Within You

by fancybloom

Chapter 5

It was satisfying for the unicorn to hear how the slow sound of his hooves as he walked echoed throughout the hallway. He enjoyed knowing that at that precise moment there was no one to bother him; It was just him and his thoughts.

He did not have an exact count of how long he had been hanging around the corridors of the small crystal palace, away from the living room and main rooms for various reasons.

But it wasn't something he cared to know either, even though he took into account how important it was to always keep in mind the reason why he had "accepted" the purple alicorn's offer, it had actually been difficult to avoid just disconnecting for a moment from reality and allow himself to feel without having to think about anything.

It was easy to just think and mention being locked in a frozen void for a thousand years, but experiencing it was a totally different story.

At first he believed that it would be easy to recover from the certainly traumatic experience, but as the days in freedom passed, the consequences began to become visible and made him have a somewhat different point of view.

It was very clear that that feeling of existing but without feeling that he really existed had not been pretty, and although he did not want to accept it, every time he remembered it, his body was covered with chills and he inevitably had to close his eyes to avoid thinking about it.

And yes, three or four years had already passed since he had managed to get out of his eternal prison, but he was never able to have time with himself to reflect on his life in general, since only a few minutes after having freed himself, he had run without thinking to try to conquer the empire once again.

And everyone already knew how that had ended.

It's not like he blamed anypony for that more than himself, it should be noted; It hadn't been a very smart move on his part.

Whatever the case, he now had a problem that was genuinely starting to stress him out.

Actions as simple as eating, walking, seeing, hearing, feeling or even breathing had taken on a much deeper meaning than he would like to admit.

His stay in his ice prison had been so long that sometimes the possibility crossed his mind that everything he was currently experiencing would end up being a cruel dream. That perhaps he had finally succumbed to madness from being alone for too long, not even being able to move; and that in the end he would end up waking up once again to his daily ordeal.

So much so that, deep inside, he even came to wonder if all the acts he had committed had actually been worth all that undeniable suffering.

He frowned in disgust at this last thought.

He didn't know what floor number he was on, but it was a fairly high one, enough that he could easily see much of the small town of Ponyville from the window.

He slowly approached the glass, taking a moment to visualize the details of the houses and streets, finding that they were actually quite different from those of the empire.

Having lived his entire life in the aforementioned place and due to his social and economic position, he had never really had the opportunity to visit other countries/kingdoms, not even Equestria, so everything was quite new to him.

Something quite peculiar that he could notice but he couldn't understand was how so many ponies managed to live together in such a small place and get along with each other.

Even if the city he used to reside in was large, it did not erase the fact that he had grown up in an orphanage, where regardless of whether he liked it or not, he had had to live and share his space with large amounts of children.

And, of course, they never managed to get along.

Wanting to forget about that specific topic, he made a gesture of indifference towards the townspeople before moving away from the window and thus proceeding with the exploration of the place.

He had to admit that he hadn't disliked the palace when he first saw it; Crystal being its main construction material, it gave it a quite familiar and pleasant sensation. Besides, it was undoubtedly quite pretty.

Without realizing it, he had soon finished going around the entire castle, finding himself again in the same place where he had started: in front of the library.

He didn't give it much thought, there was literally nothing else to do for the rest of the day and probably the week as well, so he just rolled his eyes slightly before pushing the doors open and walking into that room.

He was surprised by the considerable amount of books that were found inside, taking into account that it was a very small palace compared to others, he had not imagined that it had such a large library.

Of course, it wasn't even close to being a quarter of the Crystal Empire's library, but he still liked it, now he could be sure that he would keep himself busy for the next few days.

Maintaining a slow pace as he walked, he approached one of the shelves, specifically one located in the area titled “History of Ponies”, where he deduced that he would find the book he had decided to read.

He only had to search with his eyes for the space of the 'H' to—in less than three seconds—be able to find the book that he intended to use as a hobby/distraction and at the same time as a tool to learn a little about the new era in which he lived.

Whoever was in charge of organizing the books (or the library in general) seemed to have a very good sense of organization.

Being about to take the said book, he stopped when his ears managed to pick up two voices coming from a deeper subsection in the library, noticing how they became more audible every second.

"I don't understand why you behave like this, I just asked you to clean it." The female voice sounded somewhere between confused and annoyed.

He recognized that voice as that of the princess.

"And that's just what I'm going to do, what's the problem? " answered the one that Sombra deduced was the lilac dragon.

"The problem is that you responded too rudely." At this point the alicorn's voice could already be heard quite close.

"Ugh, okay," he complained, "I'm sorry. Happy now?"

"No, Spike, you're still being rude, what's wrong with you today?" Both the dragon and the alicorn were in his field of vision, so he could notice the worried face on the purple-eyed one when she asked the question.

"Nothing, it's just that... "His words faded once he became aware of the stallion's presence.

It didn't take long for the alicorn to imitate the minor's action, looking surprised once she had noticed it.

"Oh... Hi, I hadn't seen you since yesterday." She greeted him, smiling slightly.

"Yeah, hi." He didn't give it much importance, he looked away and turned around to put his attention on the book he was going to take before they interrupted him.

"Whatever, I'm going to my room," said the smallest one quite indifferently before the short greeting of both ponies.

Upon hearing this she stopped looking at the unicorn and returned her attention to the reptile.

"Wait, I really need you to clean the–"

"Yeah, yeah, I know." He sounded annoyed. "But, jeez, Twilight, couldn't you do it?"

The aforementioned mare's face seemed to change very subtly, instead of looking worried she now looked upset.

"I was clear when I told you not to eat ice cream on the reading tables for obvious reasons; Now that table is sticky and full of flies. So no, you go clean it yourself."

The look and tone that the alicorn had used to address him had only increased his anger even more, since she was evidently scolding him; But he could see that she was also quite upset and in truth he was afraid of answering something that would end up upsetting her more.

So he just started walking without saying a single word, but frowning at her as hard as he could and huffing under his breath quite furiously.

As he walked away from her and left the room, Twilight relaxed her face a little more, feeling no longer upset but sad, she felt very bad when she argued with the little dragon.

On the other hand, after having witnessed the short fight, the stallion had found interesting the way in which the 'conversation' had been generated and then concluded.

To be honest, he didn't have the slightest idea about the story of the dragon and the princess, therefore he didn't know the type of relationship those two had either.

But he could swear that what he had heard was a mother scolding her son.

Which was absurd and hilarious in his opinion, the dragons and the ponies had never been able to agree on anything, so their relationship was quite bad, to tell the truth.

Thus, it was almost impossible for this pony and that specific dragon to have such a relationship.

Now that he thought about it, she was somewhat intrigued by the story of those two creatures, perhaps he would ask the alicorn at some point.

"Do you need help finding something?" The princess suddenly asked.

"What?"

"You've been looking at the book for a long time without opening it, I thought maybe it's not the one you were looking for."

It was true, he had delved too deep into his own thoughts that he hadn't even opened the book.
And he hadn't noticed that she had taken a seat either.

"Ah, no, I'm fine, this is the one I was looking for."

She took a quick look at the cover.

"'History of Equestria Vol. 1'?" She read aloud, then turning to look at the stallion with some curiosity.

"Is it prohibited for me or...?" He suggested, not being able to recognize what she meant with her look.

"Oh, no, no, it's okay, don't worry." She hurriedly responded, letting out a nervous laugh. "I was just curious that you wanted to read that particular book."

He looked at the book once more and then at her, thinking about whether or not he should answer truthfully.

"I want to catch up with everything that has happened in these years, there are things that I don't understand because of how modern they have become, so I hope this helps me." He responded, simplifying everything.

"Oh, sure, I understand. Although that's Volume 1, it covers the history of Equestria since long before Princess Celestia was even born... And well, I assume she's older than you, right?"

"I don't know, it's probable." He answered vaguely. "Regarding the other thing, I'm aware of that, it's just that I prefer to read the context before everything."

"Well, it's valid."

"I also think that it is entertaining to read history books, it is important to have knowledge of what happened in the past."

The alicorn smiled at this statement, since she thought exactly the same; Usually most people found history boring and classified it as a waste of time unless you really needed to know about a specific event. But she had always been a fan of history books; When she was a filly, instead of reading fantasy stories before going to sleep, she preferred to consume a good portion of ancient reading, since she knew that everything she read were events that had actually happened at some point.

"I think the same; In fact, history books are among my favorites." She kept her smile.

He looked at her out of the corner of his eye.

"It's good to know that you do have a good sense of taste then."

Unexpectedly, he at the same table, in front of her.

"What are you reading?"

For many reasons, this question was surprising, but mostly due to the fact that, before, the steed wouldn't even look at her, and now he was interested in knowing something as trivial as what she was reading.

"Well, I'm reading an amplified version of the theory of space-time ruptures when doing magic, you know... That book by Twinkle Mark where she says that enough magic could break space-time and even allowing us to travel between dimensions and things like that."

"Ah, yeah, it's quite old." He looked at the cover, easily recognizing the book. "It was very popular at the time, but then Twinkle Mark began to lose credibility and be seen more as crazy."

She let out a short nasal laugh before responding.

"Yeah, well... I don't know if she was crazy or not, but everything she had to say is very interesting, it makes you question everything and see magic in a different way, I would say it's even thrilling."

"I don't know, I think the thrilling part goes away when you remember that they are just theories."

"You can see it another way, more like a fictional story that could (or not) be real."

He just shrugged, though seeming to agree with the alicorn's observation.

Without even realizing it, they began to spend time talking about different topics (mainly related to books), getting carried away by the slight excitement of finding someone who shared their interests and provided a coherent and valid point of view.

The only thing that brought them out of their bubble was the hunger that set in when night began to fall.

Inevitably they had to stop their quite interesting conversation that had been going on for hours.

When it was finally time to sleep, Twilight was feeling cheerful, something had changed slightly that day.

While it was hopeful that the stallion had evidently taken another step forward in his reform; Her joy was focused more on knowing that she had spent a very good time with the unicorn, she had gotten to discover a small part of him that she could never have imagined was there.

Which even filled her with more intrigue about him, she felt a peculiar curiosity to get to know him more thoroughly.

It had been a good day, she hadn't even planned anything and things had turned out better than she would have expected.

With a small smile on her face, her consciousness slowly faded into the background, marking the end of that day for the alicorn.