//------------------------------//
// The Dream King 
// Story: Aslumber (Sanquil Version) 
// by Sanquil 
//------------------------------//

	"Gah!" The king shot up, awoken from a disturbed slumber. Something was off, but he couldn't place his hoof on it. Huffing, he got out of bed, and opened the doors to his balcony, letting the cool night wind whip his mane around. Gazing at the city lights, he smiled. All the ponies enjoying themselves, despite who he was, made him truly happy. It was funny, in a way. He couldn't remember the last he was happy. His life before his banishment seemed to be nothing but despair and disappointment. He tried to recall his life before he was sent to this place, his prison, and yet his escape from all the evil and sorrow in the world.

His story is one of quite immense sorrow. It all started when he was just a little colt. He hadn't even gotten his cutie mark when his mother, the joy of his life, passed away, leaving him with his disapproving father. His father expected great things of his son, and when his mother passed away, they grew apart. His father was rarely home, drinking himself into a stupor pretty much every night, coming home just to remind him how much of a failure he was, being out of school, and was still a blank flank.

One day, after his father returned from the local bar, being as drunk as ever. His father was in a rampage, tearing through the house, destroying most of the remaining belonging of his late mother. Turning on his son, he unleashed his rage. Yelling all the obscenities in the book, swearing up and down that his failure was the cause of his mother. His hoof went up, and came down, finding it's mark on his son's face, scarring him forever.

He couldn't take it. The constant verbal, and now physical, abuse he was receiving from his father pushed him over the edge. Concentrating, he will his father to sleep, bringing an end to his rage. With that one spell, he got his cutie mark, a pillow under a crescent moon, to represent sleep. But he hadn't realized the power of his magic. The spell was one of a great magnitude, putting his father into a coma.

Unable to reverse his sleep magic, his father soon passed away. Now orphaned and living off nothing but his wit, he ventured into the world. He quickly turned to a life of crime, stealing from anypony he could, casting them into eternal slumber. Eventually, Celestia received word of this, and sent a nationwide pony hunt for him.

Not long after it happened, he was detained, and his life hung on the balance of the great ruler of Equestria. Her punishment, as decided by the royal princess of the sun and her cabinet, is eternal banishment to the very place he sent his victims. So he was cast into the dream realm, where his physical body would be held in the Canterlot dungeon, and his mind be forever locked inside a dream. He would cease to age, and live an eternal life of solitude. That was the plan, until he manipulated Twilight Sparkle, and was freed from his prison.

A single tear rolled down his cheek, and hit the ground with a soft plop. Even after all this time, he still hadn't forgiven his father, and missed his mother dearly. This empire he has built is his only happiness now.