Awkward Conversations And Other Stories

by No one is home

Trials and Tribulations (Princess Luna): Interrogation

“You have been more than cooperative up to this point, Mr. Deadlift.” The Princess of the night sat across the table from the former human known as Deadlift. “Indeed, you have only been arrested at your own insistence.”

“I wasn’t just an innocent circus performer your majesty. I was one of Iam Noone’s partners.” The earth pony heaved a heavy sigh. “It’s not like I didn’t know what he was doing. It’s not like I didn’t know it was wrong. But, Iam had a way of getting in your head and making things seem alright. Sure, we were slipping ponies drugs, but we had a hive to feed. Those changeling drones would have starved if it weren’t for Iam. It wasn’t a perfect solution… but… Dammit, even now I’m making excuses for him, and for me. I always knew that deep down there was something wrong with him, but I never thought it come all come crashing down like this.”

“Who is this Iam Noone? The Pastel Family is reeling from this event, and I am loathe to approach them for information, but you claim to have known the individual quite well. Please, anything you can tell me would be most helpful.” Luna’s words were calm, but Deadlift could hear the urgency behind them.

“So it’s safe to assume he escaped then?” Deadlift didn’t really need an answer and the princess didn’t supply one so instead he began to speak, slowly reliving that first fateful meeting.

-=-=-=-=-

We were… refugees in a sense, I guess you could say. Our world had experienced a plague caused by an attempt in pony world to establish peaceful contact between our universes. We never found a cure, but we were eventually, with help from the other world, brought the spread of the infection to a halt. Then one day, communications just stopped.

Travel between our worlds was tricky at best, even with guidance from the other side. The first team we sent to re-establish communications never made it back. It was decided that we couldn’t risk another princess in the attempt, so instead they chose to send us. We were all volunteers. We all knew it was a one way trip without a princess to bring us back. A regular unicorn like Franklin could never make the teleport. We went in, and if we could find the first team we came back with them. Then other things happened.

We came out in Fillydelphia, and we immediately had a rough time of it. Ponies shunned Michelle, Usagi, and the triplets, when they weren’t outright assaulted as “monsters”. We found a place to hide in the warehouse district and me and Franklin would go out and secure information and supplies. Yes, we stole, a lot. And no I don’t feel bad about it. We were aliens in a strange land. We had our friends to look out for.

It didn’t take long to figure out that we had the wrong Equestria. No lunar prince for starters. There were other tells, but that was the big one. So we had found a pony world, just not the right pony world. And we had no way of knowing if the first team had made it here, to another pony world all together, or somewhere even stranger. So we were stuck here. We had all known this might be a one way trip, but to realize it so completely… That’s when he found us.

Belle, Blossom, and Louise were playing in an abandoned lot. She’s older than she looks by the way, but she’s really very child… er… foal-like. She started as one human woman, by the way. The plague… it took odd turns with some of us. Most just ended up regular ponies… others not so much. But anyway, she was playing by herself and this weird dirt colored stallion approached her. Normally she’s pretty nervous about strangers, but after weeks of everypony either running away in fear or throwing things at her and screaming bloody murder… I guess she let her guard down.

She had enough sense not to bring him back to our hide-out, but she convinced me that she’d met a nice pony who I should talk to. So I went back to the lot, with Michelle and Usagi to back me up, and that’s when I met Iam Selrahc Noone. I’ll be honest, I didn’t realize it was a fake name until I saw it spelled out. All his names are fake. Iam Noone. Madame Alias. Mr. Nopony. Every one of his names means the same thing, nobody. Maybe that should have tipped me off.

He revealed himself as a changeling right off. I mean, why bother hiding that? No secrets between monsters. We hit it off from the start. He reminded me a lot of an old friend I’d lost back home, and he had an offer we couldn’t refuse. We were invited to join his hive, or rather Madame Butterfly’s hive. They were hiding in plain site on the outskirts of Filly posing as a carnival of sorts. Clowns, games, rides. They even got traveling performers like the Calypsos. Every little pony just loves the circus, so the hive was fed and nopony was the wiser. Hell, what were we gonna say? There aren’t many jobs for freaks and the circus was at the top of the list.

It should have gone good for us. For all of us. It turned out Iam was a former human, just like us. He said he had been brought over by some mysterious entity he called “the words”, or “the writing on the wall”. We were a family. Please, don’t go too hard on the drones. It wasn’t their fault. Very few drones can disobey even a leader caste changeling. And we really were a family. I’ll be honest your majesty, putting down Kimmy was the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do. Kimmy was what we called her, Franklin’s wife, the chimera. The separate head names were all a part of the act for her. For years I knew her, and she seemed like she was exactly the way Franklin described. She was the kindest, gentlest, most loving soul I’d ever met… at least that’s what we all thought. To see what she was about to do… What I now know she had done before, god knows how many times…

-=-=-=-=-

The pale horse broke down completely, sobbing and spouting grief-filled gibberish, cursing himself and the cruel hooves of fate.

“That’s enough for now, Mr. Deadlift,” Luna said soothingly, “We’ll talk again later. I’m going to move you to more comfortable accommodations. You’ve done wrong but…”

“No, you put me back in that cage where I belong!” Deadlifts eyes were tearful and filled with self loathing. “I haven’t even told you half of it yet. I don’t think you even have laws to cover what we’ve… what I’ve done! You put me back in that cage, and you leave me in the dark and cold. It’s more than I deserve.”

Comments

[Dravkwn]

There are those that know they've done wrong and wish to be locked away forevermore, but how can one atone if one cannot do more than exist in a state of self depreciation.

[No one is home]

7400526 I would agree, Jimmy Jack's desire for incarceration is, I think, for him another way of hiding from what he's done.

[Not so New Brony]

just not the right ponie world

pony or just remove the word altogether since it would work just as well.

Admittedly, it took me a few seconds to realize Selrahc was Charles backwards so Deadlift can't be blamed for not realizing it from the get go. And I guess the guilt and severe self loathing Deadlift is feeling has been building ever since he joined up with Iam and found out what he truly was. Covering Kimmy's feedings simply made the guilt worse so I believe even if the ponies give him a lighter sentence, he'll demand to be punished the same since despite Franklin being a tad amoral, they were friends from the same world.

On a side note: Guess William and the others never made it back home...or maybe they did but in different time periods. Or Jimmy Jack along with the others came from a parallel world where William never came back but that's another story altogether.

[No one is home]

7401432 I've given Iam's full name before, i's tricky because Selrahc IS a real name (I forget the language). And when you say it "Ee-am Sell-rock Noon),It almost sounds like a real name.
As for Deadlift, he was a good man once. He was an orderly at a psyche ward. He cared for others who couldn't care for themselves. Iam Noone used that, "How far wil you go to keep them safe?"
This is post everything in The Pink Step stories. Team One was a totally different group. None of them ever found the source world because it stopped existing.

[Boulder]

It didn’t take long to figure out that we had the wrong equestria.

Equestria

Very few drones can disobey even a leader caste changelings.

changeling

[No one is home]

7433634 Typos eradicated. Backstory emerges... I think. Maybe?