Innocence
It has been ten years since the death of Celestia. Ten years since my closest friends began thinking that I was the one who killed her. Ten years since I was exiled for the murder of a princess. I sighed as I rotated my cooking spit outside my little hut. Say what you will about minotaur bounty hunters, but their ships come with plenty of things that become useful as you scrap it down to survive on an island. I looked to the sun, watching it set. It had been ten years, hasn't it? I looked to the side of my hut, where a veritable maze of tally marks lay in a neat grid. Sure enough, the space for year 10 was only missing one tally. Ten years since those damned fools sentenced me to exile for a crime I didn't commit.
I was roused from my musings by a loud bark beside me. The dog I had adopted was looking over the ocean. I followed his gaze, half-expecting some pirate ship coming to turn my little island paradise into another battleground. Instead, I found a lone pegasus, soaring towards my island at a slow glide. I paused, trying to estimate their speed from how quickly it got bigger. I probably had about twenty minutes, and I had to decide what to do. I looked to the dog, making a waving motion which worked to banish him into the heavy trees behind my camp. I took a few moments to activate a few of my less lethal traps, before grabbing the fish from my spit and walking inside. If it's coming to me then the traps will stop it.
My timing was off. It was fifteen minutes when I heard a snap from outside my shack. I paused my lunch, before deciding the lack of cursing meant they probably weren't here to kill me. With this in mind, I took another bite of fish, before wiping my mouth on a leaf and standing tall. I grabbed a knife from beside my door and walked out, eager to meet my new 'friend'.
I looked over the beach at my various traps. Two snares had been disarmed, hanging ropes showing the clean cuts. However, the buried one was sprung. I followed the taut line up one of the palm trees to the purple alicorn who was currently using a spell to cut through my rope. I sighed, watching her magic slice through the rope. She hovered in the air for a moment, before slowly descending, landing softly on the sand. I lowered my knife arm, running my hand through my hair. "The Hell do you want?"
Twilight looked to me and flinched at what she saw. I couldn't blame her. Ten years changes a man. My clothes had long ago been slashed to dust, leaving me with a makeshift outfit made from the giant crabs. Scars peppered my body, leaving my exposed chest a veritable maze of marks and gouges. She looked at the ground for a moment before sighing. "Jackson... I came to ask you to come back."
I looked to her before rolling my eyes, moving back to my shack. "What? Need another alicorn killed? Was Cadence getting to close to your domain of friendship with her love schtick? Oh, or maybe Luna went full Nightmare and stopped the elements beforehand this time?" I waved my knife hand in the air. "Sadly, I'm out of the game. Or did you forget you exiled me?"
I didn't look back as Twilight chewed on that before opening the curtain and stepping into my shack. I heard Twilight scream from behind me. "WE KNOW YOU DIDN'T DO IT!!"
I froze. A million thoughts pouring through my mind. Did they find who did it? Are they exiled? If so, where are they? I ran inside my shack, opening the chest I threw in the corner. "Who and where?"
I heard a gulp from outside while I dug around in the chest, passing over a few useless knick-knacks, and grabbing a map. Her voice came from outside. "W-well, it was a member of the Nightmare cult. His name was Moonlit Walk."
I paused, looking over the map of the neutral territory. "Was?"
There was another pause. "Can I come in?"
I rolled my eyes again, trying my hardest not to snap. Let me make it clear, this was not due to something nice, like trying not to piss off an old friend. This was because I have learned a few key facts of life in the neutral grounds. Fact one, never actively piss off someone who could smear you into a bloody streak. "No, you can't."
There was a pause as I rolled up the map before she spoke. "After we found out he killed her... well Luna was furious. He was executed as soon as the trial was over."
I looked to her before scoffing. "So he gets off easy, while I get ten years of a life worse than hell. How fair of you." I sat down, staring at her on something close to eye-level. "What do you really want Twilight?"
She paused, chewing her lower lip. She took a few breaths before speaking again. "I wasn't lying. We want you back. All of us have missed you, and after we found out you were innocent...."
I let out a harsh laugh. "You mean when you realized that you sent me to a lawless waste for no reason." I raised a hand to showcase my island. "Do you think I've been safe this whole time?" I stood tall and screamed, forgetting my restraint for a moment. "DO YOU EVEN KNOW WHAT I HAD TO DO TO SURVIVE?!"
I pointed to a thin scar on my chest. "THIS SCAR'S FROM THE FIRST PONY I MET! HE TRIED TO KILL ME FOR MY BAG!" I moved my finger to a circle. "HERES THE ONE FROM THE GRIFFON WHO THOUGHT HE MIGHT GET A PARDON IF HE KILLED CELESTIA'S MURDERER!"
I paused, taking a few deep breathes as Twilight stared at my scars. I lowered myself again. "Every single belief I held was thrown to the side just to cling to life for another day. Remember how pascifistic I was? I refused to even arm wrestle Dash because I was scared of anyone getting hurt. Now..." I looked down at my hands. "Now I had to take a second to decide whether or not to arm my lethal traps when I see a lone pegasus approaching."
Twilight stared at the shack behind me, hurt clear in her eyes. "I-I know it doesn't mean anything, but I'm sorry."
I scoffed again, rolling my head as I stood tall. "Yeah, so sorry that your winning testimony was why I was even called guilty. A friend until you had any reason to doubt my own nature, right?"
She stomped a hoof. "I wasn't thinking right, I was mourning. Celestia was like a second mother to me!"
She didn't expect me to charge, and years of living from fight to fight had made me fast. She froze as my knife danced on her throat. I leaned in close, letting her look into my eyes as rage burned me down to my soul. My voice was barely a hiss. "I was too. Or did you forget who found me after I got here? Did you forget the one who checked on me after she set the sun every day for a full year? She was my best friend, one of the few creatures in the world to know what its like to feel truly alone in a strange world. She told me tales of friends that had been dead for centuries, and I told her of my family I'd never see again."
I blinked tears out of my eyes as I slowly moved the knife away from her throat. "And now I'm something she would hate to see. I've killed now." I twirled the knife between my fingers, before tossing it in the air. A purple field enveloped it, keeping it out of reach as I sighed. "Drop it, Princess, if I wanted you dead I would have armed the explosives you walked all over to get here."
She froze. "You have explosives here?"
I glared at her. "I didn't until a creature managed to get into my shack. Now if they get to close they blow up. Fail to see the issue."
She winced again. "You really have changed, haven't you?"
I turned fast, my fist crashing into her cheek with a picture perfect punch. I nearly laughed as my first thought hit me. Mike Tyson would be proud. I heard a soft thump from behind me, the sand muffling the noise until it was an afterthought. I stared at Twilight as she lay down, stunned that anyone would punch her. I whispered. "Of course I've changed. I had to kill to earn meals for the first few years. After I finally earned a name I managed to get a small area of land under my control." I walked to Twilights prone form. "But that didn't stop the killing. At least once every few weeks some new stranger would come to kill me for my little farm. Even after eight years, I couldn't drop my guard for even an instant. I only had one friend in all that time."
I stared down at her, wiping my eyes as tears threatened to spill for the first time in years. "Do you want to know what happened to him?" She didn't respond, her eyes shifting up to me in fear. "I had a nightmare... He tried to wake me up so we wouldn't tell everything nearby where we were camped." I touched my left shoulder, right where his hoof had jostled me. "When I woke up I acted on reflex, rolling over and flooring him. By the time I realized who I just knocked down my knife was already in his throat."
I jumped down, laying down beside Twilight. "Can you even imagine that. Watching the blood drain out of Rainbow Dash, or Applejack, and knowing for a fact that you're the one that spilled it? Holding their limp body and cursing your fate that you killed the only pony in this damned world to show you a lick of kindness?"
The tears poured freely now, and I didn't even try to slow them. "You really don't get it. I literally can't go back. I'm too dangerous now. If somepony said something to set me off, they'd be dead before I could stop myself. If anypony had the ill-will to throw a punch they'd be turned into so much confetti before the guards even knew a fight was brewing." I rolled over, letting the hot island sand burn my back. "I'm a killer now. And I can't even claim they were self-defense. I killed to steal, killed to get revenge. I think I even killed just to prove a point at one point. They all blend together."
I felt a soft hoof reach out to touch me. "We can help you, Jackson. We can help you through this."
I flicked the hoof off my shoulder. "No. You can't." I rolled over, standing up. I took a moment to wipe the sand off me before looking at the ocean. "I'm not broken, Princess. I'm dead." I turned to my shack. "My body just hasn't caught up yet." I didn't wait for her response, just walking back into my shack and moving to my hammock. I laid in it and heard the soft sound of wings as Twilight took off.
That's when I let the tears really start, the soft sounds of sobs my only music as I laid in a hammock made from pig hide. I cried for Celestia, a beautiful star cruelly snuffed out. I cried for my old home, taken from me because of anger and fear. But mostly, I cried for my soul. Now so stained by blood and sin that what I once felt a force of good could now only kill. I cried until sleep took me, and the joyous embrace of sleep took me. The little death that gave me enough peace to survive another day.