially in Equestria, and ESPECIALLY used the way it was here.)
I didn't like the fact the guy gave a bad opinion of his people, agreeing with her, but saying essentially 'yeah humans are bad, but not me I'm a good human'. I'm sorry, but given his knowledge of MLP world, he easily could have poked holes in her case left and right, bringing the Heartswarmth eve back ground, and shoved it in their face. I'm sorry, but saying what they can do without proving that they are all bad is piss poor. Still liked the story but the distrust of humans will continue as I have seen it in your derpy sequel where Twilight was afraid of Karen potentially eating someone despite the fact that the guy here lived with Lyra for a few years. Anyway, glad Lyra got her human. dl.dropbox.com/u/31471793/FiMFiction/emoticons/misc_Lyra.png dl.dropbox.com/u/31471793/FiMFiction/emoticons/misc_Lyra.png dl.dropbox.com/u/31471793/FiMFiction/emoticons/misc_Lyra.png 1571827 This
Here comes Trollestia!
LYRA, you bad. ass!
that was real touching stuff rite there x3
I'm sorry to downvote this but I cannot stand a HIE were humanity is portrayed as fundamentally evil.
2291082 Well, they have every right to do so. Our world has already gone to hell.
I mean, we had to do this:
inapcache.boston.com/universal/site_graphics/blogs/bigpicture/koreanwar_06_23/k19_00901090.jpg
And they have almost never had a war.
1382980 FUCK PONIES, CELESTIA HAS HELD BACK THEIR TECHNOLOGY LONG ENOUGH. OH AND ALSO, CELESTIA IS HYPOCRITICAL. HUMANITY, HELL YEAH!
2407891 Its also a fictional, unrealistic, purposefully crated to be a utopia with problems not coming from the ponies but from being acted upon by outside forces I.E discord, the nightmare, chrysalis, gilda. The only times where ponies have conflicts are in their desires but even then its resolved by freindship. thats part of its allure. A world where love, friendship can not only conquer evil but also our own shortcomings. Thats not the world we live in. We live in a chaotic world where our own deep rooted nature is that of disharmony. Not evil, but we are always in conflict with our surroundings and ourselves. We choose (if we are of sound mind) altruism and order because we want to live in a world like Equestria. We don't, because if the love of mortal man could conquer anything we wouldn't live in a world where the huns raped and pillaged the lands and its people. we would not lvie in a world where WW1 or WW2 happened. We would live in that idiealistic utopia that is forever out of our reach because the reason why we never will is because of the key difference between humans and the ponies in equestria (besides the obvious). We are fallible, imperfect, choatic, but real creatures. they are Harmonious, imperfect, fallible, unrealistic and fictional creatures. That is why people always enjoy reading a story about a utopian society, because imperfect creatures can not give rise to any sort of perfection unless they are acted upon by another perfect creature, and only if we cannot corrupt that perfect creature (whether by intent or by accident).
I have to say, while I am liking this story and will finish it, I do share the opinion of others that Celestia being all tyranical and stuff just seems so unlike her character; I mean, I can see her being upset but...she strikes me as someone to realize you can't condemn all of a species for the actions of part of it. Other than that I'm enjoying this, especially seeing Lyra being a badass with that speech she gave. XD
I agree with Celestia. Look at what we did: Technology made us less social and more relaxed.
4010875 Personaly I think it makes us more social.
I think I've figured it out. Celestia had a human lover, that betrayed her.
No wonder she's so pissed off.
For someone who was unused to debate, that human did a good job. You know, I might do a human visiting Equestria story myself. You've inspired me.
You know what I thought when I was reading this... You don't care well oh well I will say it anyways... Evil Conversion Beuros.
4010875 Well, yeah, but Skyrim!!!!
4012411
Texting and emails and comments don't count
I don't know about you but I think that face to face talking is properly socialising
5696538
I would disagree with you. For myself, it is not so much the medium of communication but the content of a conversation that determines what is socializing. I won't deny that face to face conversation has value, in my opinion more so for groups, but think of all the benefits of written or digital communication: one has a little more time to think about exactly what they want to write, a reduction in social anxiety, and generally less interruptions. Also, messaging on the internet allows us to meet, and thus socialize with, people whom we never could have otherwise. I would agree that a text sequence of "Hey, whats up?," "nmu?," "same," does not count as socializing, but I have had that exact same conversation in person on multiple occasion. I have also had intricate discussions via text messaging and IM. In short, its what you say, not the method you use to say it, that counts.
Well this is weird
So, this doesn't seem like Celestia at all. Like, even remotely. Clearly, your human has landed in the Equestria created by fan theory, and not show canon.
Although I do like the line "I am not my world".
Ya sorry to say she is completely right. Some people and undoubtedly bronies would resist but when the worlds governments have to choose peace or profit the later comes first. Furthermore if you follow the sea shepherd movement as close as I do you would agree that most of the worlds countrys would just see them as a new source of fur coats.
Stagnation leads to the downfall of civilizations. Earth and Equestria have many things to offer each other that would help all sides. It would result in change, and change is neither good or bad.
I do believe that Celestia is xenophobic in this fic and she is missing the values of, generosity, kindness, honesty.