Starlight's bedroom reeked of incense. She'd been burning the stuff nonstop for days. She actually found the smell repugnant, but she thought it was essential to the atmosphere. Could she truly call herself a witch if she didn't master the tone?
She knew “witch” was an outdated term, bordering on offensive to actual realized unicorns in the prime of their prowess. But it suited her. It suited Starlight as well as those pigtails she'd chosen to keep well into her teenage years or the black eyeshadow. Witch. It just sounded right.
Witch. The word pounded in Starlight's ears as she dumped the ashes into the middle of the circle. Some ponies might have called her twisted for using the remains of a dead bird for her ritual. Whatever. Sleepy Beak had died of natural causes. He'd probably be thrilled to know that he was still Starlight's most trusted ally, even if he could no longer perch on her windowsill and eat bird seed from her hoof.
Witch. Starlight could hear her classmates chanting it. They thought they were twisting a knife in her side, making her squirm. But nopony knew who she was, least of all those who stuck to tired one-word insults. Did any of them even know the kind of fear—reverence even—the word “witch” had once demanded in polite society? No, they didn't. They didn't understand anything outside of their own limited world views.
While her classmates were out enjoying the luxury of underage drinking, she was placing chicken bones around a hoof-drawn circle of red ink.
The circle was pretty simple in design. Those who dabbled in the less moral schools of magic would recognize it as a classic materialization circle, but with some variations of Starlight's own design. The runes surrounding the inner rim were copied directly from The Tome of Temptation. It wasn't the original book. The original was probably locked up in some private section of a library in the Crystal Empire. But a slightly abridged copy was sufficient for one ritual.
“Blood of the sinner,” said Starlight aloud.
She picked up a knife from her dresser. This was no cheap imitation. This was an actual ceremonial blade that she'd snagged for less than five bits from a clueless salespony. Starlight adored it. Just holding it in her magic made her feel as if she'd pierced the barrier that separated her from the witches of old. She was a professional now.
Witch. Starlight smiled as she pressed the blade against her hoof, hard enough to draw out a few droplets of blood. The word was practically a slur to some of those uppity big city unicorns who read books filled with spells they were too cowardly to perform. But Starlight didn't believe in knowledge over practice. How could anypony learn magic if more than half of it was forbidden?
The droplets fell neatly into Starlight's goblet of wine. Her father guarded his vintage booze like it was pirate treasure, but this ridiculous paranoia had done him no good in the end. She didn't even need a lock-picking spell. All it took was crossing another previously unknown avenue of magic—a combination of teleportation and a basic object displacement spell—to get what she wanted.
She knelt on all fours in front of the circle. It made her a little giddy to imagine all of the ponies who—hyped up on magic and moonlight—had attempted exactly what she was doing. But they'd all been amateurs, inexperienced and reaching for something inside of themselves. Starlight already knew what lived inside of her. She'd been cultivating it for years, familiarizing herself with its texture and habits. Sometimes it was a feeling, other times it was a roaring wave of sound. But it was always there.
Starlight tilted her head back and drank deeply from the goblet. She could taste the bitterness of her own blood mixed tentatively with the wine. Most ponies would have recoiled at the taste. Starlight almost did, but she reminded herself that it was nothing compared to what came next.
She held the almost empty goblet above the circle. Starlight closed her eyes, reaching deep inside herself to prod at that current of magical energy. Sometimes it felt like a current, other times it was more like a ball sitting inside of her stomach. It buzzed and sparked, sending tremors across Starlight's fur as she drew from it.
As the incantation flowed easily from her mouth, Starlight poured the remaining wine into the center of the circle. She could feel her magic pulsing like a second heartbeat. Starlight knew other unicorns didn't feel this way. She was special. She was chosen.
Midnight announced itself in the deep bellow of a grandfather clock. The last word was swept from Starlight's mouth as the sound pounded against the walls. As those twelve gongs rang out, she felt like she was listening to the house's heartbeat.
The slow fade of the last gong lingered as silence fell upon the house. Starlight could hear its ghost long after it was gone. In the complete silence, she found herself wrapped up in a surreal hyper-awareness. She could hear her mane growing. She could feel the blood in her veins, pumping steadily into her beating heart. Her heart itself was beginning to throb in her ears, each beat like a clap of thunder. Exhilarating was the word. Starlight felt like she was high.
“I call the shadows to me,” she whispered.
She could hear the chicken bones rattling. Something was pressing against the veil, its hoof prodding the thin barrier like a curious foal. An incorporeal creature of indeterminate stature and sex, little more than a gust of wind on the other side. Starlight could feel it reaching inside of her head.
“I call the shadows to me,” she repeated.
Starlight's world spun on an unseen axis. She felt a dozen things that she knew didn't exist. Warnings. Snippets of thoughts and feelings imploring her to turn back. But she pressed on, pushing them aside as if they were blocking the concession stand at the local fair. Starlight ignored the projected agony of doomed souls, their wails increasing in volume as she easily swatted them aside. She could feel a hundred creatures pressing their heavy bodies together, trying to escape through the tunnel she had created.
“I call the shadows to me.”
The noises and sensations slowly faded. The warnings—once overwhelming—became little more than a continuous buzz of unease. Even that was soon swept away, leaving behind only the faded memory of what had once engaged all of Starlight's senses. But she wasn't alone. The chicken bones continued to rattle, a fitting soundtrack to the bitterly cold air that seemed to be creeping into her bedroom. A frost that reminded Starlight of the Frozen North was seeping out from the center of the circle. She could feel the cold air brushing her muzzle, but still she didn't move.
She could hear a voice chanting. It sounded very much like her own, except slightly deeper. It spoke in a language long deceased, straining against some of the more intricate syllables clearly not designed for an equine mouth. Starlight listened to this voice for several minutes. It was speaking too rapidly for her to translate, even as the sentences began to loop.
Then everything came to an abrupt stop. An unnatural silence descended as each and every noise was snuffed out by an unseen hoof. Starlight hadn't moved an inch, but she felt as if she'd tentered a box. The world around her had shrunk.
“Ponumbra.”
The name came rumbling up from somewhere under Starlight's feet. She didn't hear it as much as she felt it, a series of tremors rattling through her brain. A shiver tried to race across her spine, but she suppressed it. Starlight shifted the position of her hooves slightly, letting the name settle as the quake passed. She could still feel it in her bones.
“No,” she said.
A second quake, much stronger than the first. She could feel her hooves shaking. It came as a series of interlocked tremors, rushing through her body in rapid succession. Laughter. The creature was laughing, the force of its mirth shaking her entire body.
“No,” said Starlight.
She spoke firmly this time. Playtime was over. Starlight had no intention of wasting her powers on such frivolous pursuits. She was there for one pony and one pony alone: King Sombra. She'd studied star charts, combed through ancient spellbooks, and learned a variety of dead languages. All for him. The one pony she admired more than anypony else. Gone, but not forgotten by Starlight.
Starlight's body shook as another quake of laughter burst from below. But she ignored it. Starlight reached past the presence that had begun to settle itself. She opened the tear a bit wider, groping for what she wanted. She could feel it. It was just out of reach, its form shifting and writhing as it struggled to access the breach Starlight had created. Parts of it had begun to drizzle pathetically from the meager opening like ink from a bottle, but it still wasn't enough.
Abruptly, the once tiny opening split open like a gaping wound. A pair of massive claws emerged from within, wrenching the hole open with incredible force. The entire room began to shake as the veil struggled against this intrusion. Starlight could feel the floorboards underneath her creaking in protest, the air turning thick and heavy with a smell comparable to burnt cloth. She gagged as her throat prickled with the overpowering scent of ashes.
Vermin were pouring from the hole. Rats the color of ink, their slick bodies leaving trails of red. Starlight could feel them swarming over her body, their tiny claws dragging against her fur. She tried to scream, but all that came out was a series of hacking coughs.
“No!” she managed.
It was all inside of her head. The sensations, the images, the feelings. But it was real.
“Ponumbra.”
The world shook and screamed. The name rumbled louder in Starlight's chest, as if someone had struck a drum. It reverberated across her entire body, her bones vibrating and her eyeballs seeming to shake in their sockets.
Through the shrieking cacophony the wind had become, Starlight shouted out an incantation. She rattled off the words with a desperate determination. But even before the last had fallen from her mouth, she knew the words were nothing. They fell uselessly against the destroyed veil, as light and inconspicuous as moths.
Her mind was filling with ancient symbols. These were from a language Starlight hadn't studied, but somehow she knew what they meant. A series of seemingly unconnected words and thoughts, an incoherent story told in a language older than ponykind. Starlight's thoughts began to cave in. Her brain folded like the flimsy thing it had become, spilling secrets and sweet lies into her body. The secrets and sweet lies that lay beyond the average pony's reach, tucked away on the other side of that veil.
Knowledge. Spells and rituals beyond the capabilities of Princess Celestia herself. Starlight could have them. She could have all of it. She need only open her mind a bit wider. Starlight could become a vessel. A vessel for this forbidden knowledge that lay mere inches from her grasp.
But then Starlight saw something else. It was only a glimpse, a split second image that flashed across the rumbling in her brain. Starlight saw the thing that was trying to force its way through the gap she had created. She saw the creature that was easing its way inside of her like the memory of a lover.
Starlight could feel her horn burning. She was no longer rejecting the squirming essence. She was drawing from it, holding onto it with an unwavering grip. It struggled, but she had locked it in place. The rumbling quieted ever so slightly as Starlight drained the creature's essence into herself. She could feel it thrashing around, lost in its ingrained assurance that it could break from her grasp and continue its steady takeover. But Starlight continued undeterred, expelling every drop of its poison. Drawing from the power it had gifted her, Starlight was forcing it back.
She heard the final quakes of its protest. The world shuddered with its objection, but Starlight didn't pause. The taste of ash was retreating from her throat, her head steadily clearing as she was able to flush the creature's influence from her mind. Starlight could feel the darkness closing around it. She pushed a little harder, forcing the thing back into its true home. The breach had begun to close, her magic rushing to stitch up the rip between worlds.
Starlight opened her eyes. For a split second, she saw a hazy landscape of cliffs and a sky that looked like it was being viewed through a dirty lens. But then Starlight blinked and was back in her bedroom.
She collapsed in front of the circle and rolled onto her side. She stared at the side of her bed as if it might give her some kind of answer. But it stared back, as inanimate an object as it had been moments before. Moments. It had only been moments, although it felt like months. Starlight was sure only about five minutes had passed. She'd been in some kind of between state, her mind trapped in a point that existed within a complete different passage of time. From her point of view, it had been an hour-long battle. In reality, it had been minutes.
“What the fuck am I doing?” Starlight said.
She knew what she was doing. She was lying on her side, her eyes burning with impending sobs. Her body was shaking, her energy completely spent. Even if she'd managed to get to her hooves, Starlight probably would have collapsed again. She wondered if she would ever move again. She didn't think so. It wasn't what she wanted.
Witch. Such a silly word. Such a ridiculous title. Starlight wasn't a witch. She was a rebellious teenager playing with the unknown.
She could feel the lingering threads of that essence squirming inside of her. Starlight thought she'd done away with it, but she realized she'd never be rid of it. It would live inside of her forever. It was her punishment for messing around with things she couldn't hope to understand. A poison. A curse. A reminder of what happened to those who pushed the boundaries of magic.
I'm poison, she thought. I'm a curse. That's why Sunburst...
Starlight sobbed. She could still feel the claws of that thing, that creature, that monster inside of her chest. It was still inside of her. Living. Breathing. Inactive, but there. Always there. Forever. She'd been greedy. She'd always been greedy, Starlight realized. She'd wanted to become the most powerful unicorn in all of Equestria. For herself? For Sunburst? It didn't matter. It was what she wanted and Starlight wouldn't let anyone or anything get in her way.
Starlight was afraid. Afraid of her own greediness, afraid of the images that remained in her head. But mostly she was afraid of herself. She was afraid of the unicorn who was strong enough to defeat a creature of pure darkness. Starlight was afraid that whatever was inside of her, whatever intense power she'd spawned within herself, it was going to eat her alive. Sunburst wouldn't want anything to do with her, would he? He wouldn't want her poison or her curse. She didn't want her poison or her curse.
Starlight rolled onto her stomach. Her sobs now muffled by the floorboards, she made a promise to herself.
Never again.