Author of Reality

by LucidTech

The Seventh Circle of...

It was quiet in the cell room, no longer needed by the princesses. With the peaceful stillness encircling him, Author wished it would stay that way, but much like his wish to see the ponies grow up it was denied him. His earbuds lay cast off to the corner of the room, deathly quiet in their banishment. He had closed his eyes and sat down on his pockets, letting his mind run wild. In this particular day dream he was trying to imagine that just once he could be somewhere else and just when he was about to manage it his attention was broken as he heard the hoofsteps outside the door, followed shortly by the opening of the door itself. Author couldn’t help but wonder in the empty darkness of his self induced blindness who it could be.

Whoever it was, they were angry, he determined. The loud smashing giving it away without even slightly pretending they weren’t. This, he discerned, ruled out the sisters, who would mask their feelings almost as second nature. The anger to begin with ruled out Discord, who wouldn’t be caught dead being so cliche as to have reasonable emotions. So that simply left the mane six, the only ones remaining from the list of those who would dare to approach him. The voice quickly gave away the answer.

“How dare you!” Rarity. Certainly would have been his last guess, after all, she didn’t want to be seen with him. He opened his eyes to look at the white mare, anger steaming out of her face in waves of deep exhales.

Author closed his eyes again. “You’re going to need to be more specific.” He didn’t think he’d told anyone besides Fluttershy about the origin of his hat. Perhaps she had told on him? He had thought her above that, but Rarity was miles more important to her than some scary monster. It made sense in the long run.

“How dare you scare those parents like that?!”

Ah, she’d heard about the hospital, of course, it made sense now. He briefly considered not talking to her, letting the silence drag on, but then changed his mind. Just as he was about to speak though, she cut him off. “You walk into the hospital, cast some unknown magic on a sick child and then have the nerve to treat the parents like they’re the ones at fault? Have you no conscience?”

Something inside him snapped at those words. His eyes opened slowly and he slowly took in the entire form of the fashionista. Her clothing spoke well for her standing, radiating importance and style with every thread. Yet woven deeper than that was a feeling of warmth and kindness. A large obtuse hat sat on her head, as always, and thick eye liner hung from her lashes, easily the most prominent make-up, and the only thing he could point out if asked about it.

His eyes were dead in response to her words, and as Rarity fully grasped what she might’ve done he suddenly stood to his full height. He towered over her, easily twice as tall as she was with her neck upright. He glowered at her from his new position and sneered. “Get out.” The words hissed from between his lips and bit into the air, suprising Rarity with their force.

She fumbled for a moment, surprised, but quickly regained her composure. “Or what? You’re going to hurt me? Pain me? Cut my hair? Then do it you monster! Perhaps then the sisters will see you for what you truly are and then we will be free of your presence!” Drama swelled behind her words, but Author could tell that the words themselves were empty. Knowing what she currently knew, sure, she would most likely do as she had said, but she made no account for the great amount that she didn’t know of him.

A burning laugh cut from Author’s throat, hitting Rarity in the stomach and filling her with a sudden unsurity. “You want to know why your princesses haven’t already kicked me out? Huh? You think they’re blind to everything I’ve done? I assure you they know full well everything that has occurred because of me. I know it as perfectly as I know that you still get a cutting feeling in your gut whenever you make something. A feeling that tells you you aren’t any good, that you should just give up.”

He gave her a moment to take that in, and the apprehensive look quickly turned to rising panic. “Do you know why the sister’s haven’t stopped me? Why they haven’t tried to reform the elements on my head and set me in stone? Huh? No?” He looked her deep in the eyes. “These bars here behind me? The ones that bound me for millennia? These bars are wrapped in the magic of Celestia, Luna, and the Elements, a perfect unbreakable spell forged over three months in the purest steel. If you don’t believe me you’re free to check.”

He saw in her eyes the sheer terror she had done so. Author grabbed a bar with one hand, and almost immediately it began to melt away, turning to slag and running down onto the floor, where it pooled and hardened. “The only reason I stayed in there so long was because I agreed to it. I had been foolish enough to believe that the absolute pinnacles of virtue would keep their end of the bargain to the letter. Can you imagine? Geez, how foolish of me right?”

Rarity made a break for the door, only to watch it slam in her face. Chains surged up from the solid puddle and wrapped the mare in their binds, sapping her magic from the broken spell that still haunted it’s mutilated host. “Oh no no, you wanted to talk, let’s talk.” His face was malevolent as he stepped closer to her, looking ready to punch her square in the jaw.

Then, instead, he knelt down and whispered in her ear. “Do you want to know what I did for one thousand years of confinement? Hmm? I spent GENERATIONS trapped in there, you want to know what I did that whole time?” He stood up, a look of manic and craze tipping into his expression. “I came to terms with the fact that you’re all real. All of you. You shouldn’t be, but you are.” He grabbed his hair in anger and looked ready to pull it out before he caught himself. His face settled and his hand ran through his hair with ease.

“See. You’re all a show where I come from. An animated book. Well, sort of. Because you aren’t quite that, very close though, you’re based on that show. You want to know how I can break the perfect spell? How I can read minds? Cast impossible magic? See who you are and what you want? Cure the incurable?” He paused, as if coming to a dramatic conclusion. “I’m the author of this world, I made this world. All of it. Every last thing.”

“You can call me a god if you like, but I’m the worst kind. I don’t even deserve the title. Because, you see, I’ve wrote worse stories. If this one is true, so are those others. I’ve wrote murders and deaths. I know so many death tallies it’s stupid. But hey, one thousand years, what else am I gonna do?”

“I killed you in three of them, Pinkie in one, Rainbow in two,” His words seem to grow and grow as he said them, “Fluttershy in two, A.J. in two. And I made Twilight WISH she was dead in four total. I killed your sister and her friends, I killed Celestia and Luna and everyone and else several times each and do you know why? Huh? Do you know why I killed all of them? BECAUSE IT WAS CONVIENT FOR THE PLOT!”

Rarity was shaking in fear, not knowing what the madman might do now. She was much more at risk than she had thought she was when she had first come into the room. She feared what his next step would be on this path of escalation, each word more panicked than the last. Then, suddenly, as he came to a close, all the anger left his body. He slouched and let his arms hang loosely by his side. The chains unraveled from around her and even helped her to her feet before they collapsed into the pool once again. The door opened and Rarity looked at the man, as if not believing him.

“You should have listened to me when I told you to get out.” All the fire was gone from his voice, now he only sounded sad, his voice choked by tears that never came to his face. She looked at him briefly, thinking how she might help him, before the overpowering voice of reason took over and gripped her heart. She left quickly and quietly and shut the door behind her, letting the monster of the cell enjoy his solitude.

He didn’t settle back into his imagination, he didn’t want to be there anymore. Instead he collapsed to the ground and drug himself over to his strange device, plugged the small buds into his ears, and let the noise drown out the world.

Comments

[Skalula7]

the ground and drug himself over to his strange device

and dragged himself sounds better.

[hs0003]

An update for The Author I see, are my eyes deceiving me?

[Luna Secret Stallion]

3933855 Drugs!

[nothingtoseehere]

I’ve wrote worse stories

written

[The Watcher 509]

I feel pretty

[LucidTech]

4433638

Again, only three months, (Honestly, I'm surprised it's only been that long, I coulda sworn It'd been longer.) After one year, you can say it's on life support, because as anyone who's followed 'words spoken on painted canvas' knows, it's never truly dead.

[hs0003]

4433823 Update this, bi weekly at least.