Being of Two Minds

by cosmofur

A Miraculous Recovery

With on a glance to each other in order to confirm that for both of them, their inner thoughts were muddled, the two Princesses took off in a gallop to follow the guard.

Twilight gasped as she ran beside Celestia, “Survivors? It’s great news, but all the reports about that Cult, say they never leave survivors, that is, if they can help it.”

“I’m suspicious as well, I have recovered survivors before from cult attacks, but always because they hid or were able to fool the cult members in some way. The guard said they were found tied up, for the cult that would normally be a death sentence.”

They didn’t have to time to discuss the issue more because the guard slowed down allowing them to approach the site with proper caution.

There was already a number of guard medics working on the survivors, from the angle of their approach the medics kneeling bodies blocked the survivors from view, so as they drew closer Twilight directed her attention to the tree the three survivors must have been tied to.

The ropes were still mostly wound around the trunk and appeared to have given the guards some trouble with cutting them, as there was still a broken guard sword stuck in the tangle of fibers. Twilight sent out a brief touch of her magic, and sensed that the rope had been enchanted to make it nearly unbreakable and resistant to unicorn manipulation. Luckily the guards persistence had overcome the spell at the cost of the sword.

By the time Twilight had come to this conclusion they were close enough to look over the kneeling medics and see the victims for the first time.

Celestia let out a snort of anger, when she saw had badly the victims were injured. It was hard to make out their coat colors, coated in dirt and dried blood. Indeed the amount of blood on the ground was horrendous, it was hard to believe ponies could survive so much blood lose. The Princess followed the trail back to the tree and saw that there was visible puddles of blood on the roots and ground under the tree. It was as if buckets of blood had been dumped there.

Meanwhile the medics continued their labor, and seemed to be having a fairly easy time closing the wounds. One of the medics seeing the Princesses waiting, “Your majesties, we’re nearly done here.”

“Will any of them survive?” Celestia asked, expecting the worst.

The unicorn medic, sounded a bit confused, and replied. “It looks worse that it is. The wounds are mostly shallow razor cuts, painful and messy but not life threatening.”

The victims lay on their sides, breathing heavily and exhausted to the point that they didn’t even raise their heads when the Alicorns arrived. Celestia’s eyes locked on the flat hard stubby plate on the one of the female’s forehead. She hardly glanced at the other two.

That is, until another of the attending medics started toweling off enough dirt and grime from their sides that their real coat colors started to be visible.

When the towel cleared off the stallions cutie mark, Twilight yelled out in a mix of surprise and joy, “It’s Red Wood!”

Celestia blinked, awoken from her own contemplations and knelt to examine the stallion, “It is Red Wood! This is good news! We needed some good new after such a tragedy. But How?”

Upon hearing his name, Red Wood turned his head a little, but his eyes were listless and weak. He glanced at the princesses but then quickly put his head down again, not able to look straight at them.

“We have to get them all to a hospital, I got them patched up enough for the trip, but blood loss is a worry and I think they must have been drugged, or spelled.”

“I would suspect the latter.’ Celestia replied. “I’ve had several teams of doctors on standby in Canterlot, they have been working on an improved version of the treatments we’ve used to deprogram Cult members before. We need to get them back to Canterlot as soon as possible.”

Twilight asked, “Princess, Red Wood’s only been captured for a few hours, you’re not going to put them all though the deprogramming treatments? It’s dangerous if they aren’t already brainwashed.”

“Not all of them, but certainly that one with the cut off horn, that along with the jewelry she’s wearing marks her as one of their high priestess. I’ve never captured one of her sort before, at least not alive.”

Twilight nodded, “I’ll start having the guards bring the wagons up closer, we’ll fly directly to Canterlot then.”

As Twilight was starting to walk away, more guards came running up.

The guard bowed low, then quickly said, “Princess We’ve found other survivors! Like these, they were tied to trees at the edge of the woods.”

Looking even more curious the elder princess ordered the guards to lead her to the next group of victims. Twilight thought about following but then realized she was more help getting transport ready.

In the end over the next few hours they found a total of fourteen survivors, all tied to trees and drenched with blood, while none were seriously injured, they all were too drugged or weak to answer any questions.

All Six of the royal guards, with the tragic exception of the pegasus, were counted among the survivors, which greatly surprised the Princess. While they were all injured with cuts and bruises, this was unexpected good luck. In addition to the guards there were a handful of ponies that were seemed to be villagers. Both Princesses looked at these extra ponies with some scepticism.

So before the day was over, a caravan of Pegasi were pulling carts full of wounded ponies to their destination at Canterlot general hospital. Every possible space on the flying carts and chariots were taken up by survivors and attending medics.

Celestia and Twilight insisted on flying back on their own wing power, despite their assigned guards urging them wait for a chariot to be sent back for them.

Flying next to each other, Twilight followed Celestia’s lead and after instructing their guards to stay back, they flew high above the caravan for some privacy.

“This is a setup, isn’t it?” Twilight asked.

“Of course.” Celestia agreed. “I’m expecting that each and every one of the so called villagers, mixed in with the guards, are really cult members. There wounds were too shallow and clean to been anything but faked. I’m afraid most of the blood we saw must have come from the true victims.”

“But they have to know that we’ll not let them go free in Canterlot, and we’ll try to deprogram them? It almost too obvious, no, not almost, it IS too obvious. Could this all be a diversion? Are they attacking somewhere else even as we’re wasting time here?” Twilight asked.

“If so, we’ll find out soon enough.” Celestia agreed, “But meanwhile I have a question for you. A problem related to the Cult that I’ve never gotten a good answer to.”

“What problem?”

“In the immediate period of time after a pony has been brainwashed by the cult, you can’t fairly hold them responsible for their actions, even if they do some great evil, its the fault of the Cult not the pony. Right?” Celestia asked.

Twilight thought about that only for a second, “I think so, I remember when Discord first changed my friends personalities back when he first returned, I quickly forgave them. It was clearly Discord’s fault, not theirs. I think it would be the same with brainwashed cult members.”

“While I agree with you, that really wasn’t the question that worries me.” Celestia replied.

“Then what is the question?” Twilight wondered.

Rather than state a simple question to Twilight, Celestia almost rambled on, listing quickly a number of related questions. “How long after a pony has been brainwashed, does he or she start to take responsibility for their own actions? Months? Years? Ever? Does a brainwashed pony have no free will left? What about if the brainwashed ponies goes and brainwashs others? The original founders of the Cult died out centuries ago, every living cult member is the result of a long chain of evil, but are none of them responsible for the Cults actions? If not, can I as Princess, execute any sort of justice for the Cults victims? Even now the Cult members are not mindless zombies, blindly following ancient orders. No, they are making plans, and killing ponies with no one directing them, just evil ideas passed from one generation to another. Can I just deprogram them, and still have a claim to be executing justice?”

Twilight blinked at that chain of questions in surprise. “I don’t know how to answer that.” She said in a whisper. “There no right answer to those questions.”

The two Alicorns continued to fly high above the convoy in silence for a long time.