They locked me in an institution.
Sisters save me, I didn’t doubt I needed it, either. Part of me pondered the whole, “If you’re crazy, do you know you’re crazy?” question, but for the first few days of my committal, I tried to relax.
Tried. I spent my days bed-ridden, under white sheets in a white room. Any purity or safety that room offered was merely an illusion. The nurses didn’t speak to me, even to let me know where I even was; finally, on the third day, a gruff, male nursing assistant told me I was in Canterlot Hospital’s Psychiatric Ward.
He also told me what I’d helped Jesse do, and how many ponies had died because of me.
Between the ostracization and my impending execution, I found it pretty damn hard to relax. Crying, now, that was easy. I did a lot of crying at first, after I’d realized what I’d done. The same went for angrily blaming Jesse for everything he’d put me through. By the end of the third day, everything simply left me; I wasn’t relaxed, I’d just burnt out.
Equestria didn’t implement capital punishment often, but the courts were known to make exceptions in extreme cases. I was sure this qualified as one. And yet, all I could do was blame myself. I’d known the stakes were for treason, yet I’d still played along. Why, I asked myself, why, why, why?
On Thursday morning, I felt sick. Literally. My nose was stuffed up, and my throat was sore. It wasn’t enough that I’d made the biggest mistake of my life, or even that I’d been “subdued” by two members of Canterlot’s Elite Guard—which earned me several bruises and what felt like a cracked rib—or that I’d never see my parents, or my colleagues, or Berry again; now, on top of everything else, I had a cold.
Once I’d accepted my impending death sentence, my appetite left me entirely. That came as a minor disappointment; I couldn’t even enjoy my last meals as a prisoner. The nurses had a solution for my problem; by the time the third meal came around, they forced me to eat. After that, I rediscovered appreciation for being allowed a choice in the matter.
Friday morning—or maybe it was Saturday, or even Thursday afternoon; I slept so much, the days just ran together—a female royal guard entered my room. Instinctively, I grasped at the familiarity of solitude and emptiness; this was different, this was movement, this was—
“Her majesty Celestia requests an audience with you. You have thirty minutes to make yourself presentable.”
Crap.
I blinked at the guard a few times before I realized she wasn’t going to leave the room while I “made myself presentable”. Armed with that knowledge, I slid out of bed and made my way into the bathroom. She followed me in there, which I almost complained about.
I almost lost it in a giggling fit after I reminded myself, Pick your battles.
One hot and slightly exhibitionist shower later, I felt a little better. Or at least, my scalp and skin weren’t itchily matted down with days-old sweat and other gunk. Also, my nose cleared up from the steam, leaving me with only a mild sore throat.
Back in the main portion of my room, a pair of cushions and a table had appeared in the middle of the floor. It didn’t take much deliberation for me to know where I was going to sit during my audience with Celestia.
I sat down and waited. One minute, two minutes… It occurred to me that I hadn’t checked the time before showering, which made it useless to count out the minutes. The guard still watched me without moving or giving off any semblance of emotion; four minutes into my wait, I finally broke the silence: “How… when will, uh, Celestia get here?”
The guard’s expression never changed; my first reaction was that I wasn’t going to get an answer. She surprised me by finally stating, “Eleven.”
It was ten-fifty two, so I still had a little bit of a wait left. But, someone was talking to me! I pressed my luck and asked: “Do you, uh, know what’s happening?”
Another long silence, followed by, “If I did, I wouldn’t tell you.”
I waited quietly for the remainder of the eight minutes; the only times I even moved were when I glanced up at the clock. The top of the hour came closer, and closer, and closer…
The door opened with a barely audible click, and Princess Celestia entered the room. Her legs moved, and I could count individual steps from her, but even in as dire straits as I was, she was too graceful to describe as walking. It was more like she flowed into the room, or even that she stood still while the rest of the room slowly drifted around her.
My mind struggled with a greeting; I was torn between bowing and not bowing. She didn’t like the former, but not doing it seemed like it wasn’t helping my cause. I settled on staring down at the table in front of me, and I continued waiting quietly until…
Well, in that moment, I realized I didn’t know what she wanted. The sensible part of my brain told me it’d be best to wait and see, and for one time that year, I actually listened to it.
“Eclipse, you are free to wait outside.”
Even when she gave an order, her voice was serene. All I heard in response from the guard was a quiet clinking of metal before her comparatively booming, armored hoofsteps trailed out of the room.
As soon as she left me alone with Celestia, I felt the room fill with a warm, soothing peace. I wanted to take refuge in it, to embrace it.
Instead, it filled me with terror—the calm before a storm.
“Good morning, Lyra.”
That time, her voice was closer to me; I risked a gleaming, tear-streaked glance up and saw that she’d sat down at the table with me. All the bright lights in the room coalesced into a streaky halo around her head; for a moment, it was all I could do to keep from breaking down in front of her.
For a moment.
Whatever it was about her presence—be it the raw power she embodied, or the guilt I felt for my actions, or the shame I felt over being duped—I couldn’t even return her greeting. I just sat there, sobbing so hard that I thought I was going to be sick. If I’d eaten a bigger portion of my breakfast, I probably would have.
Celestia waited silently through my torrent, or if she said anything, princess or no, I couldn’t hear her. When I started to feel a little better inside, I noticed a cloth napkin was floating in front of me; I took it with a hoof and buried my face in it, drying my eyes as best I could.
I also tried to say “thank you,” but between the cloth and the last of my tears, it came out muffled and thick.
Regardless, as I pulled the napkin away, Celestia nodded. “You are welcome.” Her voice was warm, if a little low; I wanted to let that put me at ease. She kept her voice soft when she requested, “Tell me everything that happened in the Everfree during the past months.”
For the second time in less than five minutes, I broke like a dam. Except the second time, instead of tears, I let loose a deluge of words. I felt myself talking quickly, and I had to stop, panting, from time to time to catch my breath. Still, I did what Celestia asked: I started with the beginning, when Jesse had rescued me from a pack of timberwolves, and I kept going until I reached the final stages of his plan.
When I reached the end, I shook my head. “I… I shouldn’t have done it. I… I thought I was helping ponies, in the long run.”
“I don’t doubt your long-term motivations.” Celestia nodded, slowly. “Though your circumstances are regrettable.”
Something strange gripped my throat—was she taking pity on me, after everything that had happened? I swallowed; the only thing that mattered to me, now, was: “What’s going to happen to me?” After a moment, I figured it was better to stick with the side I’d thrown my lots with: “To us?”
Celestia sat silently at first, but her eyebrow slowly rose. “You still feel a sense of allegiance to that man?”
“No…” I shook my head before re-focusing on Celestia’s eyes. “But I did. And I did things because of it, so…” I blinked and looked down at the table. “There’s no running from that, right?”
A mote of warmth lit under my chin and lifted my head. Celestia smiled sympathetically at me. “You were systematically deceived and manipulated by something that excels in those dark arts. The two of you did terrible things, but you cannot be held responsible in an equal manner. He will face consequences for his actions, but you, Lyra, are comparatively a free mare.”
It took a moment for me to process the news. Relief cascaded over me, followed by disbelief. I smiled widely and asked, “R… really?”
Celestia didn’t nod.
After a moment’s consideration, I realized I’d been a little too hopeful, too quickly. “What do you mean ‘comparatively free’?”
That drew a grim nod. “Manipulation or no, you were still remiss in several of your duties as a citizen—and as a student. How much of this could have been avoided if you’d announced your discovery to your supervising professor, instead of keeping it secret?”
My gut excuse of “she wouldn’t have believed me” died in my throat; if I had mentioned something like that to my professor, she might’ve passed it up the chain, or even pulled her authority to send me to a new region, if not sabbatical.
The realization of my gaping oversight came as a crushing sensation; I looked up from under it in time to ask, “So, I’m…”
“Your professor agrees. Effective immediately, you are hereby expelled from Canterlot University.”
I let out a breath I didn’t know I’d been holding. It hurt, to know that I wasn’t a student anymore. Granted, I’d dodged the death penalty, so I figured I should be happy to take what I could get, but that didn’t mean I was going to enjoy the consequences of my mistakes.
“Also, you will serve a sentence of community service or prison time—”
“Volunteer work!” I nearly shouted. I didn’t like prisons.
Celestia nodded, then stood up. I rose with her as she continued, “Then, court date aside, there remains but one final item. I will not tell you what it is or when it will be, but you must remain in this room until it comes to pass.”
“I… okay.” I nodded, confused. It definitely sounded like a weird punishment, but I again reminded myself just how easily I was getting off.
She held out a hoof. “You spoke of regrettable circumstances. Let us hope that, in time, you recover while atoning for your transgressions.”
“Yeah.” I shook her hoof and bowed. “But thank you.”
“Do not thank me yet.”
With that, she got up and left.
I watched the door for a while after it closed. No one came to take the table, either, which left me alone with my thoughts. Those all crept towards the realization that, no matter how merciful my sentence was, I’d just lost my entire life’s work.
Slowly, I shook my head, stood up, and walked over to the only window in my room. I’d avoided it for the past week, but when I looked outside, the view was mostly obstructed by Canterlot Mountain. If I turned my head and pressed my face to the glass, I could see a little bit of the sky and some of the city below; it wasn’t comfortable, but it let me think a little more about what my next steps were.
Well, clearly, my first step was the ambiguous punishment Celestia had mentioned. But I couldn’t really prepare for it, so I’d have to deal with it when it came.
I spent the rest of the morning and most of the afternoon staring out my window, only taking a break from the view when the nurses brought lunch in. Watching the city was peaceful in a warm, distant manner.
It also made me realize I no longer had any ties to Canterlot—or even Equestria, short of visiting friends and family. I chuckled at the notion; I’d just dodged a treason verdict to come to the realization that, if push came to shove, I wouldn’t mind living outside of Equestria. However, I did like traveling. Even if the university wasn’t going to hoof the bill anymore, I wasn’t going to move back to Phillidelphia with my parents.
That just left me with absolute freedom and no safety net.
Against the glass, I smiled. There was a big, open world out there. Yeah, I’d have to figure out my finances, but I had savings and a very large diamond I still hadn’t sold yet. I wondered if that would even be legal to sell. I shrugged; the important thing was that I wasn’t tied down with anything more than community service. I was free, I had options, and most importantly, I was al—
“Lyra?”
I froze when I heard his voice, behind me, despite the door never opening. In my mind, I guessed where he was standing, and thought about how hard I’d have to fling the table at him to distract him long enough to escape into the hallway…
The sigh made a round, foggy ghost on the windowpane as it escaped me. I was done with fighting and done with running. My stiff neck throbbed as I turned to face him, but that wasn’t even close to the worst thing I felt right then.
Jesse stood to the right of the doorway, and he was wearing his usual lab coat. His eyes were normal, and I noticed his hunched shoulders that slumped back against the wall.
He looked defeated.
Because the clock was right over his head, I counted that we stared at each other for exactly eighteen seconds. I couldn’t find the strength to put any fire into my voice; all I wanted was to know what more he could possibly want from me. I shook my head and quietly asked, “What?”
Across the room, he swallowed and looked away. I almost said something about that, but he spoke before I could. “I don’t know how to apologize for what I did.”
“Good.” The word hissed through my teeth. “How many ponies did you kill? And you think apology is going to make that right?”
“Twenty-seven, and no.” He shook his head. “I don’t expect words to fix anything.”
“So why are you here?”
Jesse pushed off the wall with his shoulders. I lowered my head and readied one of the defensive spells I knew. He raised his hands and fell back against the wall. “Point taken. Though it may interest you to know that between the two of us, you’re the only one who can command chaos now.”
“It doesn’t.” I kept the spell up but frowned, confused. “Actually, why? What happened to you?”
He grinned. “I lost my war. That leaves me to face the victors’ judgment.” His eyes darted off to the side. “She wasn’t exactly explicit about what was happening, but everything’s different now. Hunger. Pain.” He raised his hand and flicked his fingers a few times. “No chaos.”
“Who?” I shook my head. “Who did that? Celestia?”
“Princess Luna.”
I dropped my spell and raised my head. If he were lying—which there was a statistically significant chance of that—it probably wouldn’t have protected me anyway. If he were telling the truth, then…
Then I still didn’t know what it meant. Jesse didn’t seem to want anything from me, which raised the same question I’d already asked. “Okay. You’re… mortal, again. So what? Why are you here?”
“I’m human again.” He took a deep breath. “Part of that comes with certain aspects that, last week, I would have written off as disadvantages. Emotions are a lot harder to control, things like guilt and sadness…”
I sneered. “So you can feel sad again, and now you want to apologize to me because it’ll make you feel better?”
“I want to apologize because you deserve that much, at least!” He didn’t yell it, but his sharp tone rang through the room. After a moment, he shook his head. “I’m sorry. I probably deserve that accusation.”
“Probably?” I took a short, little breath. “Probably? You killed all of those guards, you lied to me for months, and you probably deserve me to doubt you when you’re just appearing in my room…” Something clicked, and I shouted: “And you’re lying about not being able to use magic!”
Jesse turned his hands up, but I cut him off: “Don’t even start! Just… teleport back to whatever Hell you crawled up from!”
“I asked to be sent here.” His hands fell to his sides. “Part of the terms of my relative freedom in the interim is that I remain hidden, which is difficult to do in the crowded hallways of a hospital.”
“The hospital you put me in with lies!”
“And I’m sorry!” he hissed back in a loud whisper. “That’s what I came here to say. I have my debts to your country to pay for my attack, but I wanted to apologize to you. I’m sorry for what I did to you, and for everything that happened to you because of me. But if you’re just going to think that’s coming from the worst possible place, what’s the point?”
I took a step forward. “What is the point? Why are you apologizing?”
“Because I have matters to attend to…” He gripped his left forearm in his right hand, but shook his head. “Because Luna is taking me somewhere. But before I go, I want to know that not everything I did caused irreparable damage. I want to know that you’ll be okay.”
“I’m in a loony bin and my whole life’s work is destroyed. Do I look like I’m okay?”
“Will you be, though?”
I sighed. I didn’t know if this was a new angle from him or if he were genuinely feeling remorse, but something about him seemed… sincere, for once. It didn’t make him any less of a monster, but it wouldn’t be right for me to scorn his attempts at being personable.
“Yeah.” I nodded. “Yeah. I will be. Eventually.”
“Good.” He returned the nod.
Part of me wanted the conversation to end on that note, but like it usually did with Jesse, curiosity got the better of my senses. “Where will you go?”
He shrugged. “I haven’t decided yet. It’s… expensive, either way, and I don’t really have that much left.”
I raised an eyebrow. “So you get personal teleportation from Princess Luna, but you’re worried about travel costs?”
“To an extent.” He tilted his head to the side and rubbed his forearm. “I’d be less burdened on whichever path I took if you accepted my apology. Something of a final request from you.”
It dawned on me, and a twinge of sadness followed in its wake. “You’re not talking about traveling, are you?”
He shook his head. “I… I didn’t want to extort forgiveness from you by revealing it, but…” Jesse slid the left sleeve of his lab coat up. Underneath it, on his tan skin, was a black crescent moon.
I almost laughed out loud; that was an ancient Equestrian glyph they used to burn into capital offenders before their executions. Princess Luna was nothing if not fitting, at least in a judicial sense.
Still, it made me sad to stand there and look at him. There stood Jesse, the last human, a relic of some war that had nearly killed off all life on the planet. He… he was horrible, but he’d been through horrible things in his nigh-eternal life.
“I’m sorry things have to end like that for you.” It wasn’t poetic, but it was the best I could do given my circumstances.
He nodded. “They gave me the option, to live out the rest of my life as some sort of state-sponsored engineer. The price is the destruction of my facility, the legacy of humanity… I don’t think I am strong enough to pay that price to help a society.”
The archaeologist in me screamed at the notion: a whole facility belonging to an ancient race, being destroyed. All those forgotten lives. “Wh… why do they want it destroyed? The princesses, I mean.”
Jesse rolled up his sleeve and crossed his arms. “Apparently, learning Equestria’s true history might cause something akin to dissent, and ponies tend to be happier not knowing.”
Given where I’d been before I met Jesse, I was inclined to agree. Still, the truth could be hard sometimes; that didn’t mean it should just be avoided. “But what happens if you leave it down there and…” I didn’t want to finish that sentence.
He chuckled. “The facility’s on security lockdown. For the next few decades, if anyone tries to enter, those sentries will do a little more than disable them…” Jesse shrugged. “In the long term, without anyone maintaining the systems, the same phenomenon that happens to all things: decay. The power generators will fail, the filtration system will stop, and everything will begin rusting and decomposing.The odds of anyone finding any sort of meaning in the place grow slim.”
“So it’s lost no matter what you do?”
“Essentially. But I don’t know if I can be the one to pull the trigger, so to speak.”
“You’d finally be helping ponies…” I pointed out. “If you went through with it.”
Jesse raised an eyebrow. “Would you want that?”
I took a breath and started thinking out loud: “Well… if the place is going to be destroyed either way, and any sort of potential discovery of your home is going to be kept under government wraps, then yeah. History’s out. You should help ponies in the present. You at least owe that for all those guards you killed.”
“Would you forgive me, then?”
“I…” My head shook a little. “You’d be making good on your word to me. So I guess, maybe I can look past the lying. Maybe eventually.” I swallowed a lump. “You hurt me in so many ways, I’m not sure if I can ever forgive someone who did all that to me.” I finished by looking straight into his blue, not-glowing eyes. “But if you’re different now, if you’re human now, then...”
Jesse picked up where I trailed off: “Helping your countrymen on their terms would be the first step towards giving you evidence of that change?”
I nodded. “Yeah.”
He stood there, swaying a little as he mulled it over. Finally, he returned my nod. “That is probably the best I could reasonably expect from you.” After a pause, he tipped his head slightly. “Thank you.”
It suddenly clicked, and I remembered Celestia’s last words to me. I repeated them now, to Jesse: “Don’t thank me yet.” He cocked his head, so I explained, “If you’re serious about going through with this, it’s not going to be an overnight process. You’re going to have to learn how to fit in with society...” I grit my teeth, awkwardly; I didn’t want to bring up how that had been my plan from the beginning.
His shoulder rose and he grinned. “I know salad and chess. That’s as good a start as any.”
Slowly, I returned his grin. We stood there for a few moments, and it grew more and more obvious that there was only one thing left to say. A weird mixture of relief and sadness made my stomach churn, but I raised a hoof and waved. “Goodbye, Jesse.”
“Goodbye, Lyra.”
Then, he vanished.
Something about doubting my eyes and ears while in a mental hospital made my stomach lurch; I really hoped I hadn’t just hallucinated an entire exchange with Jesse. I didn’t need that in my life.
A dark purple letter on the table caught my eye. It definitely hadn’t been there after Celestia left, so I walked over to see what it was. It had a royal lunar seal of what looked like silver on it, which gave me a small sense of comfort; that did collaborate what Jesse had mentioned. The fact that it was addressed to “Lyra Heartstrings” sealed the deal; even my messed-up psychotic brain wouldn’t ever use my full, legal name.
I opened the letter and read its golden, rolling script:
Ms. Heartstrings
This is a royal missive hereby pardoning you for your actions on the night of Sunday, the third of December. You are expected to attend a private hearing in Canterlot Castle on Monday, the eighth of January, at eleven o’ clock in the evening.
Until that date, you are free to travel and do business within the cities of Canterlot or Fillydelphia, as you see fit, with this letter evidencing your pending acquittal.
Signed this eighth of December, in the first year of Solar Reunification, by her Majesty and Regent of the Night Court,
Princess Luna
When I was done reading, I folded the letter back up and smiled. I liked that “free to travel” part of my missive. I’d been stuck in that mental ward for far too long; some “travel” was probably just what I needed. Without further ado, I walked to the door and magicked the knob around.
It turned too freely, since it was locked.
After a quick chuckle, I shook my head and sauntered back over to my bed. I’d have to wait for the nurse to arrive with dinner, then I’d show her the missive, tell her to get stuffed, and I’d be on my merry way.
Until then, I stretched out on the not-too-uncomfortable hospital bed. I read my letter once again, folded it up, and put it on the nightstand. That was my future, and I was okay with it.
One final thing that interested me—since I went to school for it and all—was looking to the past and seeing what I could learn from it. Since old habits died hard, I applied those lines of thinking to my time spent with Jesse.
Obviously, there was some sort of personal lesson about trusting people who had a past history of hurting me, but that was the easy lesson. The same thing went for committing acts of war against Equestria; really, there were some basic things I’d forgotten.
That was what was tricky to me: How could I have just cast away loyalties and responsibilities to the present by looking solely to the future? Sure, it had been a better future; even after all I’d been through, I felt a pang of regret that I’d never get to see anything like it again.
Maybe there was a lesson in the history of humanity, one that warned about ethics in the face of technological advance. I rarely thought about that sort of thing; usually, I left it for engineers and arcane researchers. The only “technologies” I ever encountered were either store-bought or rusted beyond any practical use.
I shook my head and thought, trying to remember. Easily, the most poignant experience with Jesse had been the few hours I’d spent as a human. I’d seen everything from a new perspective—from about six feet off the ground instead of three and a half. But in that time, there’d also been sharpness, a sense of urgency, and ambition.
For a few hours, I’d lived without a cutie mark again.
That was probably the biggest moral dilemma I had about the entire thing. Was it worth one year of chaos to re-shuffle the cards and deal a fresh hand to society?
Would I make the same choice, given the same opportunity?
How much of an impact on lives were cutie marks? Throughout history, Equestrian philosophers and psychologists had spent countless hours debating that question, but there wasn’t much more of a definitive answer than “it varies from pony to pony”.
I pondered that philosophical question for a while, and it eventually led me back to the bed I was lying on. Cutie mark or no, there I lay with no job, almost no ties to anywhere, and a wide-open future.
There was also the fact that basing a lifetime of studying archaeology on a lyre was… how did Jesse put it? A flimsy basis for determining a vocation. And he’s gonna start from scratch as a pony, too...
As I lay there, I took solace in how I’d interpreted my own destiny. I’d gone to school, I’d done the hoofwork for all my expeditions. I’d been given a foundation, but on top of that, I’d built something, and now that had been taken away from me, I knew that in a month or so, I’d be right out there building something new.
I got off the bed and walked back over to the window. The birds-eye view of Canterlot reminded me of the first movie I’d watched with Jesse. Just like the humans in the movie, ponies in the streets below went about their daily lives, dealt with worries, and made decisions for their futures.
Maybe we had a slight bias in our destinies, but in the end, we were the ones who made them for ourselves.
I smiled. In that regard, I guessed we were still human after all.