Finding Freedom

AN: Warning, there is AJ dialogue in this chapter, and I will probably butcher her dialogue to an unrecognizable point. So bear with me on this one.
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Before Applejack could ask any questions, or any of the ponies could, I raised my hoof.

"Before any of you ask any questions, I would like to ask a few of my own. First do you know about the elements of harmony?"

All of the girls looked at Twilight, who nodded and said, "We are the elements of harmony, Magic, Loyalty, Honesty, Laughter, Generosity, and Kindness." She pointed to the respective ponies as she listed off the elements.

I felt a little bit relieved, "Secondly, have you heard of Nightmare Moon and Discord?"

This time it was Pinkie who answered my question, "Of course silly! We harmonified Nightmare Moon into princess Luna! Then that Discord guy came around with chocolate rain clouds! They were so delicious, and then the animals got all weird! The clouds were my favorite part, they were cotton candy with chocolate inside. I mean how cool is that?!"

She hadn't specified if they had defeated him, but I got the message. Feeling relieved I told them to go ahead with their questions.

First was Rarity "What is your real name?" There was no darling this time or kindness in her voice. She must be really mad at me. I thought on this question for a while before answering, but I had said I would tell the truth.

"Well… I'm not sure. I had one, but I don't think that name fits anymore."

Rainbow asked the second question "How did you fall out of the sky from nowhere, and where did you come from?"

I laughed, "Two questions in and we are already at the point where it's easier for me to tell you he entire story. Well Me and Martin, who is called Lunar Crescent, came from a whole different planet, one called earth. We didn't know each other there, but we both lived on earth at some point in time." I finally elected to skip the part about suicide, it would only worry them. "One day I went to sleep and I woke up in an even stranger place."

Pinkie Pie tried to get a word in, but Rainbow stuffed a muffin in her mouth.

"In this strange place is where I met Martin, and we began our great adventure. This place really had no time flow, I could never tell how long it had been. Eventually we managed to escape the place by cutting a hole through the… dimension I guess with my…."

Here I realized that I didn't have my katana with me, it was still back on that hill. "Well sword, but I left it on top of a hill near here."

Twilight spoke up "Actually that's where I was. Rainbow told me about it, and we checked it out. By the way It's actually called a katana (I facehoofed…lightly), but we couldn't get it out of the ground. It won't budge."

"Probably because you're not it's owner. Actually I have no idea, I'll look into it later. Anyway where was I.. Ah well we fell through the hole and landed here. That's our story, any other questions?"

Applejack spoke for the first time, "Ah know y'all still holding somthin back. What is it y'all don't wanna tell us?"

Count on Applejack to catch a half-lie. "In truth I didn't get here by just sleeping. I took my own life, I committed suicide (which is a crime, that's why you commit it)."

I could tell Applejack regretted asking, but the truth is hardly ever pretty. Rarity was the first to gather her wits. "Why would you do such an awful thing darling?"

The kindness was back in her voice, I smiled at that, "Do you want the long complicated story, or the simple one?"

"Simple, if you would please."

Alright then "I was bored."

"So… you killed yourself because you were bored." Now she just sounded disbelieving.

"Well for the most part, we would have t take the complicated route to figure out the rest."

"I change my mind then, why don't you tell us the complicated one?"

Women, they just can't make up their minds, "Alright now pay close attention, because I only want to say this once. I hold a belief that we all have spirits, or souls, and when are spirits our on a world, they need a shell to interact with the world. For the most part we are unaware of our spirits, so when the shell dies, the spirit unconsciously just makes a new shell on the same world. However, if we become aware of our spirits and we have a strong enough will to take over, then we can 'awaken' our spirits and go wherever we want in the universe."

A long silence followed my explanation. Again Rarity was the first to gather her wits, "So you committed suicide believing that you could free yourself of the 'shell' life and just roam as a spirit."

"Well no, a shell is required to interact with any world, the spirit and shell work in harmony. I committed suicide so I could explore all kinds of worlds, even though I still need a shell to explore them."

Rainbow who had said nothing since her first question had stopped giving me glares. Not angry ones, but disbelieving ones. Now she seemed to be deep in thought.

Fluttershy managed to beat Rarity this time "I think I get it, but um… according to you, you could have just lived life until you died naturally…if that's okay with you, I mean."

I laughed "I wasn't okay with it, that was the problem. Life on my world was… complicated. There is a lot about it that you probably wouldn't understand, but to simplify it, I was bored of that life."

Throughout the entire discussion, Lunar (Martin) had tried to make himself as small as possible. I wasn't going to make him tell his story, it was his decision to do so.

"So now that's cleared up, anymore questions?"

Twilight of course had spotted a rather large question, "How did you know so much about our world?"

"That's easy, in our world there is.." They probably didn't know what TV is, that would be even harder to explain. "Stories about this one. Someone writes them down and we can kind-of see your world through them."

Twilight was still confused, "and how do they write these stories?"

"Well I would presume by using a pencil and some paper" I couldn't resist that one.

She huffed, "I mean, how do they know about out world?"

"I don’t know."

Twilight got even more flustered, "what do you mean you don't know?"

"I mean that I have no knowledge of how they do it."

"I know what I don't know means!"

"Then why did you ask?"

Twilight seemed ready to buck my face, better her then Applejack. Conveniently, Applejack decided it was a good time to intervene.

"Calm down Twi', Ah'm sure that he don't know everything 'bout his world, 'Sides, you got your answer the first time."

Applejack to the rescue. I looked outside, it was getting really late. "I would love to continue this discussion, but I'm exhausted, and I would really enjoy a nap right now."

The rest of them looked outside and noticed how late it was. Twilight spoke up "Well it is late, and we can continue this later, but don't think you're getting away from me. You have answers that I want, and I will get them."

"Then direct any questions you have at Lunar. He probably knows much more than I do. Also I have a favor to ask, could we uh… crash here for the night?"

Twilight sighed "Very well, but one of you has to sleep on the couch, I only have one guest bed here."

Everyone said their goodbyes, and made promises of meeting up tomorrow. As Rarity left she caught my eye.

"We still have a deal, remember?"

I sighed and nodded. Of course she remembered. She walked out, and Fluttershy was right behind her.

"Hey Fluttershy!" She looked at me and squeaked, "I was wondering if I could ask you a favor…" Rainbow Dash was hovering over us, obviously listening in. "Alone." I looked up at Rainbow for extra effect.

She got the hint, but didn't take the advice, and she finally spoke to me, "anything you can say to her you can say to me!"

I sighed again, I'm doing that way too much, "Well I could, but it would be embarrassing, I promise it's nothing bad." I didn't even know what I meant by bad, but Rainbow did fly away, sort of. She sat in a tree far enough away that she couldn't hear us, but she could still see us. She looked like a bird doing that, but I kept that to myself.

Fluttershy was looking at me expectantly, "I was wondering if you could uh.. teach me how to fly."

She looked surprised at this "you don't know how?"

"Well I've only had wings for about a day now."

"Well.. um why don't you ask Rainbow Dash, she is a much better flyer than me."

"You fly slow though, and can probably pass on knowledge better than her though, after all I need to learn the basics first."

"Well than I guess it would be okay…"

I smiled "Alright then, I'll talk to you later then."

"Bye" Fluttershy walked away and flew off toward her home. I wish I could do that, the flying that is. Before I had a chance to turn around and go back in I felt a tap on my shoulder. I turned and was face to face with Applejack, a little too close for comfort.

She backed up a little and said, "Ah just wanted to let ya know that if you're ever looking for work, my farm always has room for a bucker or two, especially during applebuck season. It's not the best pay, but for honest work it's enough. Your friend is welcome to join, but he don't seem the strong type."

Again I smiled, been doing that a lot too lately, "Thanks for the offer, I may just have to take you up on that."

Applejack smiled back "work is from 6 to 4 with a lunch break in the middle. Ah won't be surprised if you don't show up tomorrow though, it's already 2 in the morning."

How did she know that? I instinctively looked towards the moon, and I figured that she had learned to read the time from the position of the moon. "Alright well I'll see you around then."

As applejack walked away I looked towards the tree Rainbow had been sitting in. She had left at some point. Again before I could go inside a voice behind me spoke out.

"Do you really believe what you were talking about in there? All that spirit stuff?"

I didn't turn around, "Of course I do, I bet my life on it once already didn't I?"

"But how can you be so sure?"

I turned around and looked Rainbow in the eye, "Honestly it's impossible to be sure, but that's why its called religion, you need to have some faith. I'm 100% behind my beliefs, so I'm sure that what I say is the truth, but decide for yourself what to believe in. I can't tell you what to believe in, your parents can't, and neither can the priest. You have to believe in it. Why do you want to know?"

She backed away from me, "No reason." She took off and flew to her house. Something was up with her, but I wasn't going to force her to talk, that's her decision. I turned around to finally go into the library, when I felt another tap, but this time on my hind leg. What is with these ponies. Do they all want some advice or something? I'm not all knowing ya know.

"Uh who are you?" I looked down and saw Spike the baby dragon assistant. I had forgotten about him, I wonder where he was. I was too tired to explain anymore.

"A friend, ask Twilight for anything more." with that I walked inside and fell on the couch.