Earning Freedom

by Daxisle

Suppression and Ramifications

suppression and ramifications

"Spike? Hey Spike." The aforementioned lifted his head from his hand with a groan, his arm propped up on the purple chair's armrest.

Rubbing his eyes, he saw his lavander care taker looking at him with an almost frantic look in her eye. "What- what's goin' on?"

Coughing to calm herself as well as clear her throat, Twilight looked left, the her uneasiness increasing tenfold. It wasn't hard to figure out why, two golden clad celestial ponies stood with their trademark look of indifference.

Awake and now much more aware. Spike looked at Twilight with his eyes wide and his pupils and retina's the size of pinpricks. "Twilight, what's going on?"

"We've come to take you to the Mayor." The leader of the guards replied, his voice authoritative. He produced a scroll and handed it for the dragon to read. "You're being summoned to the Mayor's office for the offenses of: one count Disturbing the peace, charges initiated by Mayor Mare and twelve counts of destruction of property, charges initiated by: Carrot Top, Roseluck, Daisy, Muffin Clover, and a few others," the stallion informed. "Plus 45 counts of un-aggrivated assault upon the Diamond Dogs, charges initiated by Fido. But those shall be handled in Canterlot by her Majesty."

Spike's stomach dropped as he processed the information. He knew that this was coming but knowing didn't make it any easier.

Stepping between the two, Twilight demanded to know why this summons hadn't come earlier. The guard informed her that the mayor was afraid that the drake was unstable, that he might turn back into the rampaging dragon if not give time to de-stress. She had felt that enough time had passed that she could call the young dragon to account for all of the carnage he'd caused.

Twilight bit her lip. She wanted to rebuke but couldn't find the words. There was no way Spike was going to walk away from his misgivings this time. He may have not been himself when he'd attacked Ponyville, but he was very much in control when he'd gone to the Diamond Dog mines.

Spike quelled anymore debate Twilight might insite with a gentle claw upon her shoulder. "Don't." He stated before giving her a soft smile. "I knew this was coming for a while, Twi. It's time I owned up to what I did."

Giving her former assistant a pleading look, she reserved herself to hugging him and gently sobbing into his shoulder. Spike knew that he should say something to make her feel better but it would only be empty words. What he did was serious. He knew what he had done was wrong but that wasn't enough. He'd hurt others for nothing more than their bruising of his pride and ego.

Giving her one last squeeze, Spike removed himself from the mare and sauntered over to the guards where he'd be escorted to the Mayor and then to Canterlot. If he was stuck in Ponyville jail, at least the corrections officers would be better mannered than they were a few months ago.

He gave one last look as the golden clad stallion's walked through the library door, his eyes threatening to loose tears and parting with four simple words. "I love you, Twilight."

---

Tired, irritated, in pain and now with emotional weight, Sin stared up at Tyken. The griffin's face just as neutral as his own, betrayed only by the same phantom of sadness he himself had.

Why is Life had taught him so much. It helped forge him into the stallion he is today. The author wrote about the citizens and government. About how the government was nothing but the complacency of the citizenry. It was the very embodiment of fear and the responsibilities that the average individual was not willing to take on.

And once it was given life, it quickly became its own entity. Feeding off of the gods that most everything sapient worshiped: Apathy, Fear and Dogma. The first being that which Sin hated most. Citizens not caring about issues that affected them so absolutely and intricately that a single group could destroy their very livelihoods with a flick of a pen. Of course, it wasn't with out Dogma that the order of that pen strike was carried out. No matter how brutal, how foolish, or how utterly repulsive the order was. Lastly, Fear to hold decent at bay by intiating terror of both government force and the unknown.

All of these made up the true god: Complacency. Fear to enforce the Dogma and discourage to Apathy.

Oh yes, there were things to really fear in the world, but these issues cannot be fixed by government nor the blissful ignorance and lies it offers. The protection it gives is just as likely to be turned into a weapon against the sheltered. History has proven this all too well.

"Sin." Tyken whispered, the world darkening as grey clouds collected overhead. "It happened. We've all taken on challenges we couldn't win and failed." He said sagely.

Sin's muscles in his front fetlocks tensed up. He hated the concept that he could fail or be wrong. Just the thought made him taste bile in the back of his throat. It wasn't that he thought himself so amazing that he couldn't fail, but that he could never allow himself to. Failure was for failures, not for intelligent ponies such as himself. He was better than that.

"But," Tyken continued, "instead of accepting the failure as it was, you've held onto it and made a grudge against the world with it."

Straining to keep his dwindeling temper in check, the former Senator bared his teeth. "Yea, I did. And you know what? From where I stand, I have every right to. One being, no matter the race, doesn't make a government work. It requires the complacency of those it influences. And for all the bitching and bickering of the citizens of Northwood, Glendive, Unitas, and every other city and town I'd visited that complain about their political overlords, they've demonstrated little action. I go in to try to solve their problems, give them the chance to make the change they claim to want. And what do they do? They condemned me."

Tyken pressed his beak tightly, Sin took a bitter bit of smugness in the victory. He knew the griffin couldn't reply to that because he was right on every single account. The citizens of North New Equine were all bark and no bite.

Allowing a calming sigh of defeat, Tyken admitted that his apprentice's grudge was indeed well founded. Though, he also pressed that the grudge did nothing to help no hinder the citizenry, it only hurt the stallion himself.

"True enough," he shrugged dismissively, reminding his friend that it was his choice to make in the end.

And that's when it happened, something that made every single muscle in Sin's body tighten at once. The conversation was taken from the abstract and general and placed upon the one thing he dreaded speaking about... Himself.

"Alright then, let's change the topic. Tell me, Sinbad: Have you found direction fer yerself yet?" Tyken asked snidely, his patience running thin. "Have you figured out what ya wanna accomplish?"

Sin quirked a brow. "Accomplish?"

Nodding the hybrid replied in asking about what the young stallion was actually doing with his time. Sin made a quip about his freeing of innocent ponies, though Tyken countered with the fact that the oaken pony hadn't pursued that endeavor since his trial a few weeks ago.

"Yea, I had made an agreement to assist Celestia in events where my assistance would be required."

"Fine." The griffin replied. "But was that the reason you came to Equestria? Ta free innocent stallion n' mares from wrongful imprisonment? And is that what you intend to do moving forward?"

Furrowing his brow, the pony replied shakily that he planned on continuing his work in trying to spread liberty by speaking to crowds and exposing economic fallacies and incongruities in state run central planning. Though, Tyken wasn't buying it and rephrased that he wanted to know what the stallion planned to do with he himself, not the ideas he was going to preach and chase.

Sin smirked and opened his mouth to speak but stopped before a word could leave his mouth. His brow furrowed and he reached deep into the recesses of his mind to give the explanation that was requested. More to himself than his former master.

"Were ya plannin' on settlin' down somewhere? Maybe plannin' on startin' a family?"

Again, the former senator's quick tongue failed him. No matter how he phrased the question to himself; the answer wouldn't come to him. Fact was that he'd never given much thought to his future personally. Yea, he'd planned for events or furthered his knowledge in both psychology and group think, but not himself. Hell, that's how he defined himself. In his mind's eye, he was the survivalist pony who spread liberty and individualism where he went; that and his past. Trying to expand on that set the gears in his brain into a grind.

Seeing the familiar look of unknowing frustration on his pupils' face, Taken took the opportunity to press his advantage and use this to break through the stallions defenses. "You've got that look again." The pony looked up. "That look you have when you get angry at yerself fer not knowing something ya think you should know."

Sin's neck twitched, his frustrations growing. He didn't know, how could he not know? This was his life, Tapio dammit and for all of his talk about an individuals right to their own life, he hadn't really been living it.

'You, living life? HA! That's a laugh. Come now, surely you can reply to something this abomination is saying.'

Don't call him an abomination!

'What? Since when did you really care about others? Huh? You know damn well that if it came down to his life or you being manipulated, you'd drop him like a rock.'

Is that right?

'Yes, just like you've abandoned Zell to die and abandoned Windmane to whatever Malich is doing to him now. The former of which spent a good three weeks out in the woods looking for you, risking life and a frost bitten limb to help you, while the latter was the only one who stood beside you as you challenged Apathy, Fear and Dogma. They were there for you when you needed them but where were you for them, huh?'

I already fucking explained my stance on that!

'Exactly. You don't care about anyone but yourself, no matter the sacrifices they've made for you. So why do you pretend to care about Tyken?'

"Boyo?"

His inner debate interrupted, Sin looked up with a defiant look on his face, contrasted heavily by the concern on his master's. "What's wrong?"

Sin bit the inside of his cheek. He didn't want to think about this, he didn't want Tyken here, he didn't want his inner critic getting on his case right now. He was flustered, his mind and logic was failing him. He couldn't think, he couldn't focus, all the emotional guilt and shame he'd pushed down and rationalized was bubbling now. "I'm fine, just hadn't given it a lot of thought." Sin answered reluctantly.

Nodding, Tyken sat down by the pony breathed a patient sigh. "Ya know, boyo. I think you've played the bitter loner long enough, now." Sin scoffed and shook his head. "Don't wave me off there, I'm being serious. Let me ask ya this then, what has acting this way gotten you?"

"A small lashed hut in the middle of a Milikki forsaken forest where I'm free to do whatever I please." Sin deadpanned. He didn't want to think about this. He knew where it was going and he wasn't sure he could handle the emotional frustration of it right now.

Clicking his beak, Tyken looked around, observing the camp. While he smiled internally at the obvious and healthy conflict he'd finally made the stallion he cared about indulge, his outward expression was neutral with a faint hint of disappointment. "Ya, you've got yer freedom, n' nothin' ta show for it."

That was it, Sin stood on shakey legs and began walking away. He couldn't do this with a level head. He was getting angry, at Tyken, at the Senate, at Zell and most of all himself. He knew the game Tyken was playing and he knew he'd loose. He wanted to be alone, he needed to be alone.

"Where do ya think yer goin'?" He heard from behind. Sin didn't reply, what was he supposed to say? This was what he wanted out of life? To live in the middle of a hole in the woods surrounded by dangerous beings that ranged from giant killer mammals made of constellations to acid covered plant roots?

He felt a claw on his shoulder and shrugged it off, only for it to come back a bit more firmly. His temper flared again and Sin smacked the offending apendage away. "Don't fucking touch me!" He barked, causing the griffin to step back.

No, what he needed to do now was to unwind and let his mind go blank for a while.

Author's Note:

Sin and Spike finally pay their dues.

Comments

[TheStratovarian]

Ah, the 'fun' questions here, heh.

[Daxisle]

5964251 define the word "fun".

[TheStratovarian]

5968152 The kind that run a hairs bit shy of inquisitorial, and the ramifications of those extracted answers.

Though enjoying this story and the nature of what choices mean.