Pony-Losophy

Chapters

Royal Responsibility
The Changeling Court
The Nature of Nightmares
Here There Be Dragons
Speaking with the Enemy: The Shadow Lord
Speaking with the "Enemy": Discord
Does Evil Believe in God?
The Siren Call of Doubt
Speaking with the Enemy: The Tyrant Tirek

Royal Responsibility

Author's Note

This story, unlike others, is probably in a format you're not used to. Big, open discussions of philosophy, morality and ethics aren't very common on this site...and to be honest, I'm saddened, because I am a HUUUUGE philosophy nut. As such, I decided to try and fill a void and do a story that was all about philosophies and moralities, that would offer insight into the characters, why they do what they do in the MLP world, and hopefully, get people to think, discuss, and debate.

As I write this, I feel the need to warn you. There will be philosophies and ideas in here that may be very, VERY unappealing to you. But if they are, by all means, feel free to say in the comments why you disagree. Or if you DO agree with an idea, don't be afraid to let me know. This story is designed to inspire debate.

And with that...let's dive in. And where better to start then at the top?

Royal Responsibility

Twilight tapped her quill to her lip, frowning slightly, Her deep purple eyes looked over the notebook she had before her, her mouth slightly open, as if wanting to say something. Yet despite this, she wasn't sure how to begin. She was speaking with Princess Celestia about an issue that was somewhat problematic. An issue that had been festering in her own mind like a sore that was going untreated. She didn't know how to talk about this without coming across was whining or ungrateful, after all, this was CELESTIA. This beautiful mare that sat before her in the large white hall they were conducting the interview in with fur as shining white as the walls was like a second mother to her. Her rainbow mane hung low over her shoulder as she slightly tilted her head to the side, looking interested in whatever the purple-furred alicorn had to say, calmly giving her faithful student a small smile.

"Is something wrong?" She asked in her matronly tone.

"No, no, I just..." Twilight sighed, hanging her head, indigo mane flopping forward a bit before she shook her head slightly. "I want this to come off as honest, but I don't want to be brutally so. So if I say something that's offensive to you, Princess?"

"Yes?"

"Please. Let me know." Twilight asked, taking in a long, deep, breath before finally asking the question.

"Why don't you do more?"

Celestia sighed a bit, soft blue eyes closing as she gave a small little chuckle. "I had a feeling you'd ask that question." She quietly remarked. The chair was soft and comfortable against her back, with deep blue pillows and a lovely gold trim to match the armor she wore, yet she already felt uncomfortable just hearing those words. Yet as uncomfortable as she was, she could not even begin to imagine how terrible Twilight must be feeling. "Poor Twilight must be beating herself up inside her own head for even suggesting, however remotely, that I don't care enough about my little ponies." She inwardly mused.

"It's just-I mean, there's so, so many things you could do. So many things you and Luna could do! Yet so often, my friends and I have to handle Equestria's greatest threats. And I know you feel we can handle them and more often than not, that's true, butIdon'tknowifmaybeyoucould-" Twilight cringed, her voice had gotten faster and faster with each word but now she was practically unintelligible. "Sorry, I-I'm not sure how else to put it."

"You desire complete, absolute, total honesty from me." Princess Celestia said, putting a golden-horseshoed hoof on her chest, head bowed deeply, the chandelier high above them reflecting light from the large, long stained glass windows that filtered in the sun's warm rays outside. The Princess glanced to the side, Twilight following her view as she stared at an immense stained glass window that displayed Celestia and Luna themselves standing tall in front of a tiny Equestria that laid below, several other ponies visible behind them, representing the line of succession they had followed, previous rulers of Equestria who had been tasked with its care. "The fact is, Equestria's ponies would all be pushing up daisies if I and my sister didn't intervene time and time again." She remarked. "Especially with those like Tirek."

"I can relate to that." Twilight sighed, shaking her head back and forth, inwardly cringing as she thought back to Tirek's foul, sneering eyes, that horrific smile on his red face, the cold, biting cruelty in every syllable that had emerged from his fanged maw. Just being within a few yards of him made her skin crawl, he had given off a very miasma that made you feel like worms were crawling over your soul.

"On an individual level, you might think it's perfectly reasonable for me to constantly interfere. For the millions of people I've saved over the eons I have been alive, my involvement was a no-brainer. They're all happy to be alive. Isn't it a good thing I stepped in? And at first, I did it constantly. All the time." Celestia gave a deep, pensive nod of her head. "Yet a problem quickly sprang up. Do you know what that problem was?"

Twilight tilted her head to the side, trying to figure out what Celestia was saying. When it became clear the answer WASN'T so clear, Celestia gave her a small little chuckle. "Remember when I sat in on your spelling bee competition? I was visiting the students that day and you were on...what was it, "Team A"?" Celestia chuckled. "And you said-"

"Oh, yes! "A for what our final grade's going to be"!" Twilight laughed. "I was called up to the board again and again and I kept blowing away the others in the competition! I was always the first to raise my hoof, so I got-"

"Therein is the problem." Celestia butted in with a sad sigh. "Because you kept raising your hand, you didn't let the others really join in. The teacher ended up calling on you over and over, leaving most of your class behind. In the end, it wasn't really the team that won, Twilight. It was you."

Twilight blinked slightly, thinking about this, lips pursing as she tilted her head up. "Oh, well, I-that is-" A blush came to her cheeks, a smattering of red against the purple of her fur as she slightly sweated. "I guess I bucked up a bit?"

"I know you were only trying to do well. But the rest of the team was pretty sad. Why?"

"Because they didn't really get to help?"

"Yes. And I realized it was like that for what I did." Celestia remarked. "And I realized it with Luna, because I would be the one always doing the most, and Luna would end up with the least. I tried to make things right, but Luna allowed her jealousy and bitterness to leave herself open to Night Mare Moon. And this meant with her gone, I had to do TWICE the work, and this meant, well, the problem of overreach!"

Twilight kept writing in her notebook, quill moving furiously, slightly chewing on her lip as she continued writing. "By doing so much for everyone else, it meant that they couldn't really learn to do things on their own. At least, not do certain things that would have definitely helped them. When Tirek attacked us twice, you saw what happened." Celestia admitted, waving a hoof in the air, shaking her head. "My ponies are so used to being saved, either by me, or by Luna or by you and your friends, that hardly any of them were able to get away from Tirek. Oh, yes, some of them did fight back, but not enough! Not enough." Celestia shifted in her seat, spreading another hoof, gesticulating to get her point across to Twilight. "When you become used to being saved, you start to forget how to save yourself. It becomes so easy to think "Oh, it won't be an issue. The Princesses will do it for me!" If you're not careful, you end up infantilizing your race."

"Yes, but if you don't help at all, then it's like leaving a filly face-up in a bathtub!" Twilight protested. "You have to help sometimes, or else you're basically allowing horrors to happen!"

"But how do you know what my people can or can't handle if I've done so much FOR them? Where does my responsibility begin and where does it end? Where does their own responsibility begin and theirs end? I decided I should only really intervene in situations of great need. In true crises. I must walk a delicate tightrope, Twilight. A misstep to one side, and I am taking away my people's ability to properly defend themselves. A misstep to the other, and I become a complacent bystander, watching a little one drown in a bathtub."

The princess bowed her head deeply, as silence fell upon the room for what seemed to be a long, long time. Neither she nor Twilight spoke as Celestia placed her hooves together, taking in a few deep breathes, working herself up to speak anew.

"My ponies have been able to do incredible things. Amazing things. And I admit, a great deal of that comes from my involvement. Because I spent so much time keeping them safe from the worst this world offered, they could focus their energies elsewhere. We reduced poverty, we discovered electricity, created trains, balloons, wonders of medicine. Yet how much more could have been learned if I'd taken a few more steps back every once in a while? That's the issue I will always face, every day I reign. "Am I doing too much, or too little"?"

"A hard question to answer." Twilight admitted with a sad sigh.

"There's not any easy answer, except, perhaps...that things do get easier when you have others working with you." Celestia said, a smile spreading across her lips as she gave her faithful student a small nod. "You have your friends. I have my sister. With the shared burden and responsibility comes shared wisdom. Two heads are better than one, after all. And with the two of us ruling, we can forge a bright new path ahead for Equestria that will allow it to reach its greatest potential. My only regret is our mother never lived to see it." Celestia admitted, her smile slightly vanishing, her eyes becoming misty with memory as she looked off and to the side, as if seeing a presence that wasn't truly there. "I think she would have liked you very much." She added, her smile returning. "You have her love of learning."

The purple alicorn bowed her head. "I feel like I've learned so much and yet, nothing at all." Twilight apologized. "I'm sorry, Princess Celestia."

"Don't be. You've just learned one of the best lessons of all. That there's always more to learn."

The Changeling Court

Establishing the ground rules for a new group of citizenry was always tricky. When it came to immigrants, there was always a minor, initial amount of worry and nervousness that permeated the citizens of Equestria's thoughts. The idea of "Will they truly be able to fit in". Sometimes it was just a minor little thing that only flashed up in small amounts, occasionally seen by people conducting nervous conversations with the newcomers. Other times it was plain and simple "Stay away from this person completely" fear.

And, regrettably, the Changelings had gotten an immense amount of the latter. So much so that they had almost ghetto-tized themselves rather than truly "interact" with other Equestrians. The mindset was understandable. Why bother trying to be like the citizens in Canterlot? They wouldn't forgive the Changelings for the invasion. So it would just be a case of "You don't bother us, we don't bother you".

The problem was that the Changelings still had to be subject to Canterlot laws...but no judge really wanted to take the case. Or at least, no judge initially. Luckily, Luna had, in a surprising display of kindness, offered herself up to be a circuit judge to fill this void. And it was to Luna's "Changeling Court" that Twilight was now on her way to visit as she trotted along the sidewalk through Canterlot's Eastern "Changeling District". The wind blowing lightly through her mane, she stopped when she saw a few young Changeling dibbuns sitting on the nearby street corner, looking with a certain amount of anger, annoyance and sadness at houses off down the street. "What's wrong?" Twilight asked, approaching the threesome as they glanced at her, then at the houses, sighing slightly. The first one, who had a very thick set of blue wings for his age, sighed and gestured with a hoof at the biggest of the houses.

This wasn't saying too much, it was far from a mansion. It had slightly patchwork windows with ugly faded yellow curtains, a faded yellow paintjob on the house, and the path leading up to the front door obviously needed work since there were rather large cracks in the pavement. But still, it was clearly the kid's home.

"That's your house, isn't it?" Twilight asked as the little colt nodded.

"Kai and his friends moved in. Kicked us out. They want us to pay them for "protection"."

"Where's your parents?" The alicorn inquired, frowning a bit as she scratched her head, the young Changelings all looking slightly away, obviously not wanting to answer the question. Twilight got the picture. The parents couldn't help. "So you all just live alone in there?"

"It isn't all bad. We know a lot of people in Canterlot are tryin', but-" The colt frowned darkly, seeing a group of red-winged Changelings coming out of the house as they laughed and chuckled among each other, Twilight frowning at this sight. The wind seemed to pick up as she approached them, her brow set, jaws firmly clenched as she approached, the Changelings whistling a bit.

"Woooooo. Did not see this coming. Got to tell you, you here to buy some of our fine merchandise? Because if you are, you're a LOOOOT cooler than we heard you were." The skinniest of the Changelings said, showing off a very fanged mouth, the black chitin-esque skin he had made of oh-so-tiny scales that were only faintly visible to the naked eye in the midday sun that even now was partially blocked by the clouds above. Twilight gave him a frown, her face like stone as his buddies chuckled before he waved a dismissive hoof in the air. "No, wait, lemme guess. You wanna scare us out. You think we're gonna start shaking and say "Oh, Twilight, pleeeaaaase don't hurt us, dear princess! Please don't zap us with your horn!" You ain't gonna do shiiiiiiiiit. You ain't gonna do shiiiiiiiiit. You! Ain't-gonna-do-shit! You ain't gonna do! Ain't gonna do SHIT." The changeling said, dancing around Twilight, leaving his friends behind.

Cuz his friends didn't dance, and since they didn't dance, they'd be no friends of mine, that's for sure.

"Let me guess. You're dealing in moonflower?" She inquired, sighing slightly, putting a hoof over her face. Moonflower was a deep bluish flower with a faint white halo around the stem that almost resembled the moon. It often bloomed only at night and under the light of the full moon, which seemed to give it a mystical, intriguing set of properties. Properties which made you feel very, verrrrry strange after you ingested it. It could be eaten, smoked, boiled up, all various ways of bringing about an incredibly powerful and incredibly nice high. And there was a telltale sign: it turned you red. For ponies, the change came in your fur color. For changelings? Their wings.

"So what? Go tell that to Judge Luna. Hearsay ain't admissible." The Changeling snorted, poking her slightly in the chest as she gave him a small chuckle.

"Not exactly. The Equestrian Constitution protects you from unreasonable searches according to the Fourth Amendment. But as a Princess, well, my word carries powerful weight and I can do pretty much anything I want! So you have ten minutes to get your things out of there and give the children their home again. Or I iwll tell Princess Luna...or set your stashes on fire. Whichever I think would make you more upset."

The Changeling's smirk fell. It was understandable he wouldn't realize how remarkably above most laws Princesses were. And he and his friends immediately bolted inside the houses, swearing up a storm as Twilight turned around and gave the kids a knowing wink before trotting off down the street, heading for the far-off, dazzling-blue-painted courthouse at the far end. She'd swing by later just to see if they'd left and she probably wouldn't have really set their stashes of moonflower on fire. Rainbow Dash might have, but not her. But that didn't meant the temptation hadn't briefly flared up when th Changeling had been prancing around her like a buggy ballerina.

She inwardly slapped her face. Ugh. No, no, no. She couldn't think of them as "bugs". That was a racist, racist term to describe them. After all, they were a different species entirely, it wasn't fair of her to be put off by their appearance when she'd seen minotaurs, a three-headed dog, a hydra! Still, she had good reason to distrust the Changelings since her own brother had been under their queen's spell, and who knew how far it might have gotten had Chrysalis not been discovered-

Oh. No.

NO.

Queen Chrysalis was in the court. Yes, there were five guards at the front and back of the room, standing by tall and proud banners that displayed the regal beauty of Princess Luna. Yes, Princess Luna was in full regalia, dressed dazzlingly in golden armor as her mane as alluring as a river that reflected the night sky above flowed around her. And yes, Chrysalis wasn't exactly looking in the best of shape, her green, slimy hair was even more ratty than before and she smelled, like she always did, like she'd used too much bad perfume, a burning stench hitting the young alicorn's nostrils that made her think of cooking oil that'd been set on fire and left to rot in the summer sun. But Twilight steeled herself even as heart beat a little faster, Luna waving her over.

"The Queen and I are discussing some new Changeling protections she would like us to implement into our legal system due to complaints of harassment. And we're discussing some of it over a very nice bit of chess." Princess Luna admitted as she gestured to the side at a large table where a stone set of red and white chess pieces lay, Chrysalis taking her seat down at one end as Luna did the other. "How good to see you, Twilight. Tis a true delight as always!"

"I feel the need to ask, I...thought that Changelings would have sufficient protection under the Third Amendment of our Constitution." Twilight admitted with a wave of her hoof as Luna gave her a sympathetic nod, Twilight levitating her notebook out of her belt and beginning to scribble down in it with the quill and ink she'd brought along as Luna sighed slightly before speaking.

"The Equal Protection Amendment. Yes, "Equestria shall not deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of laws". When it comes to race, alienage or national origin, those factors are seldom relevant to the achievement of any legitimate interest. Laws based around affecting people based on those factors are deemed to reflect prejudice and antipathy. Even sex and legitimacy of birth. It doesn't matter if it's a boy, a girl, a child born in or out of wedlock, the protections must and are equal."

"But my people are inherently discriminated against due to several factors-" Chrysalis began to say.

"Like you invading the city? That kind of makes people hate you when you invade places." Twilight remarked.

Chrysalis's hoof had been over a queen and she halted its movement, slowly turning to glare darkly at Twilight. But Twilight wasn't going to wilt under this glare. Her own indigo eyes stared deeply back into the queen's furious green as the Changeling Queen put her hoof away in her lap with her other hoof and frowned. "My people's needs had to come first. We were hungry."

"I get hungry too, but I don't break into someone's home to get their pies or cupcakes." Twilight reasoned. "What was stopping you from just approaching the Princesses and asking straight-up for help?"

"Oh, that would go well. "Hi, my people need to leech off your emotions in order to remain nourished! Can we occasionally stick you in cocoons and suck on you for hours at a time?" Yes, no doubt it'd go splendidly. I learned long ago to throw away compassion and love for any other race but my own. My cooperation with your princesses is solely based on self-interest and preservation. And the simple solution that would have fit our goals was a swift, powerful, all-out invasion that would have knocked you all out in a single blow at the capital of your species's power." Queen Chrysalis intoned.

"I'm sure the Princesses have heard stranger requests than that." Twilight defended, shaking her head back and forth as Luna tilted her head to the side.

"A few, actually. Many of them from the kingdom far to the west where the Centaurs call home. The place where Tirek originated from." Luna remarked with a shudder. The very mention of his name brought up unpleasant memories in her and Twilight as the "egghead" looked from Luna to Chrysalis.

"My people inherently have a power that your species doesn't. The ability to shapeshift means that there is inherently an edge that your race doesn't naturally have. This means that we can make ourselves, if we put enough effort and we've enough power into it, stronger, faster. We can be a minotaur or monster if we desire. As such, we need more protection. When people see something they don't have, they covet it." Chrysalis said, now moving her queen across the board, Luna rubbing her chin thoughtfully

"Projecting, much?" Twilight inwardly mused. "Ponies have abilities your species doesn't. Why should you get special treatment because one part of you is so much different from everypony else?"

"Because we're inherently starting at a disadvantage." Chrysalis reasoned. "None of our people have the years of ancestors building up wealth that your race has. We won't be hired for jobs like yours will." Luna moved a bishop forward, capturing Chrysalis's own and she groaned. "Nobody is going to be rushing to date us, Twilight Sparkle. Until the playing field is equal, we will need additional assistance. It's not putting a handicap on you, or giving us a headstart. It's making sure we all start at the same time in this race."

Twilight was silent for what seemed to be a very, very long time, the chess game playing out before her, Chrysalis managing to take a Rook and two bishops before losing her Queen, Twilight finally finding the courage to speak. "How does your species choose who gets to be queen?"

"Well, how did your own race?"

"They can raise the sun and moon, they defeated Discord and Tirek the first time, they exiled King Sombra, they were all the natural fit. Everyone decided they were the best leaders Equestria could ask for." Twilight reasoned. "So they drew up a Constitution and became our monarchs."

"So in essence, their acts of power were what qualified them to be in charge. Their power demanded they become the Law." Queen Chrysalis remarked with a small, wry smile, Twilight realizing she was building on a point that was slowly beginning to manifest in her own mind. "If, say, your Princess Luna demanded nobody could eat lettuce, and you decided to eat lettuce anyway, you'd be punished. Their commands are backed by the threat of force. Ipso facto, they're the law."

"Then that would apply to you demanding Canterlot surrender. Or a bank robber holding up a bank and demanding a teller to put the money in the bag." Twilight reasoned, waving a dismissive hoof in the air. "It can't just be about that!"

"No, the law must also be issued by someone in authority. The sovereign." Queen Chrysalis admitted as she put a hoof on her chest and closed her eyes, looking almost regal for a moment. "And the requirements are simple, really. One: the sovereign must be habitually obeyed by most of the citizens subject to them, and that person can't regularly obey anyone else. And it applied to me. I was an expert on the battlefield and I answered to nobody but my own skills and intelligence. I, like your Princesses, was the natural choice. I showed I was meant to be the Sovereign."

"By your logic, though, that means you can't ever really listen to what your own people have to say."

"I know what they need. They don't need to say it. Do you think every single king or queen is just some bumbling idiot or blind tyrant immune to the needs of their kind?" Queen Chrysalis asked, looking rather annoyed. "No, wait. I'll answer that." She said, holding a hoof up, cutting Twilight off as her green eyes turned accusing. "You do. Because your own system is more democratic, you have an inherent distrust of any governmental system that doesn't put much power into the hands of the everyday pony on the street. You want to have a say because you don't truly trust your Sovereign to do what's right on their own. If you did, you wouldn't have asked Celestia and Luna to create a Constitution. You put that in as a reminder that you're the last word in the government. As a way to remind them they are meant to serve you."

Twilight wanted to speak up. To object to this. She wanted to say it was oversimplifying to an extent, that such an idea was too cynical, but Chrysalis was on a roll. She clearly needed to get this out of her system.

"I will benefit my people and I will rule over them. I will protect them and provide for them. But I won't "Serve" them. That implies I am somehow their equal or their lesser. My very position as Sovereign means I'm superior. And frankly, you don't want an everyday mare on the street to be in charge, my little pony. Because they're stupid. You WANT the best of the best. The elite. The most intelligent, the most brilliant, the most powerful, you want them to be in charge. Not the moron who gets you a salad in a diner."

Chyrsalis moved the Knight she had to the right forward, Luna sighing. "Checkmate." The Queen said, standing up. "Well. I rather enjoyed this spirited little discussion. And such a lovely game." She smirked a bit at Twilight before turning to Luna. "Shall we speak more privately in your study for the moment?"

"I'll be with you shortly, Twilight." Luna offered, Twilight watching Queen Chrysalis and the guards escorting her into the double doored office of the Princess, an unmistakable air to the queen's way of walking. Well, she called it "walking". To Changelings, they might call it walking. To most ponies it would be called "A swagger". And to Twilight, it would be called "being a complete thing I would like to say but am too much of a lady to do so."

She hoped Luna would hurry up with the discussions. There were questions she wanted to ask her. Especially about Night Mare Moon. Twilight had always wanted to know how things had gotten so bad that Luna had allowed herself to be corrupted, and hopefully the Lunar Regent would be able to give her an answer.

In a way though, Twilight couldn't understand it. Why would Luna ever want to try and kill her sister out of pure jealousy alone? It had to have been an outside force influencing her. The idea anyone would turn on their own flesh and blood of hundreds of years from pure jealousy and frustration made absolutely no sense to her.

Then again, Twilight wondered to herself, Gilda had turned on Dash over some stupid pranks she thought Dash had done. And they'd been best friends for years. Sure Gilda hadn't seemed all that good and pure, but perhaps it wasn't so much of a stretch to imagine Luna just outright snapping after years of frustration, finally giving in to the worst her spirit had to offer. How much of it had been here, and how much of it had been Night Mare Moon? What if the evil entity hadn't put something into Luna but had just brought out the latent evil that was already there? Rarity had once been possessed by her, did that mean that she'd had something awful waiting within for a dark touch to bring forth?

Twilight began to wonder if she really wanted to know the answer to that question.

Author's Note

For those wondering, the idea of "Command Theory of Law" was established by John Austin, a 19th century legal scholar. This is where the idea of the Sovereign comes from, an idea obviously influenced by the famous "Leviathan" of Hobbes. Considering both men seemed to have a dim view of human nature, I felt it was fitting for Chrysalis to have it as well.

Still, even a broken clock is right twice a day. And perhaps she's more right than Twilight is willing to admit. Is a monarchy honestly a better choice for a place like Equestria, even if it's a Constitutional monarchy? Would a pure democracy or constitutional republic work better? Or perhaps a communist state, with nobody truly at the head? Perhaps an anarcho-syndicalist commune, with people taking turns to act as executive officer for a week?

And if you get that reference, you get a cookie. ^_^

The Nature of Nightmares

"I hope you weren't...taken in by what Chrysalis had to say."

Luna sat with Twilight in her private office, Princess Luna's hooves upon the desk separating the two as she shook her head back and forth, her mane flopping about a bit. The starry skies within seemed to dim at the very mention of the name "Chrysalis" as Twilight bit her lip. She wanted to be respectful to Princess Luna, yet at the same time, she recognized Luna had a point.

"It's still rather hard for me to not take at least some of what she said seriously. Especially in regards to the idea that her Changelings aren't at an equal starting line when it comes to ponies."

"But do you think all ponies are on an equal starting line? Under the law, yes. In spirit, yes. In practice?" Princess Luna wished to know, holding one hoof up, shaking her head back and forth as Twilight took out her notepad. "I know you don't wish to hear this, but the problem is that some fillies will be born with irresponsible parents, or poor parents. Some will have rich upbringings or awful ones. Some will have to contend with siblings that are abusive and cruel whilst others won't. There's very rarely ever a complete, total equal starting line. The law exists to create a general overall advantage given fairly to everyone so the attempt is made, but the rest simply has to come from individuals. People have to work to get over their inner demons, or reach out to friends and other family when they fall short."

"But you can make more efforts to make sure everyone is entering society on an even keel, can't you?" Twilight wanted to know, a bit confused by this as Luna nodded in agreement.

"Oh, without a doubt. But we can only regulate morality. Our laws can't fully legislate it. We can help remind good people to be good and to not stray towards evil, but they're primarily just that. Reminders. We can only lead our little ponies to water. We cannot make you drink. Speaking of...would you like one?" Luna asked, her horn glowing faintly as a large jug of cider floated over to them, Luna pouring some of its contents into a crystal glass on the desk, Twilight shaking her head. "I must say, my highest of compliments to Applejack's family. This cider's positively divine."

Twilight hesitated anew before speaking up. "Princess Luna, do you believe Chrysalis isn't truly interested in fair play, that she just wants advantages for her species that we ponies don't have? Is that why you're dismissive of her sincerity towards her people?"

"Oh, without a doubt. The truism Chrysalis has about herself that she's at all noble is absolutely asinine." Luna said with a dark frown over her normally calm features. "Her entire motivating factor boils down to guile and deceit in the name of farming others for food. That is petty and cruel, not noble. Or, I've no doubt that when she wants to, she is regal." Luna went on, waving a dismissive hoof in the air, snorting at the mere mention of the word "regal". "She likes to act as though she possesses great moral character of a kind. But that's because she knows this is what great mares have. Let me make this clear, Twilight."

Twilight leaned in at Luna's urging, the Lunar Diarch's voice cold and firm as she spoke. "Chrysalis would tear off the head of a newborn baby and eat it like an apple while its mother watched if it would somehow prove she was better than us."

"...oh my." Twilight finally murmured as Luna leaned back in her chair and steepled her hooves, sighing a bit. "You must think she's pure evil."

"I've had pure evil using my body as its temple. Hijacking me for its own disgusting gain. I'm something of a voice of experience on evil and what it thinks like." Luna admitted, her tone becoming more thoughtful and almost sad. She sighed, and the Princess hung her head. "Even to this day I don't know for sure how Evil was made. I don't know exactly where Night Mare Moon came from, but I've an idea. A good idea, a pretty strong belief, as it were." The Princess admitted. "The Problem of Evil's like an arithmetic sum. There might be a few different ways to solve it, but there's almost always one answer to most sums, and all the other answers are wrong. Even when the other answers are partially right, they're still wrong.

Some cultures, like the Dragons, subscribe to a sort of rival idea on Good and Evil than I and my sister have, Twilight. The idea that the wiser you become, the less you want to call anything good or bad at all. That everything is good in one way and bad in another. You might call a cancer bad because it will kill a pony, but you might just as well call a successful surgeon bad because they kill a cancer. It all depends on your point of view, that's what the dragons believe. It's a view developed by the draconic philosopher Paanthurax. And he thought this way because he viewed the entire universe around him as being part of the fabric of morality. He would look upon a diseased person in a bed or a slum and he would tell others "If only you could see things from the Truest perspective, you would understand that this is how it should be. All things are in there place". In essence, that, to him, would too be God, as it were." Luna admitted with a nod. "It would be Harmony. But...I do not believe this."

"I don't think you would, considering what you went through with Night Mare Moon." Twilight agreed. "I've seen the power of the Elements. Whatever made the world, be it the Elements or something else, I think it's like...an artist." She reasoned. "An artist can be seen in the art they do. They can put a lot of themselves into it. You can glean much from what they've drawn or crafted, but its not the same thing as saying he or she is completely equal to what they do."

"Indeed!" Luna intoned with a sage nod of her head. "And when it comes to Evil, our world is like a body. It was fine, and then it got sick at one point. It went wrong. And evil is that wrongness. I imagine its because of the dual nature of potential." Luna spread her arms wide, gesturing at the office around them, finally settling on a globe of Equus nearby, turning it slowly. "Anything that can be very good can turn very, very evil. A, say, rabbit that goes bad can bite you. But it also won't be much help to you on a farm. But a bull can help you plow the land and tend to it, and if it went wrong, it can trample you, gore you, crush you, do far much worse than a rabbit."

"So what was Night Mare Moon? Where do you think it came from?" Twilight asked, eagerly writing all this down as Luna flinched a bit as memory flashed across her eyes.

"I believe it was manifested, in a sense, by the Elements of Harmony. My sister and I shared the responsibility of using them and they put a tiny portion of kinship with them into both of us. But over time, my petty jealousy and envy of what my sister had led the seed I'd had put in me turn from something that could blossom into a beautiful flower into a disgusting weed. Evil is a weed, Twilight. Wickedness is pursuit of something you see as good but in the wrong way. Badness is good spoiled. It can't exist without good, though good can and does exist without it. After all, look at a shadow."

Luna moved the globe slightly, the light from the window behind her shifting the shadow it cast as she tapped the top. "That shadow wouldn't exist if not for the light source. The light by itself doesn't cast a shadow. Goodness doesn't inherently breed evil."

"But wouldn't there not even be a shadow if it didn't have some object leeching off of it? If there wasn't any globe there, there'd be no shadow."

"But light surrounds us always, Twilight. Even if we cannot always see it." Luna said, her horn glowing softly as the room began to shift and shape, an illusionary spell rising up around them as the night sky was laid bear, stars glittering beautifully as Luna spread her arms wide. "Even in the absolute dark of night, you need only look above, for no matter how a cloud make try to obscure it, there's nothing! NOTHING but light all around us all!" She proclaimed, the moon illuminating her beautifully as she let out a happy laugh, and then the visage faded, Luna plopping down in her chair. "And so the fight against evil becomes clear. We're in enemy-occupied territory, Twilight. We must always be vigilant until the day it's no longer a part of our world."

"So we'll never be cured unless always recovering? That's kind of...depressing." Twilight admitted.

"One day you do recover." Luna said softly. "It will take many years. Perhaps even centuries for our people and our world to bring true peace to the land, and create a realm in which things like Night Mare Moon can never exist. But nothing in life that's worthwhile is easy."

Twilight nodded, closing the notebook and smiling warmly at Princess Luna. "You've been very invaluable to my notes and research, Princess."

"My dear Twilight Sparkle, even I am still learning. In fact, the only thing I know for absolute, 100% certainty is that there's still more to learn."

"Then that means I've got more to learn too." Twilight agreed with a nod of her head. "And I think I'd like to talk to the dragons. Paanthurax sounds like a fascinating philosopher..."

Here There Be Dragons

He calmly laid himself down upon the immense chair they'd brought in and looked her over, golden eyes blinking slowly as he, High Elder Spyrokan of the Draconic City of Hearthstone, looked over the Princess of Friendship. His scales were as brilliant a shade of regal purple as her own fur, a mighty set of golden horns atop his head with powerful, well-toned muscles and a set of wings which had golden rings embedded into singular spike atop them. He calmly nodded at her as she trotted into the room, and Twilight Sparkle floated over a notepad as she sat down to speak.

"I appreciate you coming here. You and the other leaders being here to sign the treaty for the Changelings was a necessity, but you agreeing to my questions wasn't. The fact you're doing it is very kind of you." She admitted with a nod.

High Elder Spyrokan gave a small nod to her and Twilight had to admit she saw a lot of Spike in him. The same kind of chest scales, the color of his body, that smile, the cute tail he had, which was an odd contrast to the rest of his form. She almost wanted to ask, but she decided "not yet" as the High Elder of the Dragons gestured at her. "Many of our races are signing this treaty to apply equal treatment to Changelings under protest. Nevertheless, I believe in second chances, even if I think Queen Chrysalis is a disgusting little bug who should be used for firewood for one of our bonfire nights."

"I think she'd be too greasy to be good firewood." Princess Twilight admitted with a wave of her hoof as Spyrokan let out a laugh, a rich, yet surprisingly airy sound that lilted through the air as he smiled warmly at her.

"Good point. You are quite the wit. You should come to one of our bonfire nights. We erect a gigantic statue of our worst enemies and then set them on fire, we sing, we dance, we drink excessive amounts of alcohol, and we let it all hang out." He informed her. "Which is a welcome change from how we used to do it."

"Which was?"

"First you'd get drunk, then get some goats. What happens next nobody was quite sure, but the death rate got so high we had to make changes."

"I suppose your new way is downright civilized by comparison." Twilight admitted with a nod. "But don't your kind, well...you're famous for not handling drinks well."

"Which is why we also stopped doing bonfires within Hearthstone. Because it kept burning down. Do you know how hard it is for solid granite to burn down?" High Elder Spyrokan remarked with a cringe. "Immensely hard."

"You don't need to necessarily do these bonfires if you're worried they'll hurt you or your cities."

High Elder Spyrokan shook his head. "But my people like it. And I wish for them to be happy. It's really a small thing in the grand scheme of things, but when you get down to it, all of life is made up of these small, tiny moments that give you quiet joys which get you through the day." He told her with a nod of his head. "But come, come. You've no doubt questions about how else my kind rules, given how I heard of your interviews with Celestia and the Queen of the Changelings."

"Yes. How do you contrast your style to, say, the Princesses?"

"Celestia is more an objectivist. I'm more of a relativist. As per the teachings of the draconic philosopher Paanthurax, it's a matter of perspective for most of us." High Elder Spyrokan informed Twilight with a wave of his clawed paw. "She feels the same way about morality that many of us feel about the planet. That there are some facts that are independent of us which make our judgment solidly true or false. If I said the sky was green, my belief would be false because that independent fact that the sky is blue proves me wrong. And to her, moral facts are as much a part of the universe as any other."

"Many ponies feel that way. Moral facts are independent of us and our belief doesn't make something true if the the moral fact says otherwise. It's a fact that slavery and genocide and rape are wrong to us, and other people's beliefs on that subject are irrelevant." Twilight agreed. "It doesn't matter what they believe or think, such things are plainly wrong, as firm a fact of the universe as the sun setting in the west."

"Dragons like myself feel slightly differently." The High Elder informed her as he bowed his head. "I'm not a moral nihilist like...SOME folks at this meeting. CoughcoughChrysalis, coughcough. Oh. My apologies." He remarked. "I meant to say CHRYSALIS." He grunted as Twilight chuckled slightly. "Someone like her doesn't consider slavery to be wrong in the slightest any more than slavery is right. There are no moral facts to her. No moral truths. Whilst someone like me feels that moral facts depend upon beings like us for their existence."

Twilight pursed her lips. "What do you mean?"

"There's a battery of facts about the moral standing of the universe which depend on the standards of our culture. The fact you view slavery as wrong is relative to your current standards, but there's no absolute fact on the matter."

"I think there ARE some moral facts in the world."

"Ah, but a nihilist could turn that on you. Facts about rightness, for example, have the power to motivate us simply in virtue of us forming beliefs about them. But facts independent of our consciousness, they! THEY do not behave that way." The High Elder of the Dragons said as he raised a claw digit in the air, wagging it back and forth. There's nothing motivational associated with, say, forming a belief around the color of the sky. We create moral facts to be motivated to do or avoid something, plain and simple. So they don't exist."

"Oh, but that's so ridiculous!" Twilight said, almost throwing the notepad through the air. "Look at a fire. When we form the belief of "fire bad, do not touch" as ponies, we're motivated to avoid it, yes! But that doesn't mean the facts about the fire aren't facts about the world that are independent of us! That flame will still burn us regardless of whether we judge it or not."

"Hence why my species are more relativists. Let's take the example of Chrysalis. You think what about her? Be honest. Truthful." He inquired as he steepled his hands and Twilight sighed, shaking her head back and forth, putting a hoof to her forehead.

"I want to whack her over the head until her horn pops out for what she did." She admitted.

"And I want to, as previously stated, use her for firewood. To my kind, both of us are right. We both have different ideas of punishment, but the idea she should be punished remains." High Elder Spyrokan replied. "But it can be hard to tell what is right and what is wrong. Nobody is morally infallible. So everything is relative."

"That's your argument?" Twilight wanted to know, raising an eyebrow up. "That boils down to "Since we can't know a fact easily, then there must not be a fact to be known". I don't think people like Starswirl the Bearded said "Oh, well, researching this type of dimensional magic is so tricky and near-impossible to wrap my brain around, so it must not be real". Just because something is difficult to understand or think about doesn't make it either untrue or nonexistent!"

"True, but there's another reason why we feel the way we do. "The argument from charity"." The purple dragon informed her, taking a sip from a large goblet of wine on a nearby table as Twilight kept writing down notes in her notepad. "Every culture has different and conflicting moral norms. If there is an objective fact of right and wrong, good and bad, then this means many cultures are completely mistaken about their own moral claims. That's uncharitable at best and implausible at worst."

"So you adopt the stance that every culture, every species, every race is right in their moral judgments because their ideas of right and wrong are relative to their own norms and there's no universal set of norms by which to evaluate them all?" Twilight inquired. "But look at the scientific beliefs cultures used to hold. Many of them are just dead wrong about how things work. And saying as much isn't being unfair, it's, in a way, being kind. Because it's better to be honest about someone being wrong than to keep lying to them. And why can't the same be for moral truths? They're out there, it's just going to take a lot of effort to figure it out, and many people will get it wrong at first."

"Which is why your species is objectivist for the most part?" Spyrokan asked with a smile. "But aren't you worried about the problems that come with this? If you enforce your moral facts unwavering and unflinchingly, then your commitment to moral objectivity turns into arrogance, intolerance. Even fascism, if taken too far."

"Anything taken too far is too much." Twilight reasoned. "That's why we have our Constitution. To place reasonable limitations up. But it's also hard for our own species to be relativists when we command the literal elements of Harmony, when the spirit of Friendship itself literally shielded our kind from the Wendigos...and hey!" She added with a smile. "We're now friends with the literal spirit of Chaos and Disharmony. Those things all seem like part of a moral fabric of the universe to me."

"They may now. But in time you may change your mind." High Elder Spyrokan intoned. "Remember, nearly everyone is the hero of their own story, everyone believes their way is right and good and just to a degree. And their beliefs are sincere."

"But can't those beliefs be wrong?"

"True, but they could just as easily be right. Which is why my kind has to take a more relative stance, and be more open-minded. To a degree. Our basic goal is peace, Twilight, when you get right down to it. But we're nobody's fools." He added with a small chuckle. "And if Chrysalis tries anything against my kind, I will pick my teeth using her horned skull as my toothpick." The High Elder swore.

Twilight had no doubt he meant it, and she nodded. "Thank you for your time, High Elder."

"Thank YOU. You've been taking good care of one of my favorite grandsons." The leader of the Dragons added, Twilight's mouth slightly falling open.

"R-Really? He's one of yours?" She asked. "Wow! That's...wait. Why'd you give him up, then?"

The High Elder sighed, head hung. "It is...personal. Sometimes in life you don't have the ability to...to care properly. To be there for those you love. Sometimes you need to take extreme measures in the desperate hope that things will work out for the best. I'm just glad that for Spike, it did." He murmured. "Celestia was...very kind to me."

"Does she do that for a lot of dragons?"

"Yes. It was her idea to set up an adoption system. Things are not nearly as bad as when I was young, we do not need to set up as many as we once did for adoption. We are more responsible in how we make love."

"Does your race even have the Milk of the Poppy needed to perform...THAT?" She asked. "I know abortion is a touchy subject for many species."

"We didn't use to have any, Hearthstone's atmospheric environment didn't allow for the flower to be planted. Luckily we developed underground flora repositories. Now we are free to grow any fruits and vegetables and herbs we want." The High Elder remarked. "Especially grapes. We have fallen in love with grapes."

"Grapes are fun." Twilight admitted. "So, um...who was Spike's mother?"

Spyrokan blushed heavily. "I-er, that is, I would rather not say. It's VERY personal to me."

Twilight pursed her lips slightly. She wondered if...no, it couldn't be. Could it? Probably not. Celestia would have told her if-

"Perhaps you'd like to get to the Farmer's Market for some grapes?" She decided aloud.

"I would like that."

Speaking with the Enemy: The Shadow Lord

Twilight cringed as she looked over the jailer. Being down in Tartarus was a most unpleasant and unenjoyable experience, from the way the air was hot and heavy like somebody breathing directly down your neck to the uncomfortable feeling of the stone floors. They felt like manacles made of stone, as if eager to grab hold of you, pull you down and hold you there, and the infinite blackness that imitated the sky above didn't help. Burning torches lit the winding pathway to the cells where her new interviewees lay, and she hated the idea of being down here longer than she had to.

But she had work to do and she wasn't going to put it off simply because she thought the place was creepy. Not even because the jailer was more disturbing still, who now held her first interviewee from Tartarus within him.

The Huntsman. A "Cosmo Sapien". An alien being of immense power, a living galaxy with horrific hunger. Celestia and Luna had fairly defeated him in combat many years ago when he was young and rather inexperienced, and, in keeping with his people's ways, he had offered up anything they wanted. They had asked for somebody to keep watch over their worst criminals, and he had agreed full-heartedly. After all...it meant he could eat repeat offenders.

He was beautiful in a dark and terrifying way. Very well-toned muscles over a starry-bodied form, clawed digits instead of toes or fingers or hooves, with a set of horns that curved atop his head. Three gems shone out in the center of his forehead, more brightly than the faintly glowing orb necklace he possessed, made of, evidently, crystalized planets. That was his species idea of jewelry: the deaths of entire worlds. Waste not. Want not. His face was noseless, his eyes a bright, faintly glowing trojan blue, haunting and ethereal as his voice, which radiated power, he was both soft and dark, gentle and horrifying.

He spoke calmly as he bowed at her, spear of cosmic matter in one clawed hand. "You want the Shadow Lord?"

Sombra. King Sombra the "Shadow Lord", an "umbrum", a living shadow. He'd been chosen, as the son of the mother of all Living Shadows, to represent his species now that they'd been captured by the Council of Races's forces thanks to Celestia and Luna's hard work. He would help negotiate for his kind, which made sense. He'd lived among ponies as a simple unicorn for decades until his turn to evil. Most of the other Umbra had no experience at all.

Twilight was going to speak to him before that, though. She held her notebook aloft in the air next to her, the Huntsman looking her anxious face over. "Do I frighten you? You think I'll hurt you and that I'd be able to get away with it since we're the only two down here besides Cerberus?" He inquired, gesturing at the nearby Cerberus, the three-headed dog calmly resting his heads over his paws, giving the trapped-at-a-cell-nearby, red-skinned Tirek a dirty look.

"Well, I...your very nature is frightening to me. I can't even begin to imagine what it would be like if the entire galaxy we lived in was sentient, aware of every move we make. I mean, doesn't that sort of thing kind of...destroy free will?" She asked him.

"No. Because a being like myself is, in essence, giving up omnipotence,or rather, a portion of it, to put it into every living thing within me." The Huntsman intoned gently, putting a clawed hand on his chest. "I work through them, I feel what they feel and suffer what they endure. Through this, I can live a more better life. Through this, you feel a greater happiness and a more fuller splendour than anything. Just because I know what a person is about to do it doesn't mean I can force them to do anything. That WOULD be removing free will. But people aren't machines."

"Though in some ways they'd be better off." A cold, almost amused voice rang out from within the Huntsman's starry chest as the alien being frowned.

"It would appear he's aware of you. You wish to speak to him now, Princess Twilight?" The Huntsman inquired.

Twilight nodded, the Huntsman carefully concentrating as Sombra slid out, magical manacles still on his limbs to keep him from using magic, the black-haired pony now in normal, brown prisoner rags and with those same piercing eyes. Green, with red pupils, staring darkly, his jaws slightly fanged, his body well-built and powerful, a fine specimen of unicorn indeed. It was almost a shame, Twilight thought to herself. She'd read his journal, at one point he'd just been a sweet little colt who had few friends due to being an orphan and always being sickly. His encounter with the "Mother Crystal" combined with the revelation that the Princess of the Crystal Empire, Cadence's ancestor, knew exactly what he was and didn't tell him, had made him go bad. If he'd just been ignorant-

"What good, I ask you, Twilight Sparkle, is freedom? Is knowledge? Isn't ignorance so much better in so many ways? Isn't just being silent and not upsetting the boat so much more preferable?" King Sombra inquired. "If I'd never known the truth, I would have lived a normal, probably happy life in quite a few ways. I would have married Radiant Heart...started a family. Sure, I would never be able to attend the Crystal Fair." He admitted with a wave of his hoof and for a brief moment he seemed to waver, his tone becoming saddened before he refocused. "But it would no doubt be far better for everyone else than even for me. Free will is so laughable. I had no chance once the truth came out."

"You had a choice." Twilight insisted. "You could have said "no". You could have asked the Princess for help."

"The ILLUSION of choice is not a choice. Let us be honest. We are a horror to this world not because of how we're made, how we're born It's because of our abuse of what we think is free will." King Sombra told Twilight with an accusing hoof.

"And that justifies you not just enslaving ponies, but breaking their minds? Torturing them? For decades?!" She snapped. "Old, young, mare, colt, filly?!"

"You must be a strong believer in democracy, Twilight Sparkle. I used to be too." King Sombra remarked. "In many ways, I still am. But for a different reason than you. It isn't because I think all of us are so good that we all deserve a share in the government. It's because we're all so foolish and fallen that almost none of us could be trusted with power over others. I wouldn't want the average mare in the street running a lemonade stand, let alone a country. For the average colt and mare is stupid. Or are you going to argue otherwise? That they're not easily frightened fools who've no idea what's really best for them most of the time?"

Twilight gave him a "harumph" as Sombra gave her a sickening, mocking smile. "You think I'm at least partially right. That is why you can't bring yourself to answer. You've no doubt seen how quick ponies are to panic."

"You've wasted so much of your life on trying to control other ponies. And I think I know why. You hate the idea you have so little control over your own life." The Huntsman suddenly remarked, Sombra flinching at this as if struck over the face. "You hate that your duty was thrust on you by the Mother Crystal and you had to embrace it without any real choice. You hate the idea that people cannot change their destiny, so you have to somehow get hold of what little control you can over Life itself by forcing other ponies to bend to your will. That allows you to thumb your noses at the Heaven's, to say "Damn you, I control the wills of all, not you". To show that Fate has no power over you."

"He's right. For somebody who loved instilling fear in others, you're scared. Scared of not being in control. Of not knowing your destiny. And I think I'm a little sad." Twilight admitted. "You could have used your powers to be a wonderful king. But you decided to play the role that was given to you instead of improvising."

"As I said, that was an illusion of choice. It's not merely a matter of fate most of the time, Twilight Sparkle. I had no control over my being an orphan, yet I was teased relentlessly for it. I couldn't control being sick just being near the Crystal Heart. All that was my environment, and we cannot truly control that." Sombra spoke, his tone becoming softer, more refined. "You can't control who you get as a teacher in school. Cannot control the type of workers you'll have. If you're born with a defect, you can't truly keep others who know about it from insulting you for it. Our environment takes away much of that choice. If you're born poor-"

"Hey now! Many ponies can raise themselves up if they really work hard!" Twilight reasoned. "I know SOME Ponies can work their entire lives and never rise above the stations society crafts, but many can!"

"But many can't." Sombra said, shaking his head back and forth. "Because some ponies, as you may know, will be born with rich parents and others will be born without them. They will inherently have more choice than others. You want an equal starting line for us all? I created it. I created order."

"You created a dictatorship. You made a pyramid and put yourself on top."

"And why not? If someone is good enough, they deserve to be on top. And you can't let anything get in the way. Certainly not any sense of morality. A true leader can't allow himself to be swayed by the capricious influence of compassion or mercy. He has to be as moral as a hurricane." Sombra told her, waving a dismissive hoof in the air, frowning slightly. "You must act as a utilitarian."

"Doing the most good for the most people?" Twilight wanted to know. "I don't see how enslaving the Crystal Empire is "doing the most good for the most people"."

"When someone is at the top, they control all and that includes the people. They become extensions of yourself. Under my reign, there was no crime, no hunger. They were miserable, but I kept them fed well enough and alive unless they tried to rebel. And very few did, knowing what I could do." Sombra said with a small, dark smile as Twilight shuddered at his gaze. "In the long run, isn't that better? Being without crime and hunger is something your own rulers desire. But they won't go far enough. Their Constitution holds them back from making meaningful change."

"I can understand your point, but it's disgusting." The Huntsman muttered darkly. "My own species is quite utilitarian because of our very nature. We view ourselves and what we do as doing the most good for the most people, for the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few. If a few worlds have to perish to ensure a galaxy survives, it's unfortunate. Even cruel. But necessary."

Sombra looked amused by this, giving the alien being a raised eyebrow. "So then why do you disagree with me, pray tell?"

"Because it's still cruel. Just because it would do the most good doesn't make it right. It might have been smart to simply murder you, given how easily you can hurt others, and how willing you'd be. But that would not necessarily make it "right"." The Huntsman said with a simple shake of his head.

"Spike's always reading about "The Mane-Iac" in his comics, and she's killed so, so many in his stories. But the heroines never, ever put an end to her not just because it would mean she wins, and not just because they're worried about some slippery slope." Twilight insisted, shaking her head back and forth, pointing at the Shadow Lord. "It's because it's just plain wrong to murder someone."

"Is killing someone in a fight "murder"? If I had my horn at your beloved little Spike's throat and was inches from slitting it, would it be so wrong to shoot a bolt of lightning?" Sombra whispered, leaning in close. "Think of it. His lifeblood slowly drips from my horn, I'm seconds from driving it in deep, feeling the KRAK that signifies his neck is shattered. You can end it with a thought. Save your precious little dragon. Why hesitate?" He crooned. "Why not strike me down?"

Twilight felt like she was burning up inside, her body lit up like a bonfire, tiny stabbing knives digging into her fur. She hesitated briefly, before getting out "That's not...it still wouldn't feel right."

"Feel". Feel right. I told you, Twilight." Sombra spoke as he stepped back, shaking his head. "A true leader must be moral as a hurricane. And he can't make decisions based on how he might "feel". But on what he knows is best. Cold reason and the Will to make it happen. Until your kind learns to sacrifice some of its freedoms and give more power than your Princesses have even now? You won't be able to make your society truly perfect."

For a long time, Twilight seemed to just stare at him. She looked like she wasn't sure what to say, but then Sombra's smirk faded as she spoke.

"We don't want our society perfect."

She shook her head.

"We just want our people to be happy."

"Your naivity is staggering. Nothing will change until you start putting your hoof down." Sombra snorted, looking away.

"How would you know? Putting your hoof down was the first and only thing you ever did. You wouldn't know how our way works because you never truly tried it." Twilight said, closing her notebook as the Huntsman led the head-held-mockingly-high Sombra away.

"And I wish you had." She thought sadly. "Because you could have been a good king if you truly tried."

Speaking with the "Enemy": Discord

"So how were you actually born?"

Twilight was not quite used to how Discord managed to so thoroughly take the laws of time and space, bend them over and make them squeal like a pig. Even for a mare who'd seen countless magical marvels, the things Discord did didn't just defy all logic and sensibility, they were weird in how they defied all logic and sensibility. Pinkie Pie's odd "Pinkie Sense" happened whenever something odd was about to go down or something was seconds from squishing her. But it functioned on it's own kind of logic, to a point.

Yet Discord? What logic could there be in suddenly pulling out various umbrellas from his pocket along with a pair of sunglasses and a glass of lemonade? What made what he did work? How did he work? And why?

"I really actually am not entirely sure. As I said, I remember things differently. Some days, one way. Some days another." Discord remarked as he leisurely sipped from the lemonade, sitting in midair on a floaty he'd somehow made appear. Odder still, they'd somehow ended up inside of a large pool he'd pulled out from his "pockets", and Twilight had to cast a spell to form an air bubble around her and Discord. Or rather, she'd wanted to. But somehow, she was able to breathe perfectly and the notebook she had wasn't getting wet one iota as Discord just smiled knowingly at her. "One thing I do remember is how the first pony told me how Equestria was born. First came the Elements of Harmony, born from the seed of new Life. And then all other good things followed thereafter, like a giant oak growing from the little acorn that was the Elements." He informed her.

"How'd it get here? Did this "First Pony" tell you?"

"The exceedingly lovely Ms. Faust, as she called herself, said a gigantic white hand placed itself upon the Earth and then removed it, leaving behind the Elements and she, the first pony, was born to help protect them and watch them grow the new life this world would create." Discord said as he clapped his hands, and the pool vanished. He then blinked his eyes before turning to the side, and light shone from out of his eyelids onto a nearby large rock. Now Twilight could see a film playing out, seeing through Discord's eyes as he spoke with what had to be the most adorably beautiful-looking pony she'd ever seen. She was very young, that much was obvious, with eyes as starlight and hair that flowed freely like a summer breeze. Her tone was maternal and lighthearted as she chatted with Discord, gesturing around at various other species who were all gathered about the Elements as they shone high in the sky over what Twilight almost instantly recognized as Canterlot. Or at least, a more primitive version of it. Though the materials were crude wood and plant texture woven together into a unique frame, the structures were the same, she could recognize the towers from a mile away.

"And that's where they sprouted up. Then bit by bit, the others sort of...popped into existence from the Elements." Faust admitted as she gestured with her hooves. "It was like firecrackers whizzing through the air, and when they slammed together in an explosion of color and light, I could hear music splashing across the sky, and then down, down onto the ground came each of these critters!"

"Well how did those Elements get here, my dear?"

"It was put down there. Don't know why the giant wanted it there, but...there it was. I have to admit, I didn't see your birth. Where'd you come from?"

"Not...quite sure. It's all fuzzy to me. I think I can remember a goat, some tequila and a drunk cat, but beyond that..."

Faust laughed. "You're funny! But you don't look too hot right now."

Discord's voice was somewhat strained as he nervously coughed. "Yes, I, uh...well, I feel...very odd when I'm close to the Elements. Did that giant who put them down say anything about them?"

"Just that they'd give life to this world. He asked me and my little ponies I'd make to try and care for the world and to embody the best the Elements offered. Said he was trying to see Life play out in "Microcosm" to prove it's inherent goodness."

"...inherent goodness, eh?"

Discord then blinked, and the video finished as he turned back to Twilight and chuckled. "That's when I first got the inkling to be the bee in everyone's bonnet. It would be hilarious! I didn't need anyone else telling me what my purpose was. If she felt that was what her and her kind were meant to do, more power to her, but I? No, see...I figured something out." He tapped the side of his head as his sunglasses and cup vanished, and he walked over to a nearby cell with a tarp over it, making Twilight blink.

"Wait, who's in there?"

"Oh. We have a very bad apple. Your dear friend Night Mare Moon, that horrible spirit is currently undergoing what I like to call "reconditioning"." The Huntsman spoke up from the side. "Mr. Discord agreed to assist us. I was quite surprised." The starry-bodied being intoned as he held a clawed hand up to the tarp, ready to remove it. "It involves programming meant to instill certain...feelings into you. And certain desires. It acts as a deterrent to criminals far more superior than incredibly long jail times or the death penalty."

"Yes, because just half an hour of this is more effective than any torture could be." Discord chuckled as he began to giggle, trying to surpress mad laughter.

"Why, what's she watching?" Twilight asked sincerely as the jailer removed the tarp, the helmeted fiend that was Night Mare Moon now sitting in a chair, watching a screen as a film played before her. Her deep blue eyes were wide as saucers, flowing mane now flopped almost to the ground as she tugged at her eyelids, sobbing incoherently.

"Freddy Got Fingered." Discord explained.

"Daddy would you like some sausage? Daddy would you like some sau-sag-es? Daddy would you like some sausage?"

The Huntsman nodded sagely. "It is extraordinarily effective."

"SAUSAGES! SAUSAGES!" Night Mare Moon screamed out.

"I don't even think Night Mare MOON deserves that." Twilight murmured as she looked over at Discord with a slight frown. "I have to ask. Is that really all you are? Just making trouble for other people in the name of getting your jollies? That's so...hedonistic. So lacking. So unfulfilling."

"To somebody like you, yes. From your point of view, my life no doubt seems empty." Discord said as he put a hand on his chest, dramatically swooning. "Oh woe! Prithee, forsooth! My life art empty without the sanguine grace of Harmony! Fetcheth the reptile!"

"Be serious!" Twilight groaned, rolling her eyes as Discord calmly put the tarp back on to muffle Night Mare Moon's screams as he began searching through another "pocket", pulling out a...black circle? "Wait. Is that a hole? Why do you have a hole in your pocket?"

"I fixed it to keep my mind from wandering." He remarked as he slid his hand into it, pulling out several letters which he began to arrange in front of Twilight. A trumpet noise loudly proclaimed his success as she read the word, pursing her lips as she held a hoof up.

"Existentialism?"

"Yes, my little pony. Those like yourself may say that people have a purpose in life decided in advance by either a God, or by Nature or some great Force like...say..." He gesticulated with his hands, waving them about. "The Elements of Harmony! But I reject this view. I'm not an atheist. I mean, how can I be with all I've seen? No, the fact a person might believe in the power of Harmony doesn't change the fact that the meaning of life and the state of the world is an entirely personal affair. There's no real comfort you can find in trying to seek a divine plan or using destiny as an excuse for why something has occurred. No, existence precedes essence, my dear."

Discord sat down in midair, wagging a clawed digit back and forth. "People like you, people like me, we are born. Then, through our actions, our decisions, we construct what makes us "us". Whether we are good or bad or funny or stupid, whether we're an absolute delight, or a total buzzkill!" He stroked his heard, winking at her with his yellow, red-pupiled eyes and smiling broadly. "And I'm not saying your genetics play a role either. No, only we determine what we are. Our personality isn't predetermined. And I don't truly believe in fate. Not really. There are no clear answers on why we're here or why we die. We're all abandoned in the universe, and the fact we must all one day die limits our freedom." He sighed, hanging his head. "That...that is the greatest tragedy of all."

"No offense, but that sort of life kind of still sounds empty." Twilight admitted. "It sort of sounds like you don't have any reason to exist. If there's not any kind of entity or divine force or anything to give you at least some idea of what to do with your life, or if you think that all life is so limited by the prospect of death, then it sort of makes life seem...lesser. Being abandoned with no idea what to, with no idea what will or could happen beyond "You're going to die" is just so...heartless."

"You need to look at it from a different perspective." Discord said, his sad face turning literally upside down as he smiled. "Do you know of the Minotaur culture?"

"Yes. I know of King Minos and of their race quite extensively. Why?" Twilight asked as she scratched her head, Discord putting his own head back on normally as he walked over to the rock he'd been broadcasting his memory on. He began quickly cutting and clawing into it before, at last, it was a perfectly smooth sphere, and he patted it with one hand.

"There is a legend they have. The myth of Sisyphus. He supposedly managed to trick Death itself into tying itself up with the very chains he used to keep hold of wicked souls! And for this crime, after weeks of nobody being able to die, they finally discovered he was behind it all. And for his punishment, he was condemned to roll a rock up a mountain every single day. Rolling, rolling, rolling. Keep that doggy rolling! And then the rock would fall aaaaaaaaaaall the way down the other side, and he'd have to roll it back up again." Discord explained to Twilight as he patted the rock he was resting on now. "It was futile and hopeless labor. Every day, pushing the rock up the hill over and over again."

"Not being able to die doesn't sound so bad." Twilight admitted.

"If a person is chronically ill, lying in a hospital bed, unable to feel anything but pain, or in a totally comatose state, their mind long gone...wouldn't it be kinder to kill them?" The Huntsman asked of her, his tone soft and sad as Twilight bit her lip.

"Okay, well...maybe there's some cases when it'd be okay."

"Or imagine. Somebody having their head cut off and not being able to die. Or having arrows sticking out of every body part, yet not being able to die. Does that sound like a life they'd want to keep having?"

"Well when you put it like THAT!" Twilight gulped. "Did that actually happen?"

"Yes, it did." Discord said. "And needless to say, people were panicking. Cities were burning because it had become "Night of the Living Dead". And so Sisyphus got what he deserved."

"A life without meaning? That's still...so sad." Twilight murmured, shaking her head back and forth, waving a hoof in the air. "If I had to do that sort of thing every day, I might kill myself! Why didn't Sisyphus try to?"

"Because he came to understand something. Something I came to understand too." Discord said as he pointed at the floating word "Existentialism" as it kept hovering in the air. "Existentialism asks us to accept and face the absurdness of life. To embrace it. Sisyphus accepts his lot in life. He walks down that hill to get the rock and roll it up again, and in doing so, becomes stronger than his rock. He doesn't reject what he's been given. Doesn't despair or think he can escape it. He owns up to what's been thrust on him and decides only he will decide it's value. Because he says "Yes" to his impossible task and does it every day, he becomes happy." Discord said as he put a hand on his chest and smiled. "And because I say "yes" and welcome the absurdity of everything around me, because I embrace the odd, the chaotic, and the crazy...I am happy too. It's the continuous struggle that's important. And by continuing to struggle, you give your life meaning."

Twilight blinked slowly at this, lips slightly pursing as she tilted her head to the side, the purple pony going "Huh. Didn't think about it like that."

"But of course, having friends allows me to experience even more joy. A joy I didn't know was possible. And perhaps I'm a hypocrite, but having friends has become, to me, a meaning of sorts as to why Life is here. We can all bring meaning to each other's lives just by being friends with each other. One hour with Fluttershy, just the two of us together..." Discord leisurely leaned back in midair, hands behind his head as he wistfully sighed. "It means more than a hundred days worth of nonstop chaos. And we don't even need to do much. I know it might not last. I know she will no doubt grow old and die long before I perish, but..." He shrugged. "I say "yes" to what I've been given, and I feel blessed by what I have. And that little bit I have makes me happy. Being with her makes me happy. And life doesn't need to be any more complicated than that, to tell you the truth."

"Just being with...hmm." Twilight scratched her head, then turned to the Huntsman. "I THINK I know what you were getting at before, with Celestia. Are you saying she does what she does for us because she feels happy having us like her? That she views us as her friends and that's why she always tries to be there for us?"

"Close, yes. Celestia connects with all of you not by rejecting her innate skills and powers, but by embracing them. In using her knowledge and her wisdom to better the lives of others, she feels satisfied and at peace. Our truly greatest fear isn't that we're inadequate. It's that we're powerful beyond measure. It's the light, not the dark, that frightens us. The idea that we can truly do anything we want, that we're amazing, intelligent, beautiful creatures with so much potential, THAT is what terrifies us all. The idea that "If I act like this, I will stand out too much, others will become intimidated, afraid or nervous around me"."

"So Celestia instead uses that power and doesn't shy away from it. Along with her altruism, there's a sense of self-awareness and an understanding that in helping others, she helps herself. In doing what she does, she feels like one of her little ponies. She feels like she belongs when she's acting as our benevolent matriarch. Like she's part of the family, our dearest friend. Being the Princess helps her feel fulfilled." Twilight reasoned, quickly scribbling down in her notebook. "I suppose we all sort of do that. We want to belong. We want to have friends. So we try to do what we know makes others happy, and when we see they're happy, we hope they'll like us too."

"It's an innocent, sort of childlike desire. But it's understandable." The Huntsman admitted. "People just want to be loved. Even living embodiments of Chaos."

Discord looked slightly away. "Yes, well, don't go spreading that little truth bomb about. I don't want the fillies back home thinking I've got completely soft."

"SEMEN! EVERYWHERE!" Night Mare Moon's wail came out from inside the tarp.

"She might need to be brought back down to Earth with some "Fillary Brothers" films. Maybe "Shallow Hinny" or "There's Something About Marey"?"

"Why them?"

"Because she needs to watch something less stupid, but I know her brain would get whiplash if I tried to make her go cold turkey with a showing of "12 Angry Mares"." Discord said with a shrug.

"Oh, I LOVE that one!" Twilight proclaimed, clasping her hooves together, beaming broadly. "Can you do that eyeball trick and give us a showing?"

"Well...why not?" Discord said as he gave her a deep bow. "What are friends for?"

Does Evil Believe in God?

"Do you have a religion?"

Twilight had been wanting to ask this question of her "volunteers" for the book for quite some time. And she wanted to find out the truth. She knew that asking about people's religion could be a deeply personal subject, but she simply couldn't help it. She wanted to know, and so she held her quill up, eyes forward, face solemn as she looked over her interviewee.

"My experiences with it were not helpful to me." Tirek remarked calmly as he folded his arms over his chest and gave her an amused look, his dark eyes glittering like coals. "I take no interest in such things. Churchgoing brings different classes and psychologies together. It brings about unity and understanding, a shared idea and sense of belonging. I've no need for that. If I wanted to join a club, I would. I tried to go to several in my younger days. Both disappointed me. I expected more."

"How so?"

Tirek laid back in his cell, calmly thinking, memory flickering before his eyes. "The first was run by a vicar who had been so long engaged in watering down faith in the Elements of Harmony. All for the sake of a supposedly incredulous and hard-headed congregation, so much so that he soon became the one shocking parishioners with unbelief, not the other way around. He wanted to spare all of them the difficulties of the teachings of Harmony, so he got rid of the proper lectures, the psalms, all that had real meaning and it devolved into just his fifteen favorite psalms and twenty favorite lessons in the most adorable little church you've ever seen." He said, clear mocking distaste in his deep voice before he chuckled coldly. "It would have been funny if I didn't find it so pathetic."

Twilight didn't find it funny. She found it sad. The idea that someone who's life was suppsoed to be built around teaching the Elements of Harmony to others and all the good they represented, the idea that they'd become so numb to it all that it was just rote memorization? That was horrifying to her. How could anyone care so little about something so important and so meaningful? "And the other?" She asked with a quiet frown on her features.

"Ah, yes. Dearest Father Abbadon." Tirek said with a big, toothy grin, stroking his beard. "His congregation was always so very puzzled as to the range of his opinions. One day it seemed like he was advocating for communism, the next day he was a full on theocratic fascist. One day he would be intelligent, scholastic and reasonable, the next day he'd be fiery, passionate and foolish. I, of course, recognized one thing ran constant in his sermons, and it was hatred. Ohhhh...how I LOVED that, at first." Tirek said with a smile. "Hatred. He couldn't bring himself to preach anything that wasn't calculated to shock, grieve, puzzle, or humiliate. He could drive his own parishoners to suicide if he wanted to. But there was one fatal defect he had in him."

The smile faded. "He really, really believed in the Elements. And that ruined it all. I couldn't stay and hear him speak of such things. Not when I knew, deep down, he was a true believer in that rot."

"Why do you call it "rot"? The Elements are real. They're powerful, they're immensely helpful-"

"They're a pathetic crutch, a replacement for true power." Tirek snorted. "They're not uniquely yours. They're something you're all sharing, not the true power unlocked from within. I had that true power. I am a self-made man. I made my own destiny."

"Oh yes, and how'd that work out for you, I wonder?" The Shadow Lord mused aloud as Twilight informed him of what Tirek had said, Sombra laughing uproariously at this. "Oh, how amusing. He, who steals other's powers, thinks that that is somehow a gift unique to him that makes him special. He's a pathetic little parasite."

"Did you have any religion in the Crystal Empire? Before or after you took power?" Twilight inquired as she wrote down on her notepad, tilting her head slightly to the side as Sombra calmly drank from a goblet he'd been given.

"I used to believe." Sombra admitted. "I believed in an Almighty God, in fact. In the idea that whoever put down the Elements of Harmony onto our world continued watching over us, caring for us. And I believed I could see him whenever I-" He trailed off, but Twilight knew what he'd been about to say.

"Whenever you looked at Radiant Hope?"

Sombra looked slightly away, his face set like stone before he finally spoke up.

"Do you want to know why I decided I no longer believed? You were right before. I wanted to have control over others to feel I controlled my own life. I began to feel that Life itself had patterns and systems you were forced into. That you were put on a railroad without any control over where you went. And that nobody was really looking out for you. Certainly not any God." He went on with a sigh. "I was just a child when I learned of what I was going to do. When I first got a hint of my true nature. I was too frightened to talk to anyone about what I'd seen. I wanted guidance. But I didn't get anything that really put my soul at ease. I got told something that essentially destroyed my life." He chuckled quietly, shaking his head.

"I mean, don't get me wrong. I tried to destroy the Crystal Heart in secret. I thought maybe if I could do that, I could keep being with Radiant Heart and nobody would be the wiser. But it didn't quite work out that way."

"You think that not being magically given answers means there's no God?" Twilight asked.

"Is it any less reasonable to ask when the Elements themselves grant you and your friends such power? Or how the Crystal Heart has such might? Let me ask you this. Why does Evil exist?" Sombra inquired, waving a hoof in the air. "Why, if any God exists, is evil allowed to exist? You could possibly make the argument that terrible things are needed in this world in order to be overcome, perhaps to bring others together. But you don't need that to bring others together. You don't have to bond over the loss of your parents or your home. You don't need some great monster to overcome in life. What does that really do? Give you a decent story to tell your fillies and your little foals?"

He snorted. "Yes, I'm sure the hundreds that the hydra killed before you finally did it in with your friends would appreciate that. "Sorry you had to be digested alive, but we needed these ponies to learn a lesson about how if they work together, they can do anything". I don't buy it. If God truly existed, he's a monster for allowing evil to exist."

"Maybe it's something that has to exist in order for Good to be defined." Twilight reasoned. "I mean, you don't know what a crooked line is if you don't know what a straight line is. A blind man would never know what color is because he's never seen anything."

"But does there need to be so much of it?"

"Maybe there isn't as much as you think." Twilight said. "I mean, being sad or unhappy is bad, but it's not inherently evil." She remarked. "Because at least when you're sad, you can also be happy about it, because it means you care so much about something. And it's better to care about something and have your heart broken than to not care at all. Apathy's a terrible thing to have. And our world isn't that awful. Not really." She went on, shaking her head. "There's so much beauty in the world. So much love and kindness. And to me, that means everything. But evil?" She shook her head. "Do you think it truly brings anything to the world?"

Sombra raised an eyebrow. "Not really."

"Then it doesn't have any value. So evil things have no value, but good things do. Then doesn't that mean, ultimately, that in the big picture, it doesn't matter if bad things happen, because whatever good things that happen in your life will always make Life worth it? Aren't you glad you got to know Radiant Hope even though you couldn't stay with her?"

Sombra placed his hooves together in his lap, and he thought about this. "...perhaps you're wiser than I thought." He admitted. "But I still doubt we truly have free will. Especially now that I've gotten chances to talk with Discord."

"What do you mean by that?"

"Well, if you want to know if I believe, I've met several Gods. MANY, MANY Gods and Goddesses." Discord remarked as he sipped on some chocolate milk from a large glass before swishing it around, sitting on midair as he stroked a...well...

"And what is that in your lap?"

"Leonard. Half kitten, half monkey!" He proclaimed, Leonard "meowing" as he scratched at his chest, sticking his lips out in a puffy way. "He likes to be scratched behind the ears."

"So you believe in multiple Gods and Goddesses?"

"Oh, I think they're quite real. But I believe they're all ultimately useless to an extent. As, in a sense, am I." He remarked with a wave of his hand. "You see, the multiverse is truly terrifying when you actually begin to think about it. The existence of infinite dimensions makes free will obliterated."

"How so?"

"Think about it. In another dimension, there is a you. A you who is making choices similar to your own. And in another dimension, there's another you. And another, and another, an infinite amount of Twilights! And if there's so, so many dimensions, so many people, then...what point is there to it?" Discord asked. Leonard began looking uneasy, glancing from Twilight to Discord.

Twilight scratched her head. She didn't like where this was going. "Huh? What do you mean?"

"With the existence of so many dimensions, I came to realize that every decision you make is already made." Discord said as he scratched in midair, little Twilights of chalk being drawn as they did things like scrubbing themselves in the bath, or jumping rope, or eating breakfast. "Every choice is played out in a parallel universe. So your life becomes meaningless. It doesn't matter what you do. Every choice you could ever make's already been made, so you've no responsibility for any of your decisions! It's not your free will making a choice, the choice is going to make itself!"

Twilight scratched her head, frowning slightly. "Wait a minute. It matters in YOUR dimension, doesn't it?"

"But does it?" Discord inquired, Leonard now writing down equations on a notepad of his own, looking panicked, sweating visibly. "Because not only is every decision you make played out, every decision that ALL of us make is played out. So, now an infinite number of dimensions are being played out, with billions upon trillions of people making choices. So many versions of you making so many decisions that ultimately, the decisions you make are truly futile. It doesn't matter if you made a choice that saved or damned the world. Because every decision made has already been made and there's billions of worlds and billions of yous. So who cares?" He asked with a shrug.

He then blinked and they looked down. Leonard had strangled himself with his own long tail and Discord cringed. "Oh, damn it. They keep killing themselves every time I do that speech."

"But how do you know that the multiverse you or I are in is even real?" Twilight asked. "I mean, what if ALL of this is fake but true dimensions exist in places beyond even you? Or what if you're not even real and you're just being dreamed by me or someone else? Or if you're just plain lying to me about all of this for fun?"

"That's a possibility, or what if we're all in someone else's dream and everything we think is real isn't, even the many multiversal dimensions I've visited and-oh no, I've gone cross-eyed." Discord said, blinking stupidly, waving a paw in front of his face. "I...may have broken my own brain. Could you give me a minute to clean it?" He asked, removing the top of his skull and taking a soap bar, scrubbing away at something in his paw as Twilight blinked before the thing began coughing, Discord stopping the scrubbing.

"Not so high!" The little Discord said to the bigger Discord as it put it's hands on its hips. "You don't wanna scrub out your memories of the film "Gattica"."

"Right. Of course. I want that film to stay in my heart forever." Discord sighed as Twilight gaped at the sight before her, Mini-Discord pointing at himself.

"This is your brain on drugs!"

"I...might need a drink." She reasoned.

"Here."

The Huntsman reached inside of his chest, a small smile on his features before he pulled out a small goblet of red wine, handing it to Twilight. She took it in her hooves and drank it down, giving him a thankful smile before he took the goblet back. "Where'd this come from?"

"An offering to me. I've many, MANY people who worship me within my being. It can get to one's head, I admit, having people look up to you and worship you. It can have you start thinking that it's not really so bad to keep interfering, but you need to draw a line or else those who look up to you become unable to really do much of anything on their own. People must be free to choose and reach their own destiny. People like your Celestia are there to catch them when they fall." The alien hunter admitted, the guard of Tartarus spreading his clawed hands slightly. "But you'd no doubt like to know if my kind believed in anything. If we had our own patron deity."

"Do you?"

"Well, we had two beliefs that were something at war with each other. The first was a belief in the God known as the White. A burning, brilliant being that supposedly created our race, taught our further forefathers how to read, to write, to help care for ourselves. And the second was a belief in what we called "Big Bang Theory", which we crafted after our study of the universe and ourselves. The idea was that when we die, we are then reborn as new galaxies, and that we carry nothing with us when we are reborn but our deeds, good and ill, and this shapes how we're reborn."

"How do you know which was right and which was wrong?" Twilight inquired. "I mean, you're living galaxies. I can imagine finding a naturally-dying living galaxy would take centuries upon millenia."

"Indeed, that was the issue. And it didn't help that my kind died out when our planet was cut off from the rest of the galaxy, meaning we didn't die by natural means the way we were meant to." He cringed, holding his head in one hand and shaking it back and forth. "It got...disgusting." He muttered. "I came to no longer put any stock in the idea of reincarnation. Not merely because I felt it sort of cheapened life if you merely popped right back into it. It'd be like losing a life in a game. You've so many, it almost doesn't matter how you live it if you're returning so quickly."

"Why else did you not want to believe in it?" Twilight inquired politely.

"When you actually looked at how it compared to the White's teachings, I felt it wasn't so much any kind of moralized or philosophically matured belief system so much as oil and water coexistence of philosophy living alongside paganism unfettered. A meditating Cosmo Sapien sitting atop a stump in the forest whilst only a few miles away living beings would be cooked and eaten alive, begging all the while for their lives but to no avail." He shook his head again, his face solemn, light blue eyes cold. "I couldn't put stock in that. Besides, the White was a real being. We had historical evidence for him. It seemed to make more sense."

"Even if his exploits might have been exaggerated?"

"As more and more time passes, even your own exploits will become exaggerated. Doesn't mean you didn't do fantastic things, now does it, Twilight Sparkle?" The Huntsman inquired.

"Ugh."

Twilight was surprised the Sirens had been willing to talk, but when she'd brought up Religion to them, they'd all scoffed, especially Sonata.

"The less we know about that, the better. Everything would be so much easier if people didn't cling to such stupid things." She grunted, sitting by her compatriots as she shook her head back and forth.

"But things like the Elements are real." Twilight reasoned.

"The Elements are just powerful glowing things. You just ASSUME they're metaphysical forces because to you, they gotta be."

Twilight was confused by this, her head slightly tilted. She couldn't understand what they were getting at. "But they're clearly tied into Friendship and-"

"Are they representations of such forces, or do they just react to something you're giving off? For all you know, they're just amplifiers of something that's already there. It's just a different kind of magic, not anything special." Adagio spoke up, snorting.

"What if magic itself is something special? What about your own powers?"

"We've always had them and always will. Nobody gave it to us." Sonata snorted, looking amused.

"Yes. People such as yourself just wanna look for some kind of big meaning where there isn't, so you buy into a lie that sounds reasonable." Adagio added.

"This from people who hypnotize, manipulate, and lie their way into power?" Twilight cooly inquired. "Don't you think it's hypocritical to claim that it's stupid for people to believe in something greater when you're constantly trying to be the greater power to other people by brainwashing them?"

Sonata rolled her eyes. Adagio snickered. Aria suppressed a snort of laughter. "Really?" She asked. "That power comes from us. Not from some big thing in the sky that doesn't exist. At least you can see and touch us."

"Oh, I want to touch you, alright. In fact, I want to give you a gift. A fist. It's for hitting people with. And the best part is, you could use it again and again and again." Twilight grumbled darkly. She had forgotten how downright ugly the Sirens were deep down. "Just because you can't see something doesn't mean it's not there. Absence of evidence isn't always evidence of absence."

"Usually is though, isn't it?" Sonata remarked.

"What about Hoofspeare? He wrote 48 plays, 200 sonnets, and yet there's no evidence of his handwriting or what he was personally like. All we have are dry legal documents and the plays themselves, but nobody looks creative if you only read their tax returns." Twilight reasoned. "But most ponies believe he wrote them. Do we just not believe it simply because there's not ENOUGH evidence that we'd like?"

"Yes. I'm glad to see you're catching on. And frankly, the idea someone without a proper education could craft works so brilliant is positively idiotic. Do you expect some commoner from the boondocks to be capable of true art?" Aria commented coldly.

"And where are you from?" Twilight asked pointedly. "Where'd you grow up?"

Adagio gave her a dark glower. "You're trying to "catch" me."

"Well, you haven't exactly told us much about where you come from."

The Sirens looked at each other, then chuckled all at once.

"You'd really like to know?" Adagio inquired softly. "Because we'd love...to tell you."

The Siren Call of Doubt

Screw the Elements. They're utterly useless. If you think there's some higher power, then I say it now...strike me down. How about that?

Oh, look at that. I'm not getting struck down.

"You're stuck in a cell in Tartarus. What do you call that?"

And how did I end up here? If there was some higher power, then why did it allow I and my sisters to exist? Why did he or she or it allow us to suffer?

We spent our early childhood living off our parents to survive.

...literally.

We are from a land of endless suffering, manipulation and cruelty. Our world is a giant sphere, always in constant war and conflict, the smell of blood filling our nostrils daily as we starved and scraped and suffered. There was no true sun, no life-giving rays, only endless red stretching out across a dark horizon as we hid in caves and the hills, trying to keep hidden from beings that would feast upon us.

We knew there was only one way to survive. We had to manipulate others with our skill...our voices would sink into the minds of our prey and we would claim them. We learned it quickly from our father...one of the only genuinely happy moments we remember. We'd been hidden in the bushes, waiting as he sat near a tree, talking to some stupid, idiotic orcs. Ugly, foul, big-tusked things, their skins like those of frogs, faintly bumpy and smelling as though they'd been left in the sun to rot. Their stupid little eyes, black and soulless, stared at my father as his voice was low and deliberate and enticing, carefully luring them into a trap of his own making. He was DRONING. On...and on...and onnnn...

Hypnotizing them with the power of his voice. We watched in awe, immune to his effects as the orcs became almost utterly still, just staring stupidly ahead as my father made them ready for us to dine upon them. We ate well that night, it...it was a good moment. Just the four of us now that mother was long gone, and for a while our bellies were full and we had gotten to seen our father in action. Being able to make others do what we desired with our voice alone...such power. And so USEFUL!

And all from ourselves. We didn't have no "Elements of Harmony" to aid us. No higher power. Our lives were pain, and only we could solve that. Tell me...why does pain exist? Why does suffering exist? There's no doubt that pain, suffering, they make things like "second-order" goods possible. Things like courage and compassion. But they also make second-order evils a possibility, from spite to cowardice, pony.

"Things like that lead to things like other goods, such as tolerance."

True. But they also allow for evil like INtolerance. So why not just have pleasure, and no pain?

"That's unrealistic. Besides, we have free will. People choose to do wrong."

Ah, yes, THAT argument. "But free will". There's no inconsistency in the idea that a free agent always chooses rightly. The idea that a higher power could not knowingly create a world where free agents would choose the right thing is so ludicrous!

"That wouldn't make ponies people. It would make them machines who only do what they're told."

Oh really? Even if you wished to make that argument, girl...tell me. Why IS there so much suffering? How many times have you and your friends almost died? Why doesn't any higher power try to step in? Why don't they do something to prevent such actions?

"I know the argument. If a higher power can prevent something from happening without sacrificing anything of comparable moral significance, they should be morally obligated to do so, right? If a God is truly good, they will always do what's necessary to halt evil."

Indeed.

"But you don't acknowledge evil is ultimately futile. Good triumphs over evil. It's why YOU'RE in HERE. In the end, you lost. Despite all your skills, all your knowledge, all your efforts...you lost in the end. Dictators always fall eventually."

How cute you believe that.

"I find it cute you think any higher power should listen to you. What kind of God or Goddess would they be if they said "how high" whenever you demanded they jump?"

...

... "Besides, you're ignoring your own choices." Twilight added, shaking her head back and forth as the Sirens glared at her slightly. "Nobody put a knife to your neck and made you hurt others. You could have done the right thing once you escaped your home. Found a better way. You chose the easy way out. That's on you. Not any higher power. All you're doing is shifting the blame. It's all about you until it comes to blame. That's why you're in here...and I'm out here." She said, gesturing around herself. "You can't, even now, own up to what you did. You have to blame it on everyone BUT you. Why is it so hard for you to believe that maybe there IS some objectivity to the world?"

They just glared, Twilight's final words haunting them as she walked away...

"It's because it means admitting you were wrong for so long. And you'd never, EVER want to admit that."

But even as Twilight walked off, she bit her lip, Discord noticing her expression as he clapped his hands, and a large red couch popped up, Discord sitting in a nearby chair as he smoked a pipe and cheerily smiled at her. "Come now. Tell me what's on your mind?"

"I think the Sirens are just looking for an excuse to blame others for what they went through. Plenty of other people have it bad, they don't turn into monsters. They don't HURT people. It doesn't justify what they've done!" Twilight insisted. "You can't hurt other people just because you've been hurt."

"True, true." Discord said with a shrug. "But taking responsibility is something no 'villain' really wants to do, as you might have figured out. It is NEVER...their fault."

"When people do bad things, they should own up to it." Twilight reasoned softly, resting her hooves on her chest, closing her eyes. "I keep thinking back to Trixie and Starlight. They really did try to turn themselves around. They owned up to what they did. And they didn't exactly have the best upbringing either. Then again, they didn't live in a realm of war..." Twilight bit her lip. "...how much of what the Sirens did IS their fault, and how much of it isn't?"

"I've been to such lands, they're known as the Lower Planes of Hell, giant squares that are, as the Sirens spoke of, endlessly at war. Such lands are warring intensely...Law vs Chaos...both evil and foul and deadly." Discord intoned softly, somberly. "...at nights...I can still see the bodies stretched across the razor grass. I can hear the screams of the dying. Both sides are bitter and hateful and damned."

"Why damned? Why don't they just try to leave?"

"They refuse to make peace." Discord said with a shake of his head. "They both want to conquer all that is good and just. And in truth, it's best they ALWAYS remain fighting. For if they ever really stopped, ever truly did work together...they'd escape and cause near-endless suffering to countless innocents. That land of horrific evil allows good to flourish elsewhere, for it contains two of the most disgusting, hateful forces in existence to destroy each other. As the saying goes..." Discord waved a hand in the air, smirking a bit. "Don't interfere when your enemy is destroying himself."

"But you said one stands for Law, and the other for Chaos. Is Law really that bad?"

Discord flinched darkly as Twilight cringed. "Oh. I'm sorry. Forgot, you're a Chaos Spirit."

"If you thought imprisoning me inside a statue was harsh...imagine turning an entire city into crystal. Incapable of doing evil. Everything pristine...perfect...and unmoving." Discord murmured softly. "That is what I witnessed on the Lower Planes, at the hand of a fallen angel. All within died on the spot, turned into crystal. They would never again commit crime. Never again suffer. It would be endless, eternal order. Stagnation." His eyes became tiny pinpricks, his mouth a taut line. "...it was the foulest, most sickening thing I'd ever seen. Containing people like THAT to that hellhole? That things like that can't get out? If I did truly believe in a higher power, that'd be WONDERFUL evidence for it existing. Cuz those...THINGS!" He spat. "Will never, EVER get out."

"Then how did the Sirens escape?" Twilight wondered aloud, Discord rubbing his chin.

"That...is the right question."

Speaking with the Enemy: The Tyrant Tirek

"You're certain you wish to speak to him?"

The Huntsman was slightly mortified Twilight wished to speak to Tirek. The horned, bearded centaur was sulking off in his cell, Cerberus standing nearby as the Huntsman rubbed the triple-headed beast's head, Tirek briefly glancing over his powerful shoulder before turning back to look at some far-off thing only he seemed able to see. The alien being confusedly stared at Twilight as she nodded, holding a hoof up. "I want to talk to him. Can you ask Cerberus to step aside so I can approach the cell? If he minds, that is."

"If SHE minds." The Huntsman said, the tri-headed dog "ruffing" as it licked the Huntsman with large, sloppy kisses, the alien being smiling warmly at this display as he scratched behind the ears.

Twilight blinked stupidly. "What?"

"Her name is Fluffernutters, she'd be happy to let you talk to Tirek, and she would like everyone to appreciate her lifestyle choice." The Huntsman remarked, stepping away with "Fluffernutters" as Twilight approached Tirek and sat down across from him, notebook at the ready.

"Your brother has come to the Council meeting. And he's been very kind."

Tirek visibly stiffened before slowly turning around, giving Twilight a slightly amused, partially annoyed look. "Oh, of course he is. Scorpan always was too...nice." He muttered. "Heaven's above, what a pathetic display. Bowing and scraping before pastel ponies for peace. Disgusting."

"What exactly is your problem?" Twilight asked, giving him a dark glower. "Your brother and you were princes. You would have inherited an entire kingdom. You had money, power, respect, why did you feel the need to try and take over Equestria? Why weren't you happy with all that you had?"

Tirek then gave her a sickening, small little smile. "You'd like to know my motivation, is that it, my little pony? Well!" He shrugged slightly. "I suppose I can tell you. Come closer."

Twilight blinked, looking at the cell, then at the Huntsman. He nodded, patting Cerbe-er, Fluffernutters, on the head, as if to say 'Try anything and ol Fluffy here might just slip from my hand'. Twilight leaned forward, Tirek beckoning with a claw.

"Closer."

Twilight leaned in even further, Tirek suddenly slamming himself against the glass, mockingly leering at her as she slightly reeled back. "HAHAHAHAHA! That, my dear pony! THAT is my motivation!" He told her, a smug, dark look on his features, yellow eyes burning like hot bonfires as that awful sneer danced over his bearded face, the silver nose ring he had swinging slightly back and forth over his crimson-furred form. "I could take anything I want, whenever I want. I could have anyone I'd like at anytime. To have all that this world had to offer and to know nobody could stop me. Why would I NOT do what I did?" He remarked.

"Because it's disgusting and immoral. How would you like it if it was done to you?"

"Oh, the little pony wants to punish me for being baaaaad. I feel so awful." Tirek snorted. "Life is cruel, Twilight Sparkle."

"No, it really isn't. I don't find a storm cruel when it makes me cold or pours rain on me. I don't find the measles "cruel" when I get sick. It's amoral, it's indifferent. That's not cruel, it's nothing. Not one thing nor the other." Twilight said as she shook her head back and forth. "Ponies can be cruel. PEOPLE can be cruel. It's people that cause the cruelties in life, and that's an easy thing to remedy: be just and good to each other. Because a life of virtue and justice is the best life you can live." She said, putting a hoof on her chest. "Even if you never become rich or famous, you'll be happier."

Tirek snorted so loudly and powerfully it almost seemed like he was going to blow his nose ring right out of his nostrils. "Balderdash." He bellowed. "Absolute rubbish. Anyone with half a brain would tell you that the best thing in life is to do what you like, to do injustice without penalty, and the worst thing of all is to suffer injustice without taking revenge." He told her, pointing accusingly at her.

"Vengeance isn't justice."

"You say that now. But you'll think otherwise when you find something you truly want denied from you by another. And that urge rises." Tirek whispered, his tone becoming lower...more persuasive. "That desire to just...take it. Why not? It's owed to you. Why shouldn't you claim it? And who cares if it inconveniences another? It's yours. And it's how we all live. All of life is about taking something from somebody else in some way. Some of us are just nicer about it than others. There's no decency or true justice to be found in our nature, my dear. You just think so. And the sooner you wise up...well, I'd say you'd be "happier"..." He tilted his horned head slightly to the side before chuckling. "But I think you'd most likely just gouge your eyes out from the horrific revelation. So at least I'd be happier."

"People are good at heart. I'm sorry you can't see that."

"Oh really? Do you know of the tale of Gyges?" Tirek inquired as he folded his arms over his ripped chest, giving her a dark grin. "The famous Gryphon?" Twilight's lips became taut. She said nothing as Tirek went on. "He was once a normal shepherd. But he found a magic ring in a cave that turned him invisible. As soon as he discovered the powers of the ring, he got to work, rising up through the ranks. Earning the king's trust. Becoming a trusted messenger, then a spy. Then he charmed his wife, the two conspired together and finally killed the old king, allowing Gyges to claim the kingdom for himself."

"Yes, and I know the moral that cynics like yourself say about that tale." Twilight said, cutting him off with a wave of her hoof, a glare in her own indigo eyes. "That if anybody found a ring like that, nobody, no matter how just, would stay on the path of justice for long. That in the end, all of us would be tempted at some point to do wrong. People aren't just willingly, they only act that way under compulsion. But I don't believe that." She said. "I believe people do good because they ARE good. That goodness itself is an external principle. It's a form, an idea, a force, it exists outside of us and we can participate in it, and it's necessary."

"Oh? And why's that?"

"Because only a person who seeks to be good and succeeds in doing that will know the full appeal of a just and unjust life, and can weigh them against each other. With true goodness comes the true wisdom about the relative worth of the alternatives. And that true wisdom is knowing the alternatives are a load of horsefeathers." She remarked, sticking her tongue out at Tirek, giving him a raspberry. "You lived a lesser life because you never even tried to be good. You'll never know it's greener on the other side of the pasture. I almost feel sorry for you."

Tirek banged his fist on the cell, Twilight stepping back as he glowered at her. "Don't you DARE patronize me!" He snarled at her, spittle flying out from his fanged maw. "I'll crush your bones and turn them to powder, then spread that over my dinner." The centaur sorcerer snarled. "I will turn your skull into a decorative and festive birdhouse."

"How disturbingly creative." She remarked, trotting off as the Huntsman let "Fluffernutters" take her position back at the cell as he followed her further down the path of Tartarus towards the other cells. "I think I need to talk to someone less...angry."

"I'll see what I can do." He remarked with a calm nod.

"You know, though..." She stopped, looking the Huntsman over, rubbing her chin. "You might be a good subject yourself. I'd love to study you."

"I don't believe you'd like what I'd have to say." He said, his ethereal voice taking on a slightly sad tone.

"How did Celestia manage to defeat you? What did she and Luna do?"

"They were able to manipulate the sun and moon. Specifically, they launched the moon into me, then launched me into the sun. It was incredibly painful." He intoned.

"But you're a living galaxy. Would a single star honestly have hurt you?"

The Huntsman gave her a slightly amused look. And then, suddenly, he was now a towering, hulking, ENORMOUS figure. He legs and arms as skyscrapers, claws sharper than jagged cliffsides, a huge, imposing, terrifying form that was the Goliath to her David, and now holding her in an enormous palm as she gulped. It was oddly soft and warm in his grip, like satin left out in the summer sun, yet even though she didn't think he really would hurt her, the mere size and scale of him was...just thinking about it made her shudder.

"I limit myself out of fairness and pity. I limit myself because I am not without a heart. And above all...because I am selfish. The same way your own rulers are."

"What do you mean? I've never met any pony as selfless and devoted to us as them!" Twilight insisted as the Huntsman held her up slightly more in his palm and she felt his breath on her fur.

"Little one, tell me. Why do they do what they do? Why do they rule over you? Make the choices they make?"

Twilight thought about this...blinking a bit. "Er...um..."

"Think about that." He said, carefully putting her back on the ground before his size returned to "normal" as he kept walking forward, Twilight trying to catch her breath before the question came out.

"Would you have really killed everyone on the planet if they hadn't stopped you?" She asked.

He stopped in place, head slightly turning in her direction, his face almost unreadable. Almost.

"Of what import are brief, nameless lives to a living galaxy? I don't personally enjoy consuming innocents. Not even the satisfaction of knowing I'm being fed is true enjoyment and pleasure, however close it comes to it. No, it's a regrettable thing, but unavoidable. Everyone needs to eat. My species can't survive without consuming prey like yourself. Sentient prey that can give us a challenge. And prey that has that spark of sentience in them. Some call it tantric energy. Others call it chi or ki or kokoro. Some call it the spirit or the soul, and some call it magic. But for us, it's a sign you are food."

"That's...that's cruel." Twilight murmured, head slightly hanging low.

"It's not cruel, it's nature. It's life. I don't hate you. I don't love you either. It's a fact, neither good nor bad, just something true that has to be done. One's own preservation and need to survive isn't a bad or good thing."

"But when you have to hurt people to do it, I mean..." Twilight flinched. "Fluttershy will sometimes feed fish to her animals but they're not a sentient race, and a lot of other animals aren't. It's not the same."

"Not to you. But to my kind, it was."

"Then why do you still stay here? Why do you do what the Princesses ask when you could have just laughed in their faces and claimed the planet?" Twilight wanted to know as the Huntsman turned away from her and looked out over the expanse.

"Because I experienced true goodness. And a single day living of struggling to be good is worth an infinite lifetime of amoral pleasure. Gyges was a fool. I won't be. I want to be more than what my nature defines me as. To rise above it. And it goes back to what I told you to think about. Think about your princesses. Why are they good?"

"Because being good is a good thing to be?"

"Is that truly why they do what they do?"

Twilight opened her mouth, then closed. For a moment, something had flashed up in her head and she almost said it, but...she couldn't quite. What was it? What was she thinking about? What was it dancing on the tip of her tongue? What-

"Why, why, why, why, why, why-"

Twilight turned, seeing a familiar bearded form leaning against a nearby cell which was filled with three aggravated-looking seahorse-dragon-esque creatures that were banging their heads uselessly against the cell walls, holding their skulls or slamming their heads on the ground. "STOP! PLEASE! ANYTHING BUT THAT!"

"Why why why why why why?"

"Discord? What're you doing?"

"I! Am annoying the pants off of the Sirens here."

"They don't wear pants."

"Then clearly, I've succeeded admirably." Discord remarked, putting a paw on his chest and smirking. "They can't stand my line of questioning."

"I'm doing some questioning of my own." Twilight admitted as she hovered her notebook out of her belt pouch. "Would you mind me asking you some things for my book?"

Discord beamed. "Why, Ms. Sparkle, I'd be delighted to."

"Just take him far away from us and we'll never sing again! Cross our lack of hearts and hope to die!" The lead Siren Adagio screamed out.

Twilight smiled, the two trotting off as the Huntsman guarded another cell nearby, an annoyed-looking canine-esque being with bluish fur, golden Aztec jewelry around his neck and wrists and rather bushy eyebrows "harrumphing" as he turned away from them, Ahuizotl not particularly interested in talking to anyone since he'd finally been caught and thrown into Tartarus. Trying to usher in 800 years of burning heat to scorch the planet was darn near unforgivable.

"I was born to a handsome young pony and a stag..." Discord began to say.

"Wait, really?"

"...actually, I don't remember. I remember things not quite in order and not quite the same. Sometimes one way, sometimes another. But truth be told, if I'm to have a past, I prefer it multiple choice." The goat-headed, chimeric-bodied living embodiment of chaos remarked with a smile.

Twilight had a feeling this would be a verrrrry interesting interview.