The Many Faces of Mankind.
A side story for "The Conversion Bureau: The Other Side of the Spectrum".
Written by
Jed R and Doctor Fluffy.
Proofread and edited by
Beyond The Horizon
Carpinus Caroliniana
redskin122004
Rush
TB3.
Dedicated to Leonard Nimoy: 1931 - 2015.
Of all of us, Mr Nimoy would have seen humanity's infinite diversity in infinite combinations.
Also dedicated to True Quill: you might have been written as my token pony in Kings Speech, kiddo, but you’re gonna go far.
***
"The Many Faces Of Mankind."
An article for the PHL by True Quill, war correspondent.
A lot of things are said about humans. A lot of lies are told about them, by Celestia's propagandists or their own kind among the PER, as well as most obviously the Newfoals (who don’t seem to be able to say anything else). Sometimes, the truth is even worse than the lies: reports of atrocities and massacres and crimes so horrible that the lies seem tame by comparison. Sometimes it can be hard for the common pony to know what to believe.
My name is True Quill, and I have spent the last five weeks talking with various humans, trying to find the best way to describe humanity to you, my readers. If you are reading this (I’ve been told the technical term for it would be a ‘Samizdat’) without turning it into the proper authorities or bringing it to a book burning, you’ve made a very brave choice. If PHL agents have been successful, this article will not only be read by those of us who stand with humanity on Earth, but also those of you who are still in Equestria with your only exposure to humanity being through propaganda, and maybe have not yet decided what you wish to do. With this article, it is my hope that the first barrier between true cooperation, the lack of understanding, can be broken. It is my hope that you, the reader who does not know where they stand, can see exactly what we all stand to lose should Queen Celestia be successful in wiping out a vibrant, wonderful species.
The first lie you can dismiss right off (to use British vernacular I've picked up during my travels) is the idea that all humans are the same. You are not the same as your neighbor, and they are not the same as theirs. It's easy to, to borrow a term humans use a lot, "dehumanise" your enemy – to decide that because they are different, they are lesser than us. It's easy to say "they aren't like us". Ponykind does it a lot. We do it to Zebras and Griffins, we did it to the Changelings and the Minotaurs. We even do it to ourselves, running in fear from Thestrals, denigrating Earth Ponies for their lack of 'flashy' magic, Pegasi for being uncultured, Unicorns for being elitists... everyone has their generalisations. I've learned in my researches that it's just as easy for humans to do the same - be it the propaganda of their wars past where they spoke of their enemies being child-eating demons, or the HLF today, who speak of ponies as one gestalt, genocidal mass.
It's easy to dehumanise. The truth - such as it is - is far stranger, far more potent. That is the truth I sought when I began this journey.
The first thing I can tell anypony about humans is that they're good at making light of dark things. Even when they don't seem to have any hope left, they can still see the funny side of everything: sometimes it's all they have. Sometimes, a human might tell you, it's better to enjoy what you know you have, instead of worrying when it will end. I gleaned this particular piece of wisdom near the end of my research, from several humans who were formerly residents of the United Kingdom, and their pony comrades. Needless to say, the experience was… enlightening. Not least because there was a considerable amount of alcohol involved.
***
"#A fight
To the death, to the end,
I'll stand,
On this field, with my friends,
And I'll fight,
To the end, to the death,
With my soul,
Til my body's dying breath,
Cos my world is burning in the fires,
Of the Tyrant Sun.
But I will not give this battle up
Until the war is won.
I'll hold my ground upon this field and I'll never give in.
We'll fight with everything we've got, and we are going to win..."
"Better music than last time I was here," a drunken, English-accented voice spoke.
The blue Earth Pony named True Quill was a journalist. It had always been her special destiny: the small quill cutie mark on her flank marked it as such. It had been her desire to be a journalist that had propelled her into the search for the truth behind the Conversion Bureaus, that same search for truth that had, when Celestia made her infamous announcement, encouraged her to join the PHL. The constant search for truth dominated her life. She didn't quite know how that search for truth had led her here though.
It was night in Boston, in one of the bars situated in what was left of the city. Quill was sitting in a bar with three drunk human soldiers and three drunk ponies: the men were called David Elliot, Sam Lake and John Constantine, and the ponies were called Errant Flight, True Grit ("but don't call me the other Steve here: my Dad gave me that name and I'm proud of it") and Steady Hoof. Elliot was dark haired and had stubble. Lake was blonde and clean shaven. Constantine was also blonde, with stubble and a cigarette hanging out of his mouth almost lazily. All three of them were wearing military uniforms, but each had their own personalisations: Elliot had two long daggers in holsters on his back, Lake had at least three extra pistols on various parts of his person, and Constantine was wearing, of all things, a long tan-coloured trenchcoat.
The ponies were an equally eclectic bunch. True Grit was a green Unicorn with scars on one side of his face, and his cutie mark was a battered kite shield. He wore a green and brown camo-pattern shirt. Hoof was a grey stallion with a scarred throat and a tower shield cutie mark, also wearing a camo-pattern shirt, though his was in urban camo colours. Errant Flight was a dark beech-coloured Pegasus with a short brown mane and goggles on, wearing a grey combat vest and bearing a red kite-shield cutie mark with a pair of golden wings within it.
True Quill had been researching for her article since before the battle of Boston. At first, it had been somewhat difficult finding people willing to talk to her, but eventually she had managed to find some leads, which had led to some… interesting conversations. She had, while chasing another lead, found herself welcomed on a "night out" with these people (and ponies) once she had explained why she was wanting to speak with them.
She had already made notes about the easy camaraderie, the somewhat acerbic (not to say downright caustic) sense of humour the human men shared and the ponies seemed at once exasperated by and eager to join in with. One thing she especially had to note, though - of the humans, anyway - was their complete lack of singing ability when inebriated.
"#Pastel pissin' ponies, pissin' pastel piss!" the three men sang, waving their beer glasses around raucously. "#If they're pissin' at you, you'd better hope they miss! If one of them hits you, give the nag a kiss! Pastel pissin' ponies, pissin' pastel piss!"
"Sorry about them," Errant Flight said sheepishly, shrugging. He had clearly noticed True Quill's somewhat baffled expression. To be fair to them, she supposed this was normal behaviour for drunk men - but she had never heard singing quite this bad, and she came from a country where spontaneous musical numbers seemed to be the status quo.
"Their singing skill is like a mathematical equation," True Grit said quietly, looking vaguely annoyed. "Inversely proportionate to the amount of alcohol in their bloodstream."
Quill, unsure how to respond to that, simply nodded. Steady Hoof grinned to himself as the men repeated the song, tapping one hoof in time. He at least seemed to find some amusement in it.
"I've never heard that song before," True Quill said after a moment. "Not that I usually spend so much time with drunk people but..."
"Yeah, they came up with it," Grit said, smirking. "Long story. Kinda boring. I'd blame that Scottish guy, but..."
He trailed off, taking another swig of his beer as his friends sang another stanza.
"#Pastel pissin' ponies, the little pastel gits! The pastel little bastards are little pastel shits! Swear about the sun bitch and they’ll have pastel fits! Pastel pissin’ ponies, the little pastel gits!"
"Alright, alright!" Errant Flight said loudly. "Luna’s sake, you guys could wake the dead!"
"Then we aren’t loud enough!" Elliot laughed. "I wanna wake everybody!"
"We have company, Dave," True Grit said quietly. The stallion looked vaguely embarrassed.
"Just because we’re better singers than you," Lake grinned. "C’mon, fellas, show us what the proud equine race can do with its lungs!"
Errant Flight swelled up in mock-annoyance. "Alright then!" he declared. "Maybe I will!"
"Oh, you have got to be kidding," Grit said, facehoofing. "Flight…"
"Hoof, a rhythm please!" Errant said sharply, cutting off Grit. After exchanging a glance with True Grit, who shrugged resignedly, Steady Hoof started stamping a hoof loudly against the floor, making a rhythmic thumping noise. "You with me Grit?"
"You’d get it all wrong without me," Grit muttered. "Come on then. You lead, since this is your idea."
"You’re welcome to join in, ma’am," Flight grinned at Quill, who raised an eyebrow as the stallion took a deep breath.
"Oh pony soldiers!"
"Oh pony soldiers!" Grit repeated.
"Sing your pony songs!"
"Sing your pony songs!"
"We've been out here!"
"We've been out here!"
"Far too long!"
"Far too long!"
"Too much!"
"Too much!"
"Too far!"
"Too far!"
"But still!"
"But still!
"We are!"
"We are!"
"Tired pony soldiers!"
"Tired pony soldiers!"
"Singin' pony songs!"
"Singin' pony songs!"
"Oh Christ," Constantine muttered after a moment. "This is bloody ridiculous."
"I hate this song," Elliot added, covering his ears.
Ignoring them, the three stallions continued.
"Oh pony soldiers!"
"Oh pony soldiers!"
"Fight to right the wrongs!"
"Fight to right the wrongs!"
"We've been battered!"
"We've been battered!"
"But we're still strong!"
"But we're still strong!"
"We're strong!"
"We're strong!"
"We'll hold!"
"We'll hold!"
"We're tough!"
"We're tough!"
"We're bold!"
"We're bold!"
"We're brave pony soldiers!"
"Brave pony soldiers!"
"Singin' pony songs!"
"Singin' pony songs!"
With that, Steady Hoof did a drum roll on his hooves, and, laughing, True Grit and Errant Flight finished the song. Flight tipped up off of his stool, only just managing to catch himself from falling flat on his back.
"Bloody deserve that," Grit said, grinning. Errant made a rude gesture at him (which is harder than you'd think with hooves).
"Let me tell you something," Constantine said to True Quill once the song was over, his words slurring slightly from the amount of alcohol he had imbibed over the course of the evening. "I miss my hair."
True Quill nodded, trying to make sense of the man's logic. She was... finding it difficult. Still, it was better than all the singing.
"I joined the army 'cos Wills got me all fired up," the man continued. Quill nodded: she knew the King, having had dinner with his family after he had given his now somewhat famous speech. "Thought it'd be the right thing to do. Keep me from sittin' on my arse all day. 'Course, no bugger tells me that I'd have to cut me hair."
"Just think John," True Grit said with a grin, "if you ever get ponified, you might get yourself a brand new bouncy blonde mane to play with."
Quill gave Grit a shocked look at the casual joke about Newfoals, sure that it would cause some offense, but the three British men just laughed loudly.
"All hair and no brain, I'd be," Constantine chuckled. "Sounds like one of my exes."
"Except less psycho?" Lake asked with a knowing glance. Constantine laughed again.
"About right," he said.
"Luna knows, you might get turned into a mare - you hear some weird stories out there," Grit said with a snort. "That'd be scary."
"A female me?" Constantine said, looking thoughtful for a moment. "Wonder what she'd sound like."
"Manlier than you," Lake put in. Constantine whacked him in the arm and Steady Hoof thumped the table with a silent laugh, the pony's vocal cords too damaged to allow him to speak or make other noises.
"Hang on... exes? You mean you had sex once?" Elliot asked Constantine, raising an eyebrow. "Seriously?"
"Seriously," Constantine said with a grin. "Good sex too."
There were a series of groans from around the table at the drunken man’s words.
"That was a mental image I did not need," Lake said with a groan, having another deep swig of his beer. Next to him, Steady Hoof nodded emphatically.
"Coulda been worse," Errant Flight pointed out, a slightly wry grin on his face. "I got the mental image of John in women’s underwear."
The groans that followed this were even louder, and several wads of tissue and other assorted odds and ends were thrown in Errant’s direction. Laughing, the Pegasus drunkenly dodged them all, taking to a slight hover, and he bowed in mid air.
"I’m here all week," he chuckled.
"Sit the fuck down," Constantine muttered at him.
"So," True Quill asked quietly, looking at Lake and Elliot. "Why did you both join the army?"
Elliot shrugged. "Was my duty, lass. The old homeland called and all that." He grinned. "Also, it was a pretty obvious call even without that."
"When some shiny nag with a God Complex decides to declare war on your species, that tends to be a thing that motivates a little... violent retribution," Lake added with a somewhat vicious grin. "Of which there has been spades."
"Really? Have you been part of anything particularly big?" Quill asked.
Lake and Elliot exchanged glances, then threw one at Constantine, who looked thoughtful for a moment.
"Well," he said with a sigh, "there was always Fairport."
The ponies and people around him all groaned the minute that word escaped his lips. Errant Flight actually paled slightly and downed his drink.
"Don't mention Fairport you twat," Elliot said, looking tired, "it's classified."
"And bucking terrible," True Grit said with a scowl. "Thanks for bringing that one up, I'd just about drowned it out."
Quill frowned at them all. "Fairport? That's a city, right? What happened?"
The other humans and ponies threw Constantine a look, and he looked suitably abashed.
"You're the clever fucker who mentioned it, John," Elliot said, scowling at his drink. "You can fucking tell the lady what she wants to know."
"Suffice it to say, operation against rogue PER/Newfoal branch gone horribly, horribly wrong," Constantine said after a moment. "It was during a time where we were all seconded to F.E.A.R, round about January of this year."
"Fear?" Quill repeated, frowning. "Is that a code or something? I've never heard of it."
"Acronym. Stands for -" Constantine began, but Elliot cut him off.
"Good," the man said. "You don't want to. Fairport was bad and even if we could talk about it, I'd really rather not."
"It's where I met this lot," Flight added. "Well, not Grit. We met years ago when we were Guards together. But..."
"But we aren't allowed to talk about Fairport," True Grit finished lamely.
"Fucking ATC," Lake muttered. Quill took note of that name for later in case she got the chance to research it. "We still never found out what happened to Viola."
There was a short pause as the entire group, minus Quill (who was vaguely confused), raised their glasses.
"Here’s to Viola," Elliot said quietly. "Poor lass."
"Here’s to her," Grit added sadly.
"Cheers," Constantine said, downing his drink with an oddly morose expression.
True Quill made a note to investigate Fairport when she got the chance. “Apart from that, have you been involved with anything interesting?”
Elliot threw Lake a questioning look, and the other man shrugged.
“I dunno, can we mention the thing about Yarrow and Chalcedony?” Lake asked. “That was interesting.”
“The whole EHS affair?” Constantine asked. “I thought we were still under orders to keep that schtum.”
“We are,” True Grit confirmed, scowling at them both. He looked at Quill, who was frowning quizzically. “Don’t ask, kiddo. Less you know about the whole EHS affair the better.”
True Quill said nothing - the name Yarrow at least was familiar, though she didn’t know where from.
Lake finished his own drink with a sigh. "Anyway, we got transferred to Boston after that. Thank fuck."
"Yeah," Elliot added, a wistful smile on his face as he thought to himself. "Still wish I could have seen Bauer kick the Tyrant's arse and Kraber blow up her spine, maybe get a whack in personally."
"Who wouldn't want to?" Constantine grinned. "Fucking bitch got what was coming to her. Woulda killed to be here to see it."
"Wasn't actually the Tyrant," True Grit pointed out quietly, looking less amused than his comrades.
"Still looked like her, though," Lake pointed out.
"And it proves the bitch can die," Elliot added.
"Good point," True Grit grinned.
"Not like you'd have gotten any whacks in, Dave," Constantine added with a pointed glance. "You aren't a superhero."
"Nope," Elliot said with a grin. "Happy to be plain old Dave Elliot, I reckon. We're all in safe hands, hooves and other appendages anyway." He raised his glass. "Here's to those jammy bastards who got a shot in. Cheers!"
"Cheers!" echoed the others cheerfully, before downing their various drinks. True Quill watched this with something resembling bemusement, noting down what she could. This wasn't exactly where she had wanted to begin with her article - she had wanted to write about humanity's nobility of spirit, it's compassion and intelligence. Sitting in a bar with three drunk soldiers... didn't exactly fit the bill.
"You look a little unhappy, Miss Quill," True Grit said to her, giving her an appraising glance.
"No, I just..." True Quill replied, and then she sighed. "You're on the frontline here. You could all die tomorrow. Doesn't that bother any of you?"
"Course it fuckin' bothers me," Constantine said with a frown. "That's why I intend to be so utterly smashed tonight that I go home running around waving my arms about like Keanu Reeves in a piss-poor action movie."
"You think he's joking," Elliot said conspiratorially, leaning in to whisper in Quill's ear. "That was him last week. Had to convince him he couldn't defeat demons with nothing but his fists, a couple of weird doodles he put on his arm, judicious application of gobbledygook and a shiny lighter."
"But..." Quill began, but True Grit held up a hoof.
"What's the point being worried about tomorrow?" he asked, sounding serious for the first time that evening. "Sure, we could die. Probably will: the Tyrant's not exactly letting up much. But if we worry about it, we'll lose the chance to enjoy what time we have left."
Steady Hoof nodded in the background, tapping his hoof in a gesture of agreement. Constantine snorted and had another sip of his beer.
"I suppose I understand that," True Quill said thoughtfully.
"I'm glad," Grit said, grinning.
"Yeah, yeah, flirt later, mate," Constantine said snarkily.
"Piss off, John," Grit replied idly.
"Stop sounding so philosophical, the lot of you, we're drinking," Elliot said with a joking frown, thrusting a fresh pint glass Grit's way. "Race ya to the bottom."
"You're on," the green Unicorn grinned. He grabbed his beer and the two began a race to see which of them could finish their glass first, Lake, Constantine, Flight and Hoof egging them on. Laughing, True Quill grabbed her notepad and scribbled something down.
***
Nonetheless, despite the apparent bravado these individuals seemed to have, it is clear to me from my experiences researching this article that the human race feels things deeply: I don’t believe it can be said of any individual I have spoken to that they were not on some level emotional, deeply sensitive beings. In fact, I have come to learn that some of the darkest acts in human history come from individuals who have been deeply hurt on an emotional level. That, however, is something that comes into my story later; I am somewhat jumping the gun.
Another thing you have to note about humans - maybe not the most important thing in the world but certainly an integral part of them - is their intelligence. I've spoken to some humans who've spent their entire lives trying to understand the world they live in, trying to make some sense of it, but even without doing that it's important to recognise the achievements this species has made. Celestia's regime decries what they have done, pointing to pollution and global warming. In return, I would point to the advances in medical science and understanding psychological trauma. I would say, hoof on heart, that for every bad thing humanity has done with their intelligence and their inventiveness, they have also discovered something good...
***
"#We'll fight,
To the last of us falls,
And each man,
Will give his very all,
No retreat,
And no surrender,
We'll find that mare,
And then we'll end her!
Cos we'll burn her like she burned our world
Beneath the Tyrant Sun.
We will not give this battle up
Until the war is won.
We'll drown her ground in blood and toil, tear away her vicious grin
We'll fight with everything we've got, and we are going to win."
"...who the fuck tries to bomb a munitions plant making the guns that’ll save humanity… and claiming they did it in the name of humanity?! Fucking idiot..."
The train station where True Quill was set to meet her next contact was as bustling and tense as any other place in what was left of America. She had her notebook out, waiting patiently to speak to the man she was set to meet, and as she waited she scribbled down a series of notes - impressions of the music she heard in the distance, a song by a singer called J.R about the war, as well as something she heard a man say near her to his friend. Everything was important, she had once been told during her early years as a journalist, and while she hadn't exactly anticipated jotting down the lyrics of a song or a conversation between two soldiers, she wasn't going to miss the opportunity.
After a moment, the man she was waiting for arrived. He had a thick coat over, and his hands were firmly entrenched in his pockets. He grinned as he approached her. He was older than Quill expected, white haired and wrinkled, but he seemed reasonably fit and healthy.
"Miss Quill, I take it," he said, his accent a deep, baritone American.
"And you must be Professor Mayhew," True Quill replied, nodding in greeting.
"That's correct," the man said, "but please call me Egbert."
"... Egbert?"
"Yes," Egbert Mayhew replied, raising both eyebrows in what appeared to be sincere confusion. "Is there a problem?"
"N-no, not at all," True Quill said, coughing slightly. "It's just I can't honestly say I've ever met anyone called Egbert before."
"Well," Egbert said, grinning slightly, "I can't honestly say I've ever had the fortune to meet a talking bright blue pony named True Quill, either, but I imagine this entire Equestrian business has made a few things possible that were not previously imagined to be so."
"I suppose so," True Quill agreed. "Would you care to go somewhere to sit down?"
"Certainly, certainly," Egbert said, grinning again. He gestured expansively with his hand. "After you, my dear."
The two of them ended up sitting in a dull little cafe with uncomfortable chairs. There weren't many people left, for one reason or another, so they were reasonably undisturbed save for a mother and child in one corner of the dingy little place. Egbert took his coat off, revealing a shabby tweed jacket, brown corduroy trousers, checkered shirt, bow tie and waistcoat - the very image of an academic type.
"So," True Quill asked. "You're an Astronomer, is that correct?"
"It is," Egbert said with a smile. "Much good as it does anyone these days to stare at the stars."
"I'm curious as to why you agreed to do this interview," True Quill said honestly.
"A desire to help," the man replied honestly, giving Quill a rather sad smile. "Like I said. Being an astronomer doesn't tend to do anyone any favours these days. Why bother looking to the sky when any minute now you could be killed or turned into a mindless pony automaton with no desire whatsoever to do anything but to bow at the feet of a tyrant?"
His honesty shocked Quill slightly. "Surely there's other talents you could put to use..."
"The PHL have no need of an old man with no particular military skill," Egbert said honestly. "I did my national service about fifty five years ago, and let me tell you - there's nothing I got from that experience that younger men - or younger ponies, I suppose - can't do better now."
"So how do you spend your time?" Quill asked, tilting her head.
"Mostly keeping my head down and writing papers," Egbert said with a shrug. "The entire 'war' experience has left precious little time for standing still, but I'm certain I'll get time to finish a paper I was working on about Equestrian astronomy compared to our own."
"Equestrian astronomy?" True Quill blinked in surprise. "You were writing a paper on Equestrian astronomy?"
"Still am, technically, though I can't say I've gotten very far," Egbert smiled, shrugging slightly. "I was, in fact, in correspondence with Princess Luna for a brief time - considering her time banished to the Moon, I believed she might have some degree of knowledge on the subject. Would you believe me if I told you that the possibility exists that -"
For the next half hour, Egbert rambled on about theories concerning the movement of stars and planets, as well as his own personal opinions and theories therein. Truth be told, True Quill couldn't help but zone out slightly as he spoke - he was a lovely, charming man, but she had no particular desire to learn about his work other than to use it as an example for her article.
"I can have a sample of the paper sent to you, if you'd like," Egbert said at one point, a twinkle in his eye, and Quill agreed. It would probably be easier to write about his work that way.
"There must be more to your life than just your work though," she asked him, jotting a brief note as she did so.
"Oh, there was," he replied, a sad smile on his face. "I had... well, I had a lot of things I don't have now. About the only thing I have left is music, and that is... sometimes only a reminder of what I have lost."
True Quill didn't press the question, sensing that this wasn't a subject he liked discussing. It was like that with a lot of humans, really, especially those who came from countries now gone: they were sensitive to certain subjects - or else they were sensitive to nothing at all, blunt and jaded by all they had lost.
"I wrote a song, once," he continued after a moment, surprising Quill. "I shall have to send it to you. One moment."
He took a phone out of his pocket and tapped a few commands.
"There," he said. "Emailed you it."
"Thank you," True Quill said politely. In all honesty, she didn't know that she'd find the information relevant, but she supposed that it made sense.
Eventually, she managed to jot down all the notes she thought she could from the man, and after a round of polite goodbyes she stood to go. At almost precisely that moment, however, she heard a scream of pain, cut short by the harsh, all-too-familiar bark of gunfire.
"What the devil?" Egbert exclaimed, frowning.
Outside, Quill could see soldiers running, guns raised. Egbert stood up and motioned for her to remain seated. A moment later, a sandy haired man with an assault rifle and a bandolier filled with potion bombs entered, eyes wide and staring, clearly not in his right mind. His eyes fixed on the mother and child sitting at the back of the cafe, and he grabbed one of his potion bombs. He must have been PER, some cell that had stayed hidden - but why attack now, unless it were out of desperation?
"Feel Her perfection!" he screamed hysterically, grabbing for one of his potion bottles.
Moving faster than she thought she could, True Quill leaped out of her seat and charged the man, knocking him down and scattering his potion vials on the floor.
"Traitorous bitch!" she heard the man yell. She felt herself being kicked off of him. Winded, she struggled to get to her feet, only to find the man aiming his rifle at her. To her immense relief, the woman and child had taken the opportunity to get out of the building, and she couldn't see Egbert. She hoped he had gotten out too.
"Prepare to die!" the PER man screamed at her. She closed her eyes. There was a click of a gun's safety going off.
"Stop," came the calm voice of Egbert. True Quill opened her eyes again. The older scientist was aiming a small revolver at the sandy haired PER man, a calm look on his face. "I don't want to have to kill you, but I will if you give me no alternative."
The PER man responded by turning, his gun already firing. The roar of the assault rifle cut off the smaller bang of the revolver, but it definitely had an effect, as a moment later the body of the PER man fell to the ground. A moment later, Egbert fell to his knees, blood staining the front of his shirt, and he looked down, wide eyed.
"Ah," he said quietly. He slumped forward, and True Quill jumped to catch him.
"Egbert, hold still," she said, eyes wide - she had never seen death this close up. "Maybe I can..."
He looked up at her, and smiled. He didn't say a word, but True Quill stopped speaking, her eyes locking with his. A moment later, the smile faded into slack jawed emptiness, and the old man's eyes stared glassily to one side at something that True Quill would never see.
She sat there, holding the body of the old man, for a long time.
***
A couple of hours later, as the bodies of the half dozen or so people killed (or ponified then killed) by the PER cell's attack were moved out of the town by a handful of soldiers - probably headed for summary cremation - True Quill remembered the music that Egbert had sent her. Later that evening, she checked on her emails (Luna only knew how they'd managed to optimise a computer for Earth Pony use, but hey ho) and sure enough, there it was.
She opened the file, and closed her eyes as soft piano music began to play...
***
The work of Egbert Mayhew will never be completed. His paper on Equestrian astronomy is on my laptop hard drive now in an unfinished state. Celestia claims that what she is doing is not genocide, that there is nothing lost. In a world where the Egbert Mayhews of humanity die pointless deaths because of a few desperate fools... I don't think anypony sane could believe her. And maybe that's the problem.
As well as their intelligence, and far more importantly in my own experiences, is their compassion. I've seen human beings go out of their way to try to help those who cannot be helped - to those of my readership used to Celestia’s propaganda, in which humans are almost exclusively characterised as evil creatures with no compassion – the PER included – this might come as something of a surprise, but when you compare the slaughter of Newfoals - the way they are often used merely as disposable tools, the cavalier way they are thrown to die against the guns of human defensive positions, "clogging them with bodies," as one Unicorn in Russia put it - to the care shown by humans for every individual soldier, it's impossible to reconcile with the propaganda Celestia's regime uses. One specific experience sticks out for me in this regard…
***
"Get me that morphine shot," the calm voice of Richard Harrison called out to some of the orderlies he was working with. He was a grizzled, dark haired Englishman, with stubble and too-long hair for his own tastes (no time to get a haircut though). He had been a Royal Marine, once, and still considered himself that even when the Marines ceased being a separate fighting force of their own and most of the survivors had been folded into other forces.
The struggling, yelling man he was tending to had a missing arm below the elbow: a spell thrown by a Newfoal had blown his arm straight off, leaving the bone exposed and ragged parts of skin hanging off. He was lucky it had only been a recently created Newfoal - things were unpredictable as all hell. Harrison only had basic field medic training, but it would have to do. Somebody handed him a morphine shot and he quickly administered it. A few moments later, the man seemed to calm down. It wasn't a neat solution, but it'd keep him from squirming.
"Excuse me," a soft female voice said from behind him. He turned to find himself looking at what he assumed was a PHL mare: she was blue, with a soft smile and wide grey eyes. "I was wondering if you…"
"Can you hand me a tourniquet please?" he asked, cutting her off.
"Oh," she said, looking around. A moment later she passed him a tourniquet, held in her mouth, which he tied onto the soldier’s stump. The man, now doped up on morphine, didn’t react. Harrison sighed and turned round to look at the mare.
"Can I help you?" he asked.
"Hopefully," she replied. "My name’s True Quill - I’m writing an article and was wondering if you might consent to being interviewed?"
"Sure," Harrison said, shrugging. He didn't really care one way or another, but it struck him as not being too much hassle at present. "What do you want to know?"
"I’m interested in why you’re a medic," Quill asked, taking out her notepad.
"Why I’m a medic, huh?" he said, scratching his chin. "Mostly 'cos of my Dad, I reckon."
"Your Dad?" Quill repeated, jotting the information down.
"He was a doctor," Harrison said quietly. "Was bloody disappointed with me when I decided to go into the army. Never approved of it as a career choice."
"Is he...?" Quill asked, trying to be delicate. She knew that some humans disliked talking about their deceased loved ones, especially if they had died in the war against Equestria.
"Dead? Yeah," Harrison said bluntly.
Quill looked up from her notepad. "Did he die in the war or...?"
Harrison shook his head. "Nah: he died of cancer the year before Equestria popped up. Lucky git ducked the war. 'Course, I reckon he'd have helped. Woulda thought it was his business to." The man grinned widely. "Or he'd have had a heart attack at seein' pastel ponies running around."
"And you became a medic to honour him," Quill guessed, a slight smirk on her face at his turn of phrase.
"More because we needed good medics," Harrison admitted with a shrug. "But I do like to think he'd have been proud."
The Marine sighed, sitting back on the floor with a tired expression. "It's hard though. You get some pretty nasty wounds. This fella got off lightly."
"I've seen," Quill said quietly. She had seen a number of injuries that made a missing limb seem tame by comparison... and some which could never be healed. She pushed thoughts of Egbert Mayhew from her mind. "How do you cope?"
"Mostly by knowing that fellas like this one'll live because you got to 'em in time to help," Harrison said with a smile. "And because this is the kind of war where folks get fucked up nine ways from Sunday. Without good medics, we're done. And..." He stopped.
"And?" True Quill prodded gently, pausing in her scribbling.
"And it is nice to be helping folks instead of killing them," Harrison admitted with a grin. "There isn't a better feeling in the world."
True Quill grinned back softly. "Thank you, Mr Harrison. That's a great help."
"Happy to," Harrison replied, before turning to his next patient, a man with lacerations on his chest. He had a lot of work to do, and it wouldn't wait. Behind him, he heard True Quill leave. A moment later, she was all but forgotten as he returned to tying off another tourniquet.
***
By now I have hopefully begun to illustrate that the human race is not as one dimensional as the propaganda would entail. Even so... it's impossible to ignore the fact that, just like us, human beings have some less than desirable elements – though Celestia’s propaganda is quick to ignore those among ponies who exhibit less-than-perfect traits, while simultaneously exaggerating the evils of the humans. Why, she even seems to cultivate these poor traits, such as desire to hurt, to exploit, and turn them towards humans - before the war, who among us would have claimed to have wanted to go to war? To use Newfoals, essentially, as toys? To do even a tenth of the things we've done?
Nonetheless, many humans have committed great evils, and the Human Liberation Front, or HLF, is key amongst that number. They may have been started for good reasons, but even so, most regular humans agree wholeheartedly that by this stage in the conflict they are utterly misguided in their intentions and abhorrent in their means. It is common in the case of many pieces of PER and Equestrian propaganda to see the HLF held up as an example of everything human, to see the entirety of humanity painted with that brush.
What they do not show you - and what Captain Harry Wales of the SAS, otherwise known as Prince Harry of Great Britain, very recently illustrated in an interview with PHL journalists and clarified when talking to me – is that these individuals are not motivated purely by hatred. At all things there is a root of fear and anger, both of which are, when you consider the circumstances, more than reasonable reactions to the circumstances humanity is faced with in these dark times for their species. My discussion with Captain Wales was most illuminating – I was forced to consider the HLF for the first time as something other than a group that could not be redeemed and was irrevocably evil…
***
Harry Wales, brother of King William of Britain and member of the SAS, was surprisingly easy going, once you got talking to him. His cropped red hair and boyishly cheerful eyes gave the impression of someone younger than his thirties, and he carried himself with a manner far removed from the grim and professional reputation of the SAS or the traditional idea of Royalty - there was something about him that was more casual even than his brother King William, who True Quill had met.
The Prince had just finished talking about a recent close call on one front in an abandoned town that he had escaped from by the skin of his teeth, thanks to the help of an SAS pony named Ever Stern. True Quill was enjoying the conversation, but nonetheless, he knew it wasn't what she had really come to ask him about, and she knew he knew it.
"So, Miss Quill," the Prince said after a short lull in their conversation, his eyes piercing her slightly with their searching gaze. "What is it you wanted to talk to me about really?"
True Quill's smile faltered slightly, and she sighed. "I was wanting to ask you about the HLF sir. If that's acceptable."
The Prince sighed to himself, leaning forward, before putting his head in his hands.
"It's not exactly my favourite topic," he said quietly.
"I can understand that, sir," Quill said quietly. "I mean, they've done evil things..."
"Evil?" he cut in, looking up at her, frowning. "Evil, did you say?"
"W-well, yes sir," she replied, feeling suddenly uncertain. "I mean, we've all heard the stories..."
"And they're wrong," Harry cut in again, his frown deepening. "They're biased. I can understand them - really, I can - but to dismiss the HLF as evil or insane is wrong. They’re more than that, they always were."
"How do you mean, sir?" True Quill asked, a frown of her own developing. The prince was already on record as claiming to understand the HLF - it was one of the more famous quotes the man had come out with - but this sounded almost as though he agreed with them.
"Do you know why I nearly joined the HLF, back in the days after my grandmother was killed?" he asked her, piercing her once more with his gaze. She shook her head no, and he continued. "It’s because I was furious. I was livid. I would have killed any pony I could have gotten my hands on. I would have torn them apart with my bare bloody hands if I was given half the chance."
True Quill squirmed slightly, feeling uncomfortable with this line of thought.
"And do you know what?" he continued. He leaned forward, frowning at her. "There are days when I still would."
True Quill goggled at him, her eyes widening in shock. "Sir, I…"
"Wills wouldn’t approve of me saying that to you, Miss Quill," Harry continued, ignoring her shock. "He’s told me about you, by the way - one of the staunchest followers of Lyra’s philosophy he’s ever met. You actually impressed him - pretty rare thing."
Quill blushed slightly. Her conversation with King William following his now-famous Christmas speech was one of her favourite memories.
"But you don’t seem to understand just how angry we humans can be about this," Harry continued. "It’s different for Wills. He was raised to the destiny of being King, of being the figurehead for the nation. I’m the spare," he said with a slightly self-deprecating smile. "And I get to be a little wilder. A little more honest." He paused grimly, his face turning to stone. "And in the SAS... you do things you didn't think you could. It's the job, and the only people who get through it are the people who do the job very well."
"And you… hate ponies?" Quill asked nervously, wondering for a brief, mad moment if she was really safe with this man, this man who had killed ponies and people with his bare hands without blinking.
"Not in the least," Harry laughed, and Quill relaxed. "I mentioned Ever Stern? Bloody brilliant bloke. Absolute wanker, but a brilliant bloke. I’m meeting him for a pint after this. No…" His smile faded slightly. "I don’t hate ponies. But unlike most people, I can understand the HLF and their hatred. I did hate ponies, but… well, I met Lyra Heartstrings."
True Quill nodded: Lyra tended to be very convincing. "But I still don’t…"
"Imagine you’d only met the HLF," Harry said quickly. "Imagine that was the sum total of humanity that you had encountered. What might somepony make of the human race based on them?"
True Quill thought for a moment about the question. "I… I guess that they might find themselves… I dunno, maybe angry? Or… or they might think that humans are…"
She paused, her eyes narrowing. "They might think that all humans are like the HLF."
Harry smiled slightly. "Yes, they might. Now - imagine some human had only encountered the ponies who helped Celestia."
"But that’s different," Quill said at once. "The HLF are just… they’re… and ponies aren’t…"
She paused again, suddenly faced with a realisation. "They might… they might think all ponies are like Celestia…"
"Quite," Harry said quietly. "Now imagine you ignored those who weren't like Celestia. You knew they existed but you were so angry that you'd ignore it just to justify your anger to yourself."
"But... why would anyone do that?" True Quill asked.
Harry sighed. "There are lessons in human history, Miss Quill. Lessons about not tarring all of a group with the same brush. When my grandmother died, I forgot those lessons. Do you know why?"
"Why?" Quill asked quietly.
"Because I was angry," the young man said simply. "I was angry and hurt, and I had lost someone who I thought was going to be in my life forever, someone who was among the most important people in my life. I turned my hurt and my sadness and my anger into hatred and rage." he paused for a moment, taking a deep breath. "That’s a flaw humans sometimes have. Our emotions get the better of us. We let anger and hatred take over, and we dehumanise those we hate - we make them into monsters. The ‘other’, a thing to be destroyed. When that is done, then suddenly any means necessary to destroy them can be used without fear or remorse or pity, and any price you pay is insignificant." He sighed. "It’s a hollow thing, revenge. I’ve killed Newfoals with a grin on my lips and fire in my heart, but all it leaves you is ashes in the end. I’ve slaughtered Guard and other ponies with my bayonet and my bare hands… and all it leaves is emptiness. That’s probably why the HLF keep killing - because they want revenge, and revenge only begets more revenge, anything to keep the pain you’re running from away."
As he spoke, True Quill found herself thinking of the story of Viktor M. Kraber, the HLF soldier turned PHL hero with a kill-count of PER and Imperial forces well into the higher four digits, (showing few signs of stopping, even fewer of slowing) who had once interrupted a propaganda video she had helped oversee. She frowned slightly.
"I suppose that’s why Kraber left," True Quill said.
"Viktor Kraber?" Harry said. "Ah, I’ve heard of him. There’s a man that understands what I mean. Revenge got him nowhere, after all."
"I think he said he was… choosing life, at one point?" True Quill asked.
"Ah, so he’s a fan of Trainspotting! That I didn’t know. But… most people," Harry continued as she sat there absorbing his words and thinking quietly to herself, "hate the HLF. They hate them for what they’ve done. Maybe they’re justified to, I don’t know. But I can’t hate them." He smiled tiredly. "For want of a nail, I could have been them. I could have been just as empty. I’m lucky. They’re not. They’re trapped in their cycles of hatred and anger and revenge." He paused. "I know that cycle, all too well."
"But you were never really in the HLF, sir," True Quill pointed out.
Harry sighed. "One day, Miss Quill, many years from now, when a thorough account is made of all the things we did in this war, good and bad - I want to tell you about Jacob Levy."
True Quill vaguely recognised the name. "I think I know the name. A British PER leader, wasn't he?"
Harry nodded. "That's right. One day, I'll tell you about how I killed him, and you can judge me compared to the HLF."
"What about it sir?" True Quill asked, confused.
"I can't say now," Harry said, and for the first time in their already awkward conversation, he actually looked ashamed. "But trust me when I say... you don't have to be HLF to do great evil in this war."
There was a long, awkward pause while True Quill digested what Harry had said.
"So you don’t think the HLF are evil?" she finally asked, feeling it was the safest question.
"‘Nothing is evil in the beginning. Even Sauron was not so’," Harry replied, his voice melancholy.
"Who?" Quill asked, confused again.
"It’s a quote from a novel I read once," Harry said quietly. "And I think it’s important. The HLF aren’t just villains in this, Miss Quill. They’re men and women and children, people, just like you and me. You should never write them off.”
“I don’t think anyone’s going to do that, sir,” Quill said with a slight smirk. “Though I’m going to have a hard time thinking of the as anything other than… well, monsters.”
“Really?” Harry asked, sounding almost disappointed.
“I met Sutra Cross, once,” Quill said quietly.
“I can see your problem. There’s someone you should probably research,” Harry said quietly. “I never met the man in person, but if you’re looking into the HLF, I’d ask about a man named Maxi Yarrow. You might hear some… interesting comments.”
“Thank you, your Highness,” Quill said with a smile. “I’ll ask around about him.” She paused, taking another quick note before looking up at him. “Why… why does it bother you, what people think of the HLF?”
Harry sighed. “One day, maybe tomorrow, maybe in a year, maybe not in our lifetimes, someone’s going to write a history of the war. When they write about the HLF, they can either write about them as insane fanatics who don’t know what the hell they’re doing and are just plain crazy… or they can write about desperate, angry, hurt people who couldn’t escape revenge and hatred, but maybe they still tried to do something, and maybe… maybe the best of them succeeded. I hope they choose to write the latter, but…" He shrugged his shoulders, his face resigned. "I know people’s attitudes to the HLF. I’m not blind to what they’ve done, and even through that, I have to admit I still pity them."
True Quill, who had been ignoring her notepad, began furiously scribbling notes. After a moment, she looked up, and smiled as warmly as she could, hoping to reassure the Prince, who had a doleful expression on his face. Whatever the business with Levy, it clearly weighed on his soul.
"Thank you, your highness," she said quietly. "I think you’ve given me a lot to consider."
"I hope so," he replied quietly. "I hope so."
***
“What do you want to know about Yarrow?” the man asked quietly, scowling at her.
It had taken True Quill a week of researching to get here - a meeting in a small bar in New York, where a dark-haired man was scowling at her. The search term “Yarrow HLF” had brought up some chatrooms, and she had gone on them, looking for information. The information she had found had led to some videos. Those videos had been posted by a man named John Idle, and she had messaged John Idle about meeting up. She had been upfront about being a pony, but to her surprise, Idle hadn’t seemed to object overmuch to meeting.
He was, however, rude and caustic in person.
“Prince Harry mentioned his name,” she said quietly. “Said that if I was researching the HLF that I should know the name Yarrow.”
“Yeah,” Idle said quietly. “More folks should. More folks should’ve followed him. He had the right idea from the get go.”
“Is he alive?” Quill asked. “Is there any chance of speaking to him?”
“What’s it to you?” Idle asked.
“I’m just curious,” Quill replied. “I’ve not managed to find much information.”
“And you won’t,” Idle said. “What do you want it for?”
“I…” Quill began, but Idle cut her off with a raised hand.
“Never mind,” he said quietly. “I don’t need to know. If you want to know about Yarrow, what I tell you is off this record of yours.”
Quill frowned. “That defeats the purpose of bringing him up.”
“You want me to talk, that’s my deal,” Idle said. “You might not get to write your pretty story about him, but you do get the truth. Which matters more?”
Quill thought about it for a moment, a scowl on her face, and then she nodded.
“Alright,” she said. “Start talking.”
***
Nothing is evil in the beginning. If the HLF are evil, it’s because ponies drove them there, ponies who caused great pain and heartache. If the humans have done things that we consider abhorrent over the course of this war, it is because they have been pushed, pushed to the very furthest limits of their tolerance and their forgiveness, pushed to the brink of insanity in many cases. Look to any case of Newfoal-eating, mass murder, the riots after the Cidade de Deus Crisis, any atrocity that has been so very publicized such as the infamous Three Weeks of Blood, or any of the massacres perpetrated by Kraber or Burakgazi, and somewhere in their lines of reasoning, you will find a crime committed in Celestia’s name that drove them in that direction. And it must always be remembered - the HLF had their heroes too. You might never hear names like Crane or Yarrow next to names like Renee or Bauer, but make no mistake - they played their parts.
Despite the existence of the HLF, one must remember that humans, for all their faults, are capable of great forgiveness. It's rare for them to say another of their kind is truly irredeemable, rarer still for them not to offer a second chance. The central tenets of numerous human religions - demonised by Equestrian propaganda as corrupt organisations that only the evil and the stupid are part of - emphasize forgiveness on the part of the individual and hold it to be an integral part of their beliefs.
Perhaps one of the best examples of how humanity allows for those who have done terrible things to redeem themselves would be the example of Viktor Marius Kraber, an HLF defector. Kraber joined the HLF following personal tragedy - he was reluctant to describe the exact circumstances, and following research elsewhere into the matter I believe I understand his reluctance, and will respect his silence. At some point during his time in the HLF, Kraber found it in himself to realize he was wrong and forgive ponykind for the atrocities of the majority - escaping what Prince Harry described to me as a "cycle of revenge". Following this, he joined the PHL, and has since become one of its more... infamous members, known for his fervent dedication (some would say zealousness or even over-zealousness) in battle.
My own personal experience of Kraber is of a man who deeply regrets what evils he has done, though he never shared with me what they were, preferring to keep them entirely to himself. I suppose I could find examples, but it would seem disrespectful to him, and I’ve already been warned that his mental state is volatile at best. I recall most strongly one particular incident, where he broke into a propaganda announcement I was part of organising just to denounce the HLF, showing so much regret for his actions that Photo Finish asked that his interruption be kept in the announcement: she later explained this to me as being a matter of "the truth in his eyes", and though I did not realise it at the time, she was right. Kraber is devoted to the PHL, devoted to helping others, and I have little doubt that even as you are reading this article, he is doing something to atone for his actions in the HLF. As per his religion, which states that a man must work to be forgiven, he is working near-constantly in the interest of redemption. If that doesn't show a level to humanity beneath their flaws, I don't know what will.
***
"Again, sorry for doing that."
Viktor Kraber was a lot less aggressive now he wasn't talking about the HLF. For that, at least, True Quill was grateful. She smiled softly at the somewhat awkward apology from the tall, lanky bearded man. It was interesting to finally see him in person, not just because he was thinner than his layers of armor might suggest. Rather, she’d been looking forward to conversing with him: Kraber was someone whose career she had followed with tacit interest for years - the most prominent HLF defector of them all. The one who had arguably created the Great HLF Exodus, gutting their ranks.
"It's alright, Mr Kraber," she said quietly with a smile. "I'm just glad you've allowed me this opportunity to get your side of things."
"It was a pleasure," Kraber said.
They sat in a bar. Kraber and his pony compatriot Aegis (who was absolutely bucking huge, nearly the size of an earth horse - seriously, how did that even happen?!) were already somewhat drunk when Quill arrived, but she had learned from experience that drunkenness didn't stop humans - nor indeed, some ponies - from talking. Quite the opposite, actually.
"Merciful Luna, that is a lot of booze," True Quill said as she widened her eyes at a number of bottles, many of which were empty but far more of which were not.
"Actually, that's his," Kraber said, pointing to Aegis with a grin. "Mine's coming up soon."
Quill nodded slowly before getting out her notebook. "Before you get drunk, can I ask... you were in the HLF?"
"Yes," Kraber said, a frown quickly forming on his face. Aegis looked between Quill and him with a worried expression.
"Then if I may," Quill continued, trying to be delicate, "what made you join the PHL?"
"One day, after I’d done something really fokking terrible, there were these two ponies, Astral Nectar and Dancing Day," Kraber said. "It was a checkpoint, had them at point blank range of my magnum… but I just found I couldn't do it."
"Why?" the journalist asked.
"...good question," Kraber admitted. "I think I just... I was staring down at them, and I just had to ask - the fok was I doing? What would killing a mother and child that were so scared do? And then I saw their faces... It looked so much like my family. I can't explain it. Just couldn’t pull that fokkin’ trigger."
"What... What happened to your - "
"Don't ask," Aegis interrupted. "Just... Just don't."
"I just kept asking myself, why? Why? Why?" Kraber continued, acting as though he hadn’t heard what Quill had been about to ask. "Then of course, I asked ‘Why any of this? What the fok’s the point?! Is this the right thing?’
"Seriously, don’t ask," Aegis said. "He doesn’t want to talk about it."
True Quill wisely decided to stop pressing the issue. She could always research it later.
"There’s one thing in common Aegis and I have," Kraber said, "It’s that we both like superheroes. He’s a big fan of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and so am I."
"The foals love Guardians of the Galaxy," Aegis put in. "My real name’s Claw Hammer, and I used Aegis as an alias when I was getting them out. But, hell, they said Aegis reminded them of a superhero, so Aegis I am."
"Besides, that there sounds heroic," Kraber said. "Wish I had a father with a name like that. It’d be like ‘Don’t worry, my dad’s a huge shield, he can protect us!’
"What is your dad doing, anyway?" Aegis asked.
"Training ponies to snipe, contributing to samizdat, shooting PER…" Kraber shrugged. "He’s also working on some spec-ops training regimen for ponies. Stuff like that. He missed me a lot. Anyway, where was I?"
"Something about being a hero," True Quill said, wondering privately just how much alcohol these two had imbibed. Luna or Lyra save her if they ever met Constantine and his friends. She shuddered slightly just thinking about it - the sheer amounts of alcohol flowing would probably drain at least half the bars left on the planet.
"Anyway, I wanted to be a hero, a correct ou. I wanted to do good. But I just… I just realised I wasn’t going to do any of that in the HLF. And I hadn’t in a long, long time. So, after some… incidents on a mobile rig named after one of my favorite books, I got to seeing what the world outside the HLF was like. And I saw wonderful people, not the least of which was Aegis. He was a father that had lost fokking everything, but kept his kids, his sanity, and did right by them even in times like this," Kraber said. "He’s everything I’d want to be."
"Ah, stop it!" Aegis said. "You’re making me blush…"
"Nah, trust me, you’re a right correct ou," Kraber said. "Wish I was half as good a father as that."
"Can you settle for being a good uncle, though? Rivet and Amber love you."
"...That’s doable. Anyway, a lot of kak happened, and then Kagan Burakgazi comes up, and we get to thinking together."
"That reminds me, where is Burakgazi?" True Quill asked. "Nobody’s seen him in awhile."
"He went off to South America for a job with a brother of his after we defected, and asked me not to tell where he was," Kraber said. "I owe the maat that much, anyway. Long story short, I realized… I’d been a fokking coward, a moegoe."
"What’s a moegoe?" True Quill asked. "And what language is he speaking?"
"A stupid person, a coward, or a weakling," Aegis explained. "And he speaks Afrikaans, and a lot of other things. Trust me then, Viktor. You’re none of those things, I promise you that. Well, maybe a weakling for booze..."
"...I wouldn’t go that far," True Quill said, eyeing Kraber as he took his umpteenth swig of bourbon. "But cowardice?" She frowned slightly, thinking back to various anecdotes she had heard on the subject. "I’ve heard anger cited as a motivator here, but not cowardice."
"Takes a big man to admit when he’s wrong," Aegis said simply. "And… mind if I say this, Viktor?"
"No, go ahead. And stop cringing about it! We’re friends, you can say anything you like!" Kraber placed on hand in Aegis’ mane.
"You were wrong about a lot of things," Aegis said.
"And fokking how!" Kraber said. "I didn’t want to acknowledge what I’d done, try and realize what a bastard I was. 'Cause I… I did horrible things. I just kept trying to run away, to forget myself…. but there’s only so far you can run. Only so long you can realize what you did. Trying to fokking turn yourself into a monster like that, willfully forgetting anything even sentient in you just to kill more, it’s as bad as suicide. It’s another way of killing yourself, or as bad as. That’s why you get so many HLF men going bosbefok out there, so many doomed reformists like poor old Redd trying to make something better of the HLF when it’s at the point of no return. Enitan Adebayo, she’s said that reforming the HLF is like bouldering Lhotse under heavy fire, and I believe her. There’s bad varkpoes in the HLF, outnumbering the few good men, but soon they all become the same. They can’t join the PHL, can’t acknowledge Lyra’s as near as a saint as we had in this war, can’t come to terms with their crimes or decide to do something different and realize what terrible shit they’ve done. Poor bliksems."
He looked vaguely surprised at this rather profane profundity he’d issued, then took a drink.
"Don’t worry, I’ve seen him take way more than that and not get drunk," Aegis said. "He’s still coherent…" he shrugged. "Much as he ever is."
"You fokking well know what I’m saying," Kraber slurred a little.
"You, I understand," True Quill said. "But… why Burakgazi? How’d you get him to leave?"
Kraber and Aegis looked at each other.
"The man loved me," Kraber said. "Even if we had to leave, he trusted me to go back for me when Lovikov, THAT FOKKING KONTGESIG, LEFT ME TO DIE!" Kraber yelled. "Glad I-"
"She doesn’t want to know what you did to Lovikov," Aegis interrupted. "I think they’re still cleaning it up there."
"The man was a kontgesig!" Kraber said. "That was a public fokking service right there… Anyway, Burakgazi came back to save my life. So did Aegis. I convinced them to work together."
"You held Burakgazi at gunpoint," Aegis said, and shivered. "Thought I was gonna die there."
"I’ve seen you practically shrug off 9-millimeters," Kraber pointed out. "Still… glad he didn’t shoot you. Would’ve lost a great friend like you, and all three of us would be dead. Or ponified."
"Thanks," Aegis said.
"But Burakgazi was one of your best friends," True Quill said.
"True… but I didn’t know how I’d even get an old china like him to listen. I’d seen that the HLF was long dead and long gone - nah, fok that, I was seeing exactly what they were," Kraber said. "I thought my bru was part of the problem, but… he just lifted the rubble off. And we made our way to the PHL. They said I could join, and the night before Basic, I said-"
"They’d call me a bad person, and I guess they’re right. But, that's gonna change - I'm going to change. This is the last of that sort of thing. Now I'm cleaning up and I'm moving on, going straight and choosing life," Aegis interrupted.
Kraber looked over at him, raising an eyebrow. "Really."
"Look, I watched that movie with the two of you, I know the quote," Aegis said. "Did you have to say it that way, though?"
"Course I do!" Kraber answered. "I’m what’d happen if Sharlto Copley got cast in Marabou Stork Nightmares! It’s like an obligation!"
"So what does that make me then?"
"I don’t know. Christopher Johnson?"
"Wrong movie. And I haven’t accidentally turned you into a pony with nanomachines…" Aegis mused. "Well, we could use the thing that we did to that other HLF woman..."
"Oh fok no! We’re not doing that! She’d never let me hear the end of it, I’d miss my fingers, I’d have no idea how to aim, and I’m not sure we can fix it. You know what happened to Verity. Besides, I think I might be immune to that..."
"That makes no sense."
"Look, Verity hates ponies the most, and I…"
"Well, by that logic, you could turn into Pinkie Pie..."
There was a brief disturbed pause.
"We are not testing that," Aegis said quickly.
"Agreed," Kraber said, before Aegis had even finished.
"What happened to who?!" True Quill asked. She’d heard of the HLF special operative that had been a member of the Thenardier Guards. "How did-"
The two of them ignored her, lost in their inscrutable pop-culture debate.
"I thought we just left her like that cause she was a bitch," Aegis said.
"...That makes way too much sense," Kraber said. "Still... I understand her. She didn't get to the PHL cause she wanted to, and she didn't have a character arc about it. She was pushed off a fokking cliff. Wait, maybe you’re Sandy Jamieson?"
"Then who’s Burakgazi?" Aegis challenged him.
"...I have no fokking idea. I mean, usually the defector has a friend in the resisty, but I've no clue where he fits."
"Honestly, I think that making a comparison here would change up too many variables," Aegis said. "Let’s just forget it."
"Agreed. Making my brain hurt…"
"I have another few questions for you, Mr Kraber," Quill continued, glancing up at the man to gauge his reaction. "Concerning the HLF again, if I may."
"What?" Kraber said, frowning once again.
"I recently spoke with Prince Harry of Britain on the subject of the HLF," she said. "And he had something interesting to say…"
She explained what Harry had told her. She watched as Kraber listened quietly, Aegis keeping an eye on him as though he expected him to explode at any moment. Finally, when she had finished, Kraber exhaled softly.
"Sounds about right," Kraber said. "Believe me. I know anger. But… I wouldn’t want to strangle every pony. I’ve met too many good ones to write them all off like those fokken kakhuiskriek do to us. But if I ever see that fokking mank genaaide bergbok Pinkie Pie again, I’ll fokking rip out her f-"
"Hey, look, more bourbon!" Aegis said, quickly passing a shotglass over to him.
Kraber gulped it down in a second. "Maybe I’m a bit too quick to write off the HLF, but… if you want someone who’ll be forgiving or understanding, you got the wrong man. Fokkin’ awful at that. I can’t pretend to have any nostalgia for that time. I've seen the HLF at its worst, and in part, I helped get Reverend Thomas got kicked out after egging on a friend. I can't say there's anything I miss there. If you see Prince Harry again, though… tell him something."
"What’s that?"
"That I’m glad he never got as deep into it as I did," Kraber answered. "Some holes are hard to dig yourself out of. I damn near killed myself to get where I am in the PHL, and I’d gladly do it again."
True Quill thought for a moment about what Harry had said about the death of Jacob Levy. Whatever the circumstances behind the PER man's death had been, it had clearly affected Harry, in someways maybe as deeply as Kraber's deeds had affected him. Still, True Quill saw no reason to bring it up: Harry had not specified what he had done and Quill had no clue as to how bad it could have been: certainly, killing PER was unlikely in and of itself to be considered a particularly heinous act in this day and age. And yet, Kraber was pushing that boundary...
"Trust me, I was in deep," Kraber added. "And, ah… one more thing."
"Yes?"
"I just want you to know… leaving the HLF wasn’t easy. I fokkin’ suffered for it, I practically went insane, I hit rock bottom about three times, I was shot, tortured, stabbed, nearly potioned… But if I woke up one day, back in the HLF, I’d do it again without a second thought."
"Thank you," she said to Kraber, smiling warmly.
“You had one more question?” Aegis asked.
“A name, actually,” Quill asked quietly. “Maximillian Yarrow.”
Kraber’s face blanched. “Pass.”
“But -”
“Pass, seriously,” Kraber said grimly. “Yarrow’s not on the cards.”
“I’d drop it if I were you,” Aegis said quietly.
“Tell you what, though,” Kraber said. “I’ll owe you a favour for that one since I didn’t tell you about him.”
Quill paused, thinking something over. "There’s a PHL woman over in Africa that I’ve been wanting to talk to, and you were listed as the best interpreter…"
"What, you mean Enitan Adebayo?" Kraber asked, twigging her meaning at once. "Sure! I can rig that up."
"By the way...." Aegis added, "You might want to interview our friends Philip Hauser and Blackpowder. Maybe later?"
“I’ll look into it,” Quill promised.
***
Kraber had been good to his word. Within a couple of days, True Quill found herself meeting with Kraber again, with Kraber sitting next to a radio, an iPhone nearby and set to speakerphone.
"Wewe tena?" Enitan asked over the radio.
"Ndiyo. Kweli, hii ni kwa ajili ya mahojiano rafiki," Kraber said. "Jina yake… True Quill? Quill Kweli?" he asked, shrugging… then giggling slightly at how True Quill’s name sounded in Swahili.
"Nini yeye kuhoji yangu kuhusu?" Enitan asked.
"Kuhusu ... kuhusu uzoefu wa binadamu? Kuonyesha jinsi tofauti sisi wote ni, rangi kura ya picha tofauti," Kraber answered. Then he turned back to True Quill. "Ask any questions, I can translate."
"Ms… Adebayo," True Quill started. "What would you say is the most memorable thing you ever saw a human do out there, during the course of this war?"
"There are so many," Enitan said - or at least, that’s what Kraber translated for her. "I’ve seen things you wouldn’t believe."
"Try just one," True Quill suggested.
"Alright," Enitan said. "Westerners like to think Africa is 24-hour anarchy. Yes and no… but it got worse when the Barrier touched down. Not every country was so accepting of PHL… It’s the apocalypse, after all. By now, you’d be hard pressed to find someone that doesn’t support the PHL - it gets damn cramped down here. You had people hunting zebras, self-styled great white hunters with anti-materiel rifles, people that had never seen a white man or thought a gun was some kind of fetish that shoots death-"
"That really happens?" True Quill interrupted.
Kraber nodded. "Ndiyo," he said, which True Quill presumed to mean yes.
"They were running around so damn confused,"Enitan continued, "fighting to get off helicopters as they were being evacuated-"
"I actually translate for some of those people," Kraber interrupted. Well, actually he’d interrupted in Swahili, then later explained what he’d said to True Quill.
"Wait, really?" Enitan asked, with a brief pause as Kraber translated. "Well… that’s very kind of you."
"Least I could do," Kraber said. "Always been good with languages… and this is a hell of a culture shock for them. It’s bad enough at the best of times, but learning that everything’s being atomized, including them, well, I’d be surprised if it doesn’t break their sanity over a knee."
"Trust me, it does. Anyway, we’d made our way to the Congo and it was madness there. We would’ve had to help anyway, but it was right after the evacuation of Lagos, and they were sitting on tons of supplies we needed. There were huge riots daily, and worst of all, the government had thrown its lot in with the HLF."
True Quill winced at this. Most countries had joined with the PHL - Lyra had been extraordinarily convincing, after all, and the promise of magically enhanced weapons or a more efficient soldier to protect the people had been a great motivator for the PHL. But others had proven too untrusting, too hateful to do so, and had become HLF strongholds.
They'd either suffered mass ponification, leaving the number of escapees in the low triple, double, or single digits, been conquered by PHL forces such as Warlord Maghur or John Crossley, or surrendered to the PHL (usually after violent uprisings) after realizing they'd bit off more than they could chew.
"It was bad," Enitan said. "Really, really bad. By the time the train rolled in, we’d had to deal with twenty different attacks. On the plus side, the Pegasi we had onboard - I hadn’t trusted them, but one had tried to kill himself with a hidden knife rather than wait for the zep - they’d scooped up more ammo, so that was for the best. So, there we are, heading into Kinshasa. And then... And then, I see this kid. He's got two Kalashnikovs, one in each hand. They have 77-round mags. He's staring down the newfoals, and he looks over at me."
"He says, 'Don't worry about me, Miss Enitan. I can do this.' There's Newfoals pouring out of the wrecked zep, blood rage in their eyes. Then 'make my ammo better. Enchant it,' he says to a Unicorn. He's happy to oblige. I don't think he can survive the magic. But he does - the guns practically steam from the thaums. I run, of course - the zebras behind me, knowing the boy'll be nothing but a distraction. I take a look back - kid is just pouring bullet after bullet into them, shouldering both guns. Completely silent.
And the Newfoals aren't getting past him. He's just standing there, firing - the Unicorn beside him reloading when the kid switches to the semi-auto shotguns he'd dredged up.
Must've been hundreds of Newfoals. And yet he kept going. I never found out what happened to him, but he paved the way to Kinshasa for us. I don’t know what the current warlord had said, what he’d called it… the place was chaos. People were dying left and right, there were executions of suspected pony sympathizers. A rack of Zebras - the kind from Equus - hung out on a rack, dying and bleeding. On top of that, there’d been a zep chasing us. So we stepped in."
"What did you do?"
"We stormed them," Enitan said simply. "We could see the potioneer ships over the horizon. And we did it because we had to. Because we needed their anti-air. Obayana didn’t want me to do it, but I saved the ponies and zebras they’d been attacking. There was this one orphaned little colt… I think that’s the moment he got to being PHL through and through. But, unfortunately enough, the zep came down. It started dropping potion bombs, throwing up-"
"Ah, hebu kwenda na ... kutokwa," Kraber said, interrupting his translation. "Sorry. Some shit doesn’t translate well." He paused. "Pole. Baadhi ya mambo si kutafsiri vizuri," he told Enitan.
"Nilidhani hii inaweza kutokea," Enitan sighed. "Ni si muhimu hadithi ingawa, ni?"
"Si kweli, hakuna," Kraber agreed. "Continuing on…"
"Right," Enitan continued. "I don’t think I’ll ever forget that day. We had people rushing out of the train cars, heading for the nearest fortified building with homebuilt rocket launchers, trying to flush the warlord out, and rescuing zebras from the gallows. Obayana, though - he must’ve killed hundreds that day. My big brother is unstoppable," she said proudly. "But we couldn’t hold off all the newfoals, and there wasn’t a competent airforce for a ways. Most we could do was rig up another train from the locomotives nearby, and get everyone onboard. Zebras and ponies in separate cars from the humans." She paused, this time for dramatic effect.
"And then what happened?" True Quill asked.
"There was almost a country’s worth of newfoals from the zep charging at the railyard," Enitan said. "Too many to fend off. But we kept shooting. There were HLF trying to take us out, more newfoals than we could count, but we kept firing."
"How many newfoals?" True Quill asked.
"Thousands," Enitan said. "I don’t think anyone bagged less than fifty newfoals each."
"That was so brave…" True Quill breathed.
"No," Enitan said. "Bravery is going above and beyond. That was just what we had to do. Later found out that we’d helped someone a bit further east in the Congo push forward and rescue more materiel for the war effort. We killed off an army there."
"An… an entire army?!"
"There were people counting on us," Enitan said. "We had to do what we could."
***
One thing that Celestia’s 24-hour propaganda department blasts humanity for is it’s supposed bloodthirstiness. To a degree, it’s true that humankind has an element of that in it’s nature - Kraber himself admits to bloodlust, and the PHL are very desperate, very eager to kill. Humans do sell weaponry to each other and develop newer or more destructive devices, yes, especially in this war. And yet, were I to ask the average human for why they own so much weaponry, they would have one answer: to protect.
To save their loved ones, to provide for them, and protect themselves from others. Perhaps they can be paranoid and aggressive, but at the core, these are noble motivations. And, when one compares the human desire to protect with Celestia’s imperialistic, xenocidal, genocidal war, with the control that she has slowly wormed into the lives of everypony in her dominion through totem-proles, secret police, mind healers, with the attacks on human or free pony settlements that occur daily, it is simply irreconcilable.
Celestia does not offer protection, only a noose growing ever-tighter.
***
"I’ve heard people say you’re too enthusiastic about making new guns for refugees," True Quill said.
"Well, there’s a world of possibilities," Philip Hauser said, assembling a Kalashnikov and affixing a small, homemade device of pipes to the bottom. "Besides, I was addicted to Sunset Overdrive - s’where I got the idea for that boomerang gun - and I’m looking forward to what these can do."
"It’s a good game," agreed the black Unicorn standing nearby - Blackpowder, if True Quill recalled. "Still wish we could’ve made the freeze gun."
"Ah, leave that to Sebastian Irving," Philip shrugged. "What we do-" he pulled the bolt back and forth, holding it up to his shoulder. "-is solve practical problems."
"Not ‘what is beauty,’ cause that’d fall within the purview of your conundrum of philosophy," Blackpowder added, grinning up at his friend.
"How much does this pay?" True Quill asked.
Philip and Blackpowder looked at each other, shrugged in synchronicity, and waited for the other to explain.
"Well…" Philip said. "I wouldn’t say it matters. If not for the fact that I had my own expenses, I’d give this shit out for free."
"Wait, for free?" True Quill asked.
"Free," Blackpowder confirmed. "Long as we can make sure that even one more refugee survives due to our workmanship-"
"And work-stallionship, of course, damn that’s an awkward word choice-"
"Then that’s payment enough," Blackpowder said. "When I met Phil, and helped make the enchanted rifle for him on the mantle up there, I knew what I was doing. It was like I’d unlocked some new level of understanding of my cutie mark." He pointed with his foreleg to a ridiculous-looking rifle with a massive cylinder big enough to hold a soda can enclosing the barrel, what looked like a large underbarrel revolver, and a crossbow mounted over the cylinder that enclosed the barrel."Can... Can you level up your cutie mark? Realize a new skill it might give you? Is that a thing?"
"I don’t know, maybe," True Quill said, confused.
"We call that the Prizefighter," Philip said, grinning. "Making things like that? Never about the money. It’s about the people up here, good people that haven’t joined the HLF or killed a pony friend of mine. It’s about them having some way to defend themselves when the Queen Bitch comes for them."
"It’s why we left the PHL R&D," Blackpowder said. "They make energy weapons there…. well, they try. They’re making newer, bigger, better weaponry, and I don’t hate them for what they’re working at, but not enough of it goes to the people that need it. So we’re out here, trying to provide for everyone with what little we have."
True Quill nodded and took notes. This was good material.
***
"Mornin’," Yael Ze’ev slurred at True Quill, her black hair cascading over her face as she held a deep cup of chocolaty coffee so pungent it smelled like the fumes could keep you awake most of the day. She was wearing an old leotard under a pair of sweatpants. True Quill wasn’t one of those PHL that found themselves falling for humans, but it did look good on her.
"She’s not a morning person," cautioned the purple-pink Pegasus (Heliotrope, whose parents must have been quite extraordinarily unimaginative) drinking from a small saucer of tea.
"I’m really not," Yael said. "So - why’m I getting a visit from PHL propaganda?"
"We don’t…"
"It’s propaganda," Yael interrupted. "For a good cause, and it keeps the average scared bastard on the street informed, but that’s what it is."
"It’s for the Equestrian Resistance," True Quill said. "They need somepony to break through the propaganda, and maybe even reach all the enclaves of hidden ponies on Earth…"
"I know an Enclave up north I can give it to," Heliotrope said thoughtfully. "Might even coax the poor ponies out. They supply charms and stuff to the IDF, like that new rune for the Thunderclap..."
"I love that damn thing," Yael said, hints of a smile on her face.
"What’s a, uh… Thunderclap?" True Quill asked.
"You’d know one when you see one," Heliotrope said. "I like the idea of it, but I hope it doesn’t get to the point that we have to use it." at the same time that Yael said it was classified.
"So, Yael…"
"Yeah?" she asked, running a hand through her thick, glossy hair. "What’m I doing?"
"Just, ah… talk," True Quill said. "There’s ponies in Equestria that want to get out and escape, or join the resistance. But Celestia’s propagandists always use the HLF as a threat. You’re famous for your anti-HLF operations, and for saving ponies where possible. What spurred you on to do that?"
"That’s it?"
"That’s it."
"Well," Yael said, taking another sip of coffee, "I was HTF. And I’d been horrified by what was happening to the Carters and the Thomases or whoever. I even…" she facepalmed. "Oh G-d."
"What?"
"In a weird way, Kraber inspired me to join the PHL," she groaned. "I heard about what happened to his family, and I knew I had to be in the PHL, just to make sure that didn’t happen to anyone. So… the worst HLF man inspires me to join, ‘least in part, applies to serve under me while disguised as Abraham Presley and imitating Francis Begbie four years later, and now he’s... in the Bundeswehr…" she stifled a quick laugh, and promptly failed at that endeavour. "I mean, I knew good ponies, like Heliotrope. Who, by the way, had made sure that the rest of her family and every other pony that ended up around there hated Equestria. What, uh… what did you say there, anyway?"
"I’unno," Heliotrope said, making a shrug with her wings. "I think I just said something about ‘Mother of Celestia, I don’t know who won.’"
"What do you mean?" True Quill asked. "We won the fight against the Crystal Empire…"
"We were told we were fighting for freedom, but the only difference was that Celestia had different plans and motives. In the sense that I was fighting for freedom when I repaired zeps in the Royal Guard-"
"Whoa! You were in the Guard?!"
"Zep repair, actually," Heliotrope said. "I got press-ganged in from Cloudsdale Yards, making bomber zeps. I got some knife-and-wing-blade training and this flightsuit for it, and my flanks look great in it, but I never touched the charter. I saw what happened to guardsponies that took it, and... No. I’m a zep repair-mare, not a Guard pony. Then, when the offer for workers came for the construction of the Great Equestrian, I joined up, and well… you know how that went. Nearly lost an eye on that thing!"
True Quill did, in fact, know. Octavia and Vinyl Scratch, two of the ponies that had provided the music onboard, had sworn to join the PHL not long after, deeply disturbed by what had happened, and claiming that Celestia had blown up the statue ‘Kith and Kin’ in the center because it had clashed with her pony-supremacist dream. It had later been proven it was entirely on accident, as Celestia’s ascension to ruler of the Crystal Throne, a move that a cynical enough pony (Like Heliotrope, presumably) would know to be a power-grab typical of dictators, had actually caused a horrible reaction in crystals connected to the Crystal Empire’s lodestone. Still, nobody would say it would be out-of-character for Celestia to have done that on purpose.
"I’d headed off for Switzerland after convincing my family to come with me."
"And that’s how we met," Yael said.
"Which reminds me… How did you get that stealth-suit, anyway?" True Quill asked.
"She made it herself," Yael said.
"Really?" True Quill asked.
"I just reapplied some cloaking sigils that we used for stealth runs," Heliotrope said. "Nothing special, really. But, uh… awesome as it all is, the interview’s not about me. Look, you’re interviewing bout humans, right? Not me?"
"I’d like to do one anyway, though," True Quill said.
"Eh, maybe some other time, people already have enough to keep track of, so I’m sure we can work it in somewhere else," Heliotrope said. "Anyway… Yael? Why’d you join the HTF?"
"The precursor to the HLF?" True Quill asked.
"Well," Yael said, "I’d joined the HTF to make sure that a lot of friends of mine didn’t get ponified and make a choice they regret. It wasn’t something you could get reversed, I’d seen what happened to Jazmin Carter... I mean, we all knew it rewired people and gave them new muscle memories. Poor Verity, by the way... "
"You wouldn’t know how to fly if I suddenly gave you wings," Heliotrope added.
"I suppose not," True Quill said, jotting down something.
"There was no deep personal loss that made me do it… not yet, anyway," Yael said. "I was just very suspicious of it all. And I was angry after what happened to Jazmin, but I didn’t see that as a reason to take it out on the ponies that kept on coming through Tel Aviv. Anyway, I had a sister, Netanya.... We’d been planning to join the Israeli ballet corps together, and we’d gotten to like this one pony that had gotten to Israel somehow. I mean, I wouldn’t say I’d fallen in love, but he was nice. We both left the HTF when that guy Polmont threw a bottle at Reverend Thomas’ head and the group turned into the fucking KKK."
Yael took another drink of that coffee. "There was no Bureau in Israel. Because, putting it lightly… we’re paranoid. But the riots got bad, with so many stupid bastards thinking they were stopping the invaders by killing any pony in sight. They… they burst into poor Netanya’s room, shot that pony friend of ours, and broke her legs so she could never dance. Just cause she’d associated with a pony. So, I…"
Yael trembled. The coffee spilled over the sides of her mug. She looked downcast, and the signs of her having barely slept recently (for whatever reason) were more apparent than ever. "You don’t want to know what I did. Netanya’s alive and human today, and the PHL managed to get her legs working. But the shit I went through to keep her alive…."
"It’s fine," Heliotrope said, one hoof on her friend’s shoulder. "You did what you had to do… One more thing, though."
"Hmmm?" True Quill asked, looking up from her notepad.
"You said that Equestria uses the threat of the HLF to scare Equestria, right? To make them think that every human’s HLF? I got a friend who saw Twilight with Stalwart Heart making some broadcast about that. So, here’s something I can categorically say: Yael cares."
"Wha?" True Quill asked.
"It’s true! She can get a bit wrapped up in the job, or drink horrible coffee, or have bad taste in men… but she cares about ponies," Heliotrope said. "She doesn’t even shoot foals that the PER took along."
"Still makes me feel like a horrible woman taking them from their parents," Yael said. "Still, it’s better for ‘em. No matter how bad they were with the potion."
"You see?" Heliotrope asked. "First - my friend’s part of a group that isn’t HLF. Second, she doesn’t like shooting foals, unlike every bit of propaganda back home that’d have you believe every human’s a mass-murderer."
"Why do you hate the HLF so much though?"
"Besides what happened to Netanya? It scares me," Yael said simply. "The thought of Barrierfall, trying to get everyone out of Maine or Nova Scotia or, I don’t know, Truro, and having people like Atlas Galt going free?" She took another drink of her coffee. "I’m a pessimist, Ms. Quill. I think the HLF are only going to get worse, and I don’t think we’re gonna get lucky. If we have HLF and PER to deal with, however many it is, people will get fucked over when they’re just trying to run away. Potioned, shot for no reason, or captured by people with no evac on their mind that just want to kill and kill, personal safety be damned. They can’t even stop the Barrier. I’d rather have control of evac in the hands of the PHL. And before you ask… we tried to talk. And Kraber already took most of the HLF’s ranks with him when he left, so I don’t think there’s much of anyone that could listen. It was hard enough the time Lyra tried to negotiate, by the time of Barrierfall, it’ll be damn near impossible."
***
There have been many perspectives to sift through when writing this article, and those perspectives have led me to the conclusion I have reached. I suppose there should be some conclusion to this piece. After all - that’s what any normal article should have. Truth be told, though, I don’t know quite how to.
This article is meant to describe humanity to you, reader. It is a difficult thing to do. Humanity is not one thing - it is not its intelligence, it is not its kindness, or its capacity to laugh, or its will to fight, or its darkest and lightest extremes.
There is a quote from a great playwright and poet of Earth that I think sums up humanity best: "If you prick us, do we not bleed? If you tickle us, do we not laugh? If you poison us, do we not die? and if you wrong us, shall we not revenge?" The human race is just like us. They are made up of the good and the bad in equal measure. Like ponies, they are capable of mercy and vengeance, anger and regret, great hatred… and greater love. I cannot sum them up, for, to slightly misquote another great human poet, they are large, they contain multitudes.
***
"#No longer will we fear the fire
Of the Tyrant Sun,
We'll fight until the battle's over
And the war is won,
We will break her iron walls, and make her pay for all her sins,
We'll fight with everything we've got, and we are going to win."
The radio played softly in the background of a small apartment as a pony mare and a human man stood quietly, each drinking a cup of tea. The two of them were stood in the apartment of King William of Britain - his son and wife were safely elsewhere, and William, though now back in active service as a pilot, had been granted a brief leave. True Quill had, as was now her habit, come to visit him for a drink and a brief chat. He sipped at his tea quietly, True Quill opposite him, a small smile on her face.
"So I got a message from Harry," William said to begin the conversation, smiling slightly. "He told me he'd met you. Was rather impressed by your journalistic manner, apparently. Also, he said that he'd promised to give you an exclusive interview about his work in the SAS." The King paused. "That's rather a big deal."
"So I heard - wasn't there a sub-genre of novel that focused on SAS work, back before the war?" Quill asked, taking a sip of her own tea. Knowing so many British people as she did had given her something of a taste for the stuff: milk, no sugar. Nothing too sweet, nothing too fancy. Just so.
"Something of that sort," William said with a shrug. He smiled. "To be honest, I think it'll do him good. Some of that work seems to have... affected him."
True Quill paused. "Did he ever mention Jacob Levy?"
William frowned. "He mentioned that he killed the bastard, which I have to admit a large part of me is rather happy about. He never told me about the specifics, though. Always wondered what had happened there. Why?"
"He mentioned it," True Quill said with a shrug, trying to pass it off. William gave her a piercing glance, but then shrugged as well, clearly content to ignore it.
Eventually, the topic of their conversation turned to the article she had only recently published.
"I read the article," William said slowly.
"What did you think?" the mare asked, eyes wide. "Honestly, I mean."
"Honestly?" William replied, blinking as he considered the question. "Honestly, I don't know. I think it's a question worth considering. I think you'd be better asking a pony. After all, I'm human, not the target audience."
"But do you think I did your people justice?" Quill asked. The look of earnest concern on her face was almost comical, but William did not smile, for he knew all too well how important it was to the blue mare to make up for what her kind had done - she had made that especially clear to him when they had first met.
"Justice?" William asked thoughtfully. "How can anything do justice to a species? No, what you did was much better."
True Quill raised an eyebrow in confusion. "Better?"
"You painted a picture of the human race," William said. "We are, as you point out, large, and we do contain multitudes. You didn't try to find all of us. You tried to show something from every part of us. That's a good thing. Whether it does as you hope and changes minds in Equestria is anyone's - and anypony's - guess."
"I suppose," True Quill said. She smiled, almost hopefully. "But I like to hope that I achieved something."
"Ponies from the other Equestria might end up reading your work," William pointed out. "If they do... well. I can think of no better way to introduce them to the human race."
True Quill's smile widened. "Thank you, Your Majesty."
"I keep saying, call me Will," he said, faux irritably.
"I know," Quill replied with a grin. "Your Majesty."
"Tsk. Bloody mare," William sighed, a grin on his face. "By the way, did I tell you who I met the other day? Turns out, Doctor bloody Who is real, and he’s a pony…"
***
One thing is certain: I can say with complete certainty that I am proud to have made the choice to fight with the PHL, especially now, having made this journey and written this article. I am prouder still to be able to call some humans my friends, and I know that though I may one day return to Equestria, I may never find finer friends than the ones I have made here.
This is True Quill, PHL member and journalist, signing off.
***
Last word before the end.
In her apartment a few days after her dinner with William, True Quill sighed as she sat on her sofa. Truth be told, she was glad of a rest - she had often had to travel for her work, but the sheer amount of people she had to talk to in order to get this latest article done had exhausted her. So many stories, so much pain, so much loss… it was almost too much to bear.
Maybe now she’d finally get to have a rest. She stretched slightly, and thought about having a nap.
There was a knock at her door. Her ears perked up, and she frowned. Getting up slowly, she walked over to her door, and opened it. There was no one there… but there was a book, bound in old, brown leather. Frowning, she picked the book up and read the title.
The Dagor Dagorath.
Frowning, she opened the book and began to read.
For in all things, as there is a beginning, so there is an end…
***
Author's Note
Boom! Second (technically third but I'm stalled on my second so that'll be published third) Spectrumverse contribution, and my personal best IMHO. Hope you guys enjoyed it too.
Thanks once again to the Spectrum crew for all their help. Been a pleasure making this with you. :-)
