"But...You're not a child. How could you possibly lose your childhood?" Rainbow Dash asked, genuinely puzzled by what Peter had explained to her.

Peter rubbed at his eyes, his short nap having done almost nothing to recharge his batteries. His arms felt sore, as if he had actually struggled to wield a sword, as if that...'training' hadn't been just a dream. "Yeah, here I'm an adult. But on Earth, I'm only sixteen years old, about to become a Junior in High School..."

Rainbow Dash blinked,still confused. "Yeah, but...Your innocence? I don't get it. What does it mean? And why do you have to lose your...'childhood' and your innocence if you decide to help Equestria?"

Peter took a deep breath, and swung his legs over the edge of the bed, resting his elbows on his knees in deep thought. "Well...I'm innocent. I've never seen anyone die, I've never killed anyone, I've never experienced anything that would bereft me of my innocence. In all senses and purposes, I'm still a child at heart, because I haven't seen things that require maturity to handle. If I were to see someone die, or if I were to kill someone, the implications of it all...I think it would just drive me to maturity, and I would lose my innocence..." He sighed, a heavy weight in his heart. "And my innocence is the only thing I have left..."

Rainbow Dash creased her eyebrows in frustration. "What do you mean, the only thing you have left? You have me, everypony outside of this room, and our unborn foal!"

"It's all I have left of who I used to be," Peter shot back at the cyan mare as he turned to face her. "It's the only thing that I have that reminds me of who I was," he continued, "before I was torn from my world and shoved here."

Rainbow Dash frowned. "But...You can remember yourself, right? You have memories?"

"And what good are they?" Peter spat back, standing in frustration. "What good are they, if they can just be...Torn from my mind, and shoved into some fucking Soul Gems?" He leaned against the bed, staring Rainbow Dash right in the face. "What good are memories when they can't get my fucking family back? My father, my mother, my sister, my friends, my school, my future!"

"But you have a future, here, with me!" The Pegasus' wings shot out in aggravation as she struggled to understand.

"Yes, but it's not my future!" Peter roared, tears welling up along his eyes. "My future was to go through High School, and then through college! To get a job as a mechanical engineer, to have a wife and kids, and to finally die knowing that I had made a worthy contribution to the world!" Rainbow Dash's wings clasped tight to her sides, and she shrank back, shocked by Peter's sudden outburst. "My future was to be in a world of humans, not of fucking ponies!" He finally shouted, hurting the cyan Pegasus to the core. "And yes, I've accepted this as my new home, woop-de-fucking-doo! But I miss my real home, and this is just a fucking substitute! I miss my family, I miss my life, and if I could, I'd go back! But I know that I can't, so I go along with it, sticking it out here, holding onto what little I have left of myself: my immaturity, and my innocence. I act like who I was because I don't want to give it up. I'm willing to live here, but only so long as I can hold on to my old, my real, life, by just a tiny bit. I don't want to lose myself, Rainbow Dash." He paused to compose himself, as tears were streaming down his face. "I don't want to be a hero...I can't! I can't give up who I...who I was for a new world!" He looked up at Rainbow Dash, expecting to see understanding, sympathy, and forgiveness. What he saw rang in his mind like a bell. She was crying, but not out of sympathy, out of fear, and out of...something that Peter couldn't place. Instead of attempting to comfort her, he poured the last of his misgivings out in a final wave of sorrow and regret washing over his body, bathing him in scalding pain. "I just don't want to grow up...I don't...I don't want to have to be an adult, not when I'm only sixteen, not when I had so many years of life as a child left, when I could play video games with my friends, watch porn on the internet...I don't want to have to be responsible, I want to have parents to look after me. I don't want to have to take care of myself until I go away to college, but now, responsibility for a whole fucking world is being thrust upon my shoulders...If I take this responsibility, I'll lose my old life for good." After a deep breath, he added: "And I wouldn't give up my old life - or at least what's left of it - for anything...Not even for you."

Rainbow Dash sniffled a few times as Peter broke down, falling to his knees and resting his forehead on the mattress, muttering to himself in a high pitched voice. She felt hurt, a hurt that she had never felt before. "But...Why? Don't...Don't I matter to you?"

"Yes," Peter sighed, looking up at Rainbow Dash with sorrow in his eyes. "I love you, and you matter so much to me...But...This isn't real...This isn't my life, I've been torn from my life and given a new one, one that I'm not willing to accept yet...I've acted all nice about it, I've acted willing to give it all up, but when it gets down to it, I just can't...And I won't." He took a shuddering breath before continuing. "My past is too important to me. My family is too important to me. And yes, you're important to me, but...Who I was, and who I was going to be...It's part of me, and it's not going away anytime soon, not for anybody, and not even for the world I've come to accept as my home." A short pause spread before Peter uttered his darkest words.

"I'd rather see it all burn to the ground...Than sacrifice who I was to save it."