Apropos of the Sinners

by SpitFlame

Part II – Chapter VIII – Cluster's Contra

While Airglow waited patiently in her seat to see Princess Celestia (and hopefully Cluster afterwards), Cluster had left the back room and strode along the sidelines of the benches, evidently avoiding the absorptive bustle of the edges of an anticipated crowd. Normally he would be recognized, but the ponies were so occupied with their own expectations that he went right by them without getting so much as a glance.

He scanned the crowd of ponies in the room and found Airglow. He paused, thought for a second, then quickly budged himself towards her.

"Hey, Airglow," he called to her in a sort of half-whisper. Several other ponies gazed at him for a moment.

"Cluster!" Airglow unconsciously got up from her seat, staring wide-eyed at her brother and this unexpected greeting. "I thought I'd see you after the... well—"

"You won't see me if you stay here. Come on." He left the aisle and was gesturing towards her, slowly making his way to the front door.

"Huh?" Airglow darted her head back and forth between Cluster and the balcony above the stage. But what about Princess Celestia?

Thinking it over for a second, she put all these swimming doubts aside and ran to Cluster. Both of them exited Town Hall.

"Where are you going?" she asked him hastily. "What about the Summer Sun Celebration?"

"I'm not staying here."

She was hard-pressed by this news. Airglow knew that Cluster was not a fan of "breaking from schedule" as he was doing now, so she decided to listen to him.

"I'm taking off to Baltimare," Cluster continued. "Who knows how long it'll be before you see me again, so I guess I wanted to say goodbye to you."

By now they had turned a corner and Town Hall was out of sight. The night had seemingly deepened.

"Okay..." said Airglow in wavering tones of confusion. "Couldn't you go after, or something? It's not every day that Princess Celestia raises the sun in Ponyville."

"No, I couldn't. Besides, Celestia was perfectly willing to let me go, so it works either way. I was going to hire a coachpony, though the next one is only available in the next forty-ish minutes by the train station. We have time to..." He trailed off, and for a moment, in full and immediate contemplation, looked his sister up and down. "You're not scared, are you?"

"What? Scared of what?" Airglow was momentarily astonished to the point of stupefaction.

"Ah, forget it, I'm speaking out of form," replied Cluster, and his whole face at once began to compose itself into something twisted and even quite unsure of itself. "I've been thinking things over, Airglow, and before I go I wanted to speak with you, because in truth you're the only one who would take me seriously."

Airglow did not reply, and both ponies walked in silence for another two minutes. At last they reached Cluster's house. He unlocked the door and they went into the living room. His horn flashed, and several candles began to spread their amber glow.

"There, you can sit down," said Cluster, making his way into the kitchen. "Do you want anything? I have daisy soup and green tea. I can also make a good hay sandwich."

"Sure, I'd really like some daisy soup, then tea. I'm hungry," said Airglow with a smile.

"And pudding? I have that, too. Remember how you used to love pudding when you were little?"

"You remember that? I'll have the pudding, too. I still love it."

A few minutes later and Cluster returned with a tray of soup, hot tea, and a little ceramic bowl of chocolate pudding. He set it down on the table and sat across from her, and Airglow gladly began to dig in.

"There's a lot to remember, Airglow. It's strange to think that we're twelve years apart. I remember when I was twelve, pushing thirteen, and I learned that I had a baby sister. At that time I wasn't sure of who I wanted to be. Even when I saw you for the first time I wasn't sure if I loved you. My ambitions were still beginning to take shape. It's such a difference, it really makes you think, regardless of anything else. So, I'm leaving now, and I was sitting with Celestia, wondering how I could say goodbye. I thought I'd have to convince you to follow me, given how much you seem to admire her."

"You mean the Princess? I do admire her, but I feel like this is important to you."

Cluster chuckled, apparently pleased with himself that Airglow was so willing to leave Town Hall.

"That's all well and good. Before I leave I want to be more acquainted with you, though perhaps that's the wrong word. It's hard to say. I think the best time to get firmly acquainted with a pony is right before parting, because that leaves the strongest impression. I saw how you kept looking at me in the last month; there was a certain ceaseless expectation in your eyes. In the end I learned to respect 'that' part of you—the listener part, that is. Keep in mind that I'm speaking seriously and that I won't be making jokes. Don't you do the same? Don't you stand your ground? It's easy to respect ponies who stand their ground, whatever that ground may be. In the end, I finally came to like your expectant look, but I still don't understand it."

"What don't you understand?"

"That you seem to love me for some reason. I don't understand that."

"That doesn't matter, because I do love you, Cluster." Airglow, with a melancholy face, leaned forward. "Nova told me that you're grave, but I don't agree. I think you're a riddle. You're a riddle to me, but I've already understood something about you."

"What is it?" asked Cluster, studying his sister with some special and gloomy curiosity.

Though there might have been something noteworthy in his expression, he was intrigued by something else; besides, the way he asked the question, the intention behind it, was more mechanical than moral; somehow from distraction than from simple-heartedness, from anxious agitation, just to look at somepony and wag his tongue about something. It seemed that he was searching for something in this conversation and could only come out disappointed.

"You won't be angry?" Airglow smiled nervously.

"I won't."

"That you're still a young stallion, exactly like all the other twenty-seven year olds. You're still a nice pony, still here in the moment and not in another world. You're normal, perfectly normal and nothing more. Are you... offended?"

"On the contrary, you've struck me as how I like to talk to myself," explained Cluster. "Would you believe it, that that's exactly how I reason to myself, that I'm normal? And it's true, because I'm just like any other pony, only with above-average magical output. Do you know what I was thinking to myself? Even if I were to lose faith in life, if I were to lose faith in the order of things, and even if I were convinced that everything is in permanent disorder, in complete chaos, and that this were all a horrific illusion—still I'd want to live. I fully intend to keep drinking from the cup of life, every last drop. You see these snotty-nosed moralists proclaim all these aversions to life, and how it's good for very little. Arguments aside, I want to live, Airglow, even if it's against all logic, even if I've given up on everything. You can't love life with your mind, not with logic, but with your guts. You have to love life with your insides, as it were. Do you understand any of this blather?" he added suddenly and quite out of tone with the rest of what he was saying.

"I think I do, yeah," exclaimed Airglow. "To want to love with your insides is how I think it should be done. Because... because how else would you do it?"

"How else," echoed Cluster vaguely. "There's been such a difference in history, you know, ever since Celestia. Ponies nowadays are a lot more sensitive, more developed and eager. Before ponies could only have one original idea in their lifetime, but now I see ponies carrying as many as two or even three ideas, and they make no big deal about it. Times have changed. But that's not it; I'm digressing. It's funny how the mind works. No matter how well you try to explain an idea, even if you write thirty volumes describing it in detail, there will forever be that core fragment which will ostensibly refuse to emerge from your head, and in the end, despite your efforts, only you will truly understand the whole of your idea, and maybe even the most vital part of it."

He suddenly frowned and lapsed into thought.

"Are you frowning because you don't know how to explain something to me?" asked Airglow.

"You could say that, and something else, though there's really no need..." Cluster spoke reluctantly.

"Are you really leaving so soon, brother?"

"Yes. I'm going to Baltimare tonight." Or... morning?

"What about Nova and our dad? How's it gonna end between them?" said Airglow anxiously.

"Don't drag that out again. What have I got to do with it?" Cluster retorted irritably. "I'm not my brother's nanny, am I? What, are you thinking that I'll stay here and be their keeper, and wait for some resolution? Don't. I have my own plans. Nova has nothing to do with it."

Airglow's head sank slightly between her shoulders, her face forming into a pained and melancholy expression.

"What is it?" asked Cluster, and he, too, hunched his shoulders.

"I just want to know how it'll turn out... even if I can't change it. Better than not knowing, I guess."

"Don't look so down in the dumps, Airglow. I'll return eventually, just not soon enough to please you," he spoke with a sort of refined spite; his lips even turned pale. "Look, I..." He paused, seemingly catching himself. "I didn't want to talk about Nova or the old-timer, and not anything to do with money, either. Maybe it's my heart. I have to pour something out to you."

"Your heart?" Airglow picked up solemnly. Her ears were straight and attentive.

"You'll listen, even at the cost of missing out on Celestia?"

Airglow nodded slowly yet adamantly.

"Good, good!" said Cluster, nearly laughing with animation. "But where to begin? With me, I suppose. What's there to tell that you don't already know? How I got my cutie mark, when I moved to Canterlot, the passing days of my travels—you're privy to all that drivel. Yeah, I said it: it's drivel, because none of that has any bearing on the now. And I'll tell you frankly, even with pleasure, that I wish you could know everything about me. There's nothing more cathartic than discussing the things one hates. It's even a prerequisite for establishing friendship with somepony. So what's there to hate? I know.

"Back in the day, but even in our times, the type of ponies I could never stand were the rationalists. By far, rationalists are the most self-absorbed, arrogant, complacent, smug, and downright unpleasant creatures to have ever walked this land. These ponies worship their faculties for reason like no other, and Celestia forbid they're wrong. Worst of all, they've managed to fix themselves into positions of the utmost necessity within our so-called 'intellectual' circles. I say all this with a heavy heart, because in truth I'm a rationalist. I carry it like a curse. Is it my fault that I demand a rational explanation for everything? Maybe, maybe not. I've always belonged to a mixed society, though naturally of a 'triumphant' sort, thanks to my rationality, which has strewed the prime of my life with roses. Even that, however, is in complete shambles, and I can't accept it. Rationalists are unbearably ignorant and foolish, and I'm the most foolish pony I know. Our whole worldview is flawed in every way. What's with that look, Airglow? Doesn't fit my position?"

"You must be so unhappy," she said quietly yet thoughtfully.

"Well, first, for the sake of it: let's say I really am unhappy, that I really do like to 'toy with my own despair,' as this one councillor put it to me two days back. Does that explain it all?"

"Could you explain it then? I really am listening."

"Of course I'll explain it, it's no secret, that's what I'm leading up to. I'm a rationalist, just like all the other fools, so why all the demoralizing? It's true that many things in this world operate according to rational principles; but let's think about history for a moment, especially from the perspective of a thinking and feeling being. You can say whatever you want about history, anything that'll enter your imagination. The only thing you can't say is that it's rational. The word itself sticks in your throat. Pony history is a catastrophe, it's a blood-filled, magically orchestrated mess—especially one thousand years ago—it's the reminder that life can be understood backwards but only ever lived forwards. How does a rationalist deal with that sort of knowledge? We don't; instead we plant our hooves in a tiny wedge, so as not to budge, and hurl accusations that if only other ponies were as wonderfully rational as us, then we'd be better off. Rationality, in any case, fails in its analysis to comprehend something as infinitely complex and terrible as the stretch of history. Even with all that said, even with all these cards laid bare on the table, even with all of our chips accounted for, I still can't help but view the world through a rational lens, otherwise it's as if I can't breathe!

"But here's what really ticks me off. The odd thing that has happened, which has correlated with the length of Celestia's sovereignty, is that there continues to be this emergence of moral and rational ponies, these lovers of ponykind, who make it their life mission to live as morally and rationally as possible. To make an admission—is it even remotely possible to love ponykind? Oh, sure, you can love ponykind from far away, like it were an abstraction. Ponies claim to feel that way all the time. But up close? Can you love ponies individually? You love ponykind and yet you're locked in a room with another pony: soon it becomes unbearable, their personality starts to oppress your self-esteem, and eventually you'll give way to genuine vindictiveness and hate that pony. Maybe it's because they take too long to eat, or they have a cold and keep blowing their nose, or even just the way their voice sounds. I find it, to my amazement, that the more you love ponykind, the more you start to loathe ponies as individuals. From afar it's a piece of cake, but loving ponies up close?—that's so impossibly difficult. The question becomes whether this comes from bad qualities in ponies, or is inherent in their nature. Even if I were capable of profound suffering, and another pony refused to acknowledge my suffering as if it were a kind of distinction, what would be the reason? Because I, let's say, have a dumb face, or a bad smell, or I once spilled coffee on his tie. To love a pony begging on the streets for a bit, you can't look in their faces; they have to be hid behind the newspaper, otherwise you'll immediately make an exception and be turned off by their hideousness. In the face of that the rationalists will claim that us ponies are naturally altruistic—we're born as blank slates, with an inherent inclination to the good, and it's only a wicked environment that corrupts us. 'We're products of our environment'—that's the phrase.

"Tell me, who was the first to proclaim that ponies are born good? And why so? Our desire to help others, to be kind, to share, to amend past sins—it's, on the contrary, the culmination of the environment Celestia has built up so carefully. First of all, the idea that us ponies come into this world naturally inclined to help others is absurd. Small fillies and colts can be awfully cruel to one another when adults aren't looking. If anything, we have to be taught to be good. Imagine, Airglow: our venerable Celestia has made it so it's even profitable to be good, or at least to follow her definition of good. In short, freedom of conscience has been taken from us. No longer do ponies have to slave away endlessly in contemplation over the blurry lines between good and evil. We don't have that choice, but it's okay, because we don't want it. We've readily and gladly submitted ourselves like sheep, and have given up our will. The greatest source of suffering is not knowing what is good. Ponies want to be treated like children: they want to be fed, to be led to the 'right' path, to have such a burden lifted from their shoulders. That's how Equestria prospers.

"Celestia's master plan is deceptive in the extreme, but it's worked so well that I even respect it. It's hard to take notice, because it's been so ingrained in our subconscious for so many centuries. For thousands of years there have been two kinds of ponies: moral slaves and moral masters. The former think they're moral because they refrain from doing things, while the latter do whatever they want, and what they do they deem moral. It takes a certain level of extraordinariness to prevent being enslaved by your own moral code—'I won't do it because it's not right.' Ponies like that are cowards. Truth is, the reason you don't do everything you want is because you're scared of the consequences. You'd love to commit bad deeds for your own gain, but you don't have the spine for it, so as an excuse you hide behind some facade of conventional morality. In history it was the strong and powerful ponies—the moral masters—who stood on no ceremony and reigned supreme. But not for long. Celestia has taken all of the traits typically found in the weakest of ponies—meekness, agreeableness, and self-sacrifice, to name a few—and she embedded them into her new definition of good. That was the only way to overthrow the other ponies in power. Those lot did whatever they pleased, so she destroyed them with the ultimate weapon: she guilted them.

"Take envy, for example. You've been taught to feel ashamed of your envy, led to think that it's a bad and destructive emotion that only serves to divide friendships. But who's to say I can't own up to my envy and embrace it? A moral slave will act out the lie, but a moral master will use their envy as a guide to fully actualize themselves. Everypony who makes us envious should serve as an indication as to what we one day could become. But now, all of that been transformed and subsumed into the immoral side, that which ought to be avoided. Facing up to your true desires is what the strong ponies chose to do, and Celestia knocked them down to make way for her vision of the world. The characteristics of good which hitherto had defined the strong ponies were turned on their head: now you have to be weak and 'below the rest' to be seen as a shining light for your neighbours. Not taking revenge? Now it's called forgiveness. Bowing before your nominal superiors? Obedience. Meekness and weakness are the new virtues. That's how it's been. Huh... am I losing you?"

"No, no, I'm listening," Airglow hastened to reply; she sounded like she were twinged painfully to being addressed so suddenly. "It's just that the way you're talking is really complicated, like you're reading from a book." She blushed slightly, as though in shame.

"I'm speaking too splendidly, eh? As if from a book?" replied Cluster with extreme readiness and a sort of sarcastic cadence, like he were purposefully assuming a mask of mockery: a bashful reaction to that remark, as if he refused to show any feeling as a display of pride. But he all too soon became aware of these sensations within him, and, after thinking over his fill, he changed his direction.

"Fine, maybe I am speaking as if from a book, and no habit has grown yet to account for that fact," he continued, but this time frowning ruefully. "If all this philosophizing is going over your head, then I'll speak more concretely, simply, in a manner even you could understand. I'm certain you're familiar with the legend of the Mare in the Moon—Nightmare Moon. Everypony knows it."

"You don't look too good," observed Airglow anxiously. "When you speak you look weird somehow, like you're pale in the face..."

"By the way, don't ask, because I've already brought it up with Celestia whether she really had a younger sister or not," Cluster went on, as if he were not listening to Airglow. "She gave me some kind of slyly sympathetic look and told me it's up to my interpretation—whether Nightmare Moon as a story ought to be taken literally or metaphorically. But after a lot of pressing, she conceded that 'many elements in the story have been invented for the sake of effect,' and, furthermore, that 'the assertion that Nightmare Moon didn't literally exist is the most sensible one.' Well, so be it. But stories don't have to be taken literally for them to have meaning. Sometimes a mere metaphor is more true than a material fact. Facts are extraordinarily deceptive and stubborn.

"About Nightmare Moon: her predicament boils down to a tale of jealousy. The ponies slept throughout her beautiful night, which altogether gave the impression of ungratefulness, she rebelled, et cetera, et cetera. This all occurred nine hundred and some years ago—close to one thousand, in fact. Nightmare Moon, I'd argue, came to a dilemma of 'either' and 'or'—that is, either good or evil. Everypony would pick the good, right? I would, too. But we all know that these ponies—these lovers of ponykind—sooner or later are revealed, towards the ends of their lives, to have been playing an indecent trick this whole time; that they've been untrue to and betrayed themselves. So, it brings us back to the dilemma: good or evil? Good would be to continue ruling beneath Celestia; evil is to rebel and trap the ponies in your endless night. You could even say that Nightmare Moon, even before she turned evil, wanted to overthrow her older sister. But wanting is very often, and even for the most part, completely at odds with reason; but even this might be praiseworthy. In hindsight what was Nightmare Moon's chief defect? 'A product of her damn environment'?—is that it? No, her defect was her constant lack of good behaviour—constant from the great flood of resentment, indignation, and inferiority indirectly bestowed upon her by her sister. It was a lack of good behaviour and, you could say, a lack of awareness.

"What if Nightmare Moon didn't intend to cast an eternal night over ponykind, and that that was only a temporary step to establishing her domain? It would seem likely that, having rooted herself as the sole monarch of Equestria, she would at once take control of the sun, and the days would continue as before. Well, would it have been for the better or for the worse? That's irrelevant; even if she were objectively a worse leader than Celestia, by measurements of GDP, social policy, and so on and so forth, still I can't in any good sense blame her for her actions. It came to pass that Nightmare Moon, coming face-to-face with the artificial dilemma of good and evil, chose to act not out of morals, but... out of love. Not romantic or platonic or material love, but a new, dignified love for all of life. She transgressed moral boundaries and attempted to create a new moral code. Naturally, her efforts were bungled, and she was put to rest by Celestia.

"But don't you see, Airglow? Ponies only revere Celestia, and consequently show a disdain for Nightmare Moon, because history has been set up such as only that line of reasoning is acceptable. Nightmare Moon was brave and foolish, but brave nonetheless."

Cluster stopped. He was apparently flushed from speaking, and from speaking with such enthusiasm. He frowned once more, as though terribly dissatisfied with himself.

Airglow, who all the while had listened to him silently, though towards the end, in great agitation, she had started many times to interrupt her brother's speech but sincerely restrained herself, suddenly broke out as if tearing herself loose.

"But that's crazy!" she cried, blushing. "You're defending Nightmare Moon because you hate Princess Celestia for what she's done. That's your ideal, sure, but it doesn't even work! Who would follow that?"

"You misunderstand," said Cluster, lowering an eyebrow. "Many ponies mistaken my criticisms for a personal disliking of Celestia; but that's completely wrong. I don't hate Celestia, per se, I only hate everything she represents. I ask you, you specifically: why can't there be at least one pony capable of great suffering, who's tormented by great sadness, who loves ponykind and expresses disagreement with Celestia? Is it a paradox, or what? But that's just the secret: for a pony who's wasted a million years on this pursuit, still they won't be cured of their love for ponykind. Maybe they'll reach the conviction that Celestia is good, or maybe just the opposite. It's all a waste of time, because that's how I happen to see it, me, with my limited rationality and my simple awareness of three spatial dimensions. In the end, none of it would have mattered. Why can't this freedom of conscience be granted and accept whatever outcome comes of it? It's not allowed for, that's why. Celestia is a tyrant—not in the traditional sense, no—Celestia is a moral tyrant. We're all enslaved to her will, and have been made to enjoy it."

"Maybe you're just like Princess Celestia herself then," suddenly escaped from Airglow, staring downwards, "which is by your own definition of her. And... and..."

"And what?" asked Cluster.

"And maybe that's why you don't care about the wellbeing of our family."

Cluster frowned, and suddenly a grey shadow came over his face.

"And what about loving life 'with your guts'?" said Airglow again, this time in sorrow. "How are you gonna live believing in everything you just said, what will you love it with? Please, Cluster, you can't endure it."

"Who knows?" said Cluster with a marked nonchalance. "Could be that I'll drown myself in depravity, just like Nova or the old-timer. It's a genetic force, but even that gets smashed in the face of individuality. It's my individual force that should endure everything."

Airglow was looking at him silently. Cluster cast a glance at the clock, noting the time, and got up from the couch.

"You're done eating, I can see. It's time you and I parted ways, sis." He used his magic to put the dishes in the sink, then he returned, threw on his saddlebag, and opened the front door. "I won't renounce anything I said today," he said again.

Airglow, with a heavy heart, followed him outside, but stopped at the porch. Suddenly, she strode up to him and softly kissed him.

"I can always appreciate affection," said Cluster in a firm yet passionate voice, "so thanks for that. However, any more delays would really be unforgivable. So, that's that. Goodbye." He in turn kissed her and began making his way down the road.

But he didn't make it more than five steps when he suddenly stopped, then a brief moment later turned around. Quite a new change had come over him, so much as that Airglow was taken aback by it. His face was twisted almost malignantly; his eyes glowed deep red under the moonlight; his mouth slowly spread into a morbid, crooked grin. Airglow observed all this and suppressed herself from shuddering.

"What is it?" she asked.

"I changed my mind," he told her bluntly. A certain harshness was pronounced in the emphasis of his words, to the point of insolence.

"W-what?" She stared at him almost with horror, like he had gone mad.

"I'll no longer protect the old-timer. If Nova wants to kill him, then that's life. I'll gladly let it happen. Serpent will eat serpent."

Those words flashed through Airglow's head like an arrow. For a second she looked at her brother with inexpressible worry. Then it all came into a whole, and she understood it at once.

"But... you can't..." she began to say, blinking rapidly as if unsure of her current reality.

"Goodbye," he told her for the last time that day, and, turning around, he left her there.