The Confrontation

Trevor sat at the royal dinner table next to Blueblood.  No one dared speak.  The silence in the room was persistent, determined to stay.  Celestia sat at the far end of the table, devouring her food in a distressed manor.  Luna sat on the other end of the table eating very slowly, looking up cautiously at her sister every few seconds.  The two Princes exchanged looks of uncertainty, sure of a possible confrontation with the angry Princess if they spoke.  Trevor shot a quick look at Celestia, then his eyes reverted back down to the salad in front of him.  She was still furious.

"Wonderful weather we have experienced today..."  Luna finally spoke, shattering the silence.

"I heard that there was a commemorative parade in Cloudsdale."  Blueblood spoke out to the whole table.

Celestia sat there steeping in her anger, not even acknowledging her family's conversation.

"We have heard that as well Blue."  The Princess of the night responded to Blueblood.

Even though there were attempts to get Trevor and Celestia talking, they refused.  Each hunkered down in their own way, but both refused to look up.  Luna knew exactly what was happening.  They were dealing with the situation wrongly.  Very wrongly.  Luna looked at her sister again and felt a slight pain in her very soul.  'Tia... This is no way to heal a broken heart...

"Please excuse me."  Trevor said bluntly as he got out of his seat and began to leave the room.

"9:00 in my quarters young man."  Celestia growled as she scarfed down the last of her meal.

Trevor looked over his shoulder at the ruler.  His anger had started to rise again.  Look at what she is... His thoughts began to betray him.  She doesn't want to work it out!  She wants to punish you for doing something legal!   It didn't take long for his thoughts to win.  Trevor sighed and left the room.

"If you wouldn't mind, I would like to be alone."  Princess Celestia said to everypony in the room.  As they cleared out, she thought about all the ways she could carry out this meeting.

"This time he has gone too far.  Smoking?!  In front of my subjects no less...  He has gone way too far.  He needs to be punished.  I hate the idea of it all... but that's life."  Celestia rambled to herself after everypony had cleared the room.  "Let's see who will win this round."

Her ramblings glued her to reality itself.  She knew she was losing it... and she needed to help herself think.  Celestia's eyes began to water as she stuttered.  Life itself for her was very stressful.  She dealt with everything... the rapes, the murders, the politicians... but one thing she could not get over was betrayal.  Celestia was chained to the past.  Her own sister, now her best friend and adopted nephew.

The ruler's head hit the table along with the tears of painful memories.  She sat there sobbing.  Her mind was confusing her on what to think.  Celestia had shut down.  Nothing mattered anymore except feeling better.  A purple aura appeared around her entire body and transported her instantly to her room.  She stammered over to her bed and flopped onto the covers.  Comfort swooped over her entire body as she cried to forget.

Celestia was great at forgetting.  All she felt comfortable doing was sitting and pretending things weren't a nightmare.  Every day something tries to tear her apart, the only things that change are names and faces.  Discord, Sombra, Starlight... does there names even matter anymore?  She sat there with her mind blank, refusing to accept that her child was rebelling against her.  I brought him in.  I cared for him.  I gave him food, shelter, and a warm bed... to be repaid by this?  Cigars?  So he can give himself lung cancer?!  Her mind screamed at her to be angry, but she just couldn't.  Either she loved him too much, or she frankly just didn't care.

Trevor sat alone, like he usually did.  In the back of his mind his choices subtly thrashed his otherwise calm existence.  He knew what he had to do... but the unnamed feeling denied him strength.  Strength to do anything outside of sit in the Royal Gardens, drinking coffee.  So there he sat.  In the gardens, making revelations that he wished he had not.  Trevor was gifted at that.  Making discoveries about his own personality, as well as others, that he wished he hadn't.  Like how he notices that Blueblood can't control his manners around mares he doesn't know, how Luna's partying gets out of hand, and most of all... why Celestia mothers him.

As the only one of his species here, Trevor feels he notices a lot more than the ponies do.  He has had the time and experience with hiding to know when they are lying.  He sees how most of these creatures live... He sees through their smiley masks... He knows the pain they have endured... his heart wants to identify and to love them... but they are animals.  Primal, confused, living in a world they don't fully understand.  Then they look up to his 'mother' for understanding that she doesn't have.  This 'tolerance' and 'acceptance' she preaches is only a facade to keep them happy.  They refuse to truly understand themselves... and Trevor knows this all too well.  It's moral bankruptcy.

The Prince held the cup up to his lips and took a sip.  Celestia is hiding a past that she doesn't want anyone else to experience.  In order to not let anyone else feel these atrocities, she talks about love and acceptance... all the while adopting the same attitude a mother would to her child.  All things considered, Celestia is a great ruler.  She feeds the hungry, keeps the peace, promotes learning... but... she just doesn't know how to handle a personal life.  Not hers, nor anyone else's.  Her idea of love is to forget about something and move on like it never happened.

Well Trevor knows it happened, but he sat there like it hadn't.  He wishes he was clueless to why, but he knew exactly why.  His palms shivered and his back tingled.  I'm letting her win.  Thoughts of Nightmare Moon struck him down quickly.  All of his thoughts now took a different turn.  Why couldn't I have just let her win?  Why couldn't I just have connected with her?  His brain thrashed about like a dying animal.  Stop.  She is no more.  Comfort came in the form of a statue not that far off in the distance.

There in all its glory stood a sculpture of victory and pomposity... what was said to be the jail of the Nightmare.  All of her features were spot on.  All of her ferocity... caged.  A rage that once twice, had threatened to crumble Celesta's delicate world.  But as she stood there, Trevor couldn't help but sympathize with it.  After all, he felt like he was the one in stone.  He can't move, speak, or laugh without it being picked apart by each and every pony around him.  His actions are read about near and far in newspapers... his face known by everypony in Equestria.  All because his self proclaimed 'mother' saw him begging in the streets.  As his gaze sharpened on the marble structure, he knew the time was nigh.

The Princess had arranged two chairs in her room, opposite from one another, for this meeting.  In her head a bloodless conflict raged.  The conflict was to decide how Trevor was to be punished... but she knew he was a mature human and a punishment would only harm him further.  Her feelings contradicted what she knew.  Choices have consequence, and he needed to be reminded of this.  Knocking came from the door, which alarmed the preoccupied ruler.

"Hello Celestia."  Trevor said politely as the door swung open from her magic.

"Hello Trevor.  Have a seat."  The Prince took a seat in a red velvet chair, directly across from his guardian.  "I thought we kicked this habit."

"You did, but I still wanted to exercise my right... as a human... to free will."  He said, pausing slightly, collecting his thoughts.

"Cigars and other tobacco products can cause cancer, Trevor."  She reminded him, a fact he had heard many times before.

"I didn't mean to harm you."

"Yes you did!  Then WHY would you have continued on doing it?!"

"Because.  Maybe, I enjoy the feeling of smoking a cigar and unwinding."  He threw back at her, unwilling to let his emotions take the better of him.

"Listen to yourself.  Is this the pony you want to be?  ...Hmm?"  Celestia hummed at the human with intent.

"I'm not a pony.  I'm a human being."  His face contorted slightly after being called a pony.  "...And if I find myself liking something that is harmful, it's just my nature."

"I know, that's why I told you NOT to do it!"  She urges as her face lets of a very stern look.

"How could you know?!  You have never even said a single thing about my kind, nor have you ever made an attempt to talk to me about being different!  Seriously!  The last time you talked about my species is when you said eating meat is wrong!"  Trevor's emotions started to boil as he thought of the time Celestia tried to con him out of eating meat.  Her face shriveled up slightly as Trevor dished out his accusation to the Princess.

"I tell you what you need to know.  Can't you see?!  I do this to protect you!"

"Protection or oppression?  So you mean to tell me Celestia,  you are protecting me by never talking about how I got here?"  The fires raged in his eyes as he stared, bewildered by her response.

"Child, there is much that you do not need to know.  I only want for my child to be happy!"  She pleaded with a show of frustration taking over her face.

"Umm?  ...Excuse me?  Excuse me.  Your child?  I'm NOT your child!  I remember my mother very well."  The words sunk into Celestia's very bones.  She shuttered slightly from a chill flying all throughout her body.  She knew now, why she had never told him in the last three years.  "I think you are forgetting I was placed here when I was well into my freshman year in college.  Now let's get this straight.  I'm not your son.  I'm not some Prince.  And, I'm certainly not giving up my dietary habits.  I don't care if your a Princess, where I come from, trust is earned... and you have none with me."  Trevor looked at her, disgusted.  Everything about Celestia sickened him, but as he looked upon her... he felt sympathy for her.  He saw the genuine pain she was in.  The tears falling from her face, her head hanging in defeat... he saw the genuine Celestia.

"Trevor..."  Her muzzle let out as her eyes began dropping tears.  "Please... I never meant it like that...  When I saw you on the street... I knew what I needed to do.  So I did it."

"Care to tell any more?"  The white pony cringed at his demand for the truth.

"I will... tell you everything.  Unaltered, no restrictions."  Trevor sat back in his chair, crossing his arms.  "Well.  It all started when our kind first discovered a higher magic.  A magic that most consider... myself included...evil.  My father was trying to create a new type of spell for transportation, but it backfired.  The spell behaved illogically, and spit out an entity known as Discord.  Discord championed the type of magic that we had accidentally stumbled upon... Chaos magic.  Chaos magic requires odd things, and illogical sacrifices... including death itself.  The more we found out about it, the more taboo and hated it became.  It was referred to as 'demoncore' due to the way that it twisted those who studied it.  My father was obsessed with it.  The closer he came to answers, the closer he drew to insanity.  He died due to a spell he cast, trying to visit another world.  It took my father as a sacrifice, then spit out a human female named Mary.  Mary taught us everything about your humans... and she was a close friend of Luna's.  She died two hundred and thirty four years ago.  But we knew that this chaos magic would bring more into this world..."  Trevor stared at Celestia.  His eyes wide open to the truth... knowledge that was hidden, now revealed.  "So that's how you got here.  Chaos magic.  My father set a curse on my family... if ever any of his family was harmed, something would come to correct it.  You were brought here because Luna was harmed by Nightmare Moon.  On the street... I knew exactly why you were there.  What you were brought to do, but the elements of harmony defeated her... So there must be some sort of defect in that spell my father cast."

"Your spell wasn't defective.  I emotionally defeated her."  Celestia eased her head up and looked at him in confusion.  "She stopped by my quarters... I made her cry by telling her the truth.  Not the truth that she was a monster, the truth that she could have changed."  He sat there, face unaffected, telling her his saddest memory in Equestria.  "But she had a hamartia... herself."

"That is true... yes.  Also it is why I mother you so... and for that... I am sorry."  Her head dropped again, along with her ears.  Embracing the pain that comes with admitting fault.

"I forgive you.  I now know why I'm here, I am satisfied.  You let me see your true self today... and for that, I forgive you.  Your just trying to look out for me..."  He smiled as he accepted her apology, glad that she was being honest.  "Time to tell you why I'm here."

"I don't understand..."

"You will..."  He said, wiping his smile clean off of his face.  "Humans can't preform conventional magic.  Our creator won't let us.  Simple right?  Well no.  Due to His intentions originally, we are left with a choice.  Rebel or choose not to practice magic.  We call our creator God, and his enemies Satan.  When he created us, we were able to interact with him... vice versa... so on.  That is conventional magic.  But, when some of his angels rebelled against him.... they created what you call chaos magic.  Magic that harmed us, caused greed, lust, hate, jealousy, and all evil things.  So to prevent us from doing magic, he dulled our capability to do magic, but he let those who rebelled still have the capability to use chaos magic.  I practiced that magic."  Celestia's head shot up in amazement at what Trevor just said.

"Mary told us all about human religions, especially about Christianity, Islam, Atheism, and Satanism..." Celestia gasped as she began to understand the ideals of the religions.

"Yes.  No one is certain exactly which one is right, but some argue that nature points to certain ones.  This experience has further placed my faith in the fact that it is real.  Before I came here, I was practicing Chaos magic all the time... I just never realized it would bring me here."

"Trevor, I can't even imagine everything you've been through..-"  Celestia began to think aloud.

"-Hey, Don't feel bad for me.  Life is hard on everyone.  I do want to say though, I appreciate everything you have done for me.  Also, I want to be close to you, but we have to approach this another way.  A whole different way entirely.  I'm still getting used to this planet, and the ponies that exist here."  Trevor interrupted her, expressing his opinion of the situation at hand.  "Now please, let's move on from this situation with a greater understanding of eachother.  But first, I must tell you... I'm grateful for everything you have done for me... and I do love you Celestia."