The Tree of Three

by SubrosianDimitri

Rating: mature
Tags: Tragedy, Dark
Length: 2885

The story of a patient, a psychologist, and a breakthrough in the world of Equestrian Psychology.

Caring Rose is renowned as one of the greatest pony psychologists in the world, specializing in cases of multiple or split personalities. However, she has only dealt with one pony before, and now she is being asked to treat another.

The patient in question is a pony named Cedar Sloyd, a pony charged with a multitude of horrific crimes who is split between the three parts of the Freudian Mind.

A story of psychosis and pain, for all parties involved.

Published 1970-01-01 00:00:00 UTC
Last updated 2015-03-12 20:29:38 UTC

The Psychologist

Equestrian Maximum Security Mental Asylum Patient Evaluation

Patient Name: Cedar Sloyd

Gender: Male

Pony Type: Earth Pony

Age: 31

Reason for Admission: Brought to this facility after being arrested for multiple charges of assault, rape, and murder.

Diagnosis: Split Personality

Symptoms:

Patient fluctuates between three separate personas, named based on behaviors matching the three parts of pony psychologist Signal Frame’s psyche structure. Id persona is violent and consistently tries to attack ponies it comes near; patient is kept shackled to a wall to prevent harm to anypony. Patient’s teeth have been removed due to multiple attempts to bite doctors and guards in an attempt to remove large portions of flesh. Superego persona is overly logical and shows no traces of emotion, instead looking at everything with from a standpoint of logic and not letting emotions get in the way, has no intention of harming anypony. Ego persona is theorized to be the patient’s original persona, as it has the longest memory span and is the most reasonable persona to converse with.

“Well…” A light grey unicorn mare began, clicking her tongue before continuing, “This ‘Cedar Sloyd’ pony certainly seems to be quite a hoof-full.” She looked over the evaluation form another time, paying special attention to Cedar Sloyd’s Id persona. “Might I ask why you want me to deal with something like this?”

The pony sitting across from her, a light blue earth pony stallion with a white doctor’s coat with very short coat-tails, looked at the mare and rested his right foreleg on the desk they were sitting at. “Because you are one of the best psychologists in the world, Doctor Caring Rose. You have a better understanding of these kinds of psychological events better than anypony in Equestria.”

Caring Rose looked at the stallion with a slight smirk. “Thanks for the compliment, Doctor Deep Thought. Oh, and by the way, calling somepony with a doctorate by their full name is quite rude.” She then gave a slight glare to Doctor Thought. “Even so, I only have as much expertise on this kind of patient because of the years I spent in foreign countries where this sort of thing is much more common. However, ponies with split personalities aren’t something I want to work with, ponies with that kind of ailment are nigh impossible to treat.”

Doctor Thought took a moment to formulate a response to her. “Are you saying a pony with a split personality is different than something like a Griffin or Minotaur?”

“Yes, by a wide margin.” Doctor Rose just stared at her fellow psychologist before pulling a manila folder out of her bag. “This is a list of all the cases I’ve worked with over the years.” She levitated the folder over to Doctor Thought, who opened the folder and looked over the psyche evaluations of her previous patients.

“Oh Celestia!” Doctor Thought stared at the documents in the folder, all of them were Griffins, Minotaurs, and Zebras, except one. “I didn’t expect this.”

Only one patient was a pony, and it was easy to see why Doctor Rose said ponies with split personalities were difficult to treat. The pony in question only had two personas, but neither one was ever in any kind of control of the body for an extended period of time, and when one was in control, it was usually the half that they were admitted to an institution for. The patients of other species had personalities that could at least be treated to cooperate with each other, or have the personas either merge back into one or have the branch personas erased from the mind, and even then, when one persona was dangerous, it wasn’t nearly as bad as what the one pony was.

“You see now?” Doctor Rose continued, “We may be the most peaceful of the races on this planet, but we are far from the least primal. Almost all ponies are locked in the ego stage of the mind. A small fraction throughout Equestria’s history have reached the Superego stage, but these ponies quickly began to behave in manners that nopony could understand, and eventually came to a conclusion that led them to become emotionless spree killers. Almost nopony in history has ever regressed into the Id, only three known cases are known to have happened, only one of whom was not institutionalized.”

“They weren’t?”

“No, they ended up becoming spree killers as well, but they were much more…animalistic, so to speak. Ponies they killed normally had their skulls beaten in, parts of their flesh bitten off, their heads scalped, rib cages shattered, and other such excessive damages to their bodies. The patient you see on that page was the second case recorded, I was called in to deal with him, and it was not an easy experience.”

“What happened?”

“He was split between the Ego and the Id. However, because the Ego wasn’t in the strongest mental state after potentially years of his Id forcing him to commit such terrible atrocities, had started to lean towards with his Id was telling him to do. I gave up on him after he was killed.”

Doctor Thought’s eyes widened and he took a second to process the information and respond to her statement. “He was killed, by whom?”

“The guards, obviously.” She said with no sense of emotion behind her voice. “I walked in and had my typical session with him, however, he was incredibly uncooperative, and even managed to break his shackles, nor was he phased by the shock collar the put on him. If they hadn’t killed him, I probably wouldn’t be having this conversation with you.”

Doctor Thought stared at Doctor Rose for a moment, thinking of something to say that would make her change her mind and try to see what was going on with Cedar Sloyd, but nothing came.

“However…”

Doctor Thought raised his head to see Doctor Rose smirking at him. “I think there might be something I can learn from somepony with all three of these states active at once. All I ask is that you keep him heavily restrained at all times, understood?”

Doctor Thought nodded before getting up to lead Doctor Rose to the patient ward.

The Patient

A brown earth pony laid against the wall of his asylum cell, shackled to the wall with magically re-enforced Orichalcum chains designed to hold full-grown dragons in place. He was muttering to himself, trying to pay no mind to the guardsponies stationed at each corner of the room.

He just stared at the floor, occasionally closing his eyes or adjusting himself so he was a bit less uncomfortable.

It isn’t easy to be locked in an insane asylum for what I did, is it?

If oNly thEy WouLd cOMe closE to uS.

Shut up! You’re the whole reason I’m stuck in here, chained to a wall with heavily armed guards watching. I could be killed if you so much as tried to bite at the chains!

Might I point out that this body cannot bite at the chains. If you recall…

Yes, I KNOW! They removed my teeth because THIS ANIMAL MADE ME DO IT!

Your emotions seem to blind you to your other emotions, mainly your desire to escape from this building and rid yourself of your Id and myself. It would take me a short time to formulate a logical method for this body to break free from these shackles and dispatch any guards who obstruct its progress.

Even if I did escape, Princess Celestia would be put on high alert. I would only die if I tried to get out of here.

BUt wE’Ll diE eiTheR wAy. i saY we geT wHIlE tHE goIng is GoOd.

I’m not going to do that, I will not let you do any more harm to…

“Doctor Thought is here to see you, Patient!”

Cedar snapped out of his internal argument and looked up at the guard. His eye twitched for a brief moment, then shifted into a flat, emotionless expression. He proceeded to look toward Doctor Thought and Doctor Rose.

“Ah, Doctor Thought.” Cedar began. “I see that you are here with another doctor to perform some form of treatment on us, correct?”

Doctor Thought looked Cedar directly in the eyes for a moment and then quickly broke eye contact and looked down at his clipboard. “Yes, and I guess you’re in control right now, Superego.”

“Your guess is accurate.” Superego responded. “I see you are not making eye contact with me. A normal pony would assume that you are simply looking down on me, with some form of disgust or pity. However, your expression and composure show that you are afraid of this body’s Id.”

“I know better than making eye contact with you for too long, Cedar.”

“I determined that a while ago, Doctor. Maintaining eye contact with this body for any longer than seven point five two four seconds provokes this body into its primal state.” Superego paused for a moment and closed his eyes. “My Ego has instructed me to tell you, ‘Took you assholes long enough to figure it out.’ I fail to understand his need to use profanity in any form if he desires to maintain a healthy relationship with another pony.”

“Oh, you can just shove it, jackass!” Cedar yelled out of the blue. “You really need to just shut the hell up about healthy relationships!”

“I do not see why you need to yell at me, you have every desire to return to the outside world.”

“We’re in an insane asylum! There is no ‘return to the outside world.’ I’m stuck in here until I die or one of the guards kills me when that Celestia damned animal tries to so much as to nibble on the chains!”

“I have already told you Ego, you have no reason to believe…”

“I KNOW! WHY THE FUCK DO YOU NEVER REALIZE THAT I KNOW THAT THING CAN’T BITE THROUGH THE CHAINS! I HAVE NO TEETH!”

Doctor Thought proceeded to motion to one of the guards at the door to press a button on the outside of the door. When they did, Cedar got a slight jolt of electricity. He proceeded to close his mouth and sit up on his haunches.

“Your argument is over now Cedar.” Doctor Thought said sternly. “As your Superego said, I am here with Doctor Rose.”

Cedar looked up at Caring Rose for a two seconds, and then immediately looked down to avoid his Id gaining control. “And what do you think you can do for me? You never learn your damn lesson do you Deep Thought?”

Doctor Thought pondered for a moment on whether or not he should call out Cedar for not referring to him by his proper title, but it would have been pointless. “It doesn’t matter to me what your opinion on this is, I’d rather not hurt you any more than we already have, but you know how far I’m willing to go to keep ponies safe from what you’ve become.”

Doctor Rose stepped forward, and looked down at Cedar Sloyd, just looking at him, he looked very emotionally strained. “Listen to me Cedar, I realize that you may not be able to cooperate, but I need you to talk to me about something.”

Cedar just stared at the ground, he didn’t want anything to do with any more doctors, it would be pointless anyway.

“Cedar, you may not know this about me, but I’ve been labelled as the prime expert on cases like yours.”

That got his attention.

“Assuming you and your Superego are able to keep your Id under control while I do what I need to, I might be able to free you of the Id’s influence.”

“I do not think that you are telling Ego the full truth, Doctor Rose.” Cedar responded with his Superego’s emotionless voice. “You do not merely wish to erase Id from this body’s personality, you also intend to remove me from it as well.”

“Why would you think that? I’m trying to protect you.”

“Because if you are capable of removing the Id from attaining any form of dominance over this body, logic dictates that there is a ninety-eight percent chance that you will remove me from the mind of this body as well. You see me as something unwelcome in Equestrian society.”

“If it gets rid of you, I’d gladly take it you emotionless pile of shit!”

“There is no reason for you to use profanity to address me, Ego, there is no logical reason why you would want to…”

The argument was cut off by another jolt of electricity from the device used to shock Cedar in case things go too out of hoof.

“Why the hell do you assholes keep doing that!?”

Doctor Thought fixed Cedar with a glare. “These arguments are only going to bring out your Id, Cedar. I think all of us are well aware that we don’t want that to happen.”

“Why the hell do you jackasses think that I’m going to lose control of my…my…urg!”

Doctor Thought immediately recognized what was going on and motioned for the guards at the corners of the room to restrain Cedar before his Id fully took control. The guards all ignited their horns and shot a beam of magic directly at Cedar’s violently flailing body. A straitjacket formed around him, restraining his front hooves to his chest and holding him in place.

"What's going on?" Doctor Rose asked.

"I maintained eye contact for too long." He simply stated. "You might want to back off."

"But, that wasn't seven seconds!"

"We'll worry about that later, for now, just back up and keep a safe distance!"

Doctor Rose complied and proceeded to back away quickly to the around a a third of the way from the door, well out of the range of the chains holding Cedar in place.

“UurrRrrrRRgggGhHHH!” Cedar was thrashing even more violently now, and he appeared to be in some form of physical pain judging from his facial expressions. “You’Re noT goiNg To take coNTroL of mE! i’M Not gOinG to LeT yoU! GrrrRRrrRRRrggggGGhhHh!”

His thrashing calmed down, and he was still now.

“RrrrRRaaaaAAuuGGGhhH!” Cedar’s scream echoed through the room, and the guards looked visibly worried. Even Doctor Thought had a twinge of fear running through his body, knowing what was in the room with him.

“Don’t move, Id!” Doctor Thought said in a threatening tone. “You know what I’ll do if you even so much as spit!”

“Hm Hm Hm hM hm hMm HmM HMM” Id giggled with a tone that Doctor Rose had heard only once before, and it was one of the worst experiences of her life. “WelL, helLo THerE doCtOR! WhO’S tHe nIce piece of aSs yoU’Ve bROugHt TodAy?”

Doctor Thought glared at Id, he had no desire to hurt Cedar’s body, but if push came to shove, he would make sure to severely damage it to keep Id from doing anything.

“yoU knOw, iT reALly iSn’t NicE to cHaiN uP a pooR hUNk liKe me! aLL i wAnt is To tAcklE heR tO thE FlOor aNd sHove mY raGing cOCk inTo hEr…”

Id was cut off by an immense shock going through Cedar’s body. Doctor Thought had a generator with a high powered electricity spell powering it connected to Cedar’s chains, just in case something like this happened, which it did more often than anypony would like it to.

“I already told you, I’d rather not do permanent damage to Cedar’s body, much less kill him, but you know how far I’ll go to protect ponies from monsters like you!”

Id looked up at Doctor Thought, his body still twitching from the immense electric shock. “You’LL fUckiNg Pay fOR tHAT!” He said with as much venom as he could.

“Id, I don’t care what you think you can do to me! I wouldn’t have shocked you if you just threatened me like you normally do, you can’t break out of here anyway.” Doctor Thought immediately lowered his head to look Id right in the eyes with the most piercing glare he could muster. “But you crossed the line when you threatened Doctor Rose! I don’t think of you as being Cedar Sloyd, even if you are the sole reason why he’s here in the first place! If you want to stay alive, I suggest you keep your mouth shut and give the real Cedar Sloyd control of his body again.”

Id just blew air out of his nose. “FinE, iF YoU waNT TO taLk to hIM so bADly, wHO aM i to sAy No?” He gave a malicious smile to Doctor Rose, something that she glared at. “sEe ya lAteR, SweET aSs!”

Cedar’s eyes closed again, and when they opened, he began to breathe heavily, as if he just barely escaped from a life or death situation.

“*Huff* *Huff* Don’t… *Huff* Don’t do that again, you fucking monster! *Huff* *Huff*”

Cedar’s breathing slowed down, and his eyes began to droop. He tried to look up at Doctor Rose one more time, but he didn’t have the body strength to do so. He drifted off to sleep, after uttering on sentence.

“Sorry you had to see that.”