Chapter 45

10-24-14, 4:02 P.M.

Fall break had arrived, a short 2-day respite from classes. Jeremy played some new games for once, and had just saved his progress when a guard burst through the portal. Jeremy immediately leaned forward in his chair, partially out of shock and partially to avoid the flustered pony, then twisted around.

“What is it?” he asked in confusion.

“Sir, the princesses have requested your urgent presence – according to them, it’s absolutely critical,” the guard said, while saluting.

Forgetting that he was still in pajamas, Jeremy stood up. “Lead the way,” he answered, and the guard sprang back through the portal, Jeremy quickly closing the foam cover as he too exited his universe.

“Mind filling me in along the way?” Jeremy asked as they ran towards the castle – the guard hadn’t been kidding when he said this was urgent, judging from his pace.

“I don’t know what’s going on, myself – just what I told you,” the guard answered. Jeremy snorted in exasperation, struggling to keep up – one of the many disadvantages of only having two legs.

Finally, they reached the castle. Panting with exertion, he watched irritably as the guard, who was only barely tired, lowered the drawbridge. This more than anything caught Jeremy’s attention: Why was the drawbridge raised in the first place? Cautiously, he approached the throne room, wishing he had a weapon.

His question was answered as soon as he entered. Celestia, Luna and Chrysalis were all in the center of the room, horns lit around a brightly multicolored magical sphere. The first thing Jeremy noticed, however, was that Luna was awake during the daytime: Clearly this was more important than he had realized. Inside the sphere was a human, slumped and haggard, and also apparently asleep. His beard was ragged, his hair was singed, and his glasses had evidently broken a long time ago – but for some odd reason, they were still on his face, slightly askew.

“What the hell?” Jeremy asked as he walked forward, and Celestia looked over.

“Good timing,” she commented. “Take a look at this one.”

Jeremy examined the human – he did look awfully familiar… “Ethan?” Jeremy asked, a deep suspicion beginning to form in his mind.

Chrysalis nodded. “You won’t believe how we found him,” she mentioned. Disengaging herself from the magical sphere, she walked over, checking quickly to see if Ethan had woken. Satisfied that he hadn’t, she resumed walking over to him to tell the story.

“He arrived earlier today, completely unarmed and lacking anything but the clothes on his back. And he didn’t try to hide it, either – he directly approached the throne room, and didn’t resist capture. Before he passed out, he claimed he was genuinely repentant for his actions, and had barely escaped the terrorist group with his life after they bailed him out. He hasn’t had anything to eat for a while, so he’s going to die pretty soon unless we decide to do something,” Chrysalis finished.

Jeremy sighed deeply, expressing his frustration with a hand to his forehead. “Okay. On the one hand, there’s no way I’m ever trusting this guy – that’s a given. On the other… should we really give him the benefit of the doubt? If he’s unarmed and doesn’t have any electronics either on his person or embedded in his body, it’s not like he could do much against you guys – or, if it comes to that, me.”

Chrysalis nodded thoughtfully. “Then again, this worm has military training – who knows what he might pull,” she rebutted.

Jeremy considered this. “…I hate to say this, but we might just have to keep him on a short leash…” he finally responded.

Chrysalis sighed. “I know you’re a pacifist and all, but can we kill him? Just this once?” she pleaded.

Jeremy chuckled darkly. “…Not yet.”

Given that it was fall break, he elected to stay at least the weekend in Equestria – the dining hall on his campus had closed for break, and he didn’t feel like scavenging around for a new source of food on Earth. He ate with the princesses in the royal food court, once again contemplating the miracle that was Equestrian cooking. Ethan was still in the throne room, attended to by Chrysalis, who had no need to consume food. Luna was occasionally teleporting food to an unseen place – she explained with a surly frown that she was feeding Ethan magically. Jeremy gave a neutral “hmm” in response.

Some hours later, as he was perusing the Canterlot library, he was informed by a much calmer royal guard that Ethan was feeling well enough to speak to him. Placing the book he had been skimming back on its shelf, he obediently followed the guard back to the main hall, where Ethan’s magical imprisonment had been switched for an actual cage. Jeremy frowned upon seeing it; the image of a caged human beside the two thrones was extremely unsettling. Celestia sent an apologetic smile his way.

“Sorry, this was what we had,” she responded aloud to his thought. Jeremy decided to let it go, and approached Ethan, who was trying and failing to adopt a casual pose.

“How about we start off with the obvious question: How the hell did you even get here?” Jeremy asked. Ethan shifted uncomfortably.

“Hitchhiked on a boat and swam back to America, found you had moved to college, sneaked onto campus, followed another kid in claiming I was an old alumni of the college, found your room after an hour of searching, convinced your roommate that it was my old room before he went out to breakfast, and slipped through. You were gone, probably at classes or something, so I went and found Celestia. You probably know the rest,” he finished, his voice sounding hoarse.

As angry as he was that this narcissistic asshole had waltzed back into his life, Jeremy was impressed – that sounded pretty difficult. “Say I believe you,” he started. “Why? Why would you turn yourself in?” Ethan looked as though he were about to cry.

“Okay, look, I… I messed up, alright? I admit it, I fucked up pretty badly. But I’ve been trying really hard to be a better person since I escaped. I want you guys to… to help me be better.”

Jeremy looked around. Celestia was apparently considering Ethan’s offer, lip still curled in contempt. Luna simply looked back at him, as unamused as ever. Chrysalis’ face, on the other hand, was lit up in a vitriolic snarl.

“And why should we believe that tripe?” she asked viciously. Ethan took a subconscious step back as she advanced forward, fairly spitting with fury. Jeremy raised an eyebrow.

“You can’t… just tell when he’s lying?” he asked curiously.

Chrysalis looked as though she were about to say something, then sighed. “I was going to intimidate him, but yes, I can tell he isn’t faking it.”

Jeremy shrugged. “Good enough for me… although one wrong step and you’re dead,” he addressed Ethan, who vigorously nodded.

Celestia unlocked the cage, staring at Ethan with the seeming intent to burn him to a crisp with the unholy nuclear wrath of the sun. Jeremy looked at her in concern – was she taking issue to his earlier attraction? Her horn wasn’t lighting up, so she wasn’t planning to do anything just yet – but Jeremy had the distinct feeling he’d better keep the two apart.

It had taken a while for Ethan to get cleaned and dressed in a brand new set of clothes – these were some of Jeremy’s, although they hardly fit. After he had finished, Jeremy elected to take him on a tour of Canterlot, in order to gauge his ‘new’ personality in a more subtle method. Though Ethan had been informed he would be sleeping in the dungeon, he hardly complained – whatever he’d been through had gotten rid of a lot of his earlier pompous attitude, Jeremy reflected.

“Over there is the shopping district – you can get all sorts of enchanted stuff there. There’s also a few food shops, but most of the good restaurants are closer to the castle.”

Ethan nodded in fascination. “What kind of stuff is sold in the magical shops?”

Jeremy shrugged. “Mostly utility stuff – housework, alchemy, hobby things. They don’t seem to have any limitations on what they sell, either, so long as it isn’t dark magic – I’ve seen some stuff that would almost certainly be illegal back on Earth.” Ethan chuckled.

After a while, the conversation turned back to Ethan’s escape.

“How did you even survive?” Jeremy asked as they made their way back towards the castle, night having fallen.

Ethan shrugged. “Got lucky, I guess.” He laughed, and Jeremy looked at him quizzically.

“What’s so funny?”

Ethan’s laugh faded to a chuckle. “What friends I have always tell me I look like Jesus, and when you asked me how I survived almost certain death, I thought it was funny.”

Jeremy took a closer look at Ethan, unimpressed by the joke but seeing the resemblance. Surprisingly for his age, Ethan stood a full three inches shorter than Jeremy at around five feet eight inches, with shoulder-length curly dark hair and dark brown eyes. This, combined with a pale enough shade to rival Jeremy’s own, broad shoulders, and long, skinny arms, actually did make Ethan resemble the stereotypical Italian depiction of Jesus – though not, Jeremy reminded himself, the realistic one.

The four met in the throne room over drinks to discuss things while Ethan was safely locked away in the dungeon.

“Well, this complicates things,” Jeremy started. “He’s actually not awful this time.”

Chrysalis made a sound of disgust. “I say we lock him in the dungeon and just forget about him,” she muttered.

Jeremy gave a short chuckle to that. “As much fun as that would be, I feel like we kind of owe it to him to teach him how not to be so terrible. Should we even bother prosecuting him for the stunt he pulled last time?” Jeremy asked Celestia.

She considered for a moment. “It wouldn’t do much good – here, his crime isn’t very well-known, and on Earth he’s already a wanted fugitive.” Jeremy suddenly remembered something important.

“We should probably tell Mary we have her guy,” he mentioned, pulling out his phone and tapping out a quick email. Out of paranoia, he reverted back to the old standard of using as imprecise terminology as possible, hoping that Mary would get it.

She responded a few minutes later, sounding approving of his tersely vague language, and let him know she’d be calling off the search. With that done, the serious part of the conversation was basically over, so the topic moved to their personal lives. A few minutes later, a different guard checked in.

“Personal letter from Princess Cadance,” he said, and Celestia politely accepted the letter, the guard dismissing themselves.

Jeremy stared at the letter, a certain train of thought coming back to haunt him.

“Something on your mind, Jeremy?” Luna inquired.

Jeremy sighed. “Oh, you know, just confronting my mortality. As in, how I’m going to die in just a few decades, but you’re all going to live for thousands of years?”

To his surprise, Celestia spit out her tea, drenching a shocked Jeremy. She hurriedly used her magic to wipe it off, then turned to Luna. “You mean you haven’t told him?” she exclaimed, and Luna put a hoof to her mouth.

“We – we forgot, honest!”

Jeremy looked between the two of them, and Chrysalis seemed about as confused.

“Okay… what?” Jeremy queried.

Luna, to his surprise, shook for a moment. Finally, she removed her hoof with an expression of utmost shame. “If… if thou marry an alicorn… part of the marriage vows is to tie thy life to ours… meaning thou will be just as long-lived as we are, and not a moment more.”

Jeremy was unsure how to react for a moment as he considered this. Did he want to live forever? If he did, he’d watch everyone he loved on Earth die. If he didn’t… Celestia, Luna and Chrysalis would have to watch him get old and die. Agonizing over this, he looked up to see the three mares staring at him with sorrow in their eyes.

“We… never wanted you to have to make this choice. It’s not to be taken lightly, as I’m sure you know,” Celestia began heavily.

Chrysalis looked uncomfortable, and Luna was looking as though she wanted to be anywhere else at the moment – a feeling Jeremy could sympathize with. He went back to thinking, trying to look for positives. All his friends would die – but he’d be able to make a constant, endless supply of new ones as the centuries moved forward. Plus, he could actually oversee the progress of humanity and ponies – he could learn forever.

“You know what, yes. Let’s do it,” he said, surprising all three of them.

“Art thou… art thou sure?” Luna asked.

Jeremy shrugged. “Sure, all my friends are going to get old and die, and I’m going to be hella sad when that happens. But then I get to make new ones, right? Plus, I get to do research and stuff forever – I’m pretty stoked to see what the future will be like.”

To his surprise, Luna pulled him into a bonebreaking hug. “WE ARE PLEASED THAT THOU HAVE DECIDED THIS WAY!” she yelled into his ear, and Jeremy once again recalled the raw power of the Royal Canterlot Voice, rubbing his ear in pain and trying to laugh as it slowly stopped ringing.

Luna stepped back embarrassedly, horn lighting up, and the ringing instantaneously cleared. “This happens more often than we would like,” she admitted, chuckling. With that, Jeremy, Chrysalis and Celestia headed off to bed, Luna staying up to oversee the night as usual.

Before he went to bed, Jeremy walked down into the dungeon to check on Ethan. Unsurprisingly, he hadn’t moved, and was still amicable about his conditions.

“Dungeons here are so nice… I was expecting mold and corporal punishment,” Ethan commented.

Jeremy laughed. “Chrysalis thought much the same during her first and only stint here – she was in the cell across from yours.”

Ethan shifted nervously. “She… she was imprisoned here?” he asked.

“Yep,” Jeremy replied, and launched into a greatly shortened version of his whole story.

“…They must really hate me, don’t they,” he replied, and Jeremy didn’t need to think too hard about what he meant.

“We all do. You’ve done a whole lot of wrong, and you’re scraping the surface of making up for it. Did you expect we’d forgive you instantly?” Jeremy asked.

Ethan shook his head. “I’m just wondering why you guys haven’t straight-up murdered me yet,” he queried.

Jeremy shrugged nonchalantly. “We were considering it – as a matter of fact, we still are considering it. Then again, we’re trying to cut back on the murder.” Ethan raised an eyebrow, and Jeremy decided now would be a good point to leave off for the night.

Luna was holding night court by the time he exited the dungeon, though there wasn’t much of a court to hold from the looks of things.

“How is he?” she asked.

Jeremy rolled his eyes. “Same as ever – which is to say, really different.”

Luna gave an unamused hum. “We still think he is hiding something, even if it is not so explicit as compliance with the terrorist group’s cause. No matter what he says… do not trust him, Jeremy.”

Jeremy nodded. “Yeah. I’m heading off to bed, see you tomorrow.” Luna gave him a smile as he set off not for his apartment, but for the royal chambers.

Jeremy slipped into Celestia’s bedchambers, exhausted from his earlier tour.

“Well, today was confusing,” he remarked. Celestia, who was reading a book amidst a pile of papers, looked up.

“Quite. I was just about to go to bed – would you like to join me?” she asked, and Jeremy gratefully accepted.

Leaning an arm around the sun princess, he settled into her wing as she snuffed the solitary candle lighting the room.

Next Chapter: Chapter 46 Estimated time remaining: 4 Hours, 33 Minutes