This is terrible.
Marc stared blankly at the floor of the room he was placed in as he sat in the corner furthest from the door. He couldn’t remember much of how he had ended up there. He didn’t want to. Outside, loud words could sometimes be heard through the thick wood of the door, but he was fighting other demons.
They wouldn't do this. Why would they do this? Who gave them the right to do this to me?!
Marc stared at the venomous pile of papers on the floor in front of him. Thoughts flew through his mind as he tried to lock onto what emotion he felt the most.
Betrayal.
It wasn't even Twilight and her friend’s actions that hurt him the most: After what he had read in those notes, he couldn’t blame them. No, only one being deserved any of his hate, the one who sent that malevolent sheaf of xenophobic hate-mail:
Celestia
She had slipped the dagger between his ribs with no warning, no reason. Did she not like how close Marc was getting to one of her precious little ponies? Did she hate the fact that he could live a normal life?
Why does she hate me?
No. Calm thoughts. She’s in charge, she makes the rules. She’s bound to have given Twilight a good reason, right?
Marc scrambled over to the pile of papers, unsure of what he was looking for. His barely passable understanding of Equestrian script would render most of it illegible, but he had to find something.
Something to keep his sanity together.
*****
Twilight stood uncertainly between her best friends. Her head swung back and forth as she followed the loud bickering raging around her. To her left stood Applejack, needlessly bucking a column until books as far as three shelves away were knocked to the ground, shouting all the while, “An’ ta think I FED that evil alien! He ate the apples off of MAH trees! He may as well been eatin’ US!”
Rainbow Dash was the only thing standing between the infuriated earth pony and the solid wooden door that led down into the basement, where, somewhere, Marc was held. “AJ, we don’t know if Marc did all those things! How much of that could possibly be true?!”
Rarity stood against the far wall, as close to the main door as she could. “Rainbow, dear, the Princess herself has warned us! You saw those pages; they KILL hundreds of THEMSELVES every day! He can’t be safe; Discord himself summoned him.”
“Oh, shove it, Rarity, like you even know him!”
Pinkie Pie stood between the factions, right across from Twilight herself. The pink mare’s eyes darted around in confusion, trying to comprehend the sudden venom flying through the air. Slowly, under the weight of it all, she sank to the ground, tears springing to her eyes as she buried her head in her hooves.
Twilight couldn't stand to see her friends fighting like this, but she also couldn't think of a way to stop them. The letter...humans had done so many terrible things...But Marc hadn't ...But he might...
Before Twilight could gather her thoughts in the violent atmosphere, a high-pitched squeak emanated through the room. “Enough!”
All heads flicked in Fluttershy’s direction. She was breathing heavily, her eyes red-rimmed but hard, as she looked at each one of her friends in turn. “How can you just lock him up without any explanation, without any chance to defend himself?” Her eyes rested on Twilight for a second before, bringing a sharp twinge of guilt to her chest, before continuing, “I know that sometimes we can get a bad impression of others. Remember Zecora? We all avoided her, but now she’s friends with all of us.”
Rarity sniffed slightly before answering, “Zecora was different, dear: we have proof that Marc’s kind is undeniably evil, and we can’t allow that to spread here!”
Rainbow Dash flew aggressively forward, shouting, “I said shut up, Rare! Marc hasn’t done anything wrong since he got here!”
“Oh, is tha’ so?” Applejack sneered, “What about tha’ liddle fight you two had jus’ yesterday!”
Rainbow growled down, but didn’t get any further, before Twilight shouted, “Stop!”
She glanced uncertainly around, confused and frightened. The letter from Celestia had been clear: Marc could well be a danger to the town, but the final words at the bottom of the last page rang out through her mind more than any of the catalogued atrocities the preceded them:
It is with great regret that I inform you that the duty falls to you, Twilight, to terminate the alien.
In the silence that followed Twilight’s shout, only a light sniffling could be heard, before Pinkie spoke up. “Well...Marc told me that other Humans weren’t all that nice to him, either. They thought he was broken. If all of them were actually evil, doesn’t that make Marc good...?”
Applejack stopped for a second, thinking, then said, “Pinkie Pie, that is the worst logic Ah ever heard. Think of Gertrude and the cow gang! They – He – ATE cows, Pinkie. That jus’ is sick.”
Twilight looked down at the ground and sighed. “I’m bringing him back up, girls. This time, don’t buck him, Applejack.”
*****
Marc fiddled through the pages, desperately trying to find something he recognized. Accounts of terrorism, genocide, starvation, war and pollution swirled before his eyes, each worse than the last, Some based in fact, some Marc could be sure were fictional, but worse than this, Marc realized, were the insidious truths hidden among the lies. Actions that to humanity were normal would be absolutely diabolical to the ponies of this world. Marc thought about Vinyl, Pinkie and Ditzy, their reactions to his own life story. Was it such a stretch to see them react this way when they learnt how commonplace, even accepted, these things were in Mac’s home world?
He shrugged his shoulder, trying to ignore the two semi-circular marks standing out in angry reds and blues against his skin. Applejack. She sure did have one hell of a buck.
Quashing his rising anger, Marc searched through the final pages in search of anything he might be able to use to vindicate himself, but found nothing. It seemed as if the missive was carefully tailored to portray humanity, and Marc himself, in the worst possible light. And then there was the order on the final page, the order to Twilight...
The door creaked open. Marc quickly dropped the pages to the floor, but they never reached it. A violet aura encased the falling pages, lifting them and reorganizing them as Twilight stood in the doorway, framed by a bright light that cast her featureless silhouette as a shadow over the hunched human one the floor of the enclave in the library’s basement. Her voice cracked as she ordered, “Come with me. We need to talk.”
Marc stood slowly, and took slow steps towards the relative freedom of the illuminated basement as Twilight stepped back. Marc saw her features then, stuck between fear, anger and sympathy. This didn’t stop her from lowering her horn. “Come upstairs. You need to explain your side of the story before we can decide what to do.”
Marc followed carefully. “And do what? Eliminate me?”
Twilight stumbled, but didn’t answer at first. “I...I don’t understand...There has to be a better way...”
She stopped herself from continuing, rather trotting up the stairs, Marc in her wake.
Marc wondered what to think of this. Twilight had second thoughts; maybe there was hope yet, he just had to win her over. A glance into the library proper, though, complicated this minor hope. Applejack visibly tensed on seeing him. Rarity inched closer to the door, ready to bolt. Pinkie looked at him with weepy eyes, silently begging for him to end this anger cycloning the room. Fluttershy stood looking at him expectantly from her corner while Rainbow Dash, on seeing him, immediately flew to just above him. Marc noticed, though, that she never flew quite close enough to touch.
Twilght walked into the very centre of the room, turned around to face Marc, and dropped the pile of pages in front of him. Her friends gathered around her, their array of questioning eyes backing Marc up against the wall. Marc fought the feeling that he was before another evaluation panel, but in a way it was true, only far more was at stake here.
Twilight prodded the papers when Marc failed to react, saying, “Don’t you have anything to say about this? If I were you, I’d take this opportunity to defend yourself.”
Marc’s head shot up. “Oh? Your princess has decided I should die, and she managed to come up with a bunch stuff to support her brilliant idea, whether any of it is true or not. Who would you believe anyway? She in charge; she...makes the rules...” His head slumped forward again as he lost momentum. Rarity huffed at him as she raised her chin, “If you are suggesting that the Princess made up any of that information, you’ll have a hard time finding any ears to listen, Marc.”
“That’s kind of what he just said, Rare,” Rainbow Dash snorted, “Marc, you gotta put this to rest: tell them it’s all fake! Some trick from the Princess to see how we’d handle it...”
“I can’t.”
A series of shocked looks greeted Marc’s statement. He looked up again, from each one to the next. “Most of it is true. But I am telling you now, that it is also a lie.” Marc crawled on his knees to the pages, and began pulling it apart yet again, opening gaps between each individual report, pointing in between each as he nearly pleaded, but almost mocked; “You think this is an account of all human history? Yes most of these things happened, but what about all the stuff in between? Here: You think we went straight from the Punic Wars to the Mongol Invasions to the Dark Ages, to the Napoleonic Era. There were hundreds of years between those events, so many wonders Humanity created! None of them are in here! It makes it sound like the Black Plague and influenza were intentionally spread. Those were diseases, ones we couldn’t control! Lists of the casualties of war, but no mention of those that were saved. Details about the Word Wars that I seriously think might be fabricated. Pages of lost species, but no mention of how we try to save the ones that are left. Why are there no mentions of the wonders we erected, the sights we envisioned, the beauty we created, and still create? This is a horribly skewed view, and if you judge me for it, you should never be able to forgive yourself.”
Six ponies took a step back, but one stepped forward again, aggressively. Applejack nearly shouted, “Ah don’t care what y’all made, but it’s clear as Celestia raises the sun that your kin are murderers! Y’all kill each other over nothin’, and then ya have the cheek ta kill everythin’ else for even less. Fer fun...” She heckled as she backed away, just barely containing her rage.
Fluttershy spoke up, looking at the floorboards beneath her, “But Marc didn’t do those things...Did you?” Her eyes raised and begged him for the answer, one he could happily give. “Of course not, I could never kill another animal intentionally, and certainly not for sport.”
Applejack was about to rush forward with another rant, but Twilight silenced her briefly before asking, “If that is so, does that mean that you’ve never eaten living flesh before?”
Applejack, being freed of Twilight restraint followed up, “Yeah! How do Ah know ya ain’t just gonna come down on the farm and eat Winona, or one of the sheep?”
Marc looked at incredulously. “Seriously? You’ve known me for weeks and you think I’d even contemplate something like that? I will not and cannot kill anything I don’t absolutely have to. Yes, Twilight, I have eaten meat. It was given to me prepared since as far as I can remember. But I’m here now: I won’t go and kill for food when there is always a good apple or salad, which there always has been.”
“And the rest of it?” Rarity asked, “Poisoning your own air? Filling the water with diseases? Covering the ground with foul waste? These are the things of horror novels, and bad ones at that.”
Marc nodded. “Yes. Humans did that.” Responding to the shocked look on her face, he continued, “But that was because we didn’t know any better. There are billions of humans, in every corner of our world. We fought since the earliest days of history to defeat the forces of nature that worked against us. Our world isn’t ordered like yours, we don’t have any real control over what happens. It was only when we won, when we beat all the other creatures, that we saw the error of our ways. You don’t know how much is being done to reverse the damage we hardly knew we could be doing. It is hard to stop a ravenous machine, but humans are trying. And if you think that I could do any of that here, then you truly are blind to the facts. As I see it, the damage our Civilization can do has been curbed, not aided, by our Humanity. One human in Equestria means nothing. I’ll be a curiosity until I either go home or die here. Humans are only strong when they are together.”
The group was quiet. Marc felt a tear in his eye, but let it fall. Celestia was against him: he couldn’t go home, and if she had her way, he would be dead soon anyway.
Rainbow Dash fluttered nearer to Marc, but stopped uncertainly just beyond arm’s reach, warring with herself, before blurting out, “So you aren’t going to snap and kill me?”
Marc gave a humourless chuckle. “Of course not Rainbow, you’re my friend...I think?” He looked at her, hoping for confirmation. After a brief moment, Rainbow ducked in and gave Marc a gentle punch on the shoulder and a smile, before retreating again.
Applejack asked the next question; “You ain’t gonna come ta’the farm and kill nothin’?”
“No, your farm is safe.”
And you aren’t going to pollute our town?” Rarity asked.
“No. I can’t anyway.”
Fluttershy looked calmly at him. “You aren’t going to fight with anypony?”
“No, only to defend myself, and as you can see, I can do that without resorting to kicking anyone.”
Applejack flinched at that.
Pinkie now sat calmly as she frowned in thought. She looked at Applejack’s reaction to Marc’s barbed comment, then spoke out. “And you won’t go and make anymore ponies cry like you did with Dashie and Ditzy, will you? Because I don’t like it when ponies cry, and sometimes songs can’t fix everything.”
Marc gulped, but answered truthfully, “I never want to make anyone cry again. I want to get along and be happy, too, you know.”
Twilight looked at the reconciling but still uneasy group. They were waiting for her input, as their unofficial leader, to wrap up this fiasco and fix everything again. She looked out of the window, noticing the rising sun in the distance, wondering what could have come over the Princess to bring on such a harsh reaction.
Something clearly wasn’t right here. “I can’t see why the Princess would send us this information unless she was trying to hurt you, Marc, but she has no reason to do that, does she? Nopony but us in this room know about this, and I think we should keep it that way. I will write to the Princess again, and convince her that you are safe.”
Marc rumbled quietly, “I don’t think she will change Twilight; it’s clear she’s set against me.”
“I don’t think that’s true, Marc,” Twilight stated emphatically, “If you want us to trust you, then you have to trust me to know the Princess. Something happened to make her react this way, and I’m going to find out what.”
Marc sucked in a breath, barely able to keep a hold on his tongue, then nodded.
Once Twilight got her confirmation, she began to plan out loud, “Well, I think this has been distressing for all of us, but nopony else needs to hear about this now. I can’t even think about this at the moment, but...Marc, I think it would be wise for you to return to your cottage by the Everfree, just until this eases over. I’ll write to the Princesses later today. For now, Rainbow, will you take Marc out there? Applejack, I’m going to ask you to walk with them. I know you’re upset, but just...try, okay? Now I think I’m going to get some air. Girls, lets meet back here in a few hours to-“...SMASH...
The breaking and falling of glass could be heard from upstairs, eliciting a gasp of surprise form Twilight. She looked of the stairwell, seeing a grey and blonde form tumbled down the stairs with a cry.
“Ditzy!” Marc exclaimed, jumping towards her, but Rainbow Dash closed the gap much faster, halting the spinning Pegasus. “Derpy, now really isn’t a good time...”
Rainbow suddenly found herself on the other side of the room, in a tangle of feathers and confusion.
Ditzy recovered from her powerful shove and flapped up into an unstable hover. “I-I w-was w-waiting outs-side b-because I wanted t-to m-make sure M-Marc was ok-kay, but then I heard sh-shouting and...”
“Ditzy, calm down, we were arguing a bit, but it’s fine now.” Twilight cooed.
Ditzy shook her head violently. “No no! I heard shouting outside! In P-Ponyville! They’re c-coming here!”
“WHAT?!” Twilight bounced up in shock, “But nopony else knows about this!”
Marc growled into his fist in an effort to keep his temper down. “Looks like the Princess thought you might not pull through on her order, Twi. Now the town will make sure it gets done.”
Rainbow Dash shot over top the door and pulled it open a crack. Seeing nopony around yet, she turned back to Marc. “Okay, here’s the new plan: Marc. I will fly you to the cottage, Twilight, you and Pinkie distract whoever is coming. Applejack and Rarity, you guys get some supplies over to the Everfree before anypony figures this out. Derpy, I need you to make a smoke screen so I can get Marc out of here, okay? Let’s go!” Rainbow Dash gave nopony time to react to her plan; she grabbed Marc and bodily hauled him up the stairs. Rainbow found the window Ditzy had smashed through and shoved Marc out onto the ledge. He looked out over the town and saw the approaching crowd trotting down the street. Bouncing excitedly in the belly of the mob, a violet mare with a curly purple and white mane could be heard crying out, “There it is! My Daddy said the Monster was in there!”
The mob cried out as one when they saw Marc standing in the window, but paused in fright when a pair of cyan wings spread behind him. Without preamble, Rainbow Dash pulled Marc straight up into the sky, straining for all she was worth. Below, Ditzy captured a cloud and bucked into rumbling threateningly, discouraging any Pegasus pursuers as Marc and Rainbow Dash soared into the sky.
Rainbows wings gave out at peak of their climb, locking into a glide that angled towards the Everfree as she panted tiredly. “I...don’t think...the cottage is far...enough...not safe...”
Marc held on tightly, afraid of falling again. “Just keep us off the ground, Rainbow! If we can make it to the edge of the forest, it will be fine.”
Rainbow growled. Marc shut up and hung on.
The trees neared rapidly. Brief seconds before impact, Rainbow pulled into the braking turn, directly behind the newly built cottage. Carrying Marc’s weight led her to over judge the landing, causing the pair to tumble up against the wood framed building. Only when they stopped, did Rainbow finally let go. “I promised...I wouldn’t drop you...didn’t I?”
Marc stood unevenly, looking around for any ponies of harmful intent. Finding none, He pulled Rainbow up and guided her into the house for a breather, and to wait for Applejack to return with news and supplies.
Marc thought back on this latest turn of events: The town would be in uproar unless Twilight managed to calm them. It also seemed like the stupidest move the Princess could have taken, no matter how set against marc she might be. If she wanted me dead, she could have just flown here herself and gotten it over with quickly and quietly. Now, the whole town will be upset.
Marc was beginning to see Twilight’s point. So many things just don’t add up here.