Within You - [Twibra]

Five

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, mind you; 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.