//------------------------------//
// Ch.1 
// Story: Souls of Solitude 
// by Doctor D 
//------------------------------//


Sweetie Belle was bored. Like, really bored. One cannot even begin to state how bored she was. This filly was so bored that watching paint might actually have been an enjoyable event. The even slower heat death of the world was like a grade A event to witness. The endlessness of space was more preoccupied with it’s life than she was right now.






What we mean is, she is super duper bored.






Why not do something about it? Well, the answer is pretty straight forward. It is wrong to say she is bored. More like she is feeling so lonely it feels boring. There was nopony to talk to.






Apple Bloom was busy with her family. Scootaloo was off to see her grandmother for the weekend. And Rarity, being Rarity, was drowning in work too much to notice Sweetie Belle.






To cut it short, nopony she knew had time to spend or talk to her. She had friends, yes, but those were a limited lot. It was at times like these when she felt lonely. Just being in her own room, laying on the bed and staring at the ceiling.






Doing nothing.






“This isn’t fair,” Sweetie Belle groaned and rolled on her bed to try and stave off the boredom. Her friends were off to do whatever and she was stuck here with a pony too busy to notice her.






Do not take that the wrong way. She loved Rarity, she really did and she knew Rarity loved her too. But sometimes Sweetie Belle just knew that her big sister’s work was more important than her.






Sweetie Belle was so often with her friends that being alone left her nothing to do. She had tried to do things, but it didn’t feel the same alone.






If only there was something she could do. But you can’t just fix your problems away like they were magic…






Or could you?






Sweetie Belle got thinking and wondered if magic could be of any help in her situation. Then she hopped off her bed and reached for something under her bed. What she pulled out from under there was something she had obtained recently.






It was a large book, though to call it a tome would be more appropriate. Hardback, brown covered and seriously heavy. It was like a brick of paper. The title read ‘Magical Theory for Dodo’s, Dummies and Beginners.’ in cursive gold font. Under the title was an addition in small print reading ‘Advanced Theory from Page. 578 onwards’. It was something Twilight had lended to Sweetie Belle when she started practicing magic.






Until now Sweetie Belle had only skimmed the book because… well, that mound of text was just… intimidating. That tome just loved using big words, but due to Sweetie’s embarrassingly thorough read of the dictionary it posed close to no problem.






… It was a very boring weekend.






Sweetie hoisted the unbelievably heavy tome onto her bed, a challenge for her little hooves even when assisted with her magic. Then she hopped back on and opened it, starting to skim over the pages.






Honestly, for the first fifty or so pages the book were out right patronizing. They  were written much more simply and were written like the author thought you were an idiot, spelling everything out in a ridiculously clear manner. It was clearly meant not for kids, but those with intellectual difficulties.






From that on it got slightly better. Slightly. The text still made it very clear what it wanted you to know, though highly simplified. None of that was anything Sweetie was looking for, so she skimmed the pages right to where the more advanced stuff began.






Now this part was written like it should have been. Academic, professional, to the point. Perfect. Now Sweetie began reading a bit more thoroughly, at least for the most part. When she saw a title she knew would be of no help she simply skipped it.






This continued for a while, page after page. With each one she grew a bit more infuriated as nothing seemed to catch her eye. Nothing useful anyway. Polymorph spells, maintained time bubbles and something called sanguinomancy. All sorts of advanced magic stuff.






Just when Sweetie Belle was about to just throw in the towel something finally caught her eye.






‘The Secrets of Advanced Conjuration and Summoning Arts.’






Now THAT sounded interesting, so Sweetie began to read. It was pretty basic, explaining just what kind of magic the spells in the Conjuration-class were. Conjure things out of thin air by gathering and manifesting magical energies. Simple.






What most interested Sweetie Belle however was the later entries which dwelled into a whole another category of the Conjuration-class. Summoning. While conjuring was relatively simple and not all that difficult, summoning was a whole different can of worms. While any unicorn could try it, chances are they would fail without knowing what they were doing, or worse.






But Sweetie Belle? She didn’t read that far as she was already skimming over how the summoning spell works. Apparently there are two ways to go about it. One, to think of what you wish to summon and just cast it. Or B, cast at random and see what happens!(The exclamation point was in the text. Not kidding.)






Option B sounded a lot more interesting.






In a few minutes Sweetie read about how to cast the spell. It wasn’t anything too difficult, she thought, so why not try it out. Now all that was needed was sufficient magic. So Sweetie Belle closed her eyes and concentrated.






Every bit of magic she could find she concentrated on the tip of her horn. Then she let it build up. But there was something she hadn’t anticipated. She opened her eyes, now glowing white with pure magical energies. Once she had started she could not stop. Then it erupted.






Sweetie Belle was blown backwards and off her bed as her horn shot magic onto the floor by her bedside. The unicorn filly sat up, rubbing the poor back of her head. She felt tired. She’d heard of Magic Fatigue, something unicorns suffer after releasing too much magic from their horns but she had never felt it herself.






It wasn’t a nice experience. Her throat felt dry, her horn and poor head ached a lot and she felt like hurling her lunch. Sweetie Belle was able to suppress the feeling, luckily.






“Ow… Never again,” Sweetie groaned, standing up onto her legs that currently felt more like slightly stiff noodles. “Never, ever again.” The filly moaned, hoisting herself back up to the bed. Even that felt like a great task.






Then she looked around. The spell must have worked, right? To her initial disappointment she saw nothing, but soon noticed a faint smoke rising by her bedside. Slowly she crawled over and peeked over the bed…






Something was on the floor surrounded by a small scorch mark. It was… weird and nothing Sweetie Belle had expected. It looked like a red colored lion’s head, though it didn’t look real. In fact it looked very static and metallic in nature.






Squinting her eyes and poking her head out more Sweetie thought she saw something. It was in the lion’s open maw. She got a bit closer and peered through the lion’s teeth. She stared at something… green...






A pair of blank white eyes suddenly opened, staring back.






Sweetie Belle suffocated a shriek and crawled back to hide from view of the eyes. Her tiny heart was beating as if were a marathon runner as she begun to piece together what that was. The metal lion’s head was a helmet. What was inside was a head. A head that had just opened it’s blank white, dead eyes.






She didn’t know what to think. She had summoned a head. Just a head! And it had looked at her...






Sweetie Belle was frightened.






Then something spoke.






“What is this?” The voice was male who sounded calm and slightly confused, yet carried with it a tone of weariness. It also sounded weak, like a whisper that still carried enough strength within every word to be heard. “This isn’t… where?”






Sweetie was confused herself. Slowly, very slowly, she peeked over the bed at the head on the floor. This time the eyes blinked, sending the filly back into hiding.






“... How odd.” The voice said. “Has it finally got to me? Have I finally lost all semblance of clarity?” The voice paused. “Who is there? Are you just a mere ghost created by my mind, or be you flesh and blood?” 






Sweetie Belle was silent as a mouse, daring not to go into the head’s view. She was sure it was talking, or else she was hearing voices in her head. If it could talk, it meant it was alive. What else could it do? She didn’t wish to find out.






The voice spoke again.






“Please, if you are real, tell me so.” It spoke. “I know this is not where I lay just prior. If this is just fogs of my mind playing with me, I must know for I am frightened.”






‘Frightened?’ Sweetie Belle thought. The voice didn’t sound frightened. It was more like… resignation? As if it was ready to give up on everything. Ever so slowly Sweetie Belle crawled forward, letting the top of her head poke out to look.






The helmeted head was looking back, those dead eyes widening ever so slightly.






“... Dream or illusion, be that as it may. I bear no ill will, nor would I harm even if I could in this decrepid state. Not anymore.” The head spoke, Sweetie Belle was sure of it now. The more it spoke the more it sounded like… an old man, almost.






Sweetie poked her head out further, her initial fears growing stale.






“... Curious.” The head said, blinking slowly. “Never in my years have I seen a creature such as you, not that I know much of what lies in the world.”






Sweetie Belle swallowed a knot in her throat. “... H-hello?”






Again the head looked slightly surprised. “You speak? That means that I truly am going mad… or that I was transported without my notice. I know not which choice is more favorable.”






Maybe it was Sweetie Belle’’s lack of proper knowledge but the head seemed to… speak in an old manner, and by old she meant a whole different time period. Also, most of it didn’t make sense.






Well, some of it did.






“Uhh… Mister?” Sweetie Belle started uncertainly. She had never talked to a severed head before. “Are you okay?”






The head chuckled darkly, a faint look of melancholy in his eyes. “I know not what you may be, but I know my state is not fine by any standard of life. But then again, who am I to judge.”






Sweetie Belle looked confused. This thing made no sense and was cryptic and stuff. “... Who are you?”






“... First, let me ask. What are you?” The head asked in return. “Or rather how I am in this place, if this is no madness consuming my mind?”






Sweetie Belle frowned slightly, then looked a bit apologetic. “Yeah… I may have done that. With a… summoning spell.”






“... Spell?” The head said in a low tone, bordering between thoughtfulness and amazement. “Some kind of sorcery? Yet you seem young, and in-human for that matter… then again, maybe that old myth does hold true. Whichever, impressive for one such as yourself to use sorceries so… unheard off.”






Again, Sweetie Belle had no idea what the head was talking about. She knew that sorcery was another term for more advanced magic, but that didn’t help her understand why the head sounded so… impressed, if not just a tiny bit awed.






“However...” The head continued “that would explain how I am no longer in that mist filled glade. Sorceries are most powerful things, capable of unseen wonders only mirrored by miracles. Yes, that would clear up some doubt lingering within this thick skull of mine.”






Sweetie Belle visibly began to relax the more the head spoke. The combination of it’s calm voice and the fact that, at least for what she knew, it was harmless made the filly less wary of it. “I’m Sweetie Belle. I’m a unicorn.”






The head seemed to chuckle at how saccharine the little filly’s name sounded. “Well met then, though I’ve never heard of these unicorns.”






“Unicorns are a kind of pony, along with earth ponies and pegasi,” Sweetie said with a smile.






“Ponies? The tiny horses?” The head chuckled, amused. “What a strange place you’ve pulled me, young sorcerer. Although this beats that mist covered pile of rubble.”






Sweetie Belle noticed that the head talked about that mist again, but she asked something more pressing in her young mind. “Hey… Mister,” She asked a bit uncertainly. “You didn’t say who you are?”






The head chuckled. “Ah, yes. Almost slipped my mind. I should return the favour of introduction.”






“I am Vengarl of Forossa.”