Origins of Madness

by Twi

Chapter 2 - Not in Jail?!

Life awoke from a dreamless sleep to the sounds of Birds singing and the sun shining at his face. He fought the urge to kill the sun so he could sleep a little longer, before he started to remember the events of the previous day. He remembered arriving in Solaria and buying his new home. He remembered Clearly Oblivia and what happened between them… or what didn’t happen between them.

“That bitch…”

He remembered how she didn’t show up in the Restaurant and how the feeling of loneliness and hatred begun to grow in him again. He remembered how hard it was to suppress the need to cry out then and there and attack everypony who dared to even look at him. But then he remembered bumping into another Pony just before some Guards yelled at him and took his consciousness from him with some precisely planted hits on his head. After that? Nothing. Neither how late it was when he woke up, nor how he found his way home afterwards. The Guards could impossibly know where he lived, seeing as he moved in only a few hours earlier, but if they didn’t bring him home, and he didn’t walk home…

“Where the buck am I if this isn’t my home…?”

Life Dreamer finally decided to open his eyes and try to find out where he landed. It didn’t feel like he was in a dungeon of some sorts, that meant he didn’t do anything wrong. That was good, he hoped. Wouldn’t be the first time some crazy Stallion would try to hold the infamous Demon as his pet. His reputation was that of a freak, he knew that, but the day he saw the wanted poster of a circus that wanted him for some sorts of freak show, well, it made him sick to know that there were monsters like that out there and HE would be named “freak” or “spawn from the depths of Tartaros”. In fact, the only time when he physically hurt someone it was back in the orphanage and even if most couldn’t understand him, he HAD a reason after all.

Life´s Eyes begun to adapt to the bright shines that radiated from the big burning Orb of warmth and he started to see some details of the Room he was in. He was in a really big and REALLY comfy king sized bed that stood in a large white painted room. The ceiling was painted blue with some stains of white and resembled the Sky at summer. To his left stood a little bedside table with a glass of water on top of it. He stopped his exploration and grabbed the glass, downing it in one swig. After this his throat felt much better, he continued his observation. There was a Fire side on the opposite side of the room with a couch in front of it. By the looks of it, the couch was probably as comfy as the bed, but as long as he didn’t know where he was, he wanted to take no chances and stood away from it. On the right side of the room was a transparent glass door that led to some kind of Balcony. On the left side was a wooden door with golden ornamentations on it.

“Well, this is definitely not my house….”

He rubbed his head at the place where he still felt a little sore from last night. And then, it hit him.

“WAIT, the Guards screamed something of a princess! Oh no, I hope I didn’t run into the princess without noticing her. But if I did, and I´m not in a dungeon and instead in some luxurious Bedroom…. I must be at the castle…”

Life dropped back into one of the oversized cushions on the back and didn’t know if he should be happy and smile, or if he should be afraid and jump from the balcony in the hope he would survive and could escape. Well, he wanted to live a little bit longer, and he didn’t want to run from the one he must apologize to, so he just laid there and let a big grin creep over his face. A few minutes later, he drifted back into sleep.

He didn’t sleep all that long this time. Maybe one, or two hours at best, before he woke up again. But this time it wasn’t the slight tickle of the sun or the soft chirps of the birds that woke him up. This time, a guard stood beside his bed and yelled at him to wake up. Life Dreamer wanted to hit him in the face for that and continue his nap, but before he could handle his mind he was awake enough to decide against that. He wasn’t in Jail, for now at least, and had no intentions of going there. Instead of attacking the troublemaker, he grumbled the only question he can think of.

“Huh, what do you want?”

“Get up, the King wants to see you! I will wait outside of this room for you.”

With that, the Guard left his room, the sounds of his steps coming to a halt just outside the wooden door. Life rubbed his eyes and stood up, confusion written all over his face.

‘What could the King want from me? I mean, he is the KING of Equestria and I am the… most… hated… Pony… of Equestria… Could he want to get rid of me? To clean this perfect world of an imperfect being like me? What should I do? Run? Try to convince him to let me live and just banish me from Equestria?’

Question after Question poured in his mind, playing all kinds of scenarios how the upcoming meeting could go. In some, he would be sentenced to death, in others banished from the Kingdom and in some others there was nothing but silly smalltalk between the two of them. He slowly went over to the left side of the room and opened the door. The Guard stood, as he said a few minutes ago, on the right sight of the door, waiting patiently for the guest to accompany him.

“Follow me.”

The Guard walked down the long stone corridor and descended the stairs at the end of it. On the bottom they turned left and walked through another long corridor. There stood some plants and hung some pictures of the King, the palace or some random, but beautiful landscapes on the walls, but still they looked more Spartan then he guessed they wanted it to. He´d never been to the palace so all of this was new for him and in his mind he prayed to all things he knew and pleaded to be never left alone in this maze made of floors. It took them about twenty minutes until they arrived their destination. Life Dreamer and the Guard stood in front of a big double door. It was made of solid steel plates with similar ornamentations like the door to “his” room had. On one of the doors was the Sun embodied and on the other one the Moon surrounded by stars. It represented the lifecycle of this world and how the day would come after the night and the night would come after the day. The Guard turned around to face the Unicorn and told him how to behave in the presence of the King and/or his family. That was a good thing, because he never met royalty before and didn’t know what was ok and what not. But even if he thought he knew, it would´ve been probably exactly the opposite and he would’ve blamed himself like nopony did before. Most of the instructions were what everypony would guess: bowing to the king and staying on one knee until he would say otherwise, or that his answersmust always end with “Your highness” or “Your Majesty”.

After a few minutes Life said that he familiarized everything and that he was ready. The Guard took one last look at the Unicorn before turning around and knocking on the door. It was strange for him. He knew who stood behind him and he heard all those stories about him and how monstrous he was. But in the last half an hour he acted like every normal pony would. Well except for not knowing how to address royalty. It took only moments for the door to glow in a light yellow shine, a sign that a Unicorn used its magic to open the door remotely. The right door with the now glowing Moon opened without making a sound. Life Dreamer took a last, long breath and walked through the Door.