Celestia stared out into a stained glass window, running through the thoughts in her mind. She closed her eyes as she attempted to pick out her next move. Things were delicate; the iron was hot. If she didn't act soon the embers would die and they would all be back to square one.
"What's got you so frazzled?" Discord asked, jolting Celestia's eyes open. "I must admit that was quite a show earlier, but we've freed Harry from his curse."
"Discord, guilt is indeed a powerful magic but it doesn't last forever. When the feelings subside, the ponies will treat Harry as they always have unless we make our next move quickly."
"What are you talking about? You saw the way that Fluttershy gave the crowd what-for. They won't treat Harry the same way on her watch."
"But they'll continue to do so on their own watch. They will shake Harry's hand, but still cringe as they do so. He... has an aura about him, one that I cannot fully explain."
"An aura? What malarkey are you talking about this time? Do you think somepony cast a spell on Harry that forced everypony he's ever met to hate him?"
Discord waved his claws about in sarcasm. Celestia turned towards Discord, her expression staying neutral. Her silence spoke more words than a thousand conversations could. She believed that Harry was cursed? Who would do something like that? And why? Harry as an infant...
"Why are you looking at me? I would never do something like that. Yes, I can be cruel but I prefer to do the cruelty myself. I do have standards you know. It's no fun when somepony else does it."
"If you didn't, then who? You didn't feel... those thoughts and emotions around him either, did you?"
"Emotions?"
Celestia turned back towards the stained glass window. Displayed on it was her student Twilight Sparkle and her friends banishing nightmare moon. The smallest light in her mind told her that Harry was grotesque and abominable, thoughts she could keep at bay and thoughts she could resist. They were always there, eating at her mind. A small flame in her own mind would be a roaring inferno in the minds of a lesser pony.
It made sense. This fire burned in the hearts and minds of most ponies... all of them except Twilight and her friends. Did holding the elements of harmony douse their flames of hatred? Celestia let the thoughts loose. She had to analyse them. They weren't natural, almost as if somepony was forcing her to feel this way. But why? More importantly... would she feel this around other humans...
/\/\/\/\/\
Harry sat at home and stared out of his window into the Everfree Forest. He took a deep breath and wondered what went wrong. He sifted through the lies. He could see through the false smiles, how they cringed as he spent time with them. They were ancy; always looking for an excuse to leave. Harry looked at his reflection in the window, he was disgusting, wasn't he? The answer was obvious. He just wondered why it took him twenty years to realize this.
A knock on the door reminded him why.
"Sweetie, dinner is almost ready. You've been in here all day, are you feeling okay? I can make some soup too if it'll help."
"Soup won't fix what's wrong with me Mom. Apparently not even the Princess can fix what's wrong with me."
"Harry, there's nothing wrong with who or what you are," Fluttershy said, coming closer. "It'll just take them some time to realize that, but trust me when I say that they'll figure it out soon. You're too wonderful for that not to happen." She put a hoof under his chin.
There was a knock on the front door, stopping Harry from saying anything. Fluttershy gave him a warm smile and turned towards the door. Harry looked on in curiousity. Fluttershy opened the door to reveal Twilight. The two of them made small talk until Twilight noticed Harry sitting on his bed. She stepped forward into the house.
"There you are Harry," she said. "Princess Celestia has requested your audience. She's at the town hall right now."
"I don't even want to look at her right now," Harry replied.
"Come on Harry, I'll walk you there," Fluttershy said.
/\/\/\/\/\
Harry stepped into the town hall to find Princess Celestia standing on a balcony in wait. Harry almost smiled—a face that didn't cringe as its eyes cast upon him. Any chance of a smile faded when Harry remembered that Celestia hadn't solved his problems, any of them. Harry just stared at Celestia and Celestia stared back for quite some time until Twilight gave a nervous chuckle.
"Are you expecting me to bow?" Harry asked. Twilight's eyes darted left in right.
"No, why should you? What have I done for you? I let you exist in a world that hates you for twenty years, while I stood and watched your peers nearly torture you."
"W-what do you mean by 'the world hates my Harry?'" Fluttershy asked.
"Fluttershy, look at Harry. Tell me what you think of him?"
"He's the most magnificent creature ever put on Equestria," Fluttershy said, not turning her eyes away from Celestia.
"I said look at Harry. This is important."
Fluttershy took a look at Harry. "He's the most magnificent creature ever put on Equestria, and I couldn't be happier to have him around." Fluttershy smiled and Harry returned it.
"Where are you going with this?" Twilight asked, quirking her brow.
"Fluttershy, do you want to know what I think of Harry?"
"I certainly do," Harry said before Fluttershy could answer.
"I think that Harry is a disgusting pile of flesh that shouldn't be trusted, cared for, or even looked at."
The entire room went dead silent. No one spoke. Those words paralyzed Harry where he stood, and muted both Fluttershy and Twilight. Each word had been said with blunt brutality. Each word contained the venom of truth. Those words came from a very dark place in the princess' heart. After minutes or hours of still silence a sound broke the air—Fluttershy whispering a surprised "princess."
"Now let me tell you what I know. Harry is a good-natured creature and you two share an intimate bond. I know that he's never done anything to earn my hatred, nor has he done anything to earn the hatred of those around him."
The silence remained, this time more out of puzzled confusion than stunned shock. Twilight broke it this time.
"T—that doesn't make any sense. How could you know something, and think it's exact opposite?"
"I believe a very powerful magic has been cast over Harry, and perhaps all of his kind," Celestia looked at the confused expressions she was getting. "Harry may be the only human currently in Equestria, but he certainly is not the first. Come with me."
/\/\/\/\/\
Harry, Fluttershy, and Twilight flew in a chariot in tandem to Celestia's. They soared above and past the Everfree Forest. They were moving fast. Celestia was determined to get wherever she was going in quite a hurry. If only the same could be said about explaining what she was talking about. Harry mulled over everything that Celestia said, and very little of it made the slightest bit of sense. It seemed like Fluttershy and Twilight were attempting to sort through this puzzle as well. They didn't say a word the entire trip, but their shifting expressions gave insight to the turning gears in their mind. It didn't make much sense to anypony.
The chariots landed in front of some ruins. A huge domed building, conquered by cracks and ivy stood before them. Marble pillars that may have once supported it lay in shattered pieces. The forlorn beauty of the grand building, or the stone dwellings escaped Harry's vision. He was focused on something much more interesting: himself.
Only it wasn't himself; it was a statue, partially eaten by moss and time. Harry walked up to it and marveled at the thing. It wasn't him—it was a creature like him. Harry placed his hand in the statue's. The cold stone met warm flesh. Five fingers met five fingers. Somepony tapped Harry on the back. It was Fluttershy. She was pointing to several other statues that looked almost like Harry. There were so many of them.
"What is this place?" Twilight asked.
"The Alabaster Archelogical Dig!" shouted a mint-colored mare after suddenly teleporting next to Twilight. The surprise caused Twilight to jump into the air and forced her to hover in shock "What brings you to these parts? Don't get many visitors here with Celestia forcing us to stay 'top secret'. Hey... how'd you get past the poisonous giant fire beetles? And don't say you flew in because there would be no way around the fearsome flying sharks!"
"P-princess Celestia brought us here herself. My name is Twilight Sparkle. I'm assuming that you're an archeologist here."
"Yup, don't just dress up like Daring Do for the fun of it... most of the time. Name's Lyra Heartstrings. Statue's impressive, isn't it? Five-thousand years and still standing. That creature is called a hoo-man. That's H-U-M-A-N. That's kind of why we've been digging here, find out about these creatures. Their culture is so fascinating!"
"We... brought a 'human' with us," Fluttershy said, forcing Lyra to turn to her and Harry.
Lyra took a long look at Harry. She didn't move a muscle for quite some time. It was almost as if she was in a trance. It was actually a little bit jarring. A minute ago she wouldn't shut up, and now she wouldn't move beyond a couple of random twitches. Her eyes were also making weird dilating motions. She blinked once or twice, then turned around. She walked a few steps and threw up at Twilight's hooves.
Lyra began to bang her head with her hooves. "No! This is all wrong! I've been waiting for this opportunity all of my life. This is a dream come... Yeah! That's it! I'm dreaming!" Lyra nodded her head, turned towards the domed building and rammed right into the wall, causing her hat to fly backwards. "Nope, not dreaming."
"Um... Lyra, are you okay?" Twilight asked, wiping the throw up from her hooves.
"No! I'm not okay at all," Lyra said, and then she began banging her head against the wall. "I've waited. All my life. For an opportunity. Like this. I know what. A human is. Supposed to look like. I should not find one—"
"Disgusting?" Harry asked.
"Yeah! How'd you know?" Lyra replied, turning to Harry. The second she laid eyes on him she put her hoof to her mouth, obviously to stop herself from vomitting. She turned around and took a deep breath.
"Um, do you want your hat back?" Harry asked, swimming through the awkwardness.
"Keep it!" Lyra shouted, shaking in place, continuing to stare at the wall. "I don't want anything that's touched your filthy fingers! Argh! What am I saying!? Bad Lyra! Bad Lyra!"
"Perhaps we should leave Lyra to her... that," Fluttershy said. "Come on, I saw Princess Celestia go inside this big building here."
Twilight, Fluttershy, and Harry entered the building and just marveled in its majesty. The building remained beatiful despite the tarnish of time. For every piece of debris that three of them stepped over, they found another beautiful vista painted onto the walls. They eventually got to what appeared to be a large throne room. Light shone down from above through the cracked roof, casting a somber view of the place. Most of the statues in this room were cracked or disfigured in some way. Celestia stood in the center.
"Something happened here five-thousand years ago. It was something before my time, before the three tribes were united. It was a different world entirely."
"Why have you brought me here?" Harry asked.
"I'm sending you back five-thousand years in order for you to find this curse cast upon your kind and find a way to undo it."
Celestia's horn glowed and a small artifact appeared in front of her. It appeared to be made of crystal. Inside were gasses of several vibrant colors. Celestia lowered it into Harry's hands. It was surprisingly warm to the touch.
"This is a time recall. Shatter it upon the ground to return to this point in time. As you might have guessed it can be only used once, and they take one-hundred years to make. It is currently the only one in existence. You have one chance to do this—"
"WAIT!" shouted an all-too-familiar voice running down the hall. Lyra was running down the hall, wearing her hat, which was now dripping wet. She stopped in front of Celestia and began to grit her teeth.
"You can't send the nice, fascinating, and totally not gross human back to exactly five-thousand years ago," Lyra said, gritting her teeth with every word. "You'd send him right to the fall of their civilization, and he might die. And that would totally be a not-good thing. Bad Lyra! Think properly."
"What do you suggest?"
"Send him twenty years further in the past. Have him see how the grand plot unfolds, as the old saying goes."
"I'm not staying at you-know-when in the past for twenty years!" Harry shouted.
"Don't worry Harry, you're not going alone," Fluttershy comforted him.
"Yes he is," Celestia replied. "That time recall is the only way back to the present. You'd both need to be touching each other at the same time to both use it. And remember, these were the times that the pony tribes were in seperation. Harry must do this alone. We don't even know the relationship between humans and ponies before this curse was thrust onto them."
"I've seen plenty of books and writing on the walls all the way up here," Twilight said. "There must some information in there."
"We tried to translate them like one-hundred different times, but it always comes up as gibberish because humans are too stupid to—" Lyra covered her mouth with her hooves.
"What do you want me to do? Change the past?" Harry asked.
"That's impossible. No matter what you try to do, you will not be able to undo the curse. You need to find out its nature, who cast it, and if there's any possible way to undo this."
Harry looked at the trinket, and wondered all of the possibilities. This could be it. This could be his key to happiness. All it risked was getting trapped five-thousand and twenty years in the past. Did the rewards outway the risks?
"You don't have to do this Harry," Fluttershy reassured him.
"Ha ha! That's a laugh," shouted Lyra, getting back to her hooves. She was twitching here and there, but for the most part her eyes stayed dilated. "'He doesn't have to do this' she says. It just might stop him from being a foul abomination of Tartarus! It just might stop him from being a stupid, culturally backwards dolt! It might stop him from—"
Twilight had chucked a stone rock at the back of her head, knocking her out cold. They watched her sleep in a pile of her own drool for a bit before they returned to looking at the time recall. Harry had one shot to live a life where that would never happen again. Lyra was right. It would stop him from being all of those things—in their eyes.
"Send me back in time."