It Was a Pleasure to Burn

It Was a Pleasure to Burn

Fire washes the skin off the bone and the sin off the soul. It cleans away the dirt. And my momma didn’t raise herself no dirty boy.

V - Culture Shock

__________

Celestia stared at the colossal alien before her. When she had confronted it about its actions, she expected it to at least say something justificatory. Instead, she got something completely out of the blue, in her mind anyways. Celestia didn't necessarily think it would say anything to atone for it, but she did anticipate some kind of acknowledgement. "I'm hungry" didn't exactly fall under the classification of an acknowledgement.

"You're... hungry?" There were few times Celestia had ever been completely dumbstruck, but this alien had managed to render her almost speechless with only two words.

"That's what I said," spoke the alien in a remarkably deep voice. There was something about its voice that seemed unusual, and not just its accent, nor its thinly veiled biting tone. When it spoke, it sounded like it was speaking through a metal tube, and its voice came out slightly distorted.

"You are telling me that you broke out of the most reinforced cell of the highest security prison, broke through a steel gate, burned apart a net used to restrain dragons, shattered the most powerful shield capable of being cast, and almost killed my guard captain and sister because you were hungry?" By the end of her tirade, Celestia realized she was shouting.

Nonetheless, the alien seemed unfazed, which was just as well considering its dominating size. It paused and looked up for a moment, seemingly in thought. Then it looked back down at Celestia and said with a touch of sarcasm, "Nah. That was just 'cause I wanted out, and they were in my way. I'm still hungry though."

"When I said 'What do you have to say for yourself,' I expected you to say something that would justify your actions."

"Well how was I supposed to know?" The alien said, and Celestia could practically hear the smirk in its voice.

Celestia was starting to grow annoyed with the alien, and it showed in her furrowed brow. "Very well, then. How do you justify your actions?"

The alien thought for a long minute, and Celestia thought it wasn't going to answer, but then it said in a more serious tone of voice, "I would rather we discussed that at a later time. It's... something of an awkward topic."

It wasn't what Celestia asked for, but at least it was something. While she would have much preferred the alien to explain itself on the spot, she wasn't exactly in much position to force something that was over twenty times heavier than she into doing something it didn't want to do. Regardless, she didn't want to leave this confrontation without anything to show for it.

"I will hold you to that. I have told you my name, now what is yours, assuming you have one?"

"Assuming things isn't gonna get you very far in life, now, is it?" the alien said sarcastically. Before answering Celestia's question, it paused momentarily, then shrugged its massive shoulders. "Most just call me Caulk. That's what my platoon nicknamed me."

Based on "Caulk's" habit of speaking evasively, Celestia was surprised it actually gave her a straight answer. It still gave her a teasing quip, but still, it cooperated. Celestia wondered just how much it was willing to reveal about itself and its species.

"What are you? Where are you from? How did you get here?" she pestered.

Caulk looked around at the dense ring of gaurdsponies around it and sighed. "Look, with all due respect, I'd rather talk about this somewhere else." Celestia deflated, but Caulk resumed, "And for the record, I am in fact a male of my species."

"I need some kind of guarantee that you will make no more attempts to harm any of us," Celestia said. Whether or not she would be able to get answers out of him, she needed to make sure he would not harm anypony.

"Quid pro quo. Give me something to eat and I promise not to harm anyone outside of self-defense and I'll play twenty questions with you all day. Capisce?" While Celestia didn't know what 'quid pro quo' meant, Caulk's meaning was made clear. Celestia couldn't help but smile at his persistence on food.

"You really are hungry aren't you?" Celestia said with a laugh.

"I haven't eaten in over THREE FUCKING DAYS, ASSHOLE!"

~~~

"Princess Celestia" led Caulk to a secluded, walled-off portion of a nearby warehouse. During the short walk, the guards"ponies" had followed him intently, not that Caulk felt threatened by them in the least. If he so chose to, he could simply crush them underfoot. They seemed to recognize this, and so they gave him a wide berth just to avoid getting stepped on. Caulk hardly payed them much attention though. He was much more focused on thinking about his current predicament.

Okay, think, Caulk. You went through the warp gate and got knocked out. You woke up in a cell, broke out, and found out that your captors are sentient ponies. You didn't know that at the time and almost killed some, and now they're all pissed at you. So now here you are, going off to be interrogated by what would seem to be their governor.

"Question is: where is 'here'?" Caulk wondered out loud, earning an odd look and a raised eyebrow from Celestia.

When the large congregation arrived at their destination, Caulk gave a quick look around. Because of his immense size in comparison to ponies, he had had a bit of trouble getting through the doorways. Fortunately, they were made for large, cargo vehicles, so Caulk was able to get through by crawling on all fours. Each time he did, he saw Celestia failing to suppress a smirk. The area he was in was composed of a large number of wooden crates arranged to make a box shape. There was a gap that was just wide enough for him to crawl through, and it required a surprising amount of finesse to get through. Unfortunately, Caulk lacked said finesse, and accidentally knocked a crate over which managed to stay intact upon impact with the ground.

Caulk walked to a corner and sat down. Amazingly, he was able to lean against the wall of crates without them toppling over. Celestia had ordered the guards to guard the entrance to the "room," leaving the two alone.

"Now, I do believe you said you would explain yourself if I took you somewhere else," Celestia said expectantly.

Caulk, however, wanted food. "I also said that I would answer your questions if you gave me something to eat."

Celestia grumbled and said begrudgingly, "Fine. How much do you need?"

That question was a poser for Caulk. How do you describe how much you need with someone who is unfamiliar with your measurement system? Not that he would actually say "I need one kilogram of food," but still. Caulk figured that Celestia was roughly his own size when he was outside of his suit.

"A bit more than would you would eat I guess."

Celestia raised her eyebrow at Caulk again. She apparently didn't believe that a creature of his size would not need more than that. Still, she complied and left the room, and Caulk could hear murmuring through the walls. A few minutes later, Celestia entered the room again, her horn glowing yellow and a plate of food miraculously floating alongside her, glowing the same color. Caulk raised an eyebrow at that. He had seen what was apparently the guard captain construct a psionic shield, so he figured that this telekinetic ability was also a result of that.

The plate was about the same size as an ordinary dinner plate, and was piled high with an assortment of fruits, vegetables, beans and nuts. What Caulk thought odd was the presence of what looked like grass- no, hay, on the side.

Of course they eat hay. What did you expect? They're horses, Caulk thought, mentally slapping himself.

The plate floated down and stopped between Caulk's feet. There wasn't any meat, much to his disappointment, but the food still looked delicious. The only thing stopping him was Celestia standing in front of him. Caulk was a bit annoyed by that.

"Ahem"

"What is it?" Celestia asked, clearly oblivious to Caulk's complaint.

"I need to get out of this suit to eat this, you know," Caulk said, hoping she would get the hint.

She didn't. "So?"

"So how would you feel if someone of the opposite sex that you hardly knew watched you get undressed?" Caulk didn't know how much more clear he could make this. Fortunately, Celestia got the point, and Caulk laughed a bit as her face turned beet red and she exited the room without a word.

Caulk laid down flat on his back and began the suit opening sequence. With a sharp hiss, the seals on chest piece opened along the underarms and hinged open along the shoulders, taking the helmet with it in such a way that the chest piece would form a canopy over Caulk's head had he been upright. With a whirring noise, the arms and legs of the suit widened just enough for Caulk to pull his arms and legs through. Caulk clambered out of the suit's cockpit and stretched next to it for the first time in...

Geez, it must be, like, four days since I've even been outside of that suit.

He picked up the plate and noticed immediately that he didn't have anything to eat with. He was going to have to eat with his fingers. Grumbling, Caulk sat down on the his suit's leg and picked up what looked like a red apple. While he was examining it, Caulk had a sudden realization.

Wait, if I'm on an alien planet that has never had human presence, how did Terran food get here?

Caulk simply stared at the apple. After an internal debate, his growling stomach silenced any qualms he had. Taking a bite, it tasted just like any ordinary apple. Caulk finished it, as well as the rest of the food on the plate excluding the hay. While he licked his fingers clean, another thought occurred to him that made him face-palm, only now that he was out of his suit, Caulk actually did it.

You idiot. You didn't know if the air was even safe to breathe.

While that lapse in judgement was forgiven, Caulk resolved to be more careful in the future. Now finished with his task, Caulk climbed back into the suit. One of the perks of being a volunteer to the service was having a suit that one could easily get in and out of. Getting back to his feet, Caulk picked up the plate and threw it through the "doorway," causing it to shatter against the far wall. His attempt to get the ponies' attention had worked, as Celestia and the dark blue pony that he had nearly killed--which was walking with a limp--entered the room. Caulk guessed that this one was Celestia's sister.

Caulk shifted uncomfortably as Celestia's sister glared at him with enough intensity to make him cringe. While "Rainbow Dash" from earlier had tried and failed to get the same reaction, this one did.

"Uh... Uh-oh..."

~~~

Celestia had left Caulk alone to eat his food. Surprisingly, the massive creature did not require nearly as much food as she expected. Seeing as how he had laughed when Celestia left, she couldn't tell if he was joking or not when he made that remark.

Not sure how long Caulk would take to eat, Celestia thought that Luna might want to get some answers out of him as well. Teleporting to the infirmary, which was where Luna had been taken to be examined after being kicked by Caulk, Celestia asked the head nurse where Luna was. The nurse had decided she was well enough to be let go, so Celestia figured that Luna's room was the only other place she could be.

With a bright flash, Celestia teleported to Luna's room, who was sleeping on her bed. She winced when she noticed that her sister sported a massive, dark bruise on her side.

"Luna?"

Luna's eyes cracked open and she immediately groaned at the pain in her side. "I would appreciate it if you would knock before entering, sister."

Well, all things considered she could have been off a lot worse. "I was able to convince Caulk to refrain from acting violently, and he also agreed to answer some questions."

"'Caulk'?" Luna asked.

"Oh, right. The alien. His name is Caulk." Celestia face-hoofed. Of course Luna didn't know who Caulk was. She was taken to the infirmary almost immediately after he had released her.

Luna climbed out of her bed and started pestering Celestia with questions excitedly. "So you were able to talk to him? Does he really speak Equinic? How? Where is he from?"

"Yes, I was able to talk to him, though that was about the extent of it. He was insistent on getting something to eat before he would answer anything. He's eating right now and I thought you might want to give him a piece of your mind after what he did."

Luna smirked and said, "Lead the way."

~

Celestia and Luna each teleported in near the improvised interrogation room, startling the guards.

"Has there been any change?" Celestia asked one of the guards.

"No, ma'am. It hasn't said or done-" CRASH "... anything..."

As though the alien was listening in on their conversation and had decided to pull a prank, the ceramic plate Celestia had given Caulk came flying out the gap in the walls like a discus. The plate smashed against the far wall almost a hundred hooflengths away. Trailing the plate were sprigs of hay and an apple core that, save for the apple core, floated gently down before they came to a rest on the floor.

The Royal Sisters walked to the gap in the wall, skirting the crate that Caulk had accidentally knocked over. Celestia noticed that Luna had a noticeable limp in her leg where Caulk had kicked her. Within the room, they found Caulk sitting in a corner, watching them closely. He appeared to take a special notice of Luna, and appeared to be shifting uncomfortably in his seat. When Celestia glanced at her sister, she found that she was staring at Caulk with the most intense glare she had ever seen in a pony.

Caulk was the first to say anything, but it was more of a vocal reflection of his thoughts of Luna's glare. "Uh... Uh-oh..."

"'Uh-oh' is right. I think you owe me something for that kick back there," Luna said angrily.

"Fine, fine. What do you want?" he said, and now that he had actually spoken something, Luna dropped her glare and began to look excited.

"You to answer any question I give you," she said with a mischievous grin.

Caulk responded by groaning, "Great... now there are two of you." He sighed. "Alright, so who's first?"

Before Luna could say anything, Celestia blurted, "There are better ways to get somepony's attention than throwing a plate. You could have just yelled."

"Yeah, I could have. But where's the fun in that? You gotta enjoy the little things in life, you know."

Celestia raised an eyebrow and said, "Fair enough. Now, how do you justify your earlier actions?"

"Straight down to business, huh?" Caulk said with a laugh, "I like that. Better than all of the evasive politicians and whatnot back 'home'. How do I justify my actions? Well, let me start by saying that where I come from, ponies and horses are non-sentient, and are often domesticated for use on farms and such. Of course, they aren't anymore, and haven't been for several hundred years."

"What do you mean, 'non-sentient'?" Luna cut in.

If Caulk hadn't been wearing a helmet, Celestia felt like he would have been scowling at Luna for the interruption.

"What I mean is, they don't have any sapient intelligence. They don't speak or have intelligent thought. They're just animals. Like dogs or cats."

This idea disturbed Celestia. Was it really possible for ponies to be little more than animals elsewhere in the universe? And how Caulk's kind stand to use them as beasts of burden?

"So you use them to haul things around?" Luna said in disbelief, "That's barbaric!"

Caulk let out a dry laugh. "Well it's not like we drive them like slaves. Most people treat them as well as their situations and resources permit."

"Fair enough, but how does that tie in to your actions?" Celestia asked, seeking a better answer.

"I thought you were the same, non-sentient animals that I'm familiar with. If you've seen what I've seen, the deaths of a few animals is seen as collateral, if even that."

"And what exactly have you seen to make you think that?" Luna pressed, furious at his apathy for the lives of other creatures, "Anypony who is so hollow should be considered as walking dead!"

"Hmph. Things that I would rather forget."

"Such as...?"

"War. Disease. Genocide. Is any of this getting through to you? I have seen more people die from each of these than there are on this planet!" Caulk roared. This was obviously a sensitive subject with him.

Celestia cringed. Whatever happened, she did not want to anger this creature. But still, if his words were anything to go by, then all the death he had seen was enough to dull one's sensitivity to the lives of animals.

Desperate to take his mind off this subject, Celestia asked, "So, then, what exactly are you? Where are you from?"

After taking a few deep breaths to calm himself, Caulk said, "Terran. We originate from Earth, which is the translation of the ancient Greek word terra. Pretty imaginative, right?" His voice was practically dripping with sarcasm.

"What do you mean you 'originate' from Earth?" Luna asked. In truth, this was an intriguing question, as Celestia had noticed as well that Caulk had paused momentarily to choose that particular word.

"Over the centuries, we have colonized dozens of worlds. Some of them have populations as high as there were on Old Earth," Caulk said this as though everypony knew it.

Dozens? Celestia thought. She could hardly believe the idea that they had even fully populated their own world.

"Which are you from, then?" Luna was acting giddy at this. That made sense, though, as the stars were Luna's domain.

"Tyrador VIII," Caulk stated matter-of-factly. As much as Celestia was appreciating his straight answers, they were minimal at best.

"And? What can you tell us about it?" Celestia pressed.

"It was one of the first 'planned' colonies we had. It was known for having high standards of education and general living. The last I heard, the Zerg were successfully expelled from it."

The "Zerg" was something new. "What are the Zerg?" Celestia asked.

"Remember what I said about genocide? Let's just say that the Zerg deserve to be killed off," Caulk stated flatly. Celestia had a feeling that he was hiding his true opinions, but his words alone were enough to concern her. The Terrans committed genocide on the Zerg? There was no excuse for something like that.

"What reason would you give for wanting to destroy them?" Luna dared to venture.

"I'll explain that later," Caulk said, avoiding the question. "Suffice to say, they are a race with a collective intelligence, and so far their only goal is to consume or assimilate all life in the galaxy. And they have left their mark, if you catch my drift."

Celestia shuddered at the thought of a race that had actually had some success in attempting to devour every living being in existence. Eager to get off such a grim topic, she asked, "Do you have some kind of uniting government?"

"Yeah. The Dominion, ruled by the God Emperor Mengsk." Caulk had the sarcasm stream going full force, and spat out the name "Emperor Mengsk" with disdain.

What could have caused somepony to hate their ruler with such intensity? "Why do you hate your emperor so much?" Luna asked. Since the Nightmare Moon ordeal, Luna had been concerned with how the public saw her, so she was constantly putting an effort to help ponies and improve her image.

Instead of answering, Caulk seemed to be thinking for a moment, but then a voice recording began emanating from him. The voice made Celestia and Luna think immediately of a tyrannical ruler, and what it said didn't help ease it, *... I will not be stopped. Not by you, or the Protoss or anyone! I will rule this sector, or see it burn to ashes around me...*

When the recording stopped, Caulk said, "Before the Dominion came to power five years ago, we were united under the Confederacy, a corrupt and cruel government. Mengsk, like all of us, wanted to destroy it, so he put Psi Emitters on the surface of Tarsonis--which was like the Confederacy's capitol--to lure the Zerg to destroy it. Over two billion people died as a result of Mengsk's actions, and he told everyone that he had nothing to do with it."

Celestia gaped. She had heard tales of the ancients of wars resulting in the deaths of thousands, and she had seen the chaos that Discord had wrought.

Caulk must have seen the shocked looks on both their faces because he continued. "But wait, it gets better. The Zerg came back a year ago."

Another voice recording played, but this one sounded like multiple snippets from others patched together.

*-Zerg swarm launched a full scale attack-

-Devastation spread throughout all outer rim planets-

-Sustained heavy losses-

-Casualties in the billions-

-Minutes ago the zerg attacked a Dominion military research facility-

-New, exclusive video footage confirms the Queen of Blades is in fact leading the swarm!*

For the second time that day, Caulk had left Celestia speechless.

Caulk called on Luna's remark that he was hollow inside. "I hope now you know where I'm coming from with this. I'm a soldier. I think of all of this as necessary sacrifice. Deaths are inconveniences now, nothing more. We are all 'dead men walking'."