The Horror of Happiness

by CrackedInkWell

Chapter 23: The Psychical Analysis of Starlight Glimmer by Dr. Reverie Lovejoy

Starlight tried to move against the old unicorn’s magic as much as her limbs could, but they proved to be useless. From his saddlebags, Lovejoy pulled out a rope in which he hogtied the mare before he let his magic off of her except for her horn. She was sat down by one of the collapsed entrances where the frightened family was behind.

“First of all,” the doctor said as he sat down right in front of her, “I want to apologize for not bringing my tea set or my phonograph along. I prefer murder with a side of class like say… strangling you to the Violin Concerto of Moztrot or watch you fall to your death with a cup of spiced tea. However, before we get to the dirty business, perhaps we should have a bit of a conversation before I kill you.”

Starlight looked at him in disbelief, “I just found out that you’re a serial killer, and the first thing you want to do is to have a chat before you ax me off! I thought real villains kill their opponents, not monologue them to death.”

He shrugged, “It is the most civil thing to do, isn’t it? I don’t see anything wrong with per-say. Well, you might, but I don’t. Personally, I don’t see why not since you can’t really do anything about it.”

“What is it that you want?” she demanded.

The old doctor smiled, “Oh good, straight to the point then. Well, as I’ve said, I am retired from my previous job from Fillidelphia’s hospital. Truthfully, I’ve chosen my retirement here for two reasons, that it is well outside of the law to catch me. And with all these happy looking ponies around, I feel like the colt that’s been given the key to the candy shop. In your village, I have all the possibilities of potential artwork that I could ever want in one area, this is practically heaven to me.”

“That’s not what I meant,” Starlight clarified, “what are you going to do to my ponies when I’m gone?”

“Oh. Just continue doing what I love to do, of course, kill them artistically when they say that they’re happy. But I’m afraid we’re getting off topic. Let’s quit talking about me, let’s focus on you.” He leans forward, “You know, as a doctor with a Psychology degree, I have studied a few interesting cases in my lifetime. Yet, you are by far, have been the most fun to study out of all of them. I’ve watched how this society of yours works, I’ve seen how you behaved, I’ve listened to how your citizens talked about you, and since you’re at the end of the line, I think it’s about time I personally give you, your psychological analysis.”

“You don’t know me! You’ve only been here for a couple of months, what could you possibly know about me?”

“You’d be surprised.” He leaned back, Lovejoy felt his headache started to intensify, but he ignored it. “From the day I’ve walked into Our Town, it’s clear as sunlight that something was completely off about this place. A brain dead, blinded foal could easily see that something was wrong with the forced smiles, the endless praise of the idea of equality, and the way that literally every single pony is just too kind. It took a while, I’d admit, to come up with a diagnosis for you and relate to what the cause of it might be. For you see, I’ve come to the conclusion, that your self-grandeur, manipulation of others, lack of empathy, strange sense of morality, quick to anger, want things to be run in a certain way, and that you encourage others to give you praise has to lead me to think that you have the same mental condition that I have.”

Starlight raised an eyebrow, “And what is that?”

He smiled, “Congratulations, you’re a Sociopath too. Not the murdering type, but the one that’s obsessed with gaining as much power as ‘Equality’ as possible. Better yet, I think I know exactly of the cause of this might be.”

She scoffed it off, “What are you going on about?”

“You see Starlight, on the night that I found out that your cutie mark is a fake, I had to ask myself some important questions: In a town that has a philosophy of Equality, why would the leader of it all not have her cutie mark removed and instead covered it up with make-up? Why would she demand obedience among her followers? And why would she want to control nearly every aspect of their lives?

“It’s all quite simple for me to understand, really. You, Ms. Glimmer, have never grown up.”

This took Starlight completely by surprise, “What are you talking about! I’m a full grown mare!”

“Are you? Especially when you order about your so-called village with your mindless, inexhaustible, unstoppable, repetitive, nagging demands.” and here, the old stallion’s voice became whiny, “I want my friends to be with me forever! I want them to never go away! I want to be the boss! I want to be the heroine! I want to be the leader! I want everypony giving me praise! I want to be a genius! I want, I want, I want, me, me, me, mine, mine, mine, now, now, now!” Here, the doctor coughed, returning to his usual voice, he added, “Face it Starlight, you may want to have the façade of looking like a grown-up mare that’s clever, but I can see through you and see the little, emotionally hurt filly that’s so petrified of being alone that she would do anything and everything in her power to make sure she doesn’t feel it again.”

For a moment, the purple mare stared at him without saying anything, folding back her ears, she responded. “No… You don’t know that. You don’t know anything about me!”

“Do I? Tell me, ma’am, would your worst foal-hood memory happen to include being lonely where your family was either never there to take care of you or have neglected you?”

Her eyes widen, “How did you-”

“But then you had a friend, that for a while you could rely on him or her to give you the support, the love, the attention, the guidance that your family never could present to you. Then one day, that said friend left you, perhaps over a cutie mark most likely. That is what it’s got to be about, isn’t it? That’s where this obsession with having everypony in that village to remove the past identities of their cutie marks came from. It is so that you won’t have to remember being signaled out because of what you have on your flank.”

Starlight shook her head, “Stop it.”

“That’s why you’ve crafted this village. With an event like that, how could you trust another pony? If in the end, you know that you’ll just end up losing them again, and again, and again, over and over? You couldn’t. Why would you trust anyone, even somepony like say… Double Diamond, unless you have his cutie mark removed and placed in a jar somewhere? After all, if your friend for your childhood, that was as close to a real family you could get didn’t stay long because of a simple cutie mark, what’s preventing of such a thing from happening again with everyone else?”

“Just shut up,” the mare shut her eyes tightly.

“For what? Telling you a hard truth about yourself that you don’t want to hear? I mean, it’s so obvious! This fear of being alone must have been a motivation to you, isn’t it? Why else would you study powerful magic that could remove another’s cutie mark? Or how you would know brainwashing techniques for your Equality House? You’ve created this village in the middle of nowhere so that you can have your ponies…”

Still ignoring the throbbing pain in his head, he shook it and said, “No. These villagers aren’t ponies at all. Let’s call them what they really are Ms. Glimmer. Toys. Living dolls for you to play with. Each one that’s been scraped of who they really were so that they could look the same, talk the same, act the same, have the same personalities, have the same opinions, and each of them comes with a painted smile. You made them believe that their talents are evil and you promised them relief for the exchange that you can tell them what to say, what to think, what to eat, what to drink, when to sleep, when to work, who to date, when to make children, what they should be doing for the rest of their lives… You’ve done all of this, so you could pretend that you have friends, pretend that you are loved, and pretend that you live in a perfect world where nopony will ever think about leaving you to be forever alone.”

“I SAID SHUT UP!” Starlight screamed at him, tears now starting to flow from her eyes.

Lovejoy chuckled, “Yet, you can’t tell me I’m wrong, can’t you?” she didn’t reply. He sat down on his hunches, with a hoof over his right eye. “Look, from one sociopath to another, believe it or not, I don’t really care about how and why you run your little town. I don’t care if you have to mentally torture these ponies into your way of thinking. If anything, I’ve been fascinated that you’ve performed what is essentially a forbidden social experiment. But as much as I like you for it, I confess, you were a bit… sloppy.”

The bounded unicorn looked up with angry eyes, “What do you mean sloppy!”

“Don’t get me wrong, I love how you brainwash your dolls and ripping their identities from them. I also like how you have a philosophy in place that would get the weak minded sucked into. But, I have to say, your execution of it is rather… sloppy at best. I mean really, with the lack of communal meals or having your other toys go door to door to see if everyone is complying; it’s amazing that there hasn’t been a revolution in your town yet. There could be ponies in the village right now that might be conspiring against you and you probably wouldn’t know it!” Lovejoy shook his head, “Still, it’s rather sad that your main goal is just power alone.”

“Why?”

“Because power eventually fades, no matter how popular or feared you are, you’ll eventually lose it by either being overthrown or by death. You should have chosen the path of art because it is immortal. My photographs in that book, I don’t think even you would throw it away because of the artistic and sentimental value those pictures have been beyond measure, especially to those who knew the victims. Your equality makes everypony equally forgetful, while I may have broken some of your toys; at least I’ve made each of them timeless. Which comes to the fun part,” the old unicorn got up and went to the saddlebag. “I’m going to have you be the first to have the privilege of deciding how you want to die.”

“Hey doc,” a third voice said, turning to where the source of the voice came from, the doctor was blinded for a moment from the flash of his camera before he felt something hard hit against his head.

After Double Diamond threw the rock at his head, the aura that the doctor kept on Starlight’s horn quickly faded, thus freeing the unicorn from her captive. “Double, where-”

“Followed you,” he said grabbing another rock. “Quick take him-” he felt his neck being grabbed in tight magic, bringing him face to face with an angry doctor with blood flowing down the side of his face like war paint.

“You just won’t learn, don’t you? You stupid,” he flung him hard against the ground, “filthy,” slammed him against the cavern walls, “stallion-stuffing,” tossed him up to the ceiling before letting him drop to the uneven floor, “mud pony!” With a bonfire in his eyes, he marched over to the stallion that was flung around like a rag-doll. He placed a hoof over his air pipe, lifting it up. “I do hope you end up in the deepest regions of Tartarus you…”

Double Diamond waited for him to stomp on him. But as he watched in shock of what the doctor was about to do, he saw him froze. Lovejoy was in a familiar, aqua blue aura of Starlight Glimmer’s magic. In which, the old unicorn found himself being thrown out of the cave. It was then that when the doctor landed, there was a loud CRACK that was heard.

Loosen herself from the rope, Starlight went to see what just happened. She found the doctor, the back of his head was resting on a rock, and dark red blood was oozing from it, turning his face paler by the second. The mare was shocked, she meant to hurt him, but didn’t intend to make him bleed.

Lovejoy chuckled weakly, “You… are full of surprises Ms. Glimmer. I guess you and I are really are alike after all… both monsters.”

Starlight narrowed her gaze, “I am not a monster, I’ve just slain one.”

But the doctor continued to laugh, “Remember Starlight… Those who fight with monsters… might take care… lest they thereby become… a monster…” With a joking smile on his face, the old doctor went still.

The mare looked at the body for a whole minute, her horn still flared ready for whatever trickery this beast had in store.

Yet, he didn’t move. After another minute it was clear.

Dr. Reverie Lovejoy was dead.

“Starlight,” Diamond called out.

She turned around, returning to the cave to the white stallion, “You okay?”

“I think I’m bruised, hurt all over, but I think I can still get up.”

The mare turned her attention to the two collapsed walls, “If you’re up for it, help me get everypony out. Can you work with that one wall while I uncover the other?”

Double Diamond got up onto his hunches, “I think so… just… give me a minute.”

Comments

[Skye Mist]

Oh. Oh. Uhh... I think my mind broke.

[CrackedInkWell]

7124512 You're welcome.

[zalla661]

7124512 I think my mind rboek oot... ///error/// ///system 4 something something wasn't found///

That ended better than I thought.

[CrackedInkWell]

7124599 Originally I had in mind for the doctor to die from his brain Aneurysm. But I thought to myself, "Okay, how do you write someone that literally drops dead?" Besides, it would be a sort of cop out for both you the readers and myself. Since the story is just about over, I need something appropriate to have the doc getting the ax, so to speak.

[Clawfoot]

Nice reference to Captain Hook!