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// The Worst Exposition in History 
// Story: A Schizophrenic's Guide to Equestria 
// by Soulsilver 
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Turns out trying to eat my own arm 'disturbed' others in the room to the point of nausea, and I was forced to stop. Fortunately the chefs actually did know how to make a roast vegetable dish without any hay or alfalfa. It didn't taste as good as my arm, but it filled me up for now. I'd just have to continue my meal later in private.

Luckily the wait wasn't boring. For some reason, they actually did serve alcoholic drinks in the Royal Dining Hall. I expected something like wine, but the list Twilight read to me included everything from hard cider to Martinis (Maretinis, as she called them. Horse puns are the devil.) and pints of vodka. You read that right. Pints. Either the princesses have higher tolerance levels than me, or the whole "entire race being wiped out" thing wears them down more than they let show.

What shocked me more than the variety was the price. "We can order any and/or all of that, and it will be completely free? No hidden charges or angry bartenders sending thugs to try to break my thumbs?"

"Umm...yeeaaah." Twilight looked at me with worry mixed with a bit of confusion. I guess that wasn't a common threat among a species that had hooves. "None of that. Ponies kept wanting Celestia to give us some kind of reward, and we settled on free meals and rooms at the palace for us and our friends and family. I didn't really mind it since I already had those privileges because of my status as Princess Celestia's personal student," she rubbed the back of her neck and blushed while she said that, embarrassed at even her own praise.

I chuckled at her awkwardness for a moment and looked down at the menu before Wrath, Ataxia and I realised what she was getting at and started conversing quickly.

'Oh god damn it.'

'We're fucked.'

'Why must that purple pony be so damn smart!'

'Maybe we can pretend to be dead?'

'No, she wouldn't buy it.'

'Maybe we can actually be dead!'

'Not a bad idea, but we'd probably just heal right away. Maybe we can just run?'

'No, with their magic and wings, even I can't run fast enough to get away.'

'Jump off the city?'

'The edge is too far away.'

'.....'

'.....'

'.....yeah, we're fucked.'

I slowly turned back to Twilight, who smirked as she saw the look on my face, knowing that I knew. "You are cruel, mean, manipulative, and not very nice."

"You're just mad that I beat you." She was smiling the most smug-ass smile that ever existed. I just glared at her, wishing that I had just kept eating my arm and gotten thrown out. "So. Do you concede?"

I grumbled, and was about to refuse when I saw a waiter bring out a tray with a large glass filled with the most delicious mind numbing potion known to man or equine. I watched him for a couple of seconds before I turned back and sighed heavily. I held out my hand and she placed her hoof in my palm. "Yes."

She raised an eyebrow. "Say it." I bit a piece of my cheek off. The pain helped, but didn't get rid of the bitterness.

"....fine. We're.......friends. BUT!" I cut her off before she could react. "You mark my words! This will only end in heartbreak and sorrow for you! You'll be all 'Oh, if only I listened to JD, then I could have been spared the pain of being friends with a jackass!' That's you. That's what you sound like." It sounded nothing like her. I have since heard chainsaws that sounded more like her. I regret nothing.

To my frustration she ignored my taunts and my warning, and continued to smile with smug satisfaction. I swear I could see it materialising above her head in a small haze as if I were in San Francisco. I grumbled and ordered the pint of vodka. Getting shit-faced drunk tends to soothe the sting of loss.

"Dear, why are you making such a fuss?" Asked Rarity, who was slowly but neatly eating her way through her salad. "It isn't proper to act so dramatically over such minor things." Rainbow and Applejack both looked over at her with poorly hidden smirks on their faces. I didn't have to think hard to figure out that Rarity was probably just a little hypocritical.

I rolled my eyes at her. "Let's just say that the only friends I have left are imaginary."

'Fuck you, YOU'RE imaginary!'

'But I was here first.'

'Maybe Wrath's the real one, and he just imagined you to THINK that you were first.'

'God damn it you guys, stop trying to give me an existential crisis.'

"You don't have any friends? That's so sad!" There was the sad Pinkie face again. If she were human I wouldn't have cared if she were on fire, but I couldn't stand to see cute animals suffer. My therapist still counted it as a good thing for someone like me, though.

"No, it's fine, I'm used to being alone. Besides, humans are jerks. Well, at least all the ones I know. A nice human is almost as rare as a unicorn these days." They all looked at each other in confusion. "Yeah yeah, shut up. It has more impact in a world where unicorns don't exists. Just pretend we're in my world. Just don't go into the bad part of town, or you'll get mugged."

"Um....don't you have any family, at least?" And I thought Pinkie's sad-face was bad. Stupid Fluttershy and her stupid cute face. It threw me off my game.

"Uh...no, I'm afraid I haven't had one for a while now." I rubbed the back of my neck awkwardly.

'Holy shit, could you be more beta? Stop being a pussy and just tell them what happened!'

'What, do you want me to make these ponies cry?'

'....yes. Who the hell do you think I am?'

'I bet their tears are very potent for making alchemic potions of mass destruction. And they probably taste like snozzberries.'

'Oh god, I am so glad I repress all of my crazy into you two.'

"Is that why you cried during the film?" Asked Twilight, who was leaning forward and looking at me in concern. Thankfully, it confused me just enough to get my groove back.

"What, because I don't have a family? No, I'm over that. Have been for a while." She slumped back, frowning.

Applejack spoke up, forestalling more awkwardness. "Well JD, for what it's worth, Ah already consider ya'll a part of mah family, what with you savin' mah little sis' and all." Oh, did I say she stopped me from feeling awkward? I lied, she made it much worse.

"That's uh....great, Applejack. Real nice of you. Just don't make me buy you guys Christmas presents. Trust me, I am horrible at choosing gifts for anyone, myself included."

She waved a hoof at me. "Naw, it's nothin' like that. We'll just help each other when we need it."

"Yeah, like Applebuck Season coming up, right AJ?" Rainbow smirked and nudged her in the ribs. Applejack refused to make eye contact. That worried me.

I didn't get the chance to question it, however, as the waiter came out levitating our drinks. Applejack and Rainbow Dash had both gotten several mugs of hard cider, obviously preparing for a drinking contest. Twilight and Rarity decided to share a bottle of "Daffodil Wine". Call it a hunch, but I doubted that was just the brand name. Fluttershy, predictably, didn't drink alcohol, and ordered a lemonade instead. Pinkie however defied all my predictions and ordered cola. Not that cola is an odd choice of drink for her, but her reasoning was. Apparently she thinks alcohol is 'Bad for you and icky!' The hypocrisy scales were off the charts, considering she had also placed an order for a huge dessert, but it still surprised me. She is a party pony, after all. I guessed that most of her parties wouldn't exactly be considered 'wild' by Earth standards.

I raised my glass filled with Potion of Memory Loss to my lips ready to take a sip. Or propose marriage. Can't exactly recall which. "James, are you sure you want to drink that?" Of course Twilight had to ruin the moment. I lowered my glass.

"Yes I am, Madam Buzzkill." I lifted the glass back up.

"Aren't you worried about brain damage? Or the hangover you will definitely have in the morning?"

I groaned. "I'm used to hangovers by now. Besides, a little headache is better than horrifying nightmares."

Fluttershy cowered a little at the mention of the 'N' word. "O-oh my. You-you have nightmares? Wh-what about?" Before I could comfort her, I felt Wrath take control.

'Oh god don't do what I thi-'

"Oh, you know, the horrifically slow and painful deaths of all life on Earth through nuclear fire and radiation." Fluttershy's eyes shrunk to pinpricks. Wrath put down our drink and inspected our nails half-heartedly. "And that's on a good day. Honestly, they seem more like pleasant little dreams compared to other things that go on up here. Unspeakable horrors from alternate dimensions, unquenchable darkness draining all sanity, lots of fun stuf-" I cut him off by wrenching away control of an arm and punching our face as hard as I could a few times. He didn't feel the pain, but he could feel how our nose shattered. He smirked and relinquished control, knowing he'd done the damage he wanted.

I looked at Fluttershy while I held by bleeding nose. She was shivering like it was freezing, but her face had fear written all over it. I sighed and stood up. "I'm sorry about that Fluttershy. I-sometimes I can't exactly control what comes out of my mouth. I'm....I'm gonna go for a walk, wait for my nose to heal. Be back in a bit, everyone." I turned around and walked out of the hall before any of them could protest, or yell at me. When I was sure I was out of earshot I growled to myself. "God damn it Wrath, what the fucking hell is your problem?"

'I told you to stop being a pussy. You didn't, so I stepped in.'

"'Stepped in'? You probably traumatised her!"

'It wasn't that bad, I didn't even tell her about the dream where you kill that guy over and over. I even made sure not to talk about that one with that girl.'

"I don't care WHAT it was you said! These aren't humans! I actually LIKE them! I've been giving you more freedom because I thought you felt enough of the same to actually behave!"

'You know I can't like things. Not like that. You pump all of your psychopathic rage into me and expect me to be happy?! We're only here because you would be completely schizophrenic without us! Or did you forget that you spent two and a half years in a mental hospital muttering about the Whispers?'

I winced. I don't like thinking about those lost years. "That's not fair. You know I don't remember any of that." While we were arguing I had found myself at a balcony in a tower, overlooking the city. I rested my hands against the railing, exhausted from the long day. I sighed. "Okay, look, I know I'd be screwed without you guys. And under normal circumstances, I wouldn't care if you traumatised a bus full of children, but this place seems to actually be good, and I feel like I might care what the people here think of me. So until that changes, just try to behave. Also, don't try to kill anyone."

'Grrr....but that'll be so boring. You might as well get rid of me.'

"Don't worry, man. I'll find stuff for you to do. Who knows, maybe we'll get to kill something."

'.....fine. I won't traumatise the 'precious ponies'. On purpose. But you need to find something for me to burn!'

"Good enough for me."

'You guys do know that Celestia's standing behind us, right?'

I didn't even bother trying to question him. Ataxia has advanced Spidey Sense or something. Helpful when trying to avoid people. Not so much when he's telling me the exact details of people's bowel movements. Makes it very difficult to eat in public. I sighed again. "How long have you been listening?"

"Long enough."

"Not long enough to come up with a non-clichéd answer, apparently." I turned around to face her. She was frowning heavily, but didn't seem to be preparing to kill me. Baby steps, I suppose. "So how d'you want to do this? Disintegration? Teleport me to the other side of the planet? Make me watch a Glee marathon until my brain haemorrhages?"

She shook her head. "No, I came here to apologise. It was wrong of me to attack you, regardless of my personal feelings."

I waved her off. "Meh, it's fine. Nothing I wouldn't have done myself."

She looked at me with shock. "I was fully prepared to kill you. In front of my student and her friends. It would have traumatised them for life, as well as destroyed any trust they had in me."

"Yeah, but you didn't actually do it. I'd have still killed me despite their protests. So take that as comfort, that you aren't as bad as humans. Besides, sometimes I want to kill all humans as well."

Her eyes widened. "How do you-?"

"Luna told me." Irritation flashed across her face for a brief moment. "Don't be mad at her. She just felt that she owed us all an explanation as to why the ruler of their country tried to kill me."

Her eyes softened. "You don't despise me?"

"Well, as a rule I automatically despise anyone who rules over others, be it royalty, elected officials or even just police officers. But that's just a hate for the title. Personally, you might be pretty cool, so I don't hate you personally. As for the whole letting humanity get eaten by dragons thing...." She winced. "I'm fine with it."

Her mouth hung open with shock, her usually stoic face completely shattering. "You can't be serious. I let your entire species be destroyed!"

I shrugged. "They started it. Celestia, I come from a world where humans are the only sentient species. Sure we had close cousins, but we killed them all off in the stone age. Or before the stone age. It was in some kind of age, anyways, the point is there are now over nine billion humans on the planet."

"Nine....billion?! There were barely a hundred thousand when they took over my home!"

"Yeah, evolving in a world without magical creatures trying to kill them all the time tends to give a species some breathing room. Not that it does us any good. We start wars all the time, and create a larger civilisation at the cost of the environment. If we don't end up destroying ourselves through war, then unless people start caring more about the planet than monetary gain, then we'll end up destroying it. Honestly, I'm glad to be the only human here. I'm corrupt enough as it is."

She contemplated my words for a moment. "So you truly believe that it is a good thing that I let your people perish?"

I grinned widely and nodded. "Yep! You might not have known it, but you did the entire world a favour. I wouldn't even mind if you killed me!, knowing how dangerous I can be."

She smiled, but shook her head. "No, I couldn't do that. Even if I had a good reason, I wouldn't be able to live with the guilt of forcing my student to lose a friend, no matter who they are. I'd lose their trust."

I shrugged again, and sat on the marble railing. "They'd be upset, but I'm sure they'd understand if you had a good reason. I mean, they did hesitate when you were about to kill me. Even Applejack, and I saved her sister's life! They obviously trust you a lot. As long as they don't see the body, they'll be fine eventually."

Celestia smiled warmly at the reassurance. "Thank you, but even so, it wouldn't be right."

"You sure?" I turned around and waved my buttocks at her. "You don't want to kick me and send me flying off the edge?"

She smirked, and came up next to me, sitting down and resting her hooves against the railing. "It's tempting, but I'd better not. I'd hate to cause a mess for the cleaners." I laughed, glad that she was finally loosening up. "We do have to discuss the issue of you 'maybe getting to kill something'." My levity was crushed instantly.

"Fuck. You mind not mentioning that to Twilight and them all? It might freak them out that their new friend hears murderous voices in his head."

"I was going to inform them about it, but you seemed to reign those thoughts in. I can get you a hunting license in case you ever feel the need to......vent some anger, but y"

I raised an eyebrow. "Why would a race of herbivores need hunting licenses?"

"It's mostly used for monster hunting. Sometimes dangerous creatures wander into populated areas, and can't be peacefully removed. Killing another living thing is forbidden by law here, so either a team of appointed specialists dispatches it, or, if one is not available, a pony with a license can try to defeat it for a bounty, but that is discouraged. It does also count for hunting for food, even for pets, so if a pony or a griffin wanted to catch fish in our borders, they'd need a license. They are inexpensive, so there is no reason for them to break that law."

'Huh. So killing a pig is the same a killing a pony. I guess I'll have to settle for baconless omelets.'

'The horror.'

"You do realise that you will have to tell them eventually? I do not want to risk you taking advantage of their ignorance in order to harm them." She looked at me sternly.

I waved her warning off. "Yeah, yeah, I'll tell them later. Besides, Twilight wants to talk about my family and past friendships. They tie into the whole thing with my craziness, and I doubt she'll give up very easily."

The princess chuckled. "No, she wouldn't. Once she sets her mind to something, she'll try her very hardest to do it. While we're on the topic, what exactly is your condition, if you don't mind sharing."

"Nah, it's fine. What I currently have is something that's apparently called Dissociative Identity Disorder, but it's easier to call it separate personalities. I have two voices in my head that I talk to on a constant basis. Sometimes they take control in order to do stuff. A lot of the things they want to do isn't exactly legal, so I usually end up either reigning them in or getting in trouble."

She raised an eyebrow at me. "What kind of things?"

"Disturbing things, honestly, but I'm used to it. They spend most of their time antagonising me."

"If they're so disruptive, why not get rid of them?"

I shook my head. "No, without them...well I am much worse. Some time ago....something happened that caused me to lose all grip on reality. I went insane. Completely schizophrenic. I don't remember anything that happened, but the doctors at the mental hospital said I was delirious and violent. They said I was always muttering about 'thousands of Whispers'. When they gave me drawing utensils all I wrote was 'Whispers', always with a capital 'W'. They gave me drugs, but it never helped. One day, I just stopped. That's the earliest I remember. Then these two started talking to me. I was in a straight-jacket in a padded room. I instantly linked the two and started panicking.

"They explained things to me. Calmed me down. I think my brain must have created them in order to cope with whatever the 'Whispers' were. Took aspects of my old personality and gave them their own voices. They've been the only real friends I've had till your little student bribed me into being her friend."

Celestia chuckled at that, but didn't investigate. "Those two voices sound helpful, even if it is unhealthy."

I burst out laughing. "AHAHAHA! You kidding? They're a constant pain in my ass! They almost never stop talking! You should hear the stuff they're saying about you."

"Oh? What exactly are they saying?" She asked humorously.

'What harm could it do? You know, apart from offending the goddess that controls the sun, and therefore all life on the planet.'

"Well Wrath, the angry one you heard me arguing with before, wants to get revenge for what you did before by beating you within an inch of your life and then going two inches further. Ataxia, however, is describing in vivid detail exactly how he would ravish your rear end." She blushed at that.

'I suppose she isn't used to people being frank enough to tell her that they want to both kill her and have sex with her.'

'Not in that order! It's a compliment!'

"Apparently he thinks that's a compliment."

"That's....alright. What kind of personality did you have before your memory lapse?"

"I went psychotic for a few months. It led to me doing the thing that broke my mind."

"Do you remember what it was that you did?"

"Yes, but I'm not telling you so shut up." That was very personal to me. Illegal too. She'd probably be forced to lock me up. She furrowed her brow, but didn't pursue it. "You know, now that I think about it, you're the first person I've told about them. Ironic that the first person I trust also tried to kill me."

"Are you going to keep referring to that?"

"I'll try not to, but it's such a good example." We fell silent and just stared up at the crescent moon.

"Luna always makes the most lovely nights. I could never get them right."

"I'm still in denial that you control them at all. So weird to me."

"That isn't how they work where you're from? In fact, where do you come from?"

"Ask Twilight about it in the morning. It's actually a matter of national security. I'm just too tired to be bothered." Celestia was about to say something, but was cut off when the light from the moon disappeared. It looked like the moon and stars had vanished, but faint shifting in the sky showed that it was just cloud cover. "Man, those are some thick ass clouds. Can't see anything but black."

Celestia narrowed her eyes at the clouds. "They shouldn't be there. Tonight was scheduled to be clear."

I rolled my eyes. "The sun, the moon, the weather, do you ponies let nature do anything by itself? Let me guess, you control the seasons as well?"

"Well actually-"

She was cut off again as all of the torches hung on the walls were blown out by a wind that we couldn't feel, leaving us submerged in total darkness. We heard screams sound out from the lower floors. All of the lights in the palace were out, as far as we could tell. "Okay, please tell me there aren't any living shadow monsters that steal your soul or eat your flesh or something."

She lit her horn, brining light to the balcony. "No, I've never heard of any monster that creates darkness. The only ones I know who are capable of doing something like this are my sister and Discord."

"Ah, so it's just a prank. That makes me feel better." I moved closer to her and her light.

"You're afraid of the dark?" Stupid smirking alicorn.

"No. Just wary of the things that lurk in the dark. There's a difference. Also, shut up." One of the torches flew out of the darkness and hit Celestia in the back of her head. It didn't knock her out, but it turned her light out for a few seconds. Unfortunately, it was long enough. A woman, a HUMAN woman, stepped out of the darkness towards me. I don't know how I could see her when it was pitch black, but I could. She was wearing a black funeral gown, and had a veil draped over her face. Her hand reached towards my face, and I had one thought before I blacked out.

'Ooh, a funeral gown! Maybe that means she's single! Not that it matters either way.'

What? I never said it was a sophisticated thought.

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NEXT TIME: CHILDREN OF THE ELDERLY GOD