//------------------------------//
// Emerald 
// Story: Book 1 - The Behemoth came to Canterlot 
// by Equimorto 
//------------------------------//

"I'm a soldier," said the unicorn. "Enrolled in the Guard back home, during peaceful times if I can add. And I spent most of my time guarding a castle no one ever tried to break into. I didn't get a choice coming here when the country decided to attack. They would have shot me dead or worse if I'd tried to run away."
Applejack hesitated a little, drawing slightly back, but she still pressed on. "You don't say that like you regret coming here."
"I don't," said the unicorn. "Like I said, the alternative was dying in the best case. I could have done without being captured, almost killed, and knocked to the ground by that damned thing, but I don't regret coming here. All of that is your fault, anyway."
Applejack had another twitch of rage, but she contained herself and didn't smash the unicorn's head against the wall. He noticed that. He seemed unimpressed. "Don't you even care who you're fighting against?" she barked at him. "Don't you care what the battle is for?"
"None of my business. I might be curious about it, but I'm just following orders, same as everyone else does in Equestria. We don't get an alternative, but I've never had a reason to complain." He straightened himself against the wall. "Ponies die all the time. Traitors being executed, rebels being dealt with, criminals being caught. If you didn't want to die, you could have surrendered."
Applejack had a small outburst at that. "And let Nightmare Moon take over our lives and murder our princesses?"
"Yeah." The stallion's tone was dead serious. "What's your alternative? Fighting back, and risking death in the process, and worse consequences than what would have happened had you surrendered? You chose that. Willingly, I hope, and knowing what you were going towards. Don't blame me for it."
Applejack's breath got a little heavy, but she turned away from the stallion, almost growling. "Don't you give a damn about ponies' freedom?"
"You had your freedom, and your freedom was choosing between surrender, fighting back, or running away. Mine was choosing between fighting or being branded a traitor. What you call freedom has its limits too, you were just fortunate enough to have them be outside the scope of your wants. Now we've come to limit your supposed freedom, but nothing has really changed. You still have your ability to decide. Now you just realise you were always just playing with what the world allowed you to."
Applejack turned to say something, but he stood up and approached her, speaking before she could. "You call what you had freedom because you grew up with it, and never learned a need for anything outside those boundaries. Because you learned there were consequences if you crossed them. I grew up in what was probably a smaller box than yours, in that sense, but I learned to call it freedom too. Give it a couple generations, if we win, and the ponies here will see it the same way. You've got every right to hate me for trying to limit what you have, but I don't regret any of it. We're doing the same thing."
Applejack was quiet for a moment, holding the stallion's stare. "Don't you have morals?"
"I've got no god to uphold them but the one that's sent me here. We're different, me and you, but we're the same. Don't pretend you would have been better in my stead, whatever you think better means. Don't pretend you would have been different. I wouldn't have in yours."