Two hours after the debriefing, I was sitting in the study of the local castle by myself. I wanted to go to sleep, but had too much to process. All the humanoids besides myself were dead. Thanks to Dalock, all that was left in their wake was a plague cocktail. As much as I knew the struggle from this sudden event was only just beginning, I couldn't help but sit and silently weep at their loss.
They were former invaders, sure, but not all of them were outright bloodthirsty. Even with my urging of caution in letting them be reformed, there had been progress among some of them. According to Starlight, there were dream walkers that had been working with the more cooperative ones in sorting out valid stories from liars. Many of them were decent citizens in their old world in the wrong place at the wrong time.
One of the officers I had been told about was just an ex-soldier who's family had wracked up too much debt to pay taxes from a few years of poor harvest. He was pressured into serving under Bane in exchange for maintaining the ongoing taxes for as long as he continued to serve. His only sign on bonus was that if he died in service then the remaining debt would be forgiven. From what the ponies working with him could infer, even when he signed up, the officer wasn't sure if Bane intended to keep that promise.
My mind was drowning with sorrow, burning with anger, and somehow numb all at the same time.
Thinking of a way to try to say goodbye to them, I undid the cap of my water skin and looked at it for a bit. All forms of liquor was going to be commandeered as sanitizing materials in the morning. In turn, I knew I couldn't ask the staff for any. Besides that, I made a point to not drink liquors of any kind due to my tendency to "embrace fury" and a little related family history with alcohol. So water was going to have to do.
Turning to a spot that didn't really get walked on but could be seen easily, I held the water skin out in front of me and took a moment to pause.
With a shake of my head, I muttered aloud, "The cleaning staff are going to be so angry with me."
I grabbed the bottom of the skin and prepared to tilt it.
"To those who were in the wrong place at the wrong time."
Tilting the water skin, I poured most of it out onto the floor. After that, I brought it back upright and had the hand holding the spout lift it up as if it were a toast.
"May you find peace in death that you could not in life, and may..."
I took a pause again, trying to be sensitive about the likely radically different religions of their home.
"And may those that judge you on the other side be fair and as merciful as it is right for them to be."
With that, I tilted my head back and did my best to drink the remaining water in a respectful way, neither rushed nor slowly.
I had just gotten what I felt was the last swallow left in the water skin into my mouth when I heard a noise from behind.
"Hey, Moss! I'm glad I found you!"
I spat the last swallow of water out in a, "Ppfffft!" Turning around, I saw Fluttershy's oddball friend, Pinkie.
"Exactly!" she called to me while pointing her hoof at me. When I gave her an odd look of being completely lost and wanting to know what she was even doing here, she just shook her head.
Her ears went down with unease as her mood practically did a complete flip to a mood similar to my own.
"Um, never mind. I was hoping I could pick your brain for a bit about death and other things?"
* * *
"And that's why I see life as sacred, because once a specific living creature dies, that's it. You can have more of the same species, sure, but that exact rendition of it, never again. That's why I don't see the ability to cause death and destruction as anything great. Virtually every creature can do that to some capacity."
I looked at the normally hyper pink pony sitting politely from across the table where she sat to keep her distance like the princesses had asked everypony in the castle to do. The order for everypony else was going to be announced first thing in the morning after the final version of the orders for the general public had been agreed upon by Princess Celestia and her advisors.
Listening calmly to every word I said seemed to be difficult for her. Despite her best efforts, she had caught herself fidgeting more than once. It was like she was using all her willpower to struggle against her own hyperactive nature to listen.
"But to preserve life, or to help a creature get back to living life after an injury, now that is far more difficult to do than to cause an injury or take life."
Seeing me lean back and finish, Pinkie surmised, "You see life overall as precious because it is so frail?"
It was odd, being the one giving the "how did you get this from what I said" look instead of receiving it for once, but I just shook it off.
"I suppose you could see it like that, but life itself isn't frail. Though there is a bit of that for individual life forms, 'life overall' has a way of adapting and moving on. The real kicker is if the life that you value will be able to adapt and move on with it."
I shook my head. "But that's a grittier topic for another time. I think a better way of wording it is 'I value lives because they are easy to lose, and impossible to truly replace.'"
Pinkie nodded in deep thought at my words. Shortly after, she gave me a worried look. "So... With the problems we have to face in the near future, we are going to have to make some tough calls. For the sake of lives, principles might be challenged."
A deep sense of focus began to emanate from her, like something was truly scaring her and she needed to pry into my soul to get the answer.
"I need to know, if some creature messes up and breaks a principle to save lives. Do you feel the lives they saved are at fault?"
I looked at her with a blank stare for a while. It was like there was a deeper context to her question that I didn't understand. Multiple possible contexts that I had no way to discern made it difficult which answer to give. So I had to just respond as best I could for each context I could think of.
"That could be construed in different ways. If the life saved is not the one that made the call, then I'd say that generally no, without special circumstances at least. Any fault would generally be on the one that made the call."
With a scratching of my neck, I shifted my weight and took a breath to continue.
"If the life saved is also the one that made the choice, that falls under self preservation. Since we're facing an epidemic, then I'd say extreme actions like taking one life to save another medically is considered unethical in my home world. Outside medical decision making, it changes a little. In nature, a predator's right to hunt isn't violated by its prey's right to defend itself. I find it pretty self evident that every entity has the right to preserve its own existence in general, but this goes for every creature on all ends of a conflict."
As I recalled the last day's events, my hands curled into fists and I took a deep breath and a moment to steady myself.
"However, among sentient creatures, like us, it goes deeper. We think in ways beyond our base instincts. This means we have a greater capacity to do good, or harm. Even if you don't throw ethics into this and just use raw pragmatism, we have to weigh the long term effects of our actions and how it reflects on all the things we depend on. So even with an objective view devoid of emotional driven logic like ethics, our right to preserve our own existence is tied hand in hand to an need to try to respect the same right in others where possible. In short, we at least have the capacity to know better, so we have an obligation to do our best to be better."
I threw my fist down in frustration. For my efforts, I got an impact with the good solid slab of crystal underneath the ledge in the wall turned sofa, causing my hand to go a little numb from the impact with the hard surface.
"An obligation my kind have not had a good tract record of keeping because its so tempting for us to make up excuses so that we can ignore the responsibility and take the easy way out instead."
"Uh huh. And with that heartfelt personal burden in a deep mysterious backstory shared-" she responded in a way that made me realize I was rambling, "-what do you think about the actions taken? If it was wrong to do in the first place, should it be undone after?"
Getting back on track, I did my best to give a simple answer.
"Making amends is almost always a good thing, but..."
I looked at the puddle that reminded me of the lives that the other humanoids might have been able to live, albeit under severe supervision. "But as the few sages of my world managed to give to the field of medicine, 'above all else, do no harm.' If undoing an action causes further harm, I don't think it can generally be justified, at least in a medical standpoint. A generalized stand point might have more odd case exceptions, but would likewise follow much the same logic."
Just as I was wrapping up, Pinkie jerked her head a few times, focused on something internal.
"Tingly tongue... Itchy back... Popping ears..."
Her eyes went wide and jaw slack. "Oh. Oh! It's that time already! I got to go cover for myself before Time Turner leaves."
With this, she galloped out of the study, hurriedly calling back to me, "It was nice chatting! I'll be sure to put in a good word for you!"
When she left the study, I heard the princess call out "Pinkie!? You're supposed to be in bed! You're sick!"
"Yep! Heading there now!" I heard Pinkie's echo fade as she ran down the halls.
The next morning, I was expected to stay indoors and isolated in my old cell in the castle. It wasn't for being a prisoner, however. It was more for my own safety, as they still needed to run some tests on some blood they drew from me before they determined if my body would react badly to any of the known diseases from the plague.
Sharp Sentry was oddly not the one guarding me. Rather, Plasma Wave was at the door as my honor guard, catching up on old times. He was lucky enough to not be on duty at his prison during the time of the outbreak, so he had agreed to help out where he could. They needed Sharp Sentry somewhere else, and working in a coordinated team as a pegasus that only had maybe twenty minutes of flight time through his prosthetic at any given time wasn't a good idea.
We actually had to get Tempest to charge both my amulet and his wing from empty to full back to back on a mission, nearly dropping her in the process. In turn, it was no surprise to be decided by everypony involved that the best way Plasma Wave could help was to keep me out of mischief and free up Sharp Sentry to do the more demanding tasks.
Keeping me company was just an incidental side effect, though a welcome one. Thinking of things years back, he shared stories as only a proud parent could gush over.
"I'm just so proud of my little girl. Not only did she train the colt that made this wing to fly, she was granted a blessing by none other than-"
An odd rumbling could be heard as Speaks with Talons came charging up the stairs and hit the breaks a little too late. He ran into the shaft of Plasma Wave's spear across the doorway making up for his limited breaking power and slamming him right across his barrel and front limbs.
With a wince of pain, he pulled his head back out of the cell, allowing Plasma Wave to return the spear to his side.
"Beast Kin, I am in need of your aid. My brothers are here. May I take refuge with you in your cell for a time while I prepare how to approach them? I fear they will find me before I am ready most anywhere else."
I gave him an odd look, tilting my head slowly until my neck was basically slack as I reached to press on my amulet.
"Your brothers? As in other servants of the Animus Mundi?"
Still having a touch of panic, he gave me an uncertain expression.
"Kind of? They are blessed by her as are we, but no. To word it like you would when you clarify something, I mean the other offspring and apprentices of my father. My half-brothers."