I Am Not Spartacus - The Long Twilight Snuggle
by Dan's Comments
Based in the 'Your Human and You' universe by MadMaxtheBlack
This story is NOT canon with Your Human and You

DISCLAIMER: My Little Pony is the property of Hasbro, Inc.

The meeting is in Luna's quarters, no guards, no whisper galleries and just the three alicorns and Armor. It still feels like the inquisition.

"We all know thou canst speak and reason, as well as a pony," Little Blue says, then considers, "Mayhaps better than most."

I nod. I have no idea where this is going. My mind goes over all the scenarios that could play out from being handed over for vivisection, being treated as a stud to reintroduce intelligence into the humans here, to a few more hopeful ones that I refuse to invest hope in. I remain silent. For five years, I have been at the mercy of ponies' whims and cravings. Now facing the rulers of the land, my situation has not changed an iota.

When it's clear that I am not going to drive the conversation, Little Blue begins. "Why didst thou not speak with them? Is not speech the mark of true sapience?" Little Blue says, all surety and eager hopefulness. And the implication that my fate was entirely my fault. I can understand her feeling that way, which if ponies knew and understood, all this would not have happened, but that thinking needs to be brought up short. She is in denial of who and what ponies are, what they did over a thousand years ago, and what they are doing even now.

"With all due respect your Highness, that's typical pony arrogance," I reply sharply, "What makes you think I didn't, and what makes you think they cared?"

Neither Diarch is happy with my tone, and no one around the table is happy with the implications.

"My captors had a product to sell, slaves for the pits. Anything that differed from that had to be pounded back into the right shape. The idea that they might make far more money with a talking human didn't occur to them, and when I brought it up, I was severely beaten for 'distracting' them."

The Great White looks like she wants to protest, then she ruffles her wings and settles down. She looks at the others, then gestures for me to continue.

"I was painstakingly educated by my initial captors, and one of my subsequent owners, about the proper behavior and decorum for humans among ponies. In a way, that training was what allowed me to keep my genitals, because they could give me smaller shocks there, and it wouldn't show up as burns on my skin and affect my fighting performance."

Cadence winces and extends a wing towards me, and thankfully pulls it back. I honestly would have been repulsed by the contact at this moment. I get up from the small table and pace. Anger I had striven so hard to bury begins to bubble to the surface. Long practice and a keen survival instinct lets me master it within moments. I take a few, deep, cleansing breaths, while reminding myself that there is nothing I can do about the past and there is little I can do about the present or future without permission or acquiescence. I retake my seat, outwardly placid, inwardly my anger undiminished and utterly impotent. "I beg your pardons," I say and bow my head for a moment.

The Great White frowns slightly at that. She has the expression of one intent on picking at a scab that itches, despite knowing it is unwise. "You still fear your fate at our hands?"

I glance at Armor, and he wilts, remembering our shared history.

"What were the five ponies killed in and around my cell planning to do to me?" I ask and keep my tone as mild as possible. "You may have no ill-wishes towards me, but your protection vanishes the moment your eyes are off me, and every pony in this city, especially within the capitol itself knows that. I am property, of no more value than a coach or a dog. And there is no way even the rulers of this land can change that. It is a symbol of power to steal other ponies' humans and return them, covered in the smell and residue of sex, and I have heard no law or dictum raised against that practice. It is a herd-dominance game and you all know a law against it would be unenforceable. Your culture all but enshrines it as an acceptable alternative over physical threat displays, like screaming at each other." I give them a thin-lipped smile. "Now that you know the truth, during your reading of the reports of my actions, how many times did you wonder how so many ponies missed the obvious signs? If I hadn't played the cello, you'd all still be in comfortable denial. The doctor at the Institute refused to accept that I had problem-solving intelligence, despite the proof staring her in the face. Because I did not solve the problems the way she expected, I could obviously not be intelligent. For five years, I've lived within the penumbra of that willful ignorance from every pony I have encountered. And the majority who knew of my sapience, cared nothing for it. Were even irritated that I'd made them aware of it. You cannot overcome that with a royal decree and a pronouncement."

"We can try," Pink says and looks at the two thoughtful Diarchs.

"They know it would cause chaos: ponies would begin all manner of cruel testing on humans to determine which others were 'faking it'," I say and both Armor and the Diarchs look ill at the accuracy of the statement, "And it would weaken your authority if you tried. I've read enough in the tabloids about 'hidden human villages' where the humans are cunning enough to evade capture. Those stories are based on myth and conjecture, and still cause hysteria. Irrefutable evidence that intelligent humans exist would double or treble that hysteria and involve most of the population in feeding or quelling it." I look at Pink. "They'd be better off tossing me head first out a high window than let that loose on your people."

"I would think there would be better options than the two you've presented," the Great White says, defending her ponies.

"Maybe your Highness is right for many of the ponies you know. But I know I'm right for most of them I've met," I reply, "And the ones I know are the ones who are most likely to ignore your laws and edicts."

"So what hope hast thee?" Little Blue asks. Her ears are pinned back and her face pinched. She looks like she wants to stomp something to dust.

"To die at peace, at the ripe old age of several decades," I tell them, and shock them worse than anything I've said before. Little Blue and the Great White stare at each other, communicating silently as siblings and couples can. Much is passing between them as the silence grows.

"Several?" Armor asks.

"My father passed away well after his twentieth year," I reply. I don't tell them I'm not from Equestria, because an aberrant strain of human is one thing. An alien kidnaped from another world is another entirely. I suspect returning home was what Little Blue wanted the answer to be, but I still am unsure if I should reveal that tidbit. Just what I've told them has them under tremendous strain. And my life depends on them valuing me more than their peace of mind.

"My initial plan was to research enough to disappear into the Everfree Forest. Forging the appropriate passes and documents would be trivially easy. But with Twilight's presence in Ponyville, expeditions into that once forbidden territory have increased. It would no longer be the haven it originally appeared to be."

"The Castle of the Pony Sisters," Little Blue says, "We canst see how thy plan would conceal thee. The grottos and corridors beneath housed most of the work done."

"You would have run away?" Pink asks. She looks crushed by my revelation.

"How many assassination attempts have I escaped? And I wasn't the real target. My death was to strike at you and Shining Armor," I remind her.

"You have a talent for exposing the darkest elements of ponykind," the Great White says and shakes herself.

"I have been careful not to even scratch that surface," I tell her, "There are far, far worse things I have seen, that thank God were not done to me." I force down my anger, so I can make the next statement at least sound sincere. "I appreciate that all of you have tried to treat me decently. Given me a home, and reminded me that everything on four legs isn't actively planning to hurt me. But for five years, I saw a callous indifference to the suffering inflicted by ponies on humans. Guards were paid a pittance to look the other way. Nobles were allowed 'special access' for their protection and patronage. Fillies and colts were brought in to watch branding parties of new fodder for the pit. And through it all, the delighted laughter of ponies thoroughly enjoying what they were doing to humans. I'm not saying that humans would entirely avoid the same traps, if humans were intelligent and dominant, and ponies were dumb animals. But I am saying, we wouldn't be bought as cheaply as ponies are. I've watched more than one human endanger itself, even face death, to protect a pony. I have never seen any pony old enough to have a cutie mark so much as risk a bloody nose to protect a human, yet they gallop into a burning building to save the family cat or dog. Somewhere along the line, all ponies everywhere are shorn of their empathy for humans. Maybe it's in school, or maybe familiarity breeds contempt. But as clever as you all are, I could have kept fooling you as long as I wished, because you would have been helping me every step of the way."

I glanced at Armor. "I bet if your bright kid-sister encountered an intelligent human, the human would have to specifically tell her he or she was intelligent, before she'd acknowledge it."

Armor shifts nervously and frowns.

"So, why did you give yourself away?" Pink asks, she seems near tears as she asks it.

I take a deep breath, a pause while I consider how much to say. I decide to tell them the truth. "I've thought about that. That what kept me going in the pit, was the thrill of danger. Of always putting it all on the line and throwing the dice again. Down there, even though you know you're smarter, better trained, and the other poor sucker doesn't stand a chance, there's always luck, complacency, and the unexpected. And the penalty for losing the throw is death." I lean back and stare at the ceiling. "Two to three times a week, and it became a routine. And it became a thrill. Most times, it was a dumb animal with no more comprehension of what was happening than a plank being nailed to a wall. Then, I had to draw it out. Give his or her death some grace and artistry. So the ponies would yell and scream and part with more bits to see it again. Sometimes, the fighter showed a glimmer of talent. I had to draw it out, let them fight hard enough that the crowd would demand they live. Then for a while, I taught them all the tricks they could absorb, so they'd live a little longer. By being good fighters, or by being entertaining to the ponies. None but me ever went to the Warmasters. None ever made it through the guards' cullings. None ever became famous or clever enough to live."

The patterns in the wood overhead begin to become faces, manifestations of fear, desperation, and horror at understanding what facing the Crimson Death really meant. "And occasionally, it was something that knew more than 'the pointy bit goes in the other man'. Against those, I threw out any honor or theater, because that was someone who was there willingly. Then, I shattered their pride, and I killed. Quickly. There was always the temptation to draw it out, to make them suffer, because they understood suffering. They planned on the suffering. They just never thought it would be theirs," I explain in an almost dreamy tone, caught between memories of Equestria and all the heroic literature I'd read and studied on Earth, "They could understand they were at my mercy, and I could do to them whatever I wanted and whatever the crowd demanded. Whatever they had planned to do to me."

I move forward both physically and in mental timeframe to the present, and stare at the horrified faces. "But I ignored the crowd. I ignored the ponies and griffons, and whatever else screaming at me to make something bleed and cry and scream for their amusement." I pound the table, making them jump. "Because I am NOT a pony. Because if I fell into that trap, I would be exactly what they thought I was. A dumb animal with no brains, just bloodlust. If it was a pony, I hurt it and convinced it to try to escape. If it was a minotaur, I killed it with the first blow I could. If it was a griffon, I tried to make it escape, then dispatched it instantly if it refused. Zebras and mules, I knocked unconscious. Bulls were like griffons, some realized and tried to run away, others wouldn't and they died." The anger is gone. I see the horror on the faces, like the horror I saw over and over in the pit. The realization in both cases that they had lost their comfortable world where they were masters of their fate and the world bent at their touch. The difference is that here I have merely held up a mirror. In the pit, I was the final arbiter of whether they lived or died, and how much agony they would go through before I decided.

I desperately hope I was a more merciful 'god' than they would have been.

Pink looks like she wants to hug me until the bad memories go away, but is afraid she'll throw up all over me if she moves. Armor looks haunted. The Great White looks at me with deep pity, and an odd resonance. That I too have seen horrors no one else should, and survived with my sanity damaged but intact. Little Blue has the strangest expression, like I'm some long lost, beloved relative who's arrived at her doorstep hungover and reeking.

"Please, ask no more questions you aren't ready for the answers to. All that information I provided should have warned you that I was intimately familiar with all aspects of the darkest elements of the human trade. Unless you count the selling of the underaged to ponies."

That does if for Pink, only Armor putting a trash can under her muzzle keeps the floor from being the recipient. She's tough, but not as hardened as the Great White and Little Blue, but the last tidbit has them shaken and queasy. Armor tries to soothe her once her stomach is empty but the reflexes go on.

"Sorry," I tell her and stroke her back. "Like Armor, I'd rather you didn't know the worlds we've walked through. But you insist on traveling those paths, and here there be monsters."

Pink nods, and puts her muzzle back in the trash can.

"Didst thy fortitude in the face of Nightmare Moon stem from thy callousness towards death, or thy desire for it?" Little Blue asks, "Or that thou surmised that naught could she accomplish, beside what thou had already withstood?"

"The latter," I reply, "It might be my arrogance, but I honestly didn't think she'd harm me. I was trivial. It was Cadence she would have struck at."

"Arrogant by assuming yourself trivial?" the Great White asks. She's smirking, and I suspect someone else is soon going to be hearing that phrase.

"Arrogant in that I could fool someone into thinking I'm trivial even as I'm neutralizing her," I say.

"So thou afflicted her with intent!" Little Blue cries out, I'm not sure if she's angry, elated or both. "Thy ministrations addled her so, We nearly overcame her before the Elements swept her from the world!"

"That's two Twilie owes you," Armor says as he gets Pink more settled. "What she described sounded more like a training exercise than an attack plan."

"Not all was Percy's doing," Little Blue says.

Armor bows and smiles.

"I think our sense of place has taken a sufficient beating for the moment," the Great White says, shivers and sighs. She looks more tired than I've seen her in quite some time. "If you told all that to Nightmare Moon, I think she would have been too conflicted to do anything."

"Aye," Little Blue adds, "Although, there is another I do wish to see Percy duel: Sombra."

"I'm afraid Sombra would drown himself in tears of joy that ponies had 'evolved'," the Great White says. "Percy, you have my permission to kill King Sombra on sight. If you can."

I nod and wonder what things this villain could be that would make him immune to any weaponry.

The conversation is over, so Pink and Armor head back to their apartment. The Great White and Little Blue ask me to stay a moment.

"I apologize for the questioning," the Great White says.

"I apologize for the answers, but you asked, and I thought you needed to know," I reply, "I also wanted you to know I was a good person, once."

"Thoust remain a good person," Little Blue assures me. She glances at her sister. "Thy rage didst never create such a thing as Nightmare Moon."

"With respect your Highness, I'm worse. I can become Nightmare on command, and then put it away when I don't need it anymore. Nightmare Moon needed vast magical powers. I needed a light switch and four rolls of toilet paper."

"And a fire poker," the Great White adds.

" . . . " Little Blue just stares at the two of us.
------------------------------

I wake, and wonder if I slept past noon. The place is too quiet for morning, but the sun is high. The whole world feels, off. I hear the faith bumping at the front door. Now I'm awake, and ready to take on anything.

First, I head into their bedroom to wake Armor and Pink, and get them out the window while I face what's at the door. Pink's bed is disarranged and empty, and Armor's is equally disarranged, but only essentially empty. Laid out on his looks like the almost complete kit of a Greek Hoplite. Back and breast plates, vambraces, gauntlets and greaves. All in white, and all prominently marked with Armor's cutie mark. And an axe. Not some woodsman's tool, but a heavy war ax with a spike to balance the broad blade.

I think they're getting me ready to give Sombra a big surprise.

'Accomplishing' this knight takes only a few moments, this kit goes on like the theater stuff, and is sized perfectly for me. No longer the Crimson Death, I look like the White Hoplite. Looking closer, the axe blade has damasking, whirling striations of color in the base white material of sapphire blue, cerulean and darker phthalo blue. The spiral blood grooves in the spike bring all the suspicions together in one disturbing realization.

I don't feel horrified at the source of my shining armor. I feel enraged. Even if this is a weird dream, someone has decided that messing with my family is a good idea. That someone desperately needs an attitude adjustment.

The bumping at the front door brings me around. I lack a helmet or the hoplon shield, but the two-handed axe makes up for part of that. I adjust a picture on the dining room table to show me what's in the door, then I slip up to the side of the door and flip it open. Nothing rushes in, and what I see as a reflection stuns me. It's a Cadillac, one of the ones from the late fifties with the huge tail fins. These tail fins are painted to look like wings, and the entire car is pink, well light cerise, but close enough.

I peer around the corner at the car. It honks softly and backs up. It sits there, and I swear it seems confused. I have no idea how I know this, but that's the impression I get. I also realize it isn't full-sized. It's about a 5/8th scale model.

Okay, this dream is getting creepy and surreal. I heft the axe, and open the passenger side door. The car's idle changes, but it doesn't do anything as I get in. I put the axe behind the empty driver's seat, and I turn on the radio. The upholstery is predictably, accented with alternating violet, rose and pale gold stripes.

"Percy, what's . . . are you all right? Where's Shining?" Cadence's voice blares out of the radio.

"I'm fine. Shining, I'm wearing him. Somepony needs to quit including you two in my dreams. I thought Princess Luna understood how bewildering they were to ponies."

"Percy, this isn't a dream," Cadence says as she pulls a bootlegger turn and accelerates down the corridor.

Oh course it's a dream, how the heck would you even know what a bootlegger turn is, let alone how to do one if any of this were real? Heck, you'd barely be able to figure out how your wheels work. Of course I don't tell her that, the poor kid is distraught enough as it is.

"Stop," I order, and she does. I get out of the car and grab the figure huddling behind a potted plant that's telling him how worthless he is. "Come on Blueblood, time to save Equestria and all that." I slap away the grasping fronds as I approach.

For whatever reason, his desperate scrabbling doesn't give him enough traction to even slow me down. His weakness or my strength, I neither know nor care.

"What do we need him for?" Cadence asks. I turn down the volume on the radio, once I've stuffed the Mighty Poof in the back seats and climbed back into the shotgun seat.

"Any hand in a crisis," I tell her.

"If he wets on my seats," Cadence says.

"You'll be able to embarrass him at will for the rest of his life," I tell her, then put the volume back up. She's no Richard Petty or Dale Earnhardt, but for someone who never saw a car before becoming one, driving on polished marble floors, she does a credible turn of speed.

The corridor and doorway to throne room look almost normal. The guards before the doors with their gleaming helmets. If you ignore the kittens within those helmets standing sentinel atop a pile of unoccupied armor. They meow sternly.

"Princess Cadence, Captain Shining Armor, Prince Blueblood, and Percy the Crimson Death," I shout as I lean out of the window.

They meow in relief, stoic and practical. They know the heroes have arrived. Pink shifts into low and pushes the doors open.

Inside, the nobles and petitioners stand in clumps, parting to allow the Cadencelac through. While the chatter around us intensifies, my eyes are on the obvious anomaly in the room. The Frankenstein's monster assembly of pieces darting over the Diarchs. It's obviously enjoying the show, and haranguing the Princesses. I briefly consider heaving the war axe at it, but while I was excellent at throwing weapons, its movements are too fluid and too close to the Diarchs to risk it.

I climb out of the car, and drag Blueblood out of the back seat. "Stay here, Armor and I will handle this."

The effect is electric. The ponies all gasp and draw back. Oh, the possibilities. I shoulder the axe and look at all the ponies. They wilt as my gaze falls on them, like a heat beam on flowers. Their fear withers them as I survey the crowd. The entity doesn't like having the spotlight stolen. Too bad.

"Yes, I can talk. And I bet you're all expecting me to go into a big pronouncement about the treatment of humans by you ponies. How the very ones who preach love and tolerance, regularly castrate and sterilize, beat, imprison and blind the ones who can barely raise a hand against you. To decry your throwing me and hundred to thousands of others over the years, decades and centuries, into a pit day after day after day and expect me to make whatever other unfortunate you threw in afterwards scream and cry and beg for mercy while you all stood above it, aloof and cruel and congratulating yourself on your superiority."

I pause, and the only sound is a quill on parchment as the anomaly frantically takes notes. The ponies are all staring at me. "Well, I won't."

There is the sound of an angry chicken flying through a plate glass window. Don't ask how I know that. It doesn't involve a tornado.

"Oh come on!" the anomaly protests. The two Diarchs both snicker at the anomaly's distress.

"I am not, because I never expected any better from any of you. I have watched you here and seen the same sneering cruelties I have seen as long as I can remember. The cruelties of children thinking their parent hasn't caught them. You do as much of it as you can get away with to each other, why should people who can't hit back expect any better? None of you are worth my time."

"You, however," I say as I march up the steps, "I am going to politely request you restore Shining Armor, Princess Cadence, Princess Celestia, and Princess Luna to status quo ante, if you would be so kind."

I note the anomaly has taken 'cover' behind the Great White. She and Little Blue are unchanged, except they seemed to be molded into their thrones. Perhaps they are like the 'loaf cat' pictures with their legs concealed beneath their bodies and wings tucked tight against them, or their condition may be more horrendous. Neither seems too alarmed, even smirking as the anomaly cowers behind them.

"Nope."

"Would you please explain why?" I ask, reaching the level of the thrones and shift the axe to a more convenient carrying place. Two Diarchs' giggles disturb my target more than I.

"I am the font of eternal and endless chaos," he announces, 'he' due to him sounding like Q from Star Trek. This arms-wide gesture accompanies a blast of lightning and thunder that sounds like a coyote's yip.

"So you did all of this?" I ask.

"Of course," he replies.

"Because you wanted it to happen?" I ask.

"Exactemende," he replies. He stares at me with irritation. I'm a slow student, stating the obvious.

He'll flip if I tell him I have never heard of him, and have no idea who or what he is. Save that for later.

"Intent driving action, cause following effect, that's the basis of order, so how are you associated with Chaos?" I ask.

He raises his hand, and there is a bell-like sound, and he immediately falls to pieces.

Both Diarchs giggle, but no hooves to cover their laughter. The pieces leap back into the air and reassemble.

"Blasphemy!" he shrieks and shakes a very sharp salami at me.

"Blasphemy, moi?" I ask.

"That's my line!" he says and raises his hand as if to snap his fingers.

"Well, there is one chaotic thing you did," I say and seem to consider, setting the axe back on my shoulder.

"One?" he asks, his ears pinned back in a very pony-like expression, his hand still extended.

"Just one," I tell him, then lean close, "Me," I tell him with as much menace as I can manage. I start circling the Great White to get at him. He starts circling to keep the Great White between us. "You didn't expect me, you didn't intend me, so you have no idea what to do with me, do you?" I ask as we circle the Great White faster and faster. "When you changed me, you showed true Chaos, and I am beyond you now. I am eternal, now and forever. So you could change me into wind, or snow, or seven notes of music, and you would spend the rest of your life wondering when I would reach you. And what I am going to do to you when I do."

"Percy, you can't kill him," the Great White tells me.

"Oh, she's trying to protect you, isn't that sweet?" I tell him, I grin at her, and scowl at him, "But you see, you hurt the people I care about. Protect you, no one can." I stop and glare at him. He stops his circling as well.

Then I smile. "You can't outrun me. You can't destroy me. If you damage me, the essence of what I am remains. I will regenerate and keep coming."

I start to circle again, deliberate step after deliberate step around the Great White, my tone stays low, almost conversational, but the ponies far below are retiring to the far edges of the throne room. "Eventually you will weaken, your reserves will be gone, I am relentless."

He gestures. I have Armor draped over me, and one of his forelegs in my hand. I let him climb down off me. "Go see to Cadence," I whisper to him. He heads down. The Great White stands and puts her wings around me to restrain my advance. The anomaly is standing out in midair a short ways from the throne. He actually gives the Great White a grateful look, then catches himself like a teenager caught approving of his parents.

"Percy, he has restored your family. I do not wish you to destroy him. He might one day be redeemed," the Great White tells me while holding me tight to her chest with her wings.

"Redeemed, I?" the anomaly says, "Celestia you forget yourself."

"He is restrained by my wings and word," the Great White reminds him, and smiles.

"I'm inclined to let him go," I tell the Great White, "In many ways, he's no worse than the ponies down there."

"THEM'S FIGHTIN' WORDS!" the anomaly replies in the Royal Canterlot Voice inches from my face.

"Oh really, and you can do better than them? Ha." I point to the Great White. "Look at her. All you and them see is a thousand-year-old sovereign. She's a youthful woman, the age and attitude of a young mother. You so desperately want to hurt her to get her attention? You don't have the first clue about how to hurt her, or how to get attention you would want."

"Percy," the Great White warns.

"He doesn't actually want to hurt you. He wants your attention. Like a naughty child wants his mommy's love," I reply.

"I think I'm going to be sick," Luna says. Then looks at the anomaly holding his mouth closed and holding up a sign that reads 'Me Too!'

"Then look at that pompous windbag trying to hide in the Ficus bush, she's the chamberlain. She controls the schedule and who meets with her, and who doesn't. She rings her round and round with protocols and fancies, to 'retain her majesty.' Celestia needs none of that. She carries her majesty with her like a shroud. She does it for herself, to impress her power on everyone around her, and to gain some little fulfillment for forcing mighty Celestia to bow to her trifling wishes. How do you differ, how are you more malevolent than that arrogant mayfly stealing joy day by day from someone too gentle to strike them down and start over? Do you honestly think if Celestia turned to Shining Armor tomorrow and told him to put them all to the sword, they wouldn't all deserve it?"

The anomaly stands in midair with his mouth hanging open.

"And the lies they spread about her fearsome punishments. Yet when trouble arrives, they flock to her like frightened children. Even knowing you were here inside the room, they ran in, not out." I grin at him. "And when you feared, you placed her as your bulwark against me. You depended on, relied on, maybe even prayed for a love you have done precisely nothing to deserve. And it saved you, she saved you, and you are still unworthy. How are you different from them?"

He grimaces and snaps his fingers. There's a moment of disorientation, but nothing more. He's staring at his fingers with horror. He snaps them and becomes a potted plant, another snap and he's a goldfish, another and he's collection of muffins, and another and he's back.

"I already told you, since you don't know what you did to create me, you don't know the counter to return me to status quo ante." I snap my fingers at him, and for an instant he cringed. I ignore the heat coming from within myself. "Princess Celestia has demanded your life. I will honor the request of one of the few in this whole world who has treated me decently. Should you trouble her further, she needs only revoke her request, and, you, are, mine. I have a lifetime of cruelties taught by experts, and would dearly love to see you experience each and every one."

He looks to Celestia, who shrugs.

"But, in deference to her, and Princess Luna, I offer a suggestion. Perhaps something to pour oil on the waters between you and the Diarchs. Change her and Luna into foals for one day, let her play with her student, her friends and their families. Let her bask in the love of people who care about Celestia and Luna as persons, and can see past the crowns."

His jaw drops so hard it bounces off the throne room floor and nearly reaches the ceiling before it snaps back into place.

"No? Well then I have no time for you either." The heat from within is becoming worrisome. Maybe he tried to burn me alive, and it's taking a while to get started. I duck out from under Celestia's wings. "In deference to your wishes, I depart, I doubt I can restrain myself much longer." With that, I march down the stairs from the throne. The heat is becoming uncomfortable. I'm half way down when the anomaly whispers, "I can't fix Sparkle, but if you send her all the Friendship Reports, that should undo what I did. Then the Elements will turn everything back the way it was."

The discomfort is ranging into true pain as I reach the throne room floor. I don't show it as I keep walking.

"Afraid?" the Great White asks the anomaly.

I don't hear the response as I march out of the throne room to the terrified mutterings of ponies. Armor and Pink race after me. Once the doors have closed, and we are around the bend of the corridor, I collapse, the feeling of being meat on the grill can't be denied any longer.

"Percy!" Pink shouts in alarm, as I curl up into a ball and whimper. She touches me, but doesn't recoil, so the heat hasn't reached the surface. The pain grows, and unconsciousness claims me.
------------------------------

The sound of happy laughter brings me around. It has a different timbre than the pony laughter I've heard most of my time here. It sound more like the laughter of human children playing with each other, rather than the sound of someone getting away with something.

I open my eyes as someone complains, 'Consarn it, princess, that's plumb cheating!' The answering raspberry comes from a white, alicorn filly sailing over the collection of fillies and colts running in every direction. Delighting in the warm summer's day, the rolling green fields, and the large number of playmates.

The lasso caught the white filly, and drags her to the ground. The filly with the bonnet laughed as she tagged the white alicorn. "Some of us ain't spring chickens ta be fooled, yer Highness." The filly laughs and races away.

The alicorn chases after her. Others of all colors of the rainbow chase after each other across the ground and through the sky.

I spot a unicorn male, a teenager rather than colt, with two 'devoted' followers. The unicorn mare seems colored like a relative, the butter-colored, pink-maned pegasus seems more likely a fan.

That's Shining Armor I realize as I look over the collection. Celestia, that looks like the concessionaire, that's Hairbow and her older brother, I don't know who the rainbow pegasus is, where's . . .

I see something that truly makes this dream surreal. The pink maniac is sitting in the shade of a tree, snuggled up asleep against filly Luna, who is using the maniac's poofy mane as a pillow, and smiling. Not the near manic grin of Little Celestia running, diving and scampering with a pack of foals, but a quiet, contented grin, with a wing draped over the pink maniac.

I realize that Cadence, also a teen, is supervising the game. I head over towards Shining, who cannot step or even turn around without eliciting a sigh from his fanclub. I note that nopony seems to notice me or react. I cast no shadow, although I can see myself clearly.

Armor's pair of admirers are Mitsubitchy and Peep. I suddenly realize that the collection of maniacs who ruined the GGG for every other pony are the Bearer of the Elements of Harmony. I can't imagine how that all goes together, unless I accept that despite every'ponys' chronological age, real adults are few and far between.

"Now you know how Blueblood feels all the time," I tell Armor as he tries to deal with the two fawning, underaged females, with his fiance watching.

He glances around as if he'd heard, but cannot see the source of the words. In spiritus, inspiration.

I head over to where one purple unicorn filly with a set of saddlebags full of books is watching the more athletic, and aggressive ponies are in their tag scrum. She seems worried by the activity, but seems to want to join in because Celestia is playing.

"No one will blame you for wanting to quietly read in the shade," I tell her.

She looks around frantically for the source of the voice.

"Who's a pampered, pony princess?" Celestia shouts at the rainbow-tailed pegasus filly she has in a headlock and is tickling her hooves with her mane, "Who's a pansy pony? Huh? Who's a pansy pony?"

"I am! I am!" the rainbow-tailed pony shouts.

Celestia spots Cadence charging over with a grim expression. The mini-Diarch releases her victim and races into the sky faster than Cadence can follow.

The purple unicorn filly facehoofs at her mentor's antics.

"Do you see another princess who might enjoy a quiet friend?" I ask, and the unicorn looks around to find the source of the words, before reacting to their meaning.

Luna is watching the others racing around with a thoughtful mien. It seems she is the more mature of the alicorn pair, or just the more introverted.

Twilight seems to take the inspiration. She changes the book she's reading to one on astronomy, and moves to settle down next to Luna. The Diarch smiles at her, then drapes her wing over Twilight before going back to sleep.

Okay, whoever you were, I won't kill you on sight. But only because you did this for them. Besides, when we meet again, I can still tell you I don't know who you are. I chuckle at that thought.