Grave

I stood in a small area of the gardens, slowly digging a small pit to bury what was left of my once good friend. It was heartrending, even with Celestia watching from afar it was hard. Each shovelful of snow and dirt was like tearing my chest open and ripping out a handful of my flesh.

But it needed to be done. I was in a new land, I had a chance to start again, and even if I could return, leaving this baggage behind would be a blessing. And so I dug, shovelful after shovelful. I hated it, the gardens once bright and green visage now white and grey, barren, and horridly depressing.

I had had an easier time burying the dead after a series of raids, but with the pearly white mare watching from above was pushing me onward. And so, a small pit, six feet deep and two square feet. It was proper, it was clean, and it was ready.

I raised the shovel high into the air, singling to Celestia that I was ready to bury the mask. I watched in awe as the massive mare unfurled her wings and glided down to meet me. Her steps were soft, crunching into the snow as she landed. She looked down at me with a woeful glance. "Able...can you- I found something...on this." she levitated out my mask, turning it to face me. "...Able...what is this?"

I took the mask, looking it over and spotting an unfamiliar video. "No- no he was unconscious!" I snapped, dropping the mask in the snow. "I- how did you find this!?"

Celestia took a step forward, "Able...why?"

I swallowed hard, the vivid sensation of swinging a machete into a thick jacket, the meaty, thwack as it broke through and tore chunks from the man. "Celestia...you wouldn't understand...." I rubbed my mouth and picked up the mask, watching as I stood hunched over another, machete raised up before being brought back down and hacking the other man to pieces. "No pony could understand...you don't--"

Celestia stepped up to me, "Ponies are no strangers to war...it's been a long time, and I'm glad to say most ponies have no idea about what happened centuries ago, but I can recognize a sword anywhere."

I started shaking my head, "It wasn't a sword...."

"Able, don't dodge the question. Is this really what you do? Is this why you were so--"

I hurled the mask into the pit, "This isn't humanity!" I snapped, spinning around to meet her eye to eye, "This isn't what we are--"

Celestia's gaze grew soft, "Able...I need to know if--"

I brought my hands to my chest, "Maybe I'm not a great example, but this isn't what it's like for everyone!" I started pacing around like mad, "I'm telling you, a pony won't understand."

Celestia looked me over. "Able...I think I'd--"

I stormed over to her, meeting her eye to eye with a livid glare. "When's the last time you had to play god!?" I screamed, poking her in the chest. "What's the last time you had to decide who lived and who died?! When you had to play executioner, just to keep your best friend alive?!"

"Able--"

I pointed to the mask, "That video...he- Ben was down, and someone in my group wanted to desert. He said, let's just kill him, we split his gear and live like kings back home." I pulled at my scalp, "He was gonna kill him, he was gonna kill me best damn friend! What would you have done!?" I grabbed Celestia by her chest piece, "I tore him apart, I kept cutting, kept chopping until he was in bits!"

"Able stop--"

"This is why I need to go home damn it! I don't belong here, I shouldn't be here! I need to get back, I need to leave this place, I need to just- I have to go home damn it!" I could feel my heart beating like mad. "Celestia, my life was hard, it was brutal. For every ray of sunshine I had, I had to give up a friend, a finger-" I held up my hand, showing her the stub that remained of my left middle finger, "I bled for every thing I had, and I'm not about to--"

Celestia's wings flew out to length, stunning me and leaving me flabbergasted just long enough for her to wrap them around me and pull me against her chest. "Able...I understand." I felt a hoof pull tight against my jacket. "Third winter after the fall of Port Hope...three hundred survivors out of several thousand--"

"What!?"

She ignored me, continuing on with her speech. "The siege of the spire of Highrock, the entire city was burned to the ground, later renamed Canterlot," she took a deeply shaken breath, "The following summer a group of...I- a group of special ponies tried to keep us from moving forward, they were nonviolent, but when they refused to move...I had to- only thirty were left by the time we moved on." She rested her chin on my crown, "Able...I understand hard choices...more than you could imagine, more than my subjects could ever fathom...and that's why they don't know."

I finally pushed free, tripping in the hole I dug and landing ass first in the snow. "What!? I- what the fuck are you talking about!?"

Celestia took a deep breath, "The founding of Equestria.... Ponies call it Hearth Warming Eve now, but it was- up until a few hundred years ago...." Celestia lowered her head, "I had to find a home for millions of ponies, and this land was perfect. But...there were ponies here...there was a nation here."

"Stop it!" I yelled, scrambling to my feet, "You're not- no!"

"I didn't have time to do thinks how I would have liked them--"

"Stop it!" I screamed, "You're not supposed to talk like this damn it!"

"That war lasted so long...so many dead...but we did it, we had our nation...."

I shook my head, "You're lying damn it, shut up!"

Celestia looked me dead on, "Able...peace, harmony, everything we have now...it came at a price, just like everything else."

I fell to my knees, "...So what...so you just- I don't understand damn it!"

Celestia trotted up to me, kneeling with me in the snow and resting her chin on my head. "Able, Equestria wasn't discovered, or founded. It was taken." She let out a long sigh, "I took it for my subjects...I had to--"

I started shaking my head as hard as I could, "How do you take a country?!"

"...By killing the ponies that used to have it, and taking it from them." Celestia stood up, "It wasn't easy, and hindsight...you can point out everything I did wrong, but it was right at the time." She looked back at the castle, "You said I wouldn't understand.... I'm starting to think maybe you're the one who wouldn't get it."

"You've never torn another living being apart with your bare hands--"

"I've killed hundreds with a single order--"

"You've never watched as your best friend bled out in your arms!"

"You never heard the screams as a lancer tore open a protester!"

I shoved free of Celestia and stepped back, "You've never been on the front, you've never fought in the mud, caked in blood!"

Celestia folded her wings, "And you've never given the order to eradicate a race...." Celestia refused to meet my gaze, "The only reasons Thestrals are still around is because of Luna.... I was ready to see them gone...to make sure my mistakes...to make sure nopony could find out what I did...."

I could feel my heart snap in two. "The bat ponies.... You- this was theirs!? You're a fucking monster!" I yelled, charging over to her, "You- eradicate them!?"

"I made a hard choice that day! And an even harder one when I let them live!" She stared me eye to eye, tooth to tooth, "I see them everyday...how often do you have to face your biggest regrets?"

I licked my lips and broke our glare, turning to the grave. "...Every god damn day of my life."

Celestia let out a long huff, "Then you understan--"

"But I'm not a princess.... You were supposed to be perfect, you were supposed to know what is happening all the time damn it!"

Celestia started shaking her head gingerly, "Able, I'm not perfect...I'm just a mare when you break things down."

I flopped down in the snow, "...So what...you have no idea what you're going to do next? Just like everyone else, you're fucking clueless?"

Celestia walked over to me, "I'm sorry if I made it out like I was something I'm not...."

I rubbed my face, "...It's my fault...assumptions.... I just...I wanted it to be true...and it seemed possible so I- it doesn't matter." I covered my face with my hands, pressing my fingers against my nose to keep warm, "...You think I'll ever get home?"

Celestia turned to the grave, "I'm not sure...." She levitated the mask out, shaking the dirt off and looking it over. "Able...keep this. There are a lot of films on it...some I think you'll like." She tossed it at me, leaving it playing in my lap as she wandered off. "And...Able...you're invited to stay with me if you want.... And I'd appreciate being able to talk with someone who understands violence...who doesn't think it's just brutality for the sake of brutality. And I...I don't really want to be alone tonight."

I watched her fly off. "...Sure...talk...." I grumbled, rubbing my head and looking at the mask. A video from Ben's perspective was playing. All I could see was a distant wall, occasionally the top of his hand atop a head of brown hair. I knew what it was, a simple moment, a calm moment. A time where we, two friends, to men that stood side by side facing death, sat by each other and let flowed the emotions of two broken men trying to find our way through the fucked up world we were thrown into.

I turned it off, putting the mask on and finally seeing life through the perspective of a man I admired. But now, I would always see Ben's position as much the same as Celestia's.

The bravest, the most influential, those we see as infallible, are truly just as human as any other.