"Sleep bitterly that the morning may taste sweeter".
The words echoed hollowly through Frigids' memory as he recalled his last conversation with his brother. He'd been kicked out of the academy, and everything had seemed so wrong.
"Why couldn't they see me? Why couldn't they just let me prove myself to them, I know I could have... I would've been amazing. I would've shown them what greatness lies within me." His words rasped angrily from his parched throat. His coat clung desperately to his skin as he rolled to the side, trapping a frail, lifeless wing beneath his body weight. "There was so much I never got to show them..."
"It could have helped your case had you shown them anything, Frigid."
The pegasus winced at the hollowness of the words, hardly daring to peek over his shoulder at the pony who had spoken them. He slowly craned his neck, peering over the mound of blanket that he had only recently thrown off of himself. The heat of the room had become far too unbearable to leave the blanket on.
"You couldn't prove yourself because you had nothing to show them. You never stopped to question whether or not they saw you as good enough. You behaved as though you could not fail, yet you never tried to succeed." The pale snowy unicorn lay a hoof across Frigids' forehead, his touch like ice in the sauna-like conditions of the room. "You had your head too far into the clouds to remember they wanted them cleared away. Your lack of discipline is what took the rug from beneath your hooves, not their hubris. You could have shown them, and you failed. You failed because you could not bring yourself from the fantasy of success long enough to make it a truth. Your dream was sweeter than anything else you had."
Small sobs racked the pegasus, his emaciated frame quivering pathetically in the shaft of moonlight shining through his window. His sobs continued, persisting through the whimpers he could not hold back. With every opening of his eyes, they would begin anew. The mask of disgust was clear on his brothers' face- frigid was a failure. A worthless dreamer who had always thought more of himself than he truly was. He'd fancied himself a great leader- wise and powerful. In his thoughts he could conquer any challenge and drive out any foe. His wings were solid pillars of justice, and his gaze would wither away the cruelest of savage beasts- nothing could stop him. How could he have resisted such an alluring sensation of power, of worthiness? Frigids' tears turned cold on his cheeks, his face burning more from shame than the torrid darkness surrounding him.
"You could have been somepony, Frigid. You could have had everything you'd ever dreamed of. I tried to tell you, and you spat my kindness back at me. You didn't deserve it. Now what do you have?" The unicorns' gaze felt as though it could burn entirely through Frigids' quaking body. "Why couldn't you live outside your head, for just a little while? You would have become great, Frigid. I would have been proud of you. Mother would have been proud. You've failed her too, you know. She cries herself to sleep almost as often as you do, now. Why couldn't you face her like Father did? How could you abandon her so, when she needed you the most?" The unicorns' hoof seemed to grow heavier, the pressure squeezing Frigids' skull between the pale leg and the bedsprings.
"I-I'm so sorry... I tried to be the best, I promise. I tried so hard..." The pegasus broke into a broken lament once again as the weighted hoof removed itself from him. The place it had once occupied now felt as though it would burn itself free of his body.
"Liar. Look at yourself, if you had ever tried at anything you wouldn't be here now. You wouldn't be sniveling like a foal fresh off of mothers' teat, ragged and hopeless. You wouldn't be wallowing in the demise you brought upon yourself, yelling at shadows because they remind you of your imaginary monsters-" The unicorn leaned forward, bringing his wide muzzle near to Frigids' ear. "You're worthless. You're pathetic. Where are your fantasies now, foal? Where are the astounding feats and marvelous displays of heroism? Where is the adulation that your idols would heap upon you? They can't be gone, they were never there to begin with."
Frigid struggled against the fresh, hot tears that seemed to surge from the deepest well of his being, his eyelids clenched together in a desperate attempt to shut out the brutality which was the truth. He was nothing.
"Remember in grade school, Brother? You would sit by the window, staring up at the clouds. All you wanted was to be among them, you never payed attention to the teachers. And what did you do when you were finally free of your educational prison? You sat beneath a tree and stared at them some more. You were so caught up in your perfect little daydream that you forgot to wake up from it." The unicorn spat his words like a snake, each one stinging Frigids' ears as it landed. The shock was worse than the heaviest of blows his father could have inflicted-
"Oh yes, now you want to pawn it off. Remove the guilt, the shame of your own failure by imagining that you've been wronged somehow. You'll blame anyone. Father, Mother, the teachers, the Academy, me... Is nopony safe from your wild abandon? I don't think they are. You don't care about how much it hurts them, just so long as you can pretend that everything you touch becomes gleaming gold. Really, though? Everything you touch withers. It melts away like a dropping in the rain, sullying the waters that we all drink from. Your very presence is an insult, toxic beyond no end. Scum!"
Frigid pulled his head towards his chest with his hooves, draping his untrapped wing across it in hopes of shielding his ears from the brutal onslaught of hatred from the loved one he'd failed most. He shouldn't have, though. He deserved to be punished for what he'd done. He deserved this abuse. A kicking block was all he'd ever been good for, he'd just been too blinded by his imaginary glory to see his own reflection in the polished ebony. Worthless.
"Trying to hide again? Trying to drift away into your special little dream world and make yourself happy with your lies? There is no quiet adventure for you now, scum. You're going to face what you are, and I'm going to make sure of it." Frigid could see the blinding glow of his brothers' horn even from beneath his wing, even through his painfully clenched eyelids. The light surged through him, cold as ice, and it forced its' way into his mind. "Now look- look! Look at exactly how you betrayed me! Look how your selfishness took everything away from you, your own hooves! Not the hateful briars of an unknown foe, you! You did this!"
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The blinding surge of searing cold light seemed to fade away, leaving Frigid to float listlessly in the abyss of whatever hell his brother had seen fit to banish him to. He recognized the exterior of the Academy, the cheerful, waiting faces of his family as they sat with high hopes and bated breath- their beloved Frigid was going to be a Guard. His parents' son, his brothers greatest friend, their shining beacon of trust and honor- the biggest sham they'd ever known.
He wanted to look away, to tear out his own eyes if only to be free of the guilt their smiling visages caused. Their cheerful chatter pounded in his skull like a thousand beating drums at the Ceremonies. He saw their heads turn, knew that the silence he had so desperately desired mere moments before was naught but the precursor to his own crimes. The silence burned him worse than his brothers' spell, the cold needles in his blood turning to a boiling stream of razors. He didn't want to watch this, didn't want to see the way he'd so soon be destroying those trusting smiles. He didn't want to watch himself tear out his mothers heart and spit in his fathers face. Mostly, however, he didn't want to see himself cut his brother down when all he'd tried to do was be there for him.
He couldn't look away, though. Frigid knew that he deserved this punishment. He knew that he could only be forced to watch and relive the sins of the past. So Frigid watched, his sorrow congealing into a dense lump of contempt. As he watched, the most vile of creatures stepped through the doors of the academy, his hulking form casting merciless fury over any unfortunate enough to be near. The monster approached his family, and he knew what was about to come. He knew what was about to come, and he could not repent. Frigids' sobs returned tenfold as he tore himself away from the scene, darkness rushing to meet him as he welcomed the cold embrace of oblivion.