Twilight was up in the highest tower of Ponyville castle, gazing impetuously on the land below. It was her weekly ritual for letting the universe how much she hated it for spawning something as perfect as herself into such a dirty, imperfect peasant world.

“Um, Twilight?” A meek voice said.

Twilight almost forgot to stop her impetuous gazing, lest she sear away Fluttershy’s flesh with it’s sheer intensity.

“Hello Fluttershy. Shouldn’t you be in the creepy dungeon, giving the last rights to the 12:30 execution?”

“Um, yes, but I wanted to talk to you about him first.” Fluttershy whispered.

Twilight ramblingly ignored her. “A salt miner, if I recall correctly. He’s down for ‘burned at the stake for heresy’. Kinda weird. I don’t recall why I decided on that sentence. Because if he actually spoke some blasphemy, he’d sentenced for talking to a pony. If he wrote some blasphemy, the shift forpony would have just whipped him since she can’t read.”

“I just thought, um, that you might want to see him.” Fluttershy dug at the floor nervously. “You know, um, before the righteous pyre disfigures him.”

The idea resounded strongly in Twilight’s mind. She supposed she could take a break from hating the world to hate a specific individual in it. “Eh, why not.”

The two of them wound their way through the castle into the dungeon. They passed only a couple dozen of the clammy cells, since the humans were moved closer to the stair the closer their date with the headspony came.

They stopped in front of the cell in question.

“Hey, you!” Twilight rattled the bars. “Look at me so I can ridicule you!”

Very slowly, the emaciated convict lifted his face to pair of mares looking in at him.

Twilight’s breath was taken away. She remembered now why this human was guilty of blasphemy, for his was perhaps the only face in all of creation that could rival her own for sheer perfection. Not too masculine, not to feminine, sharp features that defied his shimmering eyes and, most importantly, perfectly symmetrical visage.

“Twilight, you shouldn’t kill him.” Fluttershy pleaded. “Let me take care of him, or put him in the zoo, but please don’t kill him!”

“I can’t deny a certain allure.” The longer Twilight stared the longer Twilight believed she looked into the face of a god. “Maybe you’re right. Maybe he deserves mercy.” Then she remembered she hated the gods. “Well as much of a hot mess he is now, he’ll be much hotter on the pyre.”

“Twilight please!” Fluttershy’s legs buckled, and she was reduced to crying at Twilight’s hooves. “He’s just so beautiful!”

“Yeah, and I’ll save his face besides my mantle, right beside Trixie’s horn and my Gilda wall hanging.” She turned back to the prisoner. “I’ll send somepony by to get it. Can’t having it getting messed up in the horrible all-consuming fire your life is about to become!”

The prisoner hung his head again, Fluttershy’s tears his only companion now. Twilight cantered jovially off, satisfied she’d hit the divine realm hard enough for one day to skip impetuous gazing and get icecream.

Author's Note

Why?