Synthesis of the Atheist

by BlackRoseRaven

Stage IV: Pathos

Stage IV: Pathos
~BlackRoseRaven

PEGASUS, ACT II, SCENE IV. In Prominence Square.

Enter PEGASUS, REDWING and FINCH.

REDWING: But it cannot be done!

FINCH: Hast madness overcome thee?

PEGASUS: Chide me not like birds!

REDWING: Then act not like a fool!

PEGASUS: And why should I harken to the advice of a chick, still dress'd in his downy swaddle?

REDWING: Gods blight your eyes and burn your pinions, I have had enough madness!

FINCH: Hold friends, will you not hold hooves and tongues?

PEGASUS: I have held too much, too long! Think me mad as the kestrel if thou must, to settle thine own consciences and assuage thy own knowledge in thy minds! I am PEGASUS, a warrior of the skies, and no longer will I bow my head to false-nam'd gods and lying saviors who do not save, but enslave! Aye, perhaps I am mad... but I would rather be insane than a coward!

REDWING: And am I not every inch the warrior as thou art? Did we not serve together in the last campaign against the griffin scourge?

PEGASUS: And that is why thy indifference kills me so, REDWING. To be afraid is one thing if child or peasant with no cause to fight: to be ruled by fear when a warrior is dishonorable.

REDWING: Thou asks us to take up our arms in treason against our very gods. Thou pleads with us to start a war and fell our own leaders, and because of a mad idea of conspiracy! I have remained silent: is that not proof of my loyalty, when my continuing silence means my neck will break beside thine own in the executioner's yoke?

PEGASUS: I asked for help.

REDWING: And what help can I give a sky horse that believes it is not our war with the griffins that will doom us, but finding peace with them?

PEGASUS: I have made the griffins pay their debt to us a thousand times over on the battlefield! If anything, I pity the part their kind hast been coerced into playing! Nay, we are not ruled by true gods, but old and wicked sky horses who will destroy our kind with their politics and greed! And if I must go alone to prove it, I shall!

REDWING: Then go alone.

FINCH: Calm now, friends! Please, there is still reason to be found, is there not?

REDWING: Reason? Nay. Only madness.

PEGASUS: And cowardice in those who refuse to act.

REDWING: Fie! Thou sees a single dead pony and declares it a genocide! Thou witnesses a single unicorn in the temple and declares it a takeover! I fear what thou will declare when the moon rises tonight, or should a caravan of slave hoofs pass beneath our territory!

PEGASUS: I know what I have seen and heard, and my senses do not beguile me! Are we not already slaves to the whims of the gods? Have they not already sought to separate us from our ponies who walk along the ground? There is evil ahoof and the blinders have fallen from my eyes, allowed me to see that those who rule over us are corrupt. By evil means they desire to enslave what little will we have that remains, and destroy those brave few who would stand against them!

REDWING: Thou raves with such fervor I cannot even make heads nor tails of it. I see now, what thou hast become: blood-mad, with a broken mind. A heretic. Fine: because we are like brothers, I shall give thou until night wanes to leave this place, or repent thy words. But then I shall have no choice but to report of thy sad and sordid defection.

FINCH: REDWING!

PEGASUS: The hurt is greater than I expected.

REDWING: I do it from love. The gods may pity thou yet.

PEGASUS: They shall not. And nor do I deserve it, for I shall not show them any mercy myself. If I must do this alone, I will do this alone. I will free us from their tyranny by methods fair or foul. It consumes me: if I die before it is done, then I know my spirit will never know rest.

REDWING: Mercy, PEGASUS. I pray, see truth and repent.

PEGASUS: And if I do not? And if I am right?

REDWING: I will do what I must do if thou still denies the truth. And if the world is truly so insane thy words are not just lunacy and madness, then I shall ensure with my dying breath that all our race will know thy name. Nay, I shall do one better: I shall ensure that every Sky Horse wears thy name as thy own, that great and small, beggars and kings alike are all known as PEGASUS.

PEGASUS: I shall hold thou to that promise.