Antumbra

by Ice Star

Chapter 5: The Royal We

When his younger sister was nervous she referred to herself as I, just as her own subjects would use in reference to themselves. Demigods were known to do this as well, since few, if any were raised anywhere near the nobility. His older sister would also do this, but less often. In their heads they would do this often as well, no need to keep up that speech within their own minds, even though it was speech they were taught to emulate since foalhood and nearly had it engraved in them. It was simply a habit.

But Hasad... well, for him it was never a habit. He truly could not comprehend the prospect of an individual self and he certainly could not comprehend 'I'. He never had.

The only thing that covered this up was his royal status - he could refer to himself as a plural, and thus lesser, as much as he wanted and get away with it. Nopony would notice that he had no idea how to understand the individual, or the personal. To him, defining features were something that was could only be skin deep: coat colors, occupations, marks, and names. A different mane style and differing eye colors were the only ways that Hasad could tell others apart, other than that every living thing was identical to him, a mere physical puppet and nothing more.

He would never let it slip though, he had thousands of years as practice rendering this disguise flawless in his mind, which never knew a complete sense of self, if it knew any at all. Individuality and all it embodied was a non-existent concept to Hasad.

These ponies, his own family, they would all see only what he wanted them to see, and they always would with no exceptions. Even though it would be near impossible for somepony like Hasad to directly manipulate others when he viewed all others as less than a speck of dirt, this complication managed to elude him, there were always those that were weak and could be pulled away from a herd and isolated: the submissive, the fool, the modest, the selfless, and others could be chipped away from all they clung to. After all, he had to conceal such behavior since foalhood or else somepony would have found out; sisters, servants, foreigners.

It all went unnoticed, especially now as Hasad the Selfless sat at the circular marble table, his elder sister next to him, unable to detect the serious expression he wore was false because it was an expression she had always known. Especially since she was busy looking at the High King and Queen, Lumina and Noctus of the Everfree Kingdom.

In truth, Hasad had no interest in them. Lumina and Noctus were just two more royals to whom he had to put on a happy face and offer a polite word; whatever the situation deemed 'right' in the sense of normalacy. There was nothing interesting about the foaless couple, they only ever visited other kingdoms for diplomacy and never let any others, Alicorn, equine, or another, visit their home if they were outside the family that included Lumina's two sisters and her brothers-in-law. What transpired in the servant-less Everfree Palace was unknown, and only paintings of its exterior were widely known to all. Mortals went in, briefly, sometimes to be knighted, but they never stayed; they spoke of the limited view of its interior that they were presented with, and its splendor. Their enigmatic gods had beckoned them inside.

Hasad never thought about any of this, since he found them to be so dreadfully boring, and nodded dumbly to something the Elder Sister said. The words meant nothing to him, he could tell what it was. Words were but keys to him, turn it in a lock and with a sudden click you get what is inside. Nothing else mattered. This wasn't quite accurate since the prince rarely consorted with thieves or locksmiths so he would not know the finer points of anything. Only the monotony of politics remained comprehensible to such a selfish creature.

But could you really call him selfish? The word on its own had more self than the prince.

The world seemed to fade even more due to the dullness of the situation. Hasad always felt detached from his body, in some sense, but not because of boredom. Nothing seemed to tie him to anything, his flesh included, and an ever-present detached feeling loomed over him and blurred his feeling. He was of course, attending this meeting in his younger sister's place - she was one of the two sisters he had, and never once in his life did he refer to them by name. Younger, older; big sister, little sister; big sis, little sis - almost anything would work, and he was thought affectionate for such behavior. His own name had only ever rung hollow to him too, and occasionally pained him like a dull wound, and puzzled him at other times. How empty it was, the sound of it having as much value as a brand to him.

The younger sister had become much more unstable lately, refusing to appear publicly unless it was the three of them together. This was good for Hasad as she became less informed and he only increased his public image.

She had been shy and clumsy since birth, early on he had taken note of this and made sure to bend it to his will and toy with her, slyly smashing any confidence should hope to get or ever develop, playing off her insecurities so she became increasingly more paranoid and even mopey at times, and she only hated herself in the end. He kept her weak, yet she never knew. In fact, she still looked to him as the good big brother, as her elder twin, and her shining star. To rely on another so much for an unfounded reason like kinship only made her weaker. Lately, she looked to him more than she ever had to the Elder Sister, which was good, since both held the same view of Hasad that many possessed: a well-spoken and kind prince, with a sense of maturity his twin sister lacked.

Nothing had to be twisted in his favor, everything Hasad wanted was giving to him because he gave false love instead of honest hate. He was a liar of the worst kind because you couldn't tell where truth began and lies ended unless you were Hasad himself, his motives to others as readable and blank as his white coat that was like paper before anything had been written upon it. Of course, this is exactly what he wanted. Although, maybe the worst part of all was that he was good at it.

The Elder may have raised them but she overlooked many details and was too busy to help them most of the time, since she was only one Alicorn after all, she could only try to be the parent - or considering her tendency to overwork and go above and beyond what needed to be done - parents that none of them ever had. She was a ruler too, and an army of mortal servants at her disposal could only lighten lesser duties so much. Mortals were employed by Alicorns out of graciousness, not out of necessity.

He loved how fragile the younger one's mind was though, how easy it was to push the invisible switch on her inferiority complex, to give her advice so big she could hardly hope to follow it and was left wallowing in bouts of insecurity worse than before. There was a delight to be had in in that.

How easy it was to pretend to feel, to play supportive big brother, after all, what he said was at least true to him: Those who are close to us are the ones who hurt us most.

Hasad loved an honest lie, because lying was all he ever did.

When the meeting was done, Hasad left the room studded with mosaics - the southern tapestry, as the Elder called them - smiled at Noctus and Lumina, thanking them for their time and wishing them safe travels as he bowed.

They smiled kindly, all of them suspecting nothing.

Author's Note:

Lumina (light)
Noctus (a corruption of 'noctis' much like how Tantabus is a corruption of the Latin 'tantibus', meaning 'nightmare')

Comments

[RedSymphony1121]

Woah. This is crazy.
This dude has some serious sociopathic tendencies. Also some evil ones. Like a lot of them. Damn!

There should be way more reads and comments on this story. Yeah, it's short and vague but it's the unique style of the story

[RoyalBardofCanterlot]

It's really disturbing how his "support" in the early chapter was just a ploy. Huh. If he really loved her, he'd have pushed her to do the speech instead.