It's All A Little Strange To Me

by Essay Jay


Issue 2.1 ~ You Haven't Seen This Before?

What…? Starlight thought, staring at her hooves and her falling figure. They were semi-transparent, and she could almost see an afterimage whenever she moved her being. Beginning to hyperventilate, she could see Jade walking up to her side and righting her being, bringing her swinging back into her body.

With a jolt, all of Starlight’s senses returned, and she blinked. “Wh-what did you just do to me!?” Starlight whispered, breathing faster and putting a hoof to her barrel and chest. She almost felt overjoyed that she was back in her body.

“I separated your astral form from your physical form,” the Ancient One stated directly. “Quite an easy feat if you know what to do.”

Starlight glanced from her hoof to the tea kettle that was settled on the table a few inches away. “What’s in that tea? A mind spell? Pinkie’s caffeine?”

“Just tea,” the Ancient One replied. She glanced at it really quickly before adding shamelessly, “With a little honey.”

Starlight glanced behind her to where she had somehow been floating moments before. “What in the hay happened?”

“Simple, really. For a moment, you entered the astral dimension.”

“You mean the thing that makes the Princess’ hair all wavy?” Starlight asked, shocked.

“Not quite,” the Ancient One chuckled, “Though that is a funny way to look at it. It’s a place where your soul exists away from your body.”

Starlight stared at the Ancient One with a level of wariness. “Why are you doing this to me?”

Jade smiled at that, and the Ancient One grinned. “To show you just how much you don’t know.” In another instant of impossible speed, the Ancient One’s hoof connected with Starlight’s head. In that split second of interaction, Starlight could only think of one thought.

Buck.

And suddenly, the world warped around her before exploding outward, causing her to begin falling upward. Up, up, up, quickly and with no end in sight. “Oh sweet CeLESTIA MY FLANKS OH BUCK I MESSED UP OH HAY NO AHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!”

The wind rushed past Starlight, whipping her mane back and forth. She waved her legs wildly in an attempt to gain some form of control but it was all for naught. She could only scream, wide-eyed as she flew past the clouds and to the verge of the atmosphere, where she saw an impossible butterfly lazily flying past her. Frowning in confusion and breathing heavily, she reached out to touch the space-butterfly but she heard a loud boom and she was sent flying at lightspeed.

The Equus warped around her, gravity seemingly inverting the entire planet before she was sent flying through a portal. Psychedelic colours and indescribably lights twisted around her, the stars and cosmos themselves flying past her. “NOOOOOOOOOOO GAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!” was all she could scream as she flew wildly. She couldn’t even process what she was seeing as she was moving so fast.

“HELP ME TWILIGHT SUNBURST CELESTIA LUNA ANYPONY PLEASE NO!”

“Her heart rate is getting dangerously high,” Jade’s voice echoed from somewhere, a chuckle accompanying it.

All of a sudden, Starlight flew forcefully into a chair, the Ancient One smiling down at her. As she panted with exhilaration, the Ancient One remarked, “Oh, I don’t know. She looks alright to me!”

Starlight stared at her, wide- eyed with exhilaration. Another boom reverberated through her very existence and the world around her twisted. Struck with a sense of vertigo, Starlight screamed again.

“WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH!” she yelled as she caught flame, and was now burning her way across the multiverse. Thrown across against her own will, she could hear a single voice echo around her.

“You think you know how the world and everything in it works??

Points of light burst from all of Starlight’s appendages, A rainbow colours seeped out of her horn and forelegs. She shook her body frantically, screaming all the while. She could only keep spinning and spinning and spinning spinning…

“You think this is the only universe that exists? Material and tangible? Magical and flowing?”

Imagery and space warped around her, new things appearing every next second. She couldn’t comprehend any of it. None of it made sense. Colours and gases undulated, worlds of infinite numbers passed by her, her own essence travelling at speeds she couldn’t fathom.

“What is real…? What hides at the reach of your senses? At the beginning of everything, mind and matter meet… Where thoughts shape reality…

“This universe is only one of many… a multiverse of possibility… Some worlds benevolent and life giving…

“Others filled with the seed of destruction, malice and hunger.”

Starlight burst through an opening, finding herself in a place full of mirrors. Copies of herself floating and looking lost, confused, and scared. Her mane flapped in an inexistent wind, and she quickly fell through another dimension, in one where dark colours flew around her. Giant spheres made of unknown material floated around her, collisions and fire reining everywhere she looked.

“Dark places where evils lurk… where powers older than time lie… dormant and waiting…”

Screaming in fear, she began to zoom out of that dimension, and she began to fly face-forwards, the world spinning around her, colours and stars, the universe itself. It all whizzed past, and Starlight had to squint to even try and see what was happening, her entire body locked in a rigid and unmoving form.

“Who are you, in this vast multiverse, Starlight Glimmer?”

Starlight screamed one last time before she found herself zooming back to the wonderful land of Equus, seeing the earth come back to her. Not slowing at all, she suddenly found herself falling from the ceiling of the room, crashing into and breaking the chair she had sat on. Splinters and wood flew, and the Ancient One stared down at Starlight’s form.

“Have you seen that done by amateurs in a gift shop?” the Ancient One inquired..

Starlight shakily picked herself up, staring at her hooves, and up at her horn, before shakily taking a breath. She patted herself down and glanced up at the Ancient One with newfound respect and a little fear. Breathing heavily, she gulped. “T-teach me,” Starlight begged, her body still shaking.

The Ancient One ever so slightly narrowed her eyes, and Starlight waited.

“No.”