The walk to the room seemed to take an eternity to Dominic, each step echoed in his mind as he thought about the dream. Normally he would have a bottle of Dewars to climb into, the dream would fade away into the back of his mind as the alcohol numbed the pain. Now, he was faced with the dream and had no bottle to crawl into. To him, it felt like the first time he had ventured out for supplies. The world seemed much larger, and things were scarily clear.

Luna looked at Dominic, she could see the distance in his eyes. She still couldn’t comprehend how much he hurt, despite her own sordid past. She had tried to willing harm her sister, but Dominic. He had no choice. He could never undo what had to be done, he couldn’t un-pull the trigger. As the pair silently approached the door to Twilight’s room Luna’s hopes rose, maybe they would be able to help him. Maybe they could break through the walls that she couldn’t.

“They’re all in there?” Dominic asked, breaking the silence.

“Yes.” Luna replied.

“Are you coming with me?” The lunar princess shook her head. Dominic took a few deep breaths, he had faced unspeakable odds before. Surely he could handle six ponies. Right? Dominic steeled his nerves, his eyes narrowed and his face became stoic.

“We will collect thou in one hour.” Luna said, Dominic raised his hand to the door and knocked. For several seconds nothing happened, then the door was encased in a lavender glow. It opened inwards, Dominic looked at Luna one final time before stepping through the door. His gaze fell on the ponies in the room. The door closed behind him and Luna lost sight of the man.

“Princess Luna.” A guard said, catching the princess by surprise. “We have a problem.”

{♠}

Dominic and the girls sat in a circle, which reminded Dominic a little too much of an AA meeting. In that sense, it was ironic that he was holding a half empty bottle of whiskey. His jacket hung off the back of his chair with his shotgun and back pack. Thankfully, the other ponies hadn’t noticed the patch on the shoulder. Dominic had hung his helmet over it, hiding it effectively. At the moment they were discussing mundane things, trying and failing to create a sense of normalcy.

Finding out that Twilight had told the girls about his world had made the begining of the meeting very tense, many angry words were exchanged, no the conversation was pretty one sided. At one point, Dominic had come close to drawing his weapon. After he had been reassured that none of the ‘personal’ information had been shared, he calmed down a bit. This effect was compounded by the addition of alcohol.

Dominic had zoned out for the most part, staring off into space as memories played over and over in his head. He felt numb, unlike earlier, and he embraced the feeling. Even though he was sitting in a room with six possible conversation mates he felt like he was miles away. Their speech was nothing but a whisper compared to the screams and the shouts that rattled around in his head.

He could see the face of the final figure from his dream, she was in every thought that he had. A phantom of the past, a constant reminder that Dominic was weak. If he had been stronger, if he had fought harder, she would still be alive. Dominic took another swig from the bottle of whiskey and looked at the ponies again. They were covering the topic of what they were going to do for hearths warming eve, which didn’t help the lone human’s feelings in the least.

“-And after that, my dad and I are gonna race. I’m finally gonna beat him this year, I just know it.” Rainbow Dash said, trying to sound prideful. She and the others were all well aware of the elephant in the room. The six foot tall, bipedal, death dealing, alcohol guzzling elephant. She looked at the human, his features were sunken and his eyes were red. Rarity had been right earlier, when they had been discussing Dominic’s appearance, if his face was clean shaven and his hair was cut, he would look rather handsome in his own right. Not that she was interested in the first place, zombie slayers just weren’t her type.

“What about you, Fluttershy?” Rainbow Dash asked, looking to the timid pegasus. The yellow mare ‘eeped’ and shrunk into her mane.

“I’m just going to tend to my animals…” She said, before gesturing to Applejack. “Um, what about you…. Applejack?” Before the orange mare could answer, Dominic held up his hand.

“Let’s cut the bullshit here, stop pussy footing around what’s really going on in your heads.” He said, getting guilty looks from the others.

“We’re not really sure what to say, Dominic.” Rainbow Dash said, looking at the man. “Your world, it’s just… just…”

“Incomprehensible.” Interjected Twilight.

“Yeah, that.” Dash nodded.

“Why don’t we talk about the world before that mean old infection?” Asked Pinkie in a scary, serious tone. “What was it like?” Dominic thought for a few minutes, then looked at the mares.

“You really want to know?” The mares nodded, Dominic sighed. “Fine, if it’ll end this damned chit chat I’ll do it.” He took a swig of whiskey and wiped his mouth on his sleeve. “Lets start with my home, the greatest nation on the face of the earth. The United States of America.” Twilight floated a notepad over and began to write a few things down. “Now, I’ve already talked to Twilight about a few things, so forgive me if I skip a few things.”

“Okay, what did the United States of America do that made it so awesome?” Rainbow Dash asked, leaning forwards.

“Where do I start? Back to back world war champions, first to put a man on the moon, first to create sustained flight, take your pick.” The ponies eyed him strangely.

“World War?” Applejack asked, Dominic realised what he had said and sighed. No backing out of it, he had to answer the question. Twilight subconsciously picked up a notepad and quill

“First world war was in the early nineteen hundreds, started when some archduke got shot by Serbians. Austria-Hungary got pissed and declared war on serbia, Russia got mad at them, they were allies with the french and the english, The austrians called in Germany and their allies.” Twilight raised her hoof.

“So, the alliance system they had actually did more harm than good?” Twilight asked, Dominic nodded.

“This is all just going off what I can remember from my World History Class, but basically yeah. The war raged for a few years, then America entered the picture at the end. At first, we didn’t do so well, but once we got into it there was no stopping us. That lead to the treaty of versailles, which was pretty much a big ‘Fuck you’ to the Germans.”

“How bad did the fighting get?” Asked Rainbow Dash. “Was it like a giant brawl, or with swords?”

“The first world war brought many efficient ways of killing. For starters the plane, then the machine gun, then the tank. Flamethrowers, poison gas, artillery, just to name a few off the top of my head.” The ponies stared at him with morbid curiosity. “The thing that made it the worst though, were the trenches.” Dominic was about to begin when Twilight shook her head frantically, Fluttershy looked as if she were going to vomit.

“I-I think that’s enough on that subject…” Twilight said, closing the notebook “Why don’t we talk about the moon?”

“To talk about the moon, I have to talk about world war two…” Dominic responded, he was going to start again when there was a knock on the door. Twilight lit up her horn and opened it, Princess Luna stepped through and looked at the group.

“Hello Princess Luna, how are you?” She asked, trying to forget what Dominic had said.

“We are not well, Twilight Sparkle. We must speak with thou and Dominic immediately.” Dominic was on his feet in seconds, he slipped his jacket on and planted his helmet firmly on his head. Dominic’s shotgun found itself slung over his shoulder, ready for use. The ponies stared for a moment, it was scary how fast he had readied himself. They noticed the stained, frayed patch on his shoulder, but didn’t have time to ask questions.

“Let’s go then.” He said, walking towards the door, eager to get out of the room. Twilight started to get up but winced as she remembered that the wound in her leg still hadn’t fully healed. Dominic stopped and walked back to her, then kneeled down. She blushed slightly as he picked her up, Dominic didn’t pay it any mind though. He would be embarrassed if he had to be carried around because he had shot himself in the foot.

When they had exited the room, Luna hoped there would be a small bit of silence. There was not.

“What the fuck is going on?” Dominic said flatly, Luna sighed and rubbed her temples for a moment. She ignited her horn, casting the familiar speech spell.

“To put it bluntly, ponies know about you. They want answers, and they want them now.” Dominic stopped walking, Twilight could feel his body heat rise as an almost angry look came to his face.

“No. Fuck no.” Dominic growled. “I’m not gonna be paraded around in front of a bunch of shallow, snot nosed, noble ponies like I’m the eighth fucking wonder of the world.” His voice echoed through the hallways, lending more weight to the statement. The princess sighed, she had known he would react like this. She could see it in his eyes, even if he did sleep he didn’t rest. His eyes were still sunken and bloodshot, but beneath all of the anger and rage that boiled within she could see something. She could see fear.

“Dominic, I know you don’t want this. If there were any other option I would pursue it, but there isn’t.” Luna said in a sincere voice, Dominic put Twilight on the floor and turned away. “Dominic, wait!” He walked away, he didn’t know where he was going, but he didn’t care. He would pack up, he would get out of the castle. No place was home forever, he knew that better than anyone else here. Luna picked up Twilight and put her on her back before following the silent man, he was surprisingly fast for a biped. “Dominic, please be reasonable!” He stopped walking and turned around, a burning ire present in his eyes.

“No, Luna. You be reasonable!” His words were filled with rage. “I’m done being reasonable, I’m done sitting in my room like some caged animal, and I’m fucking done.” Dominic was positively fuming. “I’m done sacrificing! Haven’t I done that enough!?” Luna frowned, knowing he was right. “You think I give a damn if some of your ponies get angry? FUCK THEM! FUCK ALL OF THEM!”

“Dominic, we can still figure something out. There are options!” Twilight said, trying to calm the human down. “Right…?” She looked at Luna who nodded.

“We can convene a press conference.” Luna said, she raised her hoof to stop Dominic from interrupting her and to her surprise he didn’t. “Only professional reporters, you can choose what questions you want to answer.” She could see Dominic still wasn’t going for it. “You can choose where we hold the conference.” He shook his head.

“If you don’t do it yourself, someone else will. And if they do, you won’t be able to defend yourself.” Twilight urged, realizing the importance of what was happening.

“Dominic, this could be the only opportunity to control what is revealed and what is not. Would you rather have everything leaked with no way of disputing it?” Luna added, Dominic turned his head towards them, a sigh escaping his lips.

“Fine.” He muttered. “But I swear to god, Luna, if this goes down the shitter…” The princess nodded, well aware of the reckoning Dominic could bestow.

Author's Notes:

If you have questions for Dominic, leave them in the comments below. Please try to make the legitimate, and remember that the reporters know nothing about him so questions should be rather general.

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