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// What is Wanted 
// Story: Equestria's Ray of Hope 
// by The_Darker_Fonts 
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“Look, I don’t care how urgent the move was, you can’t just run off like that,” Fluttershy told Ray, shaking her head as she circled around him.  “You scared everypony half to death, and the only reason Twilight herself didn’t attempt to find you was because she could confirm where you were.  Thank goodness Skalos has better communication skills than you do, otherwise the same day she announced the war she would’ve had to announce our only hope was missing.”
“Look, I screwed up, I know, but please, listen for half a second,” Ray demanded, following her through the thick layer of snow around her house.  “This past week has been the best week of my life, here or on Earth.”
The mare whipped around furiously, a brow arched at him, and he quickly explained, “These past seven days have been a blur of training and fighting, and I’ve enjoyed every single moment of it.  Down with the Fallen, I don’t have to be perfect, be a completely flawless apparition of purity, in order to be a hero.  Up here, on the surface, the ponies are afraid of me, afraid of what I can do, and now afraid of what I will do.  I’m not going to try to change that, partly because I know that I really can’t when I’ll only reaffirm their fears in a few month’s time.  
“But down with the Fallen, in the Harkening, there is no judgment for the mistakes that I have made, only acceptance and encouragement.  I tell them that I’ve killed people, that I killed Chrysalis and Tirek, and they don’t react with fear or shock or discomfort.  They tell me that if I feel like it was the right choice, then it is.  With the Fallen, there is no condemnation, because they have done similar or worse.  We’re all imperfect down in Tartarus, and we’re all striving to be a bit better.  None of us have the squeaky clean life or history that everyone on the surface does, and maybe that’s what makes us the best candidates to fight.  We don’t have to attempt to be perfect, only better, and that leaves room to walk in the gray, to make mistakes.”
“Okay, but at what point does acceptance become encouragement,” Fluttershy challenged, opening the door to her cottage.  “At what point does somepony ki… kill somepony else, and everypony just goes along with it.  From what you told me, it already happened with that stallion down in Tartarus, that one who was leading the rebellion.”
Taking a breath and slowing down for a moment, Ray clarified, “He was a traitor in his actions and words.  He would’ve become problematic for us even if he hadn’t been neutralized, but you also forget what actually happened, and what could have happened, if he didn’t die.  He represented a group that was willing to fight against me and the other Fallen in combat over their ideologies.  A full blown civil war in the Harkening would have been devastating and would only increase the division amongst us.  I never intended to kill him but I did because he attacked me.  Need I remind you of the result of that?”
With a firm yank, he pulled down his shirt from his collar, revealing the scar that remained from Cohin’s spear.  The mare visible shuttered at the skin, the small valley formed in his shoulder in spite of the healing it had received.  Fluttershy bit her lip before hesitantly saying, “I know, it was in self defense, justifiable, even, but it goes against everything I stand for.”
“Perhaps that we can only ever be friends then,” Ray stated sadly, letting the collar back into its place before lifting up his shirt from the bottom, showing her the mottled skin of his stomach’s scar.  “Every person I’ve ever killed has left a scar, a mark of the damage they’ve done.  Not one of them has died undeserving of their ultimate end.”
“What about Tirek and Chrysalis,” Fluttershy challenged.  “You never fought against them, and yet you killed them too!”
“Twilight showed me the scar around her neck, given to her by Tirek when he attempted to choke the life from her,” Ray revealed, letting his shirt drop back into place.  “Chrysalis’ work can be seen in the castle itself and all over Canterlot.  Some houses attacked by the changelings under her rule were abandoned, left as broken or burnt remnants of her attack.  Even in the Everfree there are still pockets destroyed by the both of them, the magic they wielded against innocent creatures like you.  When I said I haven’t killed a single person that hasn’t left a scar, that doesn’t just count towards me.  The scars those two have left on Equestria are still damaging, a mark of an age of fear and chaos.”
“Then what about Discord,” Fluttershy demanded.  “He’s left plenty of odd marks on Equestria, yet you two are friends!”
“Discord has never killed anybody with his chaos, has never done damage that he himself hasn’t fixed,” he responded.  “He took his second chance and became better with it, decided to change his course.  That’s why Cozy Glow is free out there, somewhere.  Twilight told me the only reason she is free is because there was an ounce of redeemability in her, a part of her that wants to and will change for the better.  If the same had been true for the other two, then they wouldn’t be pieces of stone scattered all over the world.  They determined their fate, I merely fulfilled it.”
The pegasus fell silent at the statement, a concentrated look crossing her face as she attempted to come up with an argument against him.  With a sigh, he knelt down, reaching out a hand and running it through the fur along her back, the soft hair warm in spite of the cold.  “I know it’s impossible to ask you to go against what you stand for, what is embedded in you, but I need you to trust my judgment and accept that this is how it will always be.”
“You mean you running off and fighting, coming back Celestia knows when to say ‘Hello’, before going off and doing it again,” Fluttershy asked, a crack in her voice.  
“If that’s what it takes for this to end, then maybe, but for now, before I do leave for war, let’s not worry about what will happen,” Ray begged.  “I’ve been having to deal with this war, the shadow of it, since the first day of arriving in Equestria.  It’s almost killed me twice, and has forced me to make choices that I would never have thought I’d make.  Everyone I talk to only wants to talk about it, the terrible tragedy that I have to fight it, or that it means death for so many.  There are plenty of other people to make me focus on that; Twilight, Skalos, Discord, any of the leaders or Fallen…  Please, Fluttershy, can you be the one I can go to when I don’t want to talk about it?  Can you be the one that I can trust to never force me to face my fate?”
Fluttershy paused for a moment, contemplating hard at the question.  She sat like that for a minute, and then two, occasionally glancing up at Ray’s face before back down at the snow.  They sat like that long enough from the snow to seep through his pants and shoes, custom made by Rarity to fit him and work better in combat.  They stayed like that long enough that Ray felt the chill creep through him and force a shiver out of him, but he stayed still, searching her face.  Finally, she looked up slowly, opening her mouth haltingly.
“I can’t promise to be perfect… but you deserve every break you can get from it all,” she told him with a weak smile.  “I’ll do whatever I can in whatever way possible to give you peace of mind.”  Then, with a flash of sudden realization, she stood up, scattering the snow at her doorway as she exclaimed, “It’s Thursday!  Please, come in!  I’ll make some tea and we can talk about whatever’s on your mind.  Most of my animals are out anyways hibernating, though a few of them, like Otolo, decided to stay with me through the winter.  Perhaps you could go get her before the tea is finished?”
“Sure, I’ll run and grab her,” Ray agreed.  Standing, he turned to begin, but a small voice inside him urged him to do one last thing before he left.  Turning, he caught the door right before it closed, opening it enough to catch Fluttershy’s eye.  With a grateful smile, he said, “Thank you, Fluttershy.”
“For what,” she responded, a knowing twinkle in her eye as she turned and entered her house, Ray following her into the warmth.