Turmoil
Princess Luna, Discord, the element bearers, and the humans stood in the hall outside Pete's room. With the exception of Jay who was sitting on the ground still clutching his stomach.
"Twilight, Luna calm down." Matt said standing between them and the door.
"Calm Down? CALM DOWN!?" Luna shouted angrily. "One of my subjects was just killed right in front of me."
"He was infected, he could've turned at any moment." Matt explained.
"How do you know?!" Luna asked. "For all we know something could've been done."
"You think we haven't tried?" Jay said looking up.
"What do you mean?" Twilight asked looking at him.
"Well, let's just say we used to have a fifth member." He told them.
The hall was silent for a moment. Suddenly the door opened. Everyone turned suddenly as Pete walked out.
"We don't talk about those days, you should know better than to speak so freely Jay." Pete said
"You- you lost somepony before?" Fluttershy asked sheepishly.
Pete sighed. "And this is why we don't talk about it. Because people, and apparently ponies, love to ask questions." He said. "Yes we used to have a fifth member, his name was Artemis. He was good with technology and planning, but not with actual fighting. He got caught up in a bad situation and got bit."
"What happened to him?" Twilight asked.
"What do you think happened? He died." Pete responded. "That guard got as painless a death as someone in his place could get. Art... he wasn't so luck."
"What do you mean?" Luna asked.
"This was back near the beginning of the infections, barely a few months after we had all met up. We were still young and naïve. We thought maybe we could stop him from turning by cutting off the arm that got bit." Pete told her. "As a note, It didn't work."
The mares stood shocked. "You- you cut off his arm?" Twilight asked stuttering, Pete just nodded. "Did you at least do it properly and with precaution?" She asked.
"If by properly and with precaution you mean with a rusty bone saw and without anesthetics than yes we did do it properly and with precaution." Jay joked.
"YOU WHAT?!" Twilight shouted.
Pete just held up a hand stopping her. "We used what we had, raided a hospital for whatever it had left. Basically all medicine was gone by the end of the first week. You learn to make due." He told her.
"Make do, you call that making do?" She asked irritated.. "Do you think cutting off somepony's arm counts as making do?"
"Oh well I don't know, do you think being ignorant and naïve is make do? Do you think breaking people's trust is making do? Do you think running off on your own is making do?" Pete countered. "I don't want to hear you complain about making do, we've fought more than and survived more than anyone else in this whole goddamned place!"
Twilight flinched. "Pete... you know I'm sorry for all that." she said.
"Yeah, well sorry doesn't cut it. I'm sorry I fell for my brothers tricks, I'm sorry that guard got bit, I'm sorry that I invited Art on his first and his last scavenging run thinking it would be easy. Does being sorry change anything? Does it bring any of them back?!" Pete told her. "I've put up with more shit than you, any of you, and after all the things I've been through all I want to do is rest. Sadly that privilege has been taken from me because if you rest you die, and I'm not ready to go quite yet." He told everyone. "You've been at this for what a month or so? I don't need you questioning me over what I'm doing to keep as many people as I can alive. I save who I can, but I can't save everybody!" He shouted. Pete put one hand to his head and rubbed the sides of his head taking a few deep breaths. "I'm going to take a walk." He said starting down the hall. "-alone." He said as Twilight was about to take a step to follow him.
Pete left the others in the hall silent.
Matt reached over and slapped Jay in the back of the head. "You know he doesn't like talking about Art." He scolded him.
Jay looked downcast. "Yeah I know, it just kind of came out."
"Does Pete blame himself for Art's death?" Luna asked.
"Yeah, Art was killed on a scavenging missing. Pete told him to come along just so he had some idea of what to do. We had been going to this one little town for awhile now and it seemed clear so we thought it was safe, but the night before a hoard had roamed into the town. Art wasn't prepared." Liz answered.
"It sound's like it's more than that." Twilight said looking down.
"Well, from what I've heard, which is pretty little, I think that when someone die's Pete always thinks that there must've been something he could've done to stop it. He takes on a lot of responsibility and refuses to share it." Matt told them.
"He can't be responsible for everything." Twilight responded.
"Yeah, well good luck convincing him that." Matt said. Twilight lifted her head up and galloped off down the hall. "Wha- oh damn it, that wasn't supposed to be taken seriously."
Pete was out in the garden maze wandering through trying to clear his thoughts. A bright flash behind him snapped him out of his trance.
He sighed. "I thought I told you to leave me alone."
"Well, not me specifically." A deep voice said with a chuckle.
Pete turned around and found Discord sitting at a table sipping a cup of tea, a chair across from him on the other side of the table. He gestured to the chair. Pete reluctantly sat down.
"How do you take your tea?" Discord asked reaching for the kettle.
"With alcohol." Pete told him.
Discord chuckled and a bottle of whiskey flashed into existence. Pete grabbed the bottle and took a small sip.
"You know you put on quite the show back there." Discord told him. "I'm pretty sure you scared some servants for life."
"If they weren't already then I'm just sad I didn't rectify it sooner." Pete told him.
"And there it is." Discord said. "You need to stop taking all these things so seriously. How can you expect to live if you're so uptight all the time?" Discord asked.
"I don't care for living. In this world there's only survival." Pete answered.
Discord sighed. "Is there really nothing in this world worth living for?" Discord asked. "Surely you made at least one friend since coming here."
"...I did." Pete answered. "And then she broke my trust and told one of my biggest secrets to everybody."
"Ah yes, the whole deal with your brother. Truly a sad thing, if you can't trust family who can you trust?" Discord responded. Pete gave him a glare. Discord sighed. "Sometimes you just have to let things go. You can't stay the same forever." Discord told him adopting a more serious tone.
"And why can't I? I've been doing good so far." Pete responded.
"You can't stay the same because if something remains the same it starts to stagnate, fester, and dull. Most consider my chaos evil, but without chaos and a little change everything would fester and grow dull. You'll just be throwing your life away." Discord told him.
"Life? you call this a life?" Pete responded. "This isn't a life, this is a prison."
"Then why not try to escape it?" Discord asked.
"Because this prison is ironclad, there is no escape." Pete answered.
Discord chuckled. "Nothing is ever truly ironclad. There's always some way out. I can give you a hint if you'd like." Discord told him.
"Fine, what's your hint to escaping the inescapable?" Pete questioned.
"Find a reason, Find a reason to fight, to be happy, to live." Discord answered.
"I have a reason, it's to keep my heart beating." Pete told him.
Discord shook his head. That's not a good enough reason. It's a reason to survive not live, a reason to breath not be happy, a reason to kill not fight. There's a real reason out there. You just have to find it." Discord told him. "Now if you'll excuse me, I believe your five o'clock is here." He said vanishing in a flash leaving Pete there sitting on a small rock. As the flash faded completely away Twilight came around the corner of one of the hedges.