1,117 years ago
Sombra:
My hooves always shook when I was angry, and they did so now. Of course there were no other ponies roaming the castle halls, which were twisted and distorted from what they had once known. My magic wove my prison, and I shaped each new passage in it.
I had a stack of papers that I had been reading over wrapped in my magic. Contrary to what Onyx used to think, I could read. I just hid my ability to do so while teaching myself how to tackle greater tomes. These were from the smallest castle library. I moved them there around the same time I laid the runes for the Replicating Spell I made, so they weren't destroyed when...
I haven't gone back since-
I swallowed a bit and under my boots and cape I felt my scars itching.
First my freedom. Next it was my identity as well as half my sight. Now it's-
Taking a shaky breath, I paused near a mirror which hardly gleamed in the shadows that covered most of every hall, the dark fire floating about hardly lit anything which was fine by me, except sometimes it made for awful reading light, but that wasn't an unsolvable problem and could be shrugged off easily.
I sat down, sliding to the ground, watching the papers fall around me like snow.
I wish it were snow. I wish I were in the mountains. I wish I was anywhere but here. I always did.
I wish I was alone.
Alone, the most wonderful word in this entire language.
Alone. Solitude. Isolation. Seclusion.
Peace.
If only it could be except the author of the abhorred Book that created me clearly wrote that I can't be separated from this twit.
Being alone would be the next best escape. Being alone and in control of everything, he can't break me. I'd have an escape.
Escape. Escape! ESCAPE! WHY CAN'T I ESCAPE?! WHY?! WHY?! WHY?!
I've tried!
I don't care how much power I end up with this stupid deal. Power isn't worth it at this rate.
Hope, plan, acquire knowledge, and so much more. It'll work, I'll make it work. It really isn't as hard as it sounds my machinations will happen.
I can always feel his presence and can read it as easily as I can read everything and everypony else. Sometimes his existence is more than everything around me, which caused a bothersome aura of despair and hopelessness to linger everywhere because I wasn't being what he wanted. Worse things followed.
Behind me there was a mirror, but I don't want to look in it; not today. I hate and love mirrors since I already know who I am and I keep telling myself that they only reflect the surface, but damn if I'm not fine on the surface.
Since I don't sleep, no, I haven't slept since I got here because I'm unsure if I'll wake up as myself and sleep after all, brings greater horrors then I could ever see when awake. I haven't slept in what, two years? The magic's working well enough.
Now, I'm starting to see things... but they're small and vanish quickly. Or maybe it's just me?
I'm afraid because if I give in I lose myself and that thought..that possibility... I JUST CAN'T TAKE IT SOME DAYS!
My panic attacks are getting worse. They always do. Gods, I feel like I'm hyperventilating right now...
I will never give in, quitting isn't in me. I won't lose my identity. I won't lose myself.
I see things that aren't there, and I know he does too, except they drive him and twist him in new ways and he was already brutal enough to me... and the crystal ponies. Sure, why not add them? They're usually in pieces after encountering either of us.
I didn't notice that I had removed that dreaded armor and was wringing my forehooves, which wasn't unusual at all.
There is one pony who can save me, and he is me.
I'm all I have and all I ever will, and that's fine with me. I love that.
I love it so much.
I raise a hoof and smash it against the glass unflinching against the pain. I've endured worth in this place and will continue to do so.
These ponies say that the company we keep is what defines us, that others act as our mirrors and we theirs. They say everything that's hardly true.
The shards are flecked with spots of red.
It couldn't be farther from the truth. I am proof of those lies! I keep no company, but he's in my head, and if he counts as any company at all, it's just another proof that I am the better. Will ponies ever cease their countless lies? I'm skeptical.
I don't care why this world of mine exists, and I definitely do not care about those who think they rule it because not even I want to, there is something better than that.
The world itself does not matter, all that matters is that I'm in it and I will not lose! Not now, not ever! I'll get my freedom one day, and then I'll get to see the world that I once was going to explore in full... and yet... everything still feels doomed. I'm more caged than ever without...
And I don't need to even need to take a single step out of line to take what's mine. I don't even need to speak as I orchestrate my own silent revolution.
Long live the King?
Please, you've got to be kidding. He won't survive without me. He needs me.
I wipe some of the blood off of my hoof.
There isn't a pony alive who can save me, although I know for sure that with enough effort, I may be able to save myself.
Not even the stars could save me.
...
There are papers around me, tossed carelessly but it's the blood spatters that are almost artfully clinging to large shards of glass that try to hide among them by concealing themselves in the endless shadows of this place. At least I know it's my blood. Sometimes there's blood on my hooves that isn't mine. It isn't actually as unnerving as it sounds, at least not the blood itself.
I just want to be free from all this... somehow... but what is there left to plan in that regard?
I strap my forehoof back into the armor of his crude design, improved and crafted by my magic, my plans, and careful thought, even if it isn't the best it could be. It's all for his grisly show. I would have designed something so much better. It was supposed to reinforce that he was the king. I don't cringe even though it's my hoof that is injured, this kind of pain, I'm numb enough to.
Just how much longer am I going to have to hold out?
It was my hoof that broke the mirror. They are typically the first thing to go when I'm angry. Or frustrated, or-
Why can't I just run away? That thought always comes back to me, and so does every reason why. Other questions always followed, and their all-too-obvious answers with them: Why do I have to endure this? Why can't running away be an option?!
Everything but me seems to break around here: spirits, ponies, hope, you name it. The only unbroken things here are the heart these ponies loved so much and myself. The embodiment of love, now comatose and hidden, and a pony that can't feel it who is way to conscious at times.
Yeah, like anypony has called me anything but a monster, a sociopath, or a weapon when I'm anything but that. It doesn't matter what these ponies think or say, at least not to me - and if I don't care about them, it definitely doesn't matter - but it would be a shock if somepony, somewhere ever acknowledged that I was one of them, superior yes, but still a pony. Except that isn't going to happen. What they say is of little value, if any, but when a rare individual proposes something, why then things get dangerous. Stupidity in large groups isn't exactly safe either. I've read about plagues before, and ponies match up to the concept very well. They wouldn't know, of course, they rarely see themselves.
Then again, they think I'm one being, not two. They only really ever see him, like a dishonest version of a mirror, and as expected, they assume and don't think. Can I really expect much else from them? They did used to shine like mirrors as well, and now they're quite dull, and almost indistinguishable from earth ponies.
I really don't care about the mirrors, the ponies, that heart, Onyx, the crown that was never mine, or any of this because even though I'm so much more than them and I don't need the Book or anypony to tell me that. I want to walk the world still, not a crystalline castle. I want to see everything, impossibly alone, and if I'm to interact with any creatures at all, I want to be an admirable criminal, and honest one... not this.
The world's an imperfect place, but going through everything - like the mirror before me - in pieces, takes a toll.
There's always consequences, and prices too. It's just a matter of how much I can afford to pay.