"How does it feel?"
"Huh?" The soldier looked to the side.
"How does it feel?" the unicorn asked again.
"Being tied up like this?" The soldier tugged at his bonds a little for emphasis.
"Oh, no, I know what that feels like," the unicorn replied. He then nodded towards the scene playing out a distance away. "I meant seeing your leader getting torn to pieces in a fight."
The soldier stared for a while, pondering, watching as blood spilled out of Nightmare Moon's body under Twilight's unrelenting magical assault. Eventually, he spoke again. "Hysterical."
The unicorn looked at him, furrowing his brow. "Really?" he asked in interested surprise.
"It's the most accurate succinct description of it I can give," said the soldier. "The alternative would be too long and too complicated for me to articulate properly. I was never a well read pony, I don't think I'd even have the vocabulary for it."
"Huh." The unicorn looked back at the scene. "Can I ask you why it feels like that?"
"Can I first ask you how you think you would feel in a similar situation?" the soldier asked back.
"I don't really need to imagine after the little show your queen put up today. That whole showing up with our princess chained up and beaten, you know?" the unicorn said. "It made me angry. Would have probably made me feel somewhat desperate too if I hadn't known about it in advance, and I guess I was somewhat glad she was still alive but that's beside the point. Rage, sadness, maybe some portion of hope born out of denial. That's what I'd say it would feel like for me."
"You love your princesses, don't you?" asked the soldier, not expecting an answer. "I think there are some where I'm from that love our queen as well. Certainly anypony who's gotten too close to her. But it doesn't matter if you love her or not, because you're required to act the same way either way."
"And you don't love her?" the unicorn asked.
Then soldier chuckled. "That's the thing. It doesn't matter. If your ideas have no consequences, then they become meaningless. I never bothered to love her or not, I just followed along, and I got lucky enough I never ended up close to her." He suppressed another chuckle. "That's not the funny part, though."
"And what is?" The unicorn raised his eyebrows and looked to him.
"Have you ever seen serious propaganda?" the soldier asked. "I imagine not. To give you an idea, we barely even have a concept of what propaganda is, I only know it because I'm a soldier. Nightmare Moon isn't just our queen. The image she built up for herself is one of divinity. She's erased patches of history from the archives and rewritten what we're taught just for the sake of being perceived how she wants. She's supposed to be unstoppable, all powerful, almost all knowing at times it seems." A laugh escaped his lips, interrupting him momentarily. "And here she is getting blown to bits by a mare two thirds her size. And I think that is absolutely hysterical."