//------------------------------//
// Prosthetic Absolutism 
// Story: Earning Freedom 
// by Daxisle 
//------------------------------//

	


Prosthetic Absolutism
 







"Well, I must say this is a surprise." Sin said awkwardly. In his office sat a pony he'd not expected to see... ever really. The pink party pony of ponyville sat with a solum expression of doubt and shame. It was both odd and affirming to see her in such a state, odd in the contrast to her usual persona, and affirming to have his feelings about her validate his suspicions about her once again. An uncomfortable silence overcame the room as the pink pony continued to sulk. 

Sin wanted to say something, but he knew that anything he said would either come out as an awkward mess or as a harsh snap. He didn't want to do either, and while his ego demanded he go with the latter to maintain his own persona, her agreement to help bust Spike out if the trial had gone south did make him feel obligated to be kind.

Well, as kind as he could be, anyways.

"Is there... something you needed?" 

Sighing, Pinkie lifted her head and eyes only to look away once more. Sin had a suspicion he knew why, but decided not to pry and let her speak when she was ready. He'd taken a day off from the lumber mill in order to get caught up with all of the City Hall approval paper work a few days ago, which left him with a much more suitable time frame in order to start a counter campaign against Colgate's candy restrictions bill that would be up for a popular vote next week.

As expected, Bon Bon, the Cakes, and a few other ponies had come to address their grievance with the legislation. While it wasn't orthodox, or even smiled upon to have third party government officials take place in counter campaigns of the local members, he was more than willing to sign off on some permits to use the city center to raise both awareness of the ill effects of sweets, flyer passing to encourage moderation for proper diets and the importance of dental hygiene, and call a meeting of those who'd attend about the importance of family authority and the unease that everyone in town should feel about the government trying to push their agenda.

All to Colgate's protest, of course.

Still, he hadn't heard anything from Shady Oaks, which bothered him a great deal. He felt like he should have heard something by now, maybe not from her personally, but at least from one of her associates.

"I- I feel sick." Pinkie said carefully, breaking Sin from his thoughts. Her eyes turned up to him, locking onto his through his goggles. "What we almost did, it wasn't right."

Sin took a breath, he hoped he wouldn't have to have this conversation, but it seemed his hopes were unfounded. He stood from his desk and locked the door, ensuring as much privacy as he could. "Miss Pie, what do you mean it wasn't right?" Sadness melted to horrified confusion, but the mare didn't reply.

"Do you mean the fact others would most likely have been killed if we had gone through with-"

"YES!" She jumped up, eyes wide and desperate. "That's exactly what I mean."

The oaken stallion nodded his head. "You do know that, unless those other dogs had come to speak on Spike's behalf, he'd most likely have been killed. Correct?" Her eyes welling up with tears, Pinkie slumped back down into her seat a somberly nodded her head. It wasn't a fun fact, but facts weren't dictated by how nice they were. "Someone was going to die that day, Spike or a few dogs. It was an unfortunate situation that-"

"Unfortunate?" She cut him off, her brow furrowing and body trembling. "Unfortunate is when you run out of frosting when you have a whole dozen cupcakes left, unfortunate is when your party canon gets clogged because of too much jelly beans! What happened wasn't unfortunate, it was wrong! Wrong, wrong, wrong!"

Slightly taken aback by her passion, Sin stood in pause. 

There was no way around it, he had to explain it down to the level she was playing at now. "Wrong." He paused again, pretending to analyze the word. "Life is full of 'wrong' situations, Miss Pie. Life isn't always fair, sometimes circumstances arise in which hard decisions must be made. I'll agree that the situation was one I'd have rather avoided, and I did mean it when  I said that I was partially responsible. However, getting upset over the harsh realities of the world doesn't make them go away or any easier to deal with."

While his words were logical, Pinkie was in no mood to have her emotions dismissed so readily. "For somepony who doesn't care about life that they'd kill another, I guess it was stupid of me to expect you to understand how I feel."

For some reason, that got the Federalist's temper to flare, he had killed another and was prepared to kill again, that much was true; but that didn't mean he had no respect for life at all. He calmly explained that his entire philosophy on how he lived revolved around respect for life, just not the lives of those whom committed aggression of dished out over inflated punishments. "I explained this before on the Gonshinian if you remember."

Her trembling intensifying ten fold, Pinkie was almost fumming with anger. It wasn't the best idea to fight emotion disconnect with logical connections, but when the only tool you have is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail.

"Look, what do you want from me? I can see that what I'm saying isn't what you want to hear. Perhaps speaking to Miss Dash would better serve your-"

"I want you to say your sorry!" Sin quirked a brow. "I want you to say your sorry that it happened and mean it!"

She wanted him to apologize for a situation he had no control over and for making a plan to save her friend from almost certain death? That didn't add up in the least.

"Sorry for what?"

Rolling her eyes, Pinkie explained that she wanted him to apologize for the exactly what he thought she did. Caught between his pride and desire for peace, the Federalist sighed and said everything he felt he was supposed to say. Though, Pinkie wasn't having his half hearted attempt. "I said you had to mean it!" She reminded forcefully.

"...No."

"WHAT!?" Came her shrill reply.

"I said no, I will not apologize; not truthfully anyway." His tone was resolute and unwavering, and he stared in utter defiance at the pink ball of seething anger before him. "Remember, you came to Mac, Rainbow, Discord and I to help. You became involved of your own accord. I didn't ask you to do anything aside from the plan after you said you wanted to assist us."

Her shaking slowed drastically, and her anger evaporated into guilty resignation. She was scared, angry and in pain over what could have happened, Sin knew that, and he while he did sympathize with her he had his pride.

"I wanted to handle that with as few ponies involved as possible. I needed Discord, but I discouraged Mac and Miss Dash, as well as yourself if memory serves." Again, Pinkie slumped, the truth of his words draining what little anger she had left for him. He was right and he knew it. "You want an apology? An honest one? Fine, I'm sorry for my part in Spike's decisions and I'm sorry you regret your involvement in the ordeal." he barked, stepping to the mare. "But I will not, and I will never, apologize for protecting the lives of my friends whom I believe were to be killed for a matter befitting the crime."

Shock was all that met him, an open mouth, wide unblinking eyes and a single tear that slowly trailed down Pinkie's cheek. If he'd hurt her or just gave her a little too high a dose of reality, Sin didn't know, but he did know that he was finished with the conversation at hoof. "If that is all, Miss Pie, than I have work to attend to. Please see yourself out."

Returning to his paperwork, it took a good few minutes before his guest found it within herself to stand from the chair on which she sat and make way for the door. Once the door closed and he was alone again, the stallion sighed. He understood where she was coming from, he really did, but the world wasn't all black and white. Harsh truth was there was no "right or wrong" with the world, there were only individual and collective interests.

From the perspective of her and Equestria, the dogs were wrong for almost killing Spike for his crime, and to the Dogs, Spike was wrong for assaulting and maiming an entire pack of their kin. 

So who was right? The dogs for their desire for revenge over the aggression Spike had committed? Or Spike for taking his own vengeance for what they had done to him first? He'd most likely have been vilified for killing even more just so his one friend could live. Was he wrong for that?

He didn't think so.

Of course the thought crossed his mind from time to time, but in the end it was his own interests that dictated his morality. Collective ethics were of little concern to Sin and he had no problem admitting that. He'd abide by them for the sake of maintaining civility and peace, but there was a limit to what he'd put up with. Spike deserved to be punished and he was, albeit a light punishment, but the old rite of an eye for an eye had been paid.

Had the end punishment been the only punishment the dogs would have dished out, Sin would have been content to stand by as he had done. 

But truth be told, if it wasn't Spike, if the individual put on trial had done to Sin what dragon had done to Fido, the Federalist would have killed him. He'd have killed him outright to show that the aggression was unacceptable. For what he had done, Spike was lucky to get off as easy as he had.

"There is no right or wrong in the world, kiddo." He whispered to himself. "Only individuals doing what they must to attain and defend what they care about."





"Spike?"

Stiring from his slumber, the mentioned slowly opened his eyes to find an exhausted looking Twilight smiling down at him. "Twilight!" He cried, jumping up and throwing his arms around her neck, his irrational anger from the night before all but forgotten.

"Hey, Spike. How are you feeling?" She asked as she held him. "Sorry I wasn't here when you woke up, the Doctor said you were pretty upset about it."

Shaking his head, the dragon squeezed tighter. He didn't care about that anymore, he was just happy she was here now. 

They broke the embrace and Twilight got a good look at the results of the work. The prosthetic eye was... noticeable. It looked like it tried to replicate his remaining eye, but the dullness of it in both color and sheen told anyone that it was a fake, almost distractedly so. But she didn't care, he looked better, and that's all she wanted.

"I'm doing alright, now that the drugs have worn off." Spike replied, pushing himself off and smiling. "So, what did Celestia need your help with? Must have been pretty important."

Twilight's enthusiasm vanished at the inquiry. "I'm not allowed to say," she admitted, much to the drakes annoyance. "But I can tell you that it was important."

"Why can't you say? Did Celestia swear you to secrecy?" The lavander unicorn nodded. 

'Wow, it must have been serious if she wasn't allowed to talk about it with you.'

Deciding he'd had his fill of drama and sparing his tired caretaker any farther stress, Spike dropped the topic in favor of asking how he looked. Though, that brought about a new kind of discomfort to his mother. "What?"

"Well..." Twilight bit her lip. He didn't look bad or anything, but he didn't look right either. Spotting a mirror the hospital counter, she grabbed it in her magic and pulled it to him so he could look for himself. As obviously fake as the eye was, Spike didn't think he looked too bad, he brought a claw up to touch the now filled eye socket and felt a warm tingle at having the alien space finally filled. 

Still, he could tell the difference and knew others would as well. That's when he remembered the eye patch. He asked Twilight to get his bag and fished it out, secured it in place and retook the mirror.

He let his good eye lid droop lazily and smiled at his reflection.

'Yea, eye patches make everything cooler.'

While it didn't take away from the fact he'd lost an important part of himself, Spike was done wallowing over his loss.

"Ready to go?" he asked, placing the mirror down. Twilight smiled tiredly and nodded in the affirmative. After a night of exhausting every last bit of magical, physical and emotional strength she had, she was utterly amazed with herself that she could stand at all, let alone walk. Though, a lingering thought hung in the back of her mind. The Nightmare and Tantibus weren't confirmed destroyed, Celestia had told her not to worry about the matter, and that she would speak with Luna about it once she fully recovered, but that hardly eased the young mare's mind.

This was the third time Nightmare Moon had become a threat to Equestria, she'd survived the Elements of Harmony on two of those occasions. If what she understood was true, than destroying the demon wasn't a conceivable goal. Nightmare Moon didn't really "exist" yet, she wasn't unreal either. She was a memory, and so long as the memory of the corruption exists within Luna's mind than so will she. Ironic, really. Luna had created the Tantibus in order to stop her from ever becoming the Nightmare again, and in the end; it was exactly what brought the fear to pass.

"Twilight? You okay?" Spike asked in mild concern.

"Huh? Oh yea! Sorry, just spaced out a bit." Twilight chuckled.

Rolling his uncovered eye, the drake told her to get a move on back to the train to Ponyville. Home was calling her name, specifically a very fluffy and comfortable bed.