//------------------------------//
// Gethsemane. 
// Story: Unkind Kindness 
// by jnzsblzs 
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State glanced at the guard and he dropped me to the ground. I was so dejected I hardly even tried to break my fall. As I lied there on the ground like a heap of failure, I heard a triumphant roar.

“Holy fuck, I’m good. I wanna snort cocaine off my erect dick!”

I heard the door clank, and the two sets of hooves left

I stayed down lying in absolute filth unmoving, my eyes glaring at nothing. He couldn’t have been right, right? Was I so blinded by my arrogance in my beliefs that I never considered that the other side might have valid points? No, that made no sense. I was one of the few to see the Human’s truth at all, seeing the other side of the coin was the very thing that led me here.

But ever since I turned, how many times did I second guess myself? Not a lot I guess. I mean I was worried if it was worth it to sacrifice everything I loved for this, anyone would… but have I questioned if I was right in the first place? It just seemed so obvious, one side was turning the other into mindless monsters, there isn’t that much to consider about that.

Still… was this the reason I never even thought about it? Partly yes… I thought that much was clear but… I don’t know…

A strange thought emerged into my mind amidst my pondering. The picture of a long forgotten YouTube video telling me how people make decisions emotionally but justify them rationally.

Could everything I believed merely be a justification of everything I felt?

Even if it was, was it a problem? I was after all chosen as the element of kindness, I had never been in a situation where my feelings were wrong. Then again, same could be said about the rest of us, yet now at least 5 of us were wrong.

I could almost hear Steady asking: “What’s more likely that exactly one of you are right, or that all of you are wrong?”

“I don’t know you degenerate fuck! Is that what you want to hear!? I don’t know! I’ve been put here by a cruel joke I’m too stupid to understand. I’m forty years old and for all forty of them I’ve wanted nothing but help others. And now I’m here for doing exactly that.”

What was I supposed to do now? Was this really a cross I should bear? To make one mistake and maybe kill one people? Was this what you thought when you said ‘my yoke is easy and my burden is light.’ What were my choices here? Just die here doing nothing, while my friends die because of my stupidity, and the ponies of Equestria get slaughtered by war or wasted by nuclear weapons? That would be some way to resemble the life of Christ. Except the redemption I bring is death.

And what of the alternative? To believe my enemies, to heed the word of this liesmith of Celestia, whom I can neither believe nor disprove? To save the single worst creature whose hooves ever touched the ground?

My values keep selling each other out but they leave me without my worth.

“You wanted it that way didn’t you? Convincing me was never your aim, was it? I just had to believe that you’re bigger than me, the rest of it would follow naturally. Well congratulations, now I truly believe that, and now I don’t know what am I supposed to do. You’re so much over me you might be betting on me doing the exact opposite of what I think you’d want me to.”

I can hear my deranged cackle softly echoing in the cell. My next thought is so absurd I can hardly believe it. I have achieved freedom. No one can know what I’m going to do next because I don’t know what I’m going to do next!

Now I’m truly a being made in the image of God. A creature of free will through and through.

And with free will I can do only one thing. Walk up to the Golgotha and die. That’s what Jesus did so it should be good enough for me right?

I guess it's better than the alternative. Living the rest of my life in this cell hated by ponies for giving humanity a chance to exact their just revenge, and hated by humans for denying it.

Wait, what if that’s the point? Jesus’ sacrifice has never been about his death. It’s about his ability to choose anything else but still going through with God’s plan. To the very last moment he could have evoked his Godly power and jumped off the cross walking away unharmed. He didn’t. He died like a Human, broken, undignified.

His sacrifice was not his earthly body but his godhood, not giving up his free will, but mustering it for a greater cause.

“You are right, you always have to be right, don’t you? I reckon that’s part for the cause. In the end I have to give up my ego so that I can accomplish your goals, and you know what, I will do it with love in my heart even though I won’t receive any for the rest of my life. I just pray that one day they may understand my reason.”

I get up, and finally, I can’t feel pain. Or much of anything. I walk over to the bars, gently rap them twice and say quietly, but with absolute certainty.

“Guard. Please inform Princess Celestia that I’ve elected to accept her proposal.”

I will build the shield that guards the peace between my species.