EPILOGUE
The first thing Edward had asked was: Why I'm different?
Twilight had been expecting it, of course, since when he asked who he was. But still, it came as a surprise to her. She had give him a shaky smile, sat him down and explained him what he had explained to her. She told him about his world, about what he liked and what he didn't before all of this, and pretended to ignore his lost look.
He had asked about what happened, too. He deserved to know, but she couldn't tell him the full truth. She just couldn't. So she told him, but didn't tell him he had been the vessel of Discord, didn't tell him his drunkard of a father had killed him because his wife had died giving birth to him, and simply told him he had lost his memories in the attack of Discord. Nice, and simple. How she wished what she told him was the truth.
But things were never so simple.
Edward knew. They might them he didn't, that they fooled him with their empty smiles and strained words, but they hadn't right from the beginning. He didn't understand why, he couldn't understand, but he knew that he was not welcome here, in Ponyville. And that it didn't have anything to do with him being a human. He was sure of that, because he saw that they didn't quite manage to disguise their hatred and fear of him. There had to be something more, but nobody told him anything, and he hadn't managed to work up the courage to ask anything about it,
They blamed him for the attack of that monster. That was the thing he had settled on, but he didn't have the details, so he didn't know if he was wrong or right, let alone of to fix that. He just wanted to get along. Being able to pass each day peacefully was the minimum every creature was entitled to. All except for him. Where was his crime? That was the question that consumed his thoughts, even in the dead of the night.
He lived with Twilight, and he spend his days helping out Applejack and her family at the farm or helping Fluttershy with her animals. He was not very good at it, but he had perseverance, and he was learning. If he didn't have those responsibility to focus on, he would have gone mad a long time ago, so he was glad for their patience. And their kindness and understanding too, of curse.
Their friendship was good enough for him, but still, he wished that things could be different. That the rest of them could accept him as one of their own. At least, they were not affected by his association with him. Cold comfort maybe, but better that no comfort at all.
He came back home, and… he froze. Twilight was magically clearing something which had been scrawled on the walls of the house. 'In which side are you?', 'my family is dead because of him', 'traitor' and other such things. He shallowed. He was an idiot. Of course it had affected them, he had simply refused to even think about it, because he didn't want to dealt with the guilt of that. He stayed where he was, until she finished cleaning.
Then he stepped up. She turned to her, giving him a shaky smile. He could see the relief in her eyes, because he hadn't found out once again, and that only made him felt worse.
"Hello!" he said, giving her a bright smile. "How was your day?"
"Good. And yours?"
"Good."
They were walking on eggshells around each other. They were so close that they could touch each other, and yet the distance between them was bigger that ever. No, it was like it had been from the beginning. He just had been unable to see it.
He headed out, at night. Beyond the forest, to the mountains, somewhere hight up. He looked down. To the waters, the deep below. Enough distance to end it all. He had left a single note. I love you all, goodbye. It was all that needed to be said. He had no dreams, no hope for the future. He was just living. So this was fine, in the end.
Even if he didn't have a future, he wouldn't take their future from them. He made it all wrong, made the people they had know for their whole lives turn against them. Being able to live peacefully was the minimum every creature was entitled too. He had though that before, and he still stood by it. He would give them the peace he wouldn't never get.
He took a deep breath.
He closed his eyes…
And he took flight.