Ever Free
by senior-irish
The night was rarely calm in the everfree forest, but when it was, it was a sight to behold. The true power of nature, hidden by the majestic beauty of life, untampered and forever free. If one were to look at the particularly peaceful clearing in question, one would see nothing out of place. Except for one thing.
Standing in the middle of a clearing stood a creature obviously not native to equestria, yet looking as if it truly belonged. It was tall, at a solid six feet, had a male build, had blue eyes that sparkled in the moonlight, short, brown wavy hair, and it wore clothing over most of it's body; a simple grey suit. It stood on two legs, looking up at the moon. It was a human.
It was also twilight sparkle's newest research project
Humans were not native to equestria, but they were known. They were a myth- or at least, twilight thought, they were supposed to be. Yet here was one, calmly looking at the sky, right in front of her! Quickly jumping into a bush, she brought out a notepad and quickly started taking notes. After three hours of it just looking at the moon, however, she began to get bored. She let out a sigh.
"And here I thought you'd never get bored."
Twilight squealed, and sheepishly came out of the bush. The human looked at her and smiled, gesturing for her to get closer and sit down. "Want to stargaze with a myth?" She nodded and trotted to him, feeling unusually trusting. They watched the stars together for another hour before he spoke again. "Sorry to disappoint, but i'm not entirely human." His voice was deep, but friendly.
Twilight didn't feel disappointed- on the contrary, she felt excited. Humans must have evolved into what he is!
"Quite the opposite actually- I made humans. And yes, I can read minds." twilight shot him an indignant look. "I can't help it! It just happens." He said with a laugh. His laugh gave twilight a strange feeling... like everything was, and always would be, alright. She found herself quickly believing everything he said.
Then he sighed. Twilight didn’t realize until then just how sad he looked. She didn't bother verbally asking why.
"You catch on quicker than most to mind reading." He paused, and answered her question. "I've been sad for a long time twilight. Too long. To you, impossibly long. And it's time for it to end." She shot him a questioning glance, but he ignored it. He was deep in thought.
"My creations are gone, killed in part by their own hand. You stand in the last relic of my reign.” He motioned to the forest around him. Confused, twilight continued to listen. “Far before celestia was born, before this was even equestria- it used to be known as earth." He zoned out for a second, as if recalling a memory. Twilight mentally urged him to go on, and he did.
"I have no idea who made the world. I have no idea how I came to be. All I know is one day I was... no word really describes how I came to be." he paused. "Let's leave it at 'I was.' I looked around the world, in my first minutes of life, and I decided that it needed a master. It was, at the time, basically just a global everfree forest. Not quite as evil mind you, but still wild and untamed. So I made man, to conquer the untamed world."
Twilight's mind was reeling. Just minutes ago, she thought she was lucky to have met a human at all. Now, she was hearing the story of their creation, from the creator himself!
"I made many, of both gender, and let them run free," He continued, "but they turned quickly to the evils of the world, for while not as vile as the everfree is now, it was still a place where evil reigned. They were slowly becoming like the other animals around them. They needed to grow if they were to control the planet, but these were my creations- by this point my children. I wanted them to be free as well. It took me several years to figure out what my creation needed- they needed inspiration, in order to purge the evil from their bodies, and grow into glorious civilizations. So I gave them things to gaze in awe at. Fire. Tools. Lightning." He paused. "Unfortunately, my biggest contribution was in that first total freedom I gave them, and what evil they gained. And while some pushed it out of their nature for the sake of progressing as a species, many more held onto it. It took over ten thousand years before my first mistake began to show signs of rectification. But as they hurt, lied, stole or even killed each other, no matter what the reason, what evil justification they used, I still loved them." His eyes started tearing up. "For it was not their fault that they held such hate in their nature. it was mine.”
Twilight wasn't completely sure that she wanted to hear more, but she still listened; it sounded as if this poor creature had been holding it in for ages.
"I have twilight." he said. "I have. For far too long. And I still need to say more."
"At one point, early on, I made another huge mistake- I told them of my existence. By this point, the forests were much less dense, and civilizations emerged across the face of the earth. Still, they fought, hurt, and killed each other, over things as serious as land to things as trivial as shiny rocks. Wanting to stop this, I emerged above the biggest of their cities, and gave them one simple message- 'Stop hating each other.' In retrospect, it was less of a message, and more like... a beg. But they didn't listen. They took my message- and corrupted it. The most powerful of the men twisted my short message to make themselves look even more powerful- and all over earth, my message of love was turned into fuel for hate. Just believing that I said my message a different way than someone else believed could, and did, start major wars, killing hundreds of thousands. The progress of their species slowed, and at one point halted, as they fought over my word. It was at this point that I vowed never to intervene again. It was either I give my creations total freedom, or I take it all away. A mix would just cause pain, and I loved them too much to do either of the latter. Even at their end, I did not intervene. It would just make it worse, in some unfathomable way. 'Maybe it wouldn't have' they would say right now if they heard me. But they managed to turn a four word message of love into a reason for some of the most violent acts of their brief existence. If I were to save them all, how much worse would it get?"
Twilight was tearing up, but his eyes had cleared. "Enough tears have been shed over this Twilight. Please don't cry more." She nodded. He continued.
"After over ten-thousand years of chaos caused by me, my people calmed down. By then my message- my four word message- was so twisted, billions of people followed millions of versions of it, all of which where longer than any novel you have ever read. But enough people saw that these were lies, and stopped believing all together. Can you imagine, the happiest point of your existence, being when what you created stops believing in you? Don’t try, twilight; it was the peak of my shame when I realized this was true of me."
"My story is almost done miss Sparkle, but do you want to hear the ending?" Twilight paused at this question- this tale, this unbelievable tale, had to be the single most sad thing she had ever heard. She had a feeling that she knew where this story was going, and part of her really didn’t want to hear it. But she looked at the creature, eyes vacant and sad, she did something he obviously did not expect.
She hugged him, and whispered, "Go on."
He was startled, but he smiled, and continued when she let go. "After about five thousand years, people stopped believing in me completely. Man was on the verge of traveling beyond the sky, and settling among the night stars- if they had made it, their survival would have been assured, possibly for all of time." He sighed. "Alas, it was not meant to be. Man was always going to destroy itself- If I ever said any different, I was in pure denial. A few short years before the discovery would have been made to travel and settle in the stars, war erupted, between everybody. Though it had happened twice before, this time man had weapons capable of leveling countries in mere seconds. All the hate that had been building up over a short period of peace erupted violently. The war lasted roughly forty seconds, and it killed all of my creation but a few. It was the second time i interacted, but it was definitely necessary. humanity deserved to die with some dignity. So took them, and put them somewhere where they could live the rest of their lives in peace. The species was ironically still doomed to die, though, because they were all women. Therefore, my reign on this earth ended in a hateful fireball" he stayed silent for a few minutes, as twilight tried let that sink in. She felt that it never truly would- for him or for her. To her surprise, he continued talking.
"But, miss Sparkle, with every ending, there is a beginning."
"I had failed my creations. And even though their civilization lasted barely twenty-thousand years, nothing in the grand scheme of things, I still loved them. And I still do.
"After the end, I created only two more beings, and gave them both a third of my power. I used up most of the rest to restore earth. But not my creation. Not man. They had chosen, as I allowed them to.
"The rest of my power has been used to keep me alive. It will run out at sunrise. Without it, I will pass on. I will be forever more with my creations."
"Twilight... when you next see Celestia... and Luna... tell them that their dad loves them very much, even though he has passed." Twilight nodded eyes widened.
A few minutes went by without either of them talking. Twilight, though sad, felt oddly at peace. Eventually, though, she broke the silence. "Um, sir?"
His eyes opened wide. "I haven't introduced myself have I?" He laughed; the feeling returned to twilight, despite the sad situation. "Oh, my apologies, my apologies! Twilight Sparkle," He raised a hand for her to shake, "I am... oh dear. I had many names, but... just call me Dog."
Twilight’s eyes opened in surprise. "It's an old earth joke." She shrugged, and shook his hand with her hoof. He was warm to the touch.
Dawn was approaching.
"So twilight," said dog after the much delayed introduction, "Why do you think i've told you all this?" She blinked. He had asked her her own question.
She gave the honest answer with a laugh. "I have absolutely no idea."
Dog smiled at this. "Me neither."
And with that, the sun rose, and Dog started to fade away, sadly laughing, a single tear of happiness running on his cheek. When the sun rose to a full circle, he smiled at twilight and disappeared, finally joining his beloved creations in whatever lay beyond life. His tear hit the ground and created a shockwave, not touching the pure, innocent heart of Twilight, but destroying the evil that remained behind in the everfree forest. In an instant, all the creatures were tamed, and the forest stopped making it's rouge weather.
When the subject of its renaming came up due to this years later, Twilight Sparkle, by that time well known for her documentation of dog's death, fought and won for the name to remain the same. She eventually believed that dog had told her the story to make her see that, even though celestia ruled completely as a god, it wasn't necessarily bad. She was doing it so history would not repeat itself. She was avoiding her father's mistakes. Her actions were just.
Twilight knew, deep in her heart, that this wasn't true; that dog was just telling his last story to her because he wanted to get it off his chest, but she could sympathize with the humans- the temptation to take the word of a god and use it as motivation was overpowering. She decided to do so, but kept it to herself- she did not want to repeat the past any more than she suspected celestia did, nor turn people against celestia by accident. But she knew that the past had to be known to make the future better. So, instead of hiding her story away, she published her experience as a book, and it became a best seller. She wrote down exactly what dog said, word for word, to make sure nobody corrupted his story, or went looking for false messages.
And when she fought to keep the name of the everfree the same, she fought valiantly simply because the humans had lost against their nature. It was not their fault that they were gone; It was no ones fault. It was unfair to them that they were first, and thusly they failed. It could have just as easily been the ponies. So ponydom named it everfree in memory of them- for while ponies are bound by the laws of morality- laughter, kindness, generosity, honesty and loyalty- the humans, for better and for worse, were forever free.