"Hey, Bravado!"

Bravado reared up with surprise. Aureli cringed and Azure Lightning flung out a leg to shield her.

"Oh come on, it's just me," Sebastius said. "It's been a while since we escaped, and I've been looking for the perfect opportunity these past two days to give you a message. Which wasn't easy, since you've been surrounded with guards most of the time, so thank you for stepping aside for a personal conversation with your dear friend, Azure Lightning." He turned to Azure Lightning. "Seriously, you're letting Aureli keep your wings? That's morbid."

Azure Lightning blushed. "Well, like I said, they weren't doing me any good because they're so small, but they work on her. Anyway, I'm running away from an old master of mine, and my wings were my most distinguishing feature." He smiled sheepishly.

"Hmm. Love makes you stupid, but as mothers' affections for their foals shows, stupid things are cute to Normies, so I guess you'll be happy enough." Sebastius turned to Bravado. "And now for the message."

"What's that, then?" Bravado said suspiciously.

Sebastius picked a bit of mud off of one hoof. "I have a sort of policy that anypony- or other creature- who saves my life, will have the favor returned at some point. So if you're in a jam, call me and I'll be willing to save your life. Or I'll spare your life, as the case may be. Once. It only works once."

"You waited for two days to tell me this?" Bravado said, incredulous.

"Well, see, Daring saved my life from Krastos that one time and so I rescued her from the Assembler shortly after that and told her about the deal, and I thought she might have told you, and I didn't want you to think that this somehow extended to me giving up an artifact that we both want, because it doesn't, it only applies to your life, and-"

"I thought you two were partners," Aureli said.

"Yes, Doctor Zerato was also under that delusion," Sebastius said.

"Maybe you should reconsider?" Azure Lightning said. "You work so well together."

Sebastius and Bravado gaped at the two Marabians.

"No," Bravado said.

"No, we don't," Sebastius said.

"You should see us normally," Bravado said.

"As in, when we both want to kill each other," Sebastius said.

"Yeah, as in then," Bravado said.

"Oh…" Aureli said. "Well, okay then. Thank you, Bravado."

"Yes, thank you," Azure Lightning said. Both of them backed off, looking awkward, before running away.

"And thank you," Sebastius said to Bravado. "For what, I don't know, but I didn't want to break the streak. Goodbye."

"Stop," Bravado said.

"Why?"

"I just…" Bravado shuffled his hooves a bit.

"Oh, something awkward," Sebastius said with a sigh. "I really don't want to do this right now, so let's just talk during our next hooffight, okay?"

"It doesn't work like that," Bravado sighed. "Look, what I want to say is… you believe that there's a hell now, right?"

Sebastius paused.

"I sorta never stopped believing in it," he said. "I just stopped thinking about it."

"But you don't want to go to hell, do you?"

"You don't really understand the symptoms of sociopathy, do you?" Sebastius said. "I only like hurting others. I don't get a kick out of personal pain."

"But, but then… why aren't you a Christian?" Bravado asked. "I mean, if you really believe about hell and Jesus and all that… then… why?"

Sebastius didn't answer for a moment.

"Have you ever read the Bible?" he asked. "Everypony knows that stuff about 'do not lie', 'do not steal', things like that, and if my eternal salvation depended on it then maybe I could keep those rules for a little while, though I'd probably take the early death route if at all possible so I could get in heaven before I slipped up. But no, that isn't enough for God. No. He has to throw in commands like 'Love your brother sincerely. From the heart."

Bravado stared at Sebastius, stunned.

"I was born a sociopath!" Sebastius shouted. "I'm physically incapable of loving anything whether I want to or not! It's like God made me a sociopath to send me to hell on purpose!"

Bravado averted his gaze to the ground.

Sebastius paused for breath, huffing angrily.

"And, well," he said in a softer voice, "if an all-powerful God wants to send me to hell… then how's a puny little earth pony supposed to defy him?"

Silence reigned. Bravado looked at buildings, the sky, the ground again. Sebastius shook with fury.

"Do you… want your sociopathy cured?" Bravado asked.

"Nopony cares!" Sebastius said. "There isn't a cure for sociopathy, so why would it matter whether I want one or not?" He glared at his younger brother. "On second thought, I do know what to thank you for. Thanks for nothing. Goodbye, Bravado." He turned around and started to stomp off.

"Are you happy?"

Sebastius looked over his shoulder. Bravado was watching him leave, one ear folded over his head in a semi-cute expression.

"Are you happy, Sebastius?" he asked softly.

Sebastius did not answer. He just stared at Bravado, wondering what force in the universe had prompted Bravado to ask that particular question.

"Wither. And. Die." Sebastius hissed.

Then he finished stomping off.


Sebastius Mareton, intrepid adventurer, sat at the edge of the chair, hunched over the table, a mug of Marabian alcohol wrapped up in his hoof. The lighting in the Marabian bar was bad enough already, but the lamp above Sebastius' table was broken. He already knew that it hid him from the bar's patrons. He wondered if it would hide him from reality.

"Are you happy?"

Sebastius prided himself on his ability to break ponies. He would easily figure out the right words to say to make the pony doubt himself, his motives, his future. They would cry and become weak. And then Sebastius would do whatever he wanted.

But Sebastius had a dark secret.

It only took three words to make him question himself, his motives, his future.

"Are you happy?"

What Sebastius had was never enough. Whatever Sebastius acquired soon lost its appeal. Material goods could not make him happy.

Relationships would never make him happy, by virtue of his being a sociopath. Sometimes he got enjoyment out of silly females lavishing affection on him, but in the end it just felt like another material good. Just one that moved and petted him and kissed him. And mares usually got sick of him at some point anyway.

Every now and then, in a quiet moment, in between artifacts, Sebastius would be relaxing someplace… sort of like now… and then, those three words would come to him.

"Are you happy?"

And the answer was no.

The answer could never be anything but no.

But that was too distressing to think about. So he didn't think about it.

He listened to music. He read books. He studied history. He ran small scams to fill up time. He would see how long he could hold onto a girlfriend. He got drunk. Anything to keep from remembering those three words.

"Are you happy?"

The nights were the worst. Sebastius always kept a stock of sleeping pills handy, in case the long hours and total silence got to be too much.

The best cure for deep thoughts, as far as he had discovered, was adrenaline. So he spent most of his life in adrenaline-related activities. He went on crazy adventures, risked his life, went on power trips, and- occasionally- tortured or murdered ponies.

Anything. Anything.

"Are you happy?"

Sebastius drained his mug, wondering how much alcohol he'd need to knock himself out cold.

Did he want to be cured of sociopathy?

Once, something had happened to Daring that had had something to do with dimensional rifts. Nopony had bothered to inform Sebastius of the incident until it had been over for a long time, but Ahuizotl had talked to him about it over a poker game once. Ahuizotl and Daring had been forced to work together to stop a force greater than both of them that threatened everything- the Smooze. And so they'd hopped around the dimensions, searching for… something. Sebastius had forgotten what.

There'd been really horrible dimensions, of course. There seemed to be one dimension for every evil force that had ever attacked Equestria. One in which that evil force had defeated Daring.

There was a dimension where the Smooze had covered the planet. There was a dimension where the Assembler had turned everypony into a soulless robot. There was a dimension where Swinn and Dell had amassed so much wealth that they owned Equestria and everypony in it. They'd made Alternate Sebastius Mareton live like their pet dog.

Sebastius was glad he didn't live in that last dimension.

Of course the universe he'd most wanted to hear about was the one where he had won some important struggle, but Daring and Ahuizotl hadn't happened to find that one. Nonetheless, Ahuizotl had had an incredibly interesting story to tell anyways.

They'd actually found a dimension that was even more slanted towards the 'good guys' than the one Sebastius lived in.

In that universe, the do-gooders had always won. Alternate Ahuizotl never got out of jail for more than a day. Alternate Krastos had been killed almost as soon as he'd shown up. The Assembler didn't even exist.

But there was more than that.

Alternate Daring's parents had never gotten lost on an ill-fated expedition. Alternate Storm Talon's family had not been killed in a war. Alternate Zapapple had not died in a tragic foalhood accident. Alternate University Professor Masra had not been murdered by a former friend, and therefore she had not needed to be replaced by Deborah Nagridge. Hay, the whole Third Griffin and Diamond Dog War hadn't even happened.

Sebastius had asked Ahuizotl how well Alternate Sebastius had done for himself in this alternate good-guys-always-win universe. Had he been any better at staying out of jail than Alternate Ahuizotl?

The answer had surprised him.

Alternate Sebastius did, in fact, stay out of jail. That was because Alternate Sebastius never did anything worthy of being thrown in jail.

And that was because Alternate Sebastius was not sociopathic. He'd been born perfectly normal.

And then Sebastius had understood everything.

It was his fault. It was his sociopathy that caused everything!

If Sebastius had not been sociopathic, his parents would not have fought and broke up.

It his parents had not fought and broke up, Winchester would not have killed Rodolphus. Winchester wouldn't have had the opportunity, or he would have been caught. His friends would have noticed his descent into darkness and would have gotten him the psychological help he'd needed.

So Daren's little team of archeologists would never have broken up. It would still have had all its members.

So Ghoul wouldn't have done his investigations into his superior Diamond Dog's corruption alone. He would have done it with his friends. And so they would have succeeded in getting the word out and prevented the whole Third Griffin and Diamond Dog War. So Storm Talon's family couldn't possibly have died in it.

And Daren wouldn't have gone after the Platinum Crown alone. His friends would have helped him, and he wouldn't have been lost.

Zapapple wouldn't have been on that fateful camping trip in the first place, since it was a camp for learning to cope with the loss of parents.

And since there'd been no Third Griffin and Diamond Dog War, Masra's friend would have had no reason to take revenge for Masra's questionable actions during said war, and so Masra would not have died. So Deborah Nagridge was Sebastius' fault!

And with so many good creatures- Daren, Daria, Daring, Daring's siblings, Storm Talon and his family, Winchester and his family, Rodolphus, Ruby Rust, Bravado, and, yes, Sebastius… well, how could the heroes do anything but win all the time?

For want of a normal brain.

Not that Sebastius cared overly much about what happened to others. It would be nice if Deborah Nagridge had never risen to power, or if his dad had never died so that he could have been trained by Rodolphus and his friends instead of having to figure out everything from scratch. It would be nice if he'd never had to go to the asylum, most of all. But was it worth it, if the cost was his sociopathy- the thing that helped him through so many adventures and was his best shield against all those other afflictions that plagued other adventurers, like their need to protect their loved ones and their inability to take necessary steps to prevent fellow archeologists from taking the glory?

But there was one thing he couldn't deny...

Alternate Sebastius Mareton had been happy.

Really, truly happy. Happy about his family. Happy about his friends. Happy about his life. Happy about his afterlife. Because, of course, Alternate Sebastius Mareton could go to heaven. Normal, sociopathic Sebastius Mareton could not.

Sebastius pushed his empty mug around, wishing it was full again.

Did Sebastius want to be cured of sociopathy?

Wasn't the damage already done?