SA | Means to an end

+1 AP (673 words) | For Renata
*I wrote this half asleep, be warned

The tears just keep falling
One after another
It is not enough
Keep those tears coming
One after another
And maybe one day
You can live with yourself

She should have been elated. They had won. What they started so many years ago had run its course and in the end they had come out on top. And in a way she really felt victorious, proud of the goal they had accomplished. Yet as she looked down upon the once mighty city that now lay crumbled by their hooves, she felt her eyes water and her heart ache, almost if not completely washing that good feeling away.  Sadness clouded her heart and mind, pity making it hard to enjoy anything. Is this what she had wanted? They had met their goal but by which means? She had always steeled her heart, reminded herself of the ages of murder upon their kind. Of the mess Perseus had been when Cualli pulled him on land. They had a cause and she had supported it, knowing it would take sacrifice. She had told herself she was okay with that. It was reality and it was needed. It would change history for the many years to come. Or so she told herself.

Now when it was done and the city lay in shambles. Blood and bodies paved the streets. Blood that stuck to their hooves. Never had she imagined things would go quite as gruesomely and she could not shake the sounds, the sights from her dreams at night. And though she had not personaly taken part in the assault, staying in the back as the medic she was, she could feel it as if the red liquid stained her very soul. No matter how much she bathed she could not wash it off.

Despite their accomplishment and their now even bigger family, she felt bad. Alone, filthy, broken. She lost the times she had tried to scrub herself, polishing off imaginary blood from her coat. She felt weak, an idiot. The others would scoff if she showed them such sentiment. She should be happy, should celebrate and not wallow. Unable to share and unable to will those feelings away, she had fled off, seeking a moment of quiet all by herself.

An image she could not quite shake was that off a pegasus foal. They had been trembling and crying, lost on the streets. Renata had wanted to reach out, the wails going straight to her heart, but when she approached them, they had only screamed harder and backed up. The terror in their eyes had shattered her heart. As if she was the worst monster they had ever seen. She was promptly charged by a Talorian horse who went to stand in front of the foal protectively, lashing out. She hadn't done anything, yet she felt like a rogue, a villain as she watched the male be taken down by flock warriors as he screamed at the foal to run. Run, don't let them catch you. They were the enemy and not the saviors in their eyes.

Looking out over the city, she fell to her knees and wept. Tear upon tear sliding from cheeks and strained sobs wrecking her tired body. How was she gonna live with this? Live with what they had done? She needed someone, anyone, anything to cling to. To give her hope, to make her think it was going to be okay. But she hadn't.

Eventually the tears stopped and she righted herself, teke dusting of herself. She stared over the city, face growing emotionless once more, until only the marks of dried tears gave away she had cried before. She wiped at her face, hoping the wind even would hide those away. Her heart she closed and her body she steeled, preparing to return. Yet as she did all that, she silently wondered. How was she ever going to find peace with this? Did the cause justify the means? In the end she just needed to convince herself it did or she would not be able to live with herself. The guilt would eat away at her until she was nothing but an empty shell.